starring Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, and Fran Kranz
written by Joss Whedon & Drew Goddard and directed by Drew Goddard
Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, language, drug use and some sexuality/nudity.
94%

Curt’s (Hemsworth) cousin just bought a cabin out in the woods, and now Curt and four of his college friends (Connolly, Kranz, etc.) are loading up the camper for a weekend of rustic debauchery. The trip begins promisingly, but quickly turns sour as night falls and the friends are systematically hunted and picked off one by one. Horror ensues.

The Cabin in the Woods left me simultaneously wanting to talk and talk and talk someone’s ear off about it, but not wanting to ruin someone else’s pleasure of discovering its many surprises for themselves. So, in consideration of the latter impulse, I could just stop here after noting that, although the film’s hook gives off every appearance of being a slavishly by-the-numbers slasher movie, any horror fan would be doing themselves a grave disservice if they missed seeing it. If you think you might want to see it, and you’re very spoiler-conscious, this would be a good time to stop reading (though, in that case, you should have stayed off the internet entirely). I intend to continue in general terms only, but if you care, don’t take the risk.

During the first 15 minutes or so of the movie, I was beginning to think it would make an excellent double feature with Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, last year’s hysterically clever inversion of the “hillbilly horror” formula. Maybe 30 minutes after that, I began to suspect that it would be a better match with Scream, Wes Craven’s genre-savvy meta-commentary on slasher movies, which went on to spawn its own horror franchise before spiraling into extreme self-parody. Eventually, I realized that The Cabin in the Woods, though it might be at home alongside many classic horror films, is really in a class all by itself.

Film scholars and enthusiasts frequently write essays, articles, and even entire books discussing and dissecting the horror genre and what makes it tick. What is “horror”? Why does it exist? Why do people enjoy horror movies? A lot of what they have to say is insightful and thought-provoking, but the broad appeal of reading an academic treatise is always somewhat limited. Whedon and Goddard have, instead, addressed these questions in highly-entertaining movie form. Their movie simultaneously critiques and revels in the excesses of the genre, and ends up rather cheekily suggesting that horror can save the world, even though (or, perhaps, because) its roots are in a place of primitive darkness and evil from humanity’s shared past.

However, as I said, the interest in hearing all of this spelled out, while fascinating to me, is limited. In The Cabin in the Woods, it is largely subtext, and even when the movie is essentially spelling out genre archetypes and their functions, it doesn’t lose sight of the all-important goal of giving the audience a good time with unexpected humor and storytelling that is full of surprises. It’s also, as near as I could tell, full of holes from the ground up, but getting hung up on that rather misses the point.

It’s great to see Whedon veterans like Amy Acker and Fran Kranz in familiar roles. Even better, though, are Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford as Sitterson and Hadley, thinly-veiled author surrogates, sardonically exchanging wry, self-aware banter as events unfold. They’re like Statler and Waldorf, the Muppet critics: technically part of the movie, but one-step removed, and always ready with an irreverent comment.

Now, given that I have used the word “horror” 10 (now 11) times, I’ve probably given a pretty strong impression that this is a horror movie. That’s not strictly true. There are a few jump moments, some disturbing images, some conventionally scary situations, and a definite penchant for blood and gore. That said, I laughed far more than I cringed. The Cabin in the Woods is a horror movie the way Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and Army of Darkness are horror . . . by default. This is an exceptionally sharp comedy, packed to the rafters with allusions and inside jokes, from a writer who is known for playfully blurring the lines between genres, and it’s hard to have this much fun and not think happy thoughts about Whedon’s forthcoming The Avengers.

Billy Crystal was clearly a strong choice for hosting duties. He kept things moving, wasn’t obtrusive, entertained the audience, and got in some good jabs without being overtly mean . . . A solid performance from an old pro at this game. I basically approve. There were some genuinely awesome acts, as well, particularly the hilarious “focus group” sketch and the spectacular Cirque du Soleil performance. If there had been a bit more of this, and a bit fewer confusing montages, lukewarm wins, and commercial breaks, tonight would have really sung, but it can’t be said that there weren’t people giving 100% on this one.

The Artist, as best picture winner, finished the night tied with Hugo for most wins at 5 awards apiece (out of 10 and 11 nominations, respectively). That keeps it well out of sweep territory, and just above years when the awards have been even more evenly split (The King’s Speech, No Country for Old Men, and The Departed all won 4). Of the remaining nominees, only The Iron Lady, with 2 wins, won more than a single award. And is anyone really happy about that?

Of the other Best Picture nominees, only The Descendants, The Help, and Midnight in Paris won anything at all. 4 Best Picture nominees went home completely empty-handed, and three of them were films I really liked. It may be a long time before the Academy lives down shutting out The Tree of Life and Moneyball, in particular. Then again, the biggest fans of those films already know better than to take the Academy seriously. Spielberg will be back again soon, I’m sure. His star-studded Lincoln is due out in December.

Looking back at my initial predictions, it looks like I had 8 right, but increased that to 13 when I tweaked my predictions before the ceremony began. That’s a tie with last year, but my record is not improving. Maybe that has something to do with so few of the awards going the way I most wanted them to. Here’s hoping for something better, all the way around, next year!

Full commentary continues below the fold.

I’ll admit it, my expectations are low for tonight’s Oscar ceremony. I’m not extremely passionate about any of the expected winners. I’m interested to see what Billy Crystal does, but I don’t think it will knock my socks off. Mainly, I’m just hoping things won’t be as boring as it’s been sounding like they will be based on the predictions. As of this writing, Sacha Baron Cohen has already done what he could to enliven the proceedings with his particular brand of in-poor-taste shock humor, dumping ashes (Kim Jong Il’s) on Ryan Seacrest while walking the red carpet. I really hope that isn’t the most unexpected thing that happens all night.

I do love the opening montages . . . “Have fun storming the fuhrer!” Good one. Lots of good gags in here.

And now Crystal is doing his corny opening number . . . Ah, tradition, I guess. I like the look of the stage . . . Theater marquee. Nice. I assume they’ll be playing up the nostalgia angle this year. You could do a lot worse for an Oscar theme.

Best Cinematography: Tom Hanks! This award absolutely needs to go to The Tree of Life . . . but it doesn’t! It goes to Hugo! I don’t feel that this is just, but I don’t feel inclined to complain. Hugo is my favorite film in contention, and it faces stiff competition down the line from The Artist. It will need all the momentum it can get early on.

Best Art Direction: It goes to Hugo! As it should! 2 early scores for my favorite. That should dull the pain later on.

And we’re back for the worst movie montage ever. I’m not sure what this is trying to be, but when you lead with Forrest Gump and Titanic, and then segue into Twilight, you lose me.

Best Costumes: Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz are out to present this one. And The Artist takes its first award of the night. It would have been amazing for Hugo to take this award, too, but . . . There it is.

Best Makeup: This should and does go to The Iron Lady. Looks like a major disappointment building for Harry Potter fans. A loss in visual effects will mean a total shut-out.

Stars are appearing in a montage to talk about their childhood movie memories. Neat idea . . . And, yep, nostalgic.

Best Foreign Language Film: Sandra Bullock presents the award in Mandarin Chinese . . . that sounds suspiciously like German. A Separation is the favorite for this category. I have seen none of them. A Separation takes it. I actually would like to see all of the movies in this category. But they remain very difficult to find, even after being nominated, and sometimes even after winning. There are nominees from multiple years ago that I’ve still never been able to see. So far beyond lame.

Best Supporting Actress: Christian Bale is announcing. I really hope Jessica Chastain wins (for Tree of Life even though she’s nominated for The Help), but I think Octavia Spencer will win. I hope she doesn’t, though . . . She played a comic stereotype alongside Viola Davis’s real human being. But she does. Well, I certainly don’t wish her ill. Looks like it will be a historic evening, with 2 black actresses taking the performing awards. Very weepy speech. She might get played off . . . She’s actually asking to be played off.

Oh my gosh! The Christopher Guest mockumentary group is pretending to be a focus group for the original 1939 Wizard of OZ. I LOVE THIS.

Best Editing: Tina Fey and Bradley Cooper present . . . Tina Fey should host someday. Why hasn’t she yet? I think Moneyball should definitely win this category. But the award goes to “most editing” for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. David Fincher apparently didn’t even show, his movie was snubbed so badly. This is a surprise, but good on it.

Best Sound Editing: This should go to Drive, just so it wins something (worst snub of the year). But I predicted Hugo, and it wins! That’s three for Hugo, and a good chance now that it will rival The Artist as big winner of the night. If Hugo can’t win Best Picture, it can at least win the most awards. Great speech from that second guy, whose name I didn’t catch.

Best Sound Mixing: This one I’m calling and hoping for Hugo. And it gets it! Four! Things are shaping up nicely on that front. Very exciting.

Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy introduce an amazing routine by Cirque du Soleil, which starts off with a stunning reference to North by Northwest. So. Awesome. A slap on the hand to the producer who decided to cut to Clooney’s reaction mid-performance. Like we care whether he’s enjoying it . . . We want to see! Seriously.

Best Documentary: Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey, Jr. doing an awesome, category-appropriate presentation. Love it . . . Downey Jr. has such a fun off-screen persona now that he’s back in the limelight. I know nothing about this category, but the award goes to Undefeated, which is apparently about a high school football team. I’ll try to find it soon.

Best Animated Feature: Chris Rock is presenting . . . and calling animation “easy” when what he means is “voice acting is easy.” Still, his routine is funny. I’m hoping Rango doesn’t win this, honestly, because I didn’t care for it that much, but I suspect that it will. I think Dreamworks deserves the win this year. But Rango does get it. Oh, well. No surprises, again. He “doesn’t know” if his movie is for kids? Really? It’s not . . . I’m not sure who it’s for, actually. Here’s the good thing about Rango and its success, though. It genuinely was something different . . . but I won’t call it original, since it borrowed its entire plot from Chinatown. Anyway, rant over. Let’s keep moving.

Best Visual Effects: Ben Stiller and Emma Stone (yay!) are announcing this one . . . She is so funny. I’m loving her presentation. So many very deserving nominees in this category. Could be another win for Hugo. My hopes are on Rise of the Planet of the Apes, though, for doing the best and most cutting-edge work this year. It needs to win. And here we go . . . Oh my gosh! Another win for Hugo! That makes five. I’m a bit disappointed, but at the same time, not. And a dead shut-out for the final Harry Potter film.

Best Supporting Actor: Melissa Leo, last years supporting actress winner, is out to give this one. Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow or both looong overdue for an award, but honestly I didn’t feel that either of their performances were the best. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel like Jonah Hill should win it, and I loved Branagh’s performance as well. Christopher Plummer wins it, as expected . . . And about time he was recognized here, certainly. Plummer gives a classy speech . . . He’s so old-school.

Best Original Score: Penelope Cruz and Owen Wilson . . . an odd pairing with Woody Allen in common, as Billy Crystal reminds us. Some great scores here, I love most of what I’m hearing . . . But a big ball of NO! for an “Artist” win. Not an original score, people! Argh. This category just makes me mad, year after year. It almost never goes to the right movie. And a lousy acceptance speech, too. Not happy at all.

Best Original Song: Will Ferrell and Zack Galafinakis present, and mock “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” . . . Bonus points for that! And Bret McKenzie of “Flight of the Conchords” wins for his “Muppets” song! Yes! Really pathetic category here, with 2 nominees, which I don’t get, but it had to go to The Muppets, no matter how many movies were nominated, so whatever. No complaints here.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Angelina Jolie announcing this one. Don’t they normally get screenwriters to do this? I think The Descendants will win, but it needs to be Hugo . . . Fingers crossed. The Ides of March and Moneyball were both excellent, as well, and better written than The Descendants. And why haven’t I seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy yet?! I hate you, movie distribution. Anyway, The Descendants takes it, which gives us the incredibly bizarre spectacle of the Dean from Community standing on stage accepting an Oscar for a serious film. Who knew?

Best Original Screenplay: Here’s hoping for not an Artist win . . . Hooray! Woody Allen wins for Midnight in Paris, his best film in many years, but isn’t there to accept. Shortest speech of the night, so yay. Pretty underwhelmed by the presentation of these two. Writing is underappreciated enough without having Jolie toss them out with so little fanfare, and no Woody Allen to brighten things up.

Milla Jovovich did the Scientific and Technical presentations in the nerd ghetto this year, so she’s giving us the quick summary. I don’t know why they bother to even talk about this, they pay so little attention to it.

Best Live Action Short: The cast of Bridesmaids is presenting these, along with a wildly inappropriate euphemistic exchange about short vs. long, erm . . . films between Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig. It goes to The Shore. I haven’t seen any of the nominees.

Best Documentary Short: Haven’t seen any of these, either. It goes to Saving Face. And Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy are playing an Oscar drinking game. Of course they are.

Best Animated Short: Again, haven’t seen them. Will try to, particularly the winner, which is The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. What a great title, though.

Best Director: Michael Douglas is announcing this award, and I’ve got my fingers crossed for Scorsese (or Malick on a long-shot), but I’m afraid this is where The Artist will come into its own. Yep. It seems pretty certain that The Artist will end the night with five awards, tying it up with Hugo, and totally bumming me out. Scorsese deserved that award for being the kind of world-class artist that Michel Hazanavicius is only imitating. Come on, Academy.

Time for the In Memoriam montage. This is one of the better moments in every ceremony, a reflective bit in the midst of all the self-absorbed award-giving. And any excuse to listen to a lovely rendition of “Wonderful World” is certainly welcome.

Best Actor: Natalie Portman, as last year’s winner, announces. I’m hoping for a Brad Pitt win. I’d love a Demian Bichir win, but no one saw his movie. Magnificent performance by him, though. This is the last award that The Artist might miss, but I’m pretty much expecting Jean Dujardin to win. And he does. *yawn* His performance was all quirked eyebrows and big grins, and I hated his character so much. That doesn’t mean he didn’t act well, but it should have gone to any of the other nominees. Seriously.

Best Actor: Colin Firth comes out to announce, of course. Viola Davis deserves to win this and almost certainly will. I thought Michelle Williams was magnificent as well, and Rooney Mara. But the award goes to Meryl Streep, after all! I absolutely did not expect that, a third win on her 17th nomination. But still one shy of tying Katharine Hepburn’s 4 wins. I’m bummed for Davis, and I think/hope that Streep is, too.

Best Picture: At last we come to the big award, to be announced by Tom Cruise. As expected, predicted, known . . . The Artist makes history as the first silent film to win this award in over 80 years. I also think it’s the least worthy film of the last several years to enter the pantheon, but at least it didn’t sweep, tying with Hugo for night’s biggest winner at 5 awards.

14-year old Arrietty (Mendler) is a smart, adventurous girl who stands just 4 inches tall and lives under the floorboards of a large country house with her equally diminutive parents, Pod (Arnett) and Homily (Poehler). These “Borrowers,” as they call themselves, subsist from items that will not be missed by the humans, and they may be the last of their kind. This concern couldn’t be further from Arrietty’s mind on the exciting occasion of her first borrowing expedition, but everything changes when she is seen by a young boy who has just moved into the house.

I spent almost all of Arrietty‘s 94 minutes with a smile on my face. I don’t absolutely love every Studio Ghibli film, but when they hit the mark, there truly is no more enjoyable visit to the theater (or, more often, 3 or 4 visits). The movie rolls past in waves of cathartic wonder and lush visuals and delightful music. This may be Ghibli’s best film since Spirited Away in 2001. The story may feel slight, particularly by comparison with their more epic fantasy outings in the uneven Tales from Earthsea (2006) and the brilliant Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). Still, the plot recognizably follows the major arc of Mary Norton’s 1952 novel The Borrowers on which it is based, and not all stories shake the world.

The best thing about the film is its extremely likable title character, whose energetic curiosity drives events forward, but also provides opportunities to slow down and take in the richly-imagined surroundings. Arrietty is compassionate, ingenious, empathetic, spirited, and a lot of other complimentary adjectives that make her an ideal companion for adventure and exploration. It is obvious from the moment she is introduced, laughing good-humoredly over a narrow escape from the cat, that this is a character we will enjoy spending the rest of the movie with. Her cheerful liveliness and her natural awe in the presence of the mundane accouterments of our everyday lives makes her the perfect audience surrogate, reinvesting our surroundings with the novelty of seeing them as if for the first time.

It helps that everything in this movie looks gorgeous. One of the studio’s greatest animation strengths is in its bright, color-filled rendering of the natural world, whether it be a flower-filled meadow, an overgrown backyard, or an ivy-covered wall. Arrietty’s size gives us plenty of chances to get up-close and personal with the flowers, grass, and leaves that the film reproduces so beautifully. Even better, though, are the startling landscapes indoors; the vast reaches of a cavernous kitchen, the intricacies of an especially ornate dollhouse, and the labyrinthine twists and turns between the walls and under the floors. There is literally something new and exciting to see around every corner.

The music for the film was done by French singer Cécile Corbel, who joined the project after she sent a fan letter to Studio Ghibli along with one of her albums. There is a distinctly Celtic flavor to her music, heavy on the harp (Corbel’s instrument), that coincides spectacularly with the rural greenery and rustic flavor of the movie. The music, which frequently has lyrics (Corbel performed the main song for the film herself in Japanese, English, French, German, and Italian), might seem intrusive at times, but it generally reinforces rather than overwhelms. If the animation were not so good, it might be tempting to close your eyes and simply listen.

The greatest challenge in telling this story, I imagine, would be keeping The Secret World of Arrietty grounded in some kind of emotional reality, and not allowing it to float the audience airily away to a fairy world of near-paradisal perfection. As in many of his other films, Miyazaki deftly weights the happy innocence of childhood with the sadness of mortality and bittersweet joys and sorrows of new friendships that are over all too briefly. This tempers the film’s lightness and brings meaning to the characters’ journey. Arrietty’s story continues, without dialogue, into the credits, inviting the audience to sit quietly and reflect on the film (at least until a Disney pop song, unique to the American release, cuts in). Almost the entire theater stayed through the credits at the weekend showing I attended, which is virtually unprecedented in my experience.

It’s a shame that so few American films feature great female characters like this, or use the freedom of animation to do something more than make cartoon animals reference pop culture and crack wise. It’s an even greater shame that so few of the films the rest of the world is making find their way into a wide theatrical release here, and that it takes so long for those that do to arrive (Arrietty was released in Japan over 18 months ago). That only makes this movie all the more a rare treat. Go see The Secret World of Arrietty while it’s in theaters; first, because it’s important that we support movies like this when we can. But even more significantly, if you don’t go, you’ll be missing out.

Three high school seniors, Andrew (DeHaan), a withdrawn outcast with a dark family life, Matt (Russell), his light-hearted, philosopher-quoting cousin, and Steve (Jordan) a popular, outgoing candidate for student body president, all gain telekinetic powers when they stumble upon a mysterious, pulsating object. As their powers grow, tensions and complications arise, all documented by Andrew’s video camera and other bits of found footage.

Orson Welles was only 26 when he made Citizen Kane, so it’s not hugely surprising that 26-year old writer/director Josh Trank has produced such a solid film (though certainly no Citizen Kane) with his feature debut. It would be more surprising to learn that this movie had come from someone older. From beginning to end, this feels like a story that emerged directly from fresh, raw experiences in an American public school during the last decade, mixed with the basic, premise-level conceits of comic books that have been around for far longer.

It would, however, be a mistake to call this a “superhero” movie when it’s really more of a “superpower” movie. Perhaps that seems like too fine of a distinction. A few days before I graduated from high school, I sat in a darkened theater with many of my friends and watched Spider-Man (2002) for the first time. Like Chronicle, Spider-Man is about a high school student who acquires superpowers and must then work out how to handle the enormous responsibility that accompanies them. But, because Spider-Man is a superhero movie, it explores this theme by having Peter Parker don a colorful costume and do battle with an equally-colorful supervillain, who (conveniently) comes into some superpowers of his own at around this same time. Chronicle, on the other hand, ventures to ask what a few real high schoolers attending a real high school (a justification for the well-worn “found footage” device) would actually do if they suddenly had such powers; a question that is simultaneously so compelling and so obvious one wonders immediately why no one has thought to ask it in a film before.

First, there’s basic juvenile mischief: they bean each other in the head with baseballs, use a leaf-blower to lift a girl’s skirt, prank various people in a store. But as they continue to experiment, they realize they’re getting stronger, and for at least one of them, a victim of bullying and insults everywhere he goes, that means a chance to go about righting all of the many things that are wrong with his life. Beyond the novelty of the superpower device, this journey opens up a sad window into the lives of contemporary teenagers, with all of its casual cruelty and pressures to indulge in the pleasure of the moment. Of course, there’s nothing here that we don’t already know, but there is a visceral immediacy that comes from the strong performances of the largely-unknown cast; most of all from Dane DeHaan’s ability to walk a thin line between sweet-but-misunderstood loner and twisted, bitter sociopath.

The use of “found footage,” which is as near as a film can come to the “first-person narration” approach to fiction, has by now been used so frequently that it may have begun to tax the patience of fans and detractors alike. The novelty of the form (which some would cite as its primary appeal) is long gone, and any use of it in a film now had better be well-justified by some necessity of the story being told, as it can no longer hope to captivate simply by being different. Although there is arguably some attempt to justify that choice here, the way the film is edited makes it seem that Trank wanted to have his cake and eat it, too.

Throughout Chronicle, the camera-wielding main characters come into contact with other cameras (we are, as a society, now constantly in danger of appearing on film at a moment’s notice no matter where we are), and those cameras are used to provide additional angles and perspectives on events. For example, there is a girl named Casey, who (like the boys) wields her camera everywhere she goes, ostensibly filming “for her blog,” although there seems to be no real rhyme or reason behind what she is recording. Her presence in any given scene allows the director to cut back and forth during conversations. Late in the film, during a major action sequence, Andrew telekinetically swipes an armload of iPhones and digital cameras and arranges them around himself, allowing Trank 360 degrees of possible angles to play with. And, even though there is a security camera in one unconscious character’s hospital room, the police set up a second camera at the foot of the bed which must be kept recording at all times even though no one is present, allowing for still more angles.

Thus, throughout the movie, it is difficult not to question why any given character would be compelled to film what is going on, particularly when what is being filmed is either highly incriminating or extremely inconvenient. Why (and how) would one of the teens expend the mental energy to levitate a camera around and film himself assaulting a gang of neighborhood thugs, for example? There is also a constant question of who assembled all of this footage, and how. Andrew’s original camera is lost some 15 minutes into the movie, buried deep underground, but we are able to watch everything that he filmed on it. Who went around and collected the dozen or so personal video recorders that Andrew films himself on during the climax? And how did they survive being dropped so many stories when he was done with them?

Questions like this are a constant distraction from the substance of the story itself, which must surely be a sign that the found footage device may not have been the best choice in this case. Still, this apparent attempt at “artiness” or “trendiness” aside, it’s hard to complain too loudly when there is bright, young talent (director, writer, and actors) collaborating on something that, in every other way, feels so fresh and original. Chronicle is a welcome break from the same-old superhero thing, if not from the same-old found footage thing, and I hope the filmmakers behind it have many more stories left to tell, and many more chances to tell them.

Nearly half of the Best Picture nominees, including the two that are considered this year’s front-runners, have not yet been released in my city. Now, I may not live in the cultural capital of the nation, but there is still a large audience for all things cultural in my city. We, and other large swathes of the population of this country, are consistently excluded from this conversation and fed a steady diet of inane mediocrity and worse. Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 is still taking up multiple screens here (really? over a month and you think everyone who wants to see that still hasn’t made it in? just release it to Redbox already), and I have small hope that many more of the films I most want to see will arrive before Oscar night.

There is a lot of talk about the problems of Oscar ratings and drawing in viewers, and I’ve heard it said that people don’t watch the Oscars because the Academy passes over the films they like in favor of the films they’ve never heard of. The Academy has attempted to fix this in recent years by dramatically increasing the pool of Best Picture nominees, but the real problem is something else entirely. People have never heard of the films that are being nominated because the studios behind them don’t bother to market those films to a wide audience, let alone make them accessible to that audience. I feel kind of lucky that I only have to drive 100 miles to see limited releases, though even that has become largely impossible with full-time work, a baby, and a limited budget.

Anyway, we have nominees to discuss. The Academy has introduced yet another wrinkle into its nomination process, and the number of Best Picture nominees will now vary each year between 5 and 10 depending on how many films meet a minimum “first-place votes” requirement. Basically, it’s complicated, but don’t worry about it because I’m kind of expecting this rule to change next year. In any case, that means 9 nominees for Best Picture this year:

War Horse – Some people might call this conventional, cliche, and sentimental. I’d call it old-fashioned, a throwback to classic films and filmmakers and to a time when sentimentality wasn’t so deliberately cloying. I loved it. And, particularly after the massive disappointment of Spielberg’s Tintin, it was a welcome relief to go to War Horse and get lost for hours in the simple pleasure of being at the movies. It has 6 nominations: Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Music, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. These categories speak to the rich auditory and visual experience of watching this film, and I think I agree completely with the nominations it got and did not get.

The Artist – By now it’s no surprise to anyone who is paying attention to see this title on the list. But if you had told me last year that a foreign silent film would score 10 nominations and be considered the front-runner of this year’s race, I would have laughed and reminded you that it has been 83 years since a silent film was nominated for Best Picture, and that foreign language nominations (does this count?) are rare and never win. And I think Schindler’s List, nearly 20 years ago, was the first black-and-white film to win in decades. If I had somehow believed this could happen, I would then have lamented that there was no chance of the film coming to a theater near me, but I guess I’ll stop whining about that. Since I haven’t seen it, I don’t have much to say about it, except that I really hope I get to see it before Oscar night (it looks like it will be coming to town in early February). The other nominations are: Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, Best Editing, and Best Music.

Moneyball – I am really not into sports films, but Moneyball offered me a glimpse of why people care so much about sports and think they matter. That’s an accomplishment that has to count for something. It’s a highly-enjoyable and well-made film, based on actual events, with some great performances, and a strong screenplay. Very solid pick for this category, and a movie I wouldn’t mind seeing again. And now we’ll start seeing trailers that mention “Academy Award Nominee Jonah Hill,” so that will be weird. The film has 6 nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.

The Descendants – This film has some major acclaim behind it, and is surrounded by rave reviews, which was confusing to me until I saw it. Well, it’s still a little confusing. There is something unique about the delicate, graceful way that it navigates a string of painful and emotional situations, transitioning seamlessly between laughter and tears. The writing is strong, and the performances are strong. It’s a good movie. But a great movie? I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s still the best Hawaii movie since Lilo and Stitch, though. The Descendants has 5 nominations: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Editing.

The Tree of Life - I think it’s fair to say that this is the movie that inspired the most conversations, and the most passionate conversations, this year. Although he is showing signs of becoming more prolific, a new film by Terrence Malick is rare enough to be considered An Event. This is his most ambitious project yet, a semi-autobiographical meditation on birth, childhood, death, creation, evolution, life, the universe, and everything. I was fortunate to have a chance to see it in the theater, and I found it challenging and thought-provoking, but also dense and murky at times. It is certainly not a film with an obvious point to make, or one that reveals all of its quirks and mysteries on a first viewing. That can make for either a rewarding or an irritating experience, depending on the spirit you approach it with, but the most serious criticism that one could charge it with, in my opinion, is that it swings for the stars and only hits the moon. It only has 3 nominations: Best Director and Best Cinematography.

Midnight in Paris – Everyone says this is Woody Allen’s best film in years, and they’re right. When Allen is on, he is on fire. This is only his second screenwriting nomination in a decade (his 15th nomination), his first directing nomination in nearly 2 decades (his 7th nomination), and his first film to be nominated for Best Picture in a quarter of a century (his 3rd nomination). All are well-deserved in this case. This is one of those Woody Allen movies that leaves me wanting more, and sends me looking for more of his films that I haven’t seen. It has 4 nominations, with the last being Best Art Direction.

The Help – I passed on several chances to go see this film because I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to. It is clearly a popular favorite, and the way it was being praised and reviled reminded me very much of the reception for The Blind Side a few years ago. And I hated that movie something fierce. In any case, I caught it on DVD over Christmas, and found the comparison to be somewhat apt. Both films pander to mainstream white audiences’ smug complacency about race and racism, are loaded with cliches and feel-good chuckles, and feature a stand-out performance by an actress that even detractors of the film are willing to praise. I liked The Help better than The Blind Side, but I also had a serious academic interest in it, as I wrote my thesis on adaptations of Southern novels into films. The movie has four nominations: Best Actress, and two for Best Supporting Actress.

Hugo – I can say with no reservations that this is my stand-out favorite film of the year. Martin Scorsese’s first children’s movie is also a passionate plea for film preservation, and it turned out to be a strong justification for the existence of film critics, as well. The advertising for the movie was so spectacularly inept that I probably wouldn’t have gone to see it if it had not been championed by so many. It is a lush and glorious cinematic experience that reminds us all why the world first fell in love with the movies and their wondrous magic over a century ago. It leads the field this year with 11 nominations: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, Best Music, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – This is the one film on the list about which I am genuinely baffled. I had not seen anyone predict its inclusion since it was released to decidedly poor reviews some weeks ago. And I’m not really happy that I’ll now feel obligated to see it. I guess the Academy just can’t resist Stephen Daldry. This is his 4th film, and he received a Best Director nomination for the previous 3, along with Best Picture nominations twice. The movie has a very weak 2 nominations, with the other being Best Supporting Actor. Seriously, what is this movie doing here?

And now for a brief look at the other nominees, beginning with those which I have already seen:

-The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 5 nominations . . . having the most nominations with no Best Picture nod is a dubious distinction, but well-deserved in this case. Despite Fincher’s involvement and some solid elements, this remake failed to either improve on or distinctively alter the previous cinematic version. I’m glad to see it’s better qualities recognized, and nothing more.
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, 3 nominations . . . the epic conclusion of the decade-long, 8-film Harry Potter franchise gets about as much attention as previous installments: Recognition for its technical quality, and that’s it.
-Bridesmaids, 2 nominations . . . Kristen Wiig’s movie was the talk of the summer, and deservedly so. Kudos to the Academy for nominating her fantastic writing, and for nominating the great performance by Melissa McCarthy. Comedies are rarely noticed in either category.
-My Week with Marilyn, 2 nominations . . . really great performances from both Branagh and Williams as Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe, respectively. I’m happy to see them recognized.
-The Adventures of Tintin, 1 nomination . . . I was having trouble expressing how much of a dud this film was, despite so much talent and innovation being poured into it, but now Oscar has done it for me. Only John Williams walks away from this looking good.
-Drive, 1 nomination . . . will likely be remembered as the snub of the year, particularly in passing over Albert Brooks’ incredibly unsettling performance, the hauntingly unconventional score, the screenplay, and the editing. I would have expected between 5 and 7 nominations. This is an iconic film, and Oscar really missed the boat.
-The Ides of March, 1 nomination . . . between this and Drive, I’m pretty surprised Ryan Gosling didn’t walk away with a Best Actor nomination. He totally killed both performances. Ides offers some timely and hard-hitting political commentary, and it’s too bad it didn’t get a little more recognition.
-Rango, 1 nomination . . . recycling the plot from Chinatown into a trippy computer-animated western populated by bug-eyed desert critters doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for a classic . . . and, in my opinion, it wasn’t. But a lot of people disagreed.
-Kung Fu Panda 2 & Puss in Boots, 1 nomination each . . . Dreamworks really stuck it to Pixar this year, turning out, not 1, but 2 far better sequels and better films in their follow-ups to Kung Fu Panda and the Shrek series than Pixar managed with its shallow but highly-merchandisable Cars 2.
-Rise of the Planet of the Apes, 1 nomination . . . as a long-time fan of the Planet of the Apes, I went into it hoping for a campy good time, and was totally blown away by an all-around awesome movie experience. I would totally have passed Serkis an acting nomination for his incredible motion-capture performance in this, but that was a bit too radical to hope for, apparently. A writing nomination would have been well-deserved as well, for earning some respect for a decidedly low-brow franchise.
-The Muppets, 1 nomination . . . this brilliant revival of the beloved characters in all their zany glory deserves more recognition than this, like a writing nomination, or a hosting gig. Still, this is a welcome nomination for a great song.
-Rio, 1 nomination . . . I don’t much see the point of a 2-song category, particularly when 1 of the songs is as mediocre as this one. A mediocre song from a mediocre film.

The nominees that I plan to see:

-Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 3 nominations . . . for going on 2 months now, the most obvious sign that all is not right with the world has been that I have had no way to see this movie. How is it possible that a star-studded cerebral adaptation of a best-selling spy novel can’t get a genuine wide release? What gives? Seriously.
-Albert Nobbs, 3 nominations . . . don’t know much about this except that Glenn Close is apparently really great in it, and that it has refused to be even remotely accessible for me to watch.
-The Iron Lady, 2 nominations . . . the buzz is that this is a not-so-great movie wrapped around yet another incredible performance by Meryl Streep. I find the subject interesting enough that that’s a good enough incentive for me to try to see this.
-A Separation, 2 nominations . . . this is that rare foreign language film that breaks out of the non-American ghetto into another category. As such, it becomes a priority.
-Anonymous, 1 nomination . . . it’s out on DVD, so I guess I’ll see it, but I heard enough to know that I’m probably not going to appreciate Emmerich’s conspiracy-theorist take on Shakespeare. Having destroyed the planet in his last disaster movie, the director appears to have shifted to targeting literature.
-Beginners, 1 nomination . . . this got a lot of attention when it was released several months ago, but I never had an opportunity to see it. I’m very excited to do so now.
-A Better Life, 1 nomination . . . I hadn’t heard of this at all until I saw the nominations, but one look at the trailer and I can’t wait to check it out. I love when I find something new among the nominees.
-Chico & Rita, 1 nomination . . . There’s usually an animated release that I haven’t seen and may not even have heard of among the nominees. This year, there are 2, and this is the 1 of those that I want to see. The subject is interesting, and I like the animation style. Now to somehow get ahold of it . . .
-Footnote, 1 nomination . . . I’ve almost never heard of any of the foreign nominations, but this one I had. I latched onto the trailer for this months ago, and I’ve been watching carefully for a chance to see it ever since. It looks fantastic. I wish there were a better process for foreign releases to reach our shores.
-Jane Eyre, 1 nomination . . . I liked the look of this trailer when it appeared ages ago, and then I never saw an opportunity to actually see the film. There was almost no fanfare or advertising about it, and it just quietly faded away. Now I have both a reminder and an excuse to track it down.
-Margin Call, 1 nomination . . . a meaty, critically-acclaimed, star-studded take on the recent Wall Street meltdown? Yes, please.
-Monsieur Lazhar, 1 nomination . . . of the other foreign language nominees, this is the one I most want to see besides Footnote. I don’t know if it’s because of the teacher angle, or what, but it looks really good.
-Real Steel, 1 nomination . . . I thought this looked like some shallow, entertaining fun, and it’s been in the dollar theater here for weeks. I’m 100% more likely to go check this out than the other giant robots movie occupying the visual effects category.

Nominees that don’t really interest me (but which I may end up watching anyway):

-Transformers: Dark of the Moon, 3 nominations . . . Everyone said this was better than the previous Transformers. Talk about damning with faint praise.
-A Cat in Paris, 1 nomination . . . the animation style and the plot revealed in the trailer were not particularly compelling, so I’ll pass unless that opinion finds a reason to change.
-Warrior, 1 nomination . . . nothing about this looked very interesting, and I’m not a fan of the subject or the genre.
-W.E., 1 nomination . . . meh.

The non-minees, neglected movies that made me ask “What happened?” (undoubtedly incomplete):

-Limitless, Maybe this was all about expectations, but (in contrast to the trailer) I was blown away by the way this movie handled its core concept. The writing was solid, and there were a number of interesting cinematic techniques that lent visual support to the ideas.
-X-Men: First Class, It really feels like summer blockbusters got the shaft this year, even in the technical categories they normally dominate. This one revitalized a franchise I had given up on, in a big way, and featured one of several great performances by the unnominated Michael Fassbender.
-The Guard, A hilariously-foul little black comedy in the vein of In Bruges, with fantastic writing and performances by Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson. I’m not sure that it was ever on the Oscar radar, but it should have been.
-Winnie the Pooh, This joyous, beautiful visit to the 100-Acre Wood was totally delightful, and should have been a shoe-in for the animated feature category, both for its wonderfulness, and for how well the nostalgia it inspires fits the apparent theme of the other nominees.
-Super 8, Abrams managed to out-Spielberg Spielberg this year with his homage to the great director’s early-80s oeuvre. It’s yet another slice of nostalgia that somehow didn’t score any Oscar attention.
-Contagion, Soderbergh struck out across the board with his global pandemic drama. I thought it had some really great characters and ideas, and it was different from anything I’d seen before. Unfortunately, “different” can be a bad word at the Oscars.
-Attack the Block, Speaking of “different,” this British alien invasion action dramedy, featuring a gang of teen thugs taking on a horde of space monsters, really wowed me when I finally had a chance to see it. Definitely one of the better movies of the year, and definitely deserving of some attention.
-The Mill & the Cross, I haven’t seen this yet, but based on the trailer alone, I’m surprised it didn’t at least get some visually-oriented nominations.
-Win Win, This movie got a lot of attention early in the year, but apparently it wasn’t enough to get any at the end of the year. I have yet to see it, but it’s still on my list.
-Take Shelter, I’m very excited to see Jeff Nichols’ follow-up to Shotgun Stories, especially after some personal recommendations, but it’s kept a pretty low profile.
-Melancholia, This film inspired reactions almost as extreme, if not as shrill, as The Tree of Life. I’m guessing Lar von Trier’s silly Nazi remarks at Cannes sunk any Oscar chances his movie might have otherwise had.
-Martha Marcy Mae Marlene, I spent months hearing about Elizabeth Olsen’s incredible performance in this, only to see her come up empty-handed on nomination day. What gives?
-50/50, A cancer comedy, huh? Not so much with the awards, I guess.
-Shame, Michael Fassbender has exploded onto the scene with no less than five high-profile performances this year. By all accounts, this is the one everyone will remember that Oscar didn’t nominate him for.
-A Dangerous Method, The third Fassbender flick to make this portion of my list. And a Cronenberg movie, to boot. Tragic.
-Coriolanus, I am super psyched to see Ralph Fiennes’ Shakespearean directorial debut. It’s got to be better than Julie Taymor’s take on The Tempest, and that at least got one nomination.
-Drive, I know I mentioned this already, but seriously? A single nomination for sound editing? That’s almost worse than none at all. It says, “Yes, we saw you, and this was the only thing that stood out to us.” I think this will likely go down as the big mistake of 2011.
-The Muppets, Second verse, same as the first. A single nomination for its song? This movie was so clever, a top-notch production in so many ways, and this is all the recognition it gets? Ridiculous.
-Rise of the Planet of the Apes, And one more time. A single nomination, for visual effects? Well, at least that’s better than the song thing, but Avatar got 9 nominations for being the technical feat of its year and not much else (well, I guess there was the billion dollar gross). This had some depth and substance in addition to being an incredible achievement. You do the math.

Finally, last and least, my own predictions and hopes for the final outcome:

Best Picture: By all accounts, The Artist has this so locked-in that it’s not even an interesting race. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t say I hope it will win. Right now my preference is on Hugo, a totally magical movie experience that I can’t wait to repeat. What a great way to introduce the 3D generation to the wonder of silent films. Midnight in Paris and War Horse round out my top 3, with Moneyball floating not too far behind. The Descendants is the long-shot.

Best Director: Here, again, I think The Artist is favored, but I almost can’t imagine the award going to Hazanavicius when Scorsese, Allen, and Malick are all nominated. Malick deserves to win, no question. Though, again, I’ll put in another plug for Scorsese, if only because I’m afraid that, 11 nominations notwithstanding, Hugo will go home almost empty-handed.

Best Actor: I’ve only seen two of the nominated performances. Based on that, I’d give the award to Clooney for The Descendants. I think it has a definite shot. But this is another strong category for The Artist.

Best Actress: I think Viola Davis will win this award for The Help, and deserve it. Rooney Mara was very good in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but Noomi Rapace was far better. It would also be nice to see Michelle Williams win for briefly bringing Marilyn Monroe back from the dead.

Best Supporting Actor: I believe Christopher Plummer is the favored choice for Beginners, which I have not yet seen. Jonah Hill was very good in Moneyball, but not Oscar-good. Right now, I’d give the award to Kenneth Branagh for his spectacular channeling of Sir Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn.

Best Supporting Actress: I’d give this award to Melissa McCarthy, but I don’t think that will happen. I’d also give it to Jessica Chastain (for The Tree of Life, even though she’s nominated for The Help), which might happen. Most likely, though, is that it goes to Octavia Spencer for The Help, which would be less than ideal. Viola Davis played a human being. Octavia Spencer played a cardboard cut-out of one.

Best Original Screenplay: I’m rooting for Woody Allen here. He really knocked it out of the park with one of his strongest screenplays in a long time. Fantastic. I’d also be happy to see Kristen Wiig win, just because. Yet again, we have a category with The Artist, but I think that would be a mistake (even though I have not yet seen it).

Best Adapted Screenplay: I think this should go to Hugo, and hooray for a major category where it doesn’t have to compete with The Artist. This is a stronger overall category than Original Screenplay this year, so I could almost see the award going to any of the nominees. I’ll predict Moneyball.

Best Cinematography: War Horse and Hugo are totally gorgeous and visually sophisticated, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a strong contender. In fact, there are no unworthy nominees. But this award must go to The Tree of Life. There’s no doubt about it.

Best Editing: I would give this one to Moneyball, or to Hugo. However, Editing is most frequently aligned with the Best Picture winner (though not always), which will likely be The Artist.

Best Art Direction: This is another strong category, with The Artist, Midnight in Paris, and War Horse, but I’ll predict for Hugo. I probably shouldn’t count out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which might win an award for the series as a whole. This is Harry Potter’s 4th nomination in this category, with no wins as yet.

Best Costume Design: Here’s yet another category with nominations for both Hugo and The Artist. But I think that this will be a toss-up between Jane Eyre and Anonymous, the true costume dramas of the race. I’m leaning in the direction of Jane Eyre.

Best Makeup: I’d say this is Harry Potter‘s best shot at a win.

Best Original Score: Some of the best music of the year was shut out of this category, so I’m not sure what to go with. What little backlash The Artist has faced has centered around its use/misuse of a classic theme from Vertigo, so it would be odd if it won here. Hugo has charming music, and the score for Tintin was as forgettable as the movie. But the score for War Horse was really good. I think I’ll lean in that direction. John Williams continues to be the most-nominated living person, scoring his 46th and 47th Oscar nominations this year, but he hasn’t won since Schindler’s List in 1993. We shall see.

Best Original Song: Out of a pathetic field of only 2 choices, I’m definitely going with The Muppets. I will be seriously annoyed if it doesn’t win.

Best Sound Mixing & Sound Editing: These are, to my mind, the most technical of the awards, which makes my personal choice the least-educated. I’m going to say The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Drive.

Best Visual Effects: I’d say Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the most deserving this year, but I do have that soft spot for Hugo and its brilliant evocation of the movie magic of yesteryear.

Best Animated Film: After winning this category for the last four years running, Pixar doesn’t even have a horse in this race, which leaves a double opening for Dreamworks, which hasn’t had a win for a computer-animated film since Shrek won in the category’s first year. I think their time has come again, and they’ll get it for Kung Fu Panda 2. But I’m being very bold, because without Pixar in the mix, this category feels strangely unpredictable.

And there it is, my nominee analysis, only 1 week late. Not bad considering my general business, and I’ll be back here in just under a month to see how I did! I’ll know a lot by the time the ceremony starts that I don’t know now, and will hopefully have seen several more of the nominees, which will change things up, but it’s always interesting to see where I was in my ideas right after the nominations hit. See you then!

This story, too, will look to the most quintessentially American film genre for inspiration. Pooling their vastly different creative sensibilities, their shared passion for the art of cinema, and their encyclopedic knowledge of classic Western films, the Italians complete a story treatment. And, in due course, this story will become Leone’s masterpiece: C’era una vota il West (1968), or Once Upon a Time in the West, as it is known in America.

In fact, a more slavishly literal translation of the Italian title would be “There Was Once the West.” Of course, that lacks the idiomatic flair of the American title, but it indicates the film’s depiction of a closing frontier, bustling with the activity of new settlement, encroaching civilization, and the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Very little time remains for the wandering, just-but-lawless mythic hero to roam this land. The film is a fairy-tale clash of primal good and evil archetypes, as “Once Upon a Time” suggests, but it is also about the end of “The West” as the physical location embodying An Idea about American exceptionalism and rugged individualism; An Idea that will be endlessly discussed, depicted, and reinvested with new meanings by artists and historians alike. “There Was Once the West,” but not anymore.

By the end of the first scene, a great deal about the story and the characters remains obscure, but all of this thematic and genre baggage is in play. Although it does eventually introduce the protagonist, this scene is really more of a prologue than a proper beginning to the story. It is a spectacular exercise in sustained tone, quietly and gradually immersing us in the world of the film for ten hypnotic minutes during which three men wait for a train to arrive. Real life is like this, sitting and waiting for something to happen, but those in-between times are easily forgotten or overlooked when we watch movies where every scene begins as something is happening and ends after that something has happened so that we can move on to the next scene and the next event. The idea that normal life stuff is happening whenever the characters are not on the screen is one of the great illusions of the cinema.

The opening shot is of the inside of a ramshackle door in a dusty, rickety train station as it swings ajar, creaking loudly. An elderly station master is updating the train schedule on a blackboard, chalk squeaking painfully across it as he writes, but the sudden movement prompts him to look up. The camera, in close-up, pans slowly up from the dusty boots of a man who has just entered, up the length of the rifle at his side, past the ammunition on his belt, all the way to his hardened expression and black hat.

Three men have stepped silently inside, each through a different opening, and the old man is immediately uneasy. Aside from the obvious menace of their soundless entrance, they are all well-armed, they do not smile or speak, and they move with a deliberate confidence that shows they are ready for anything. The other two have on black hats, as well. The three have no names, but they are credited as Snaky (Jack Elam), Stony (Woody Strode), and Knuckles (Al Mulock). The station’s other occupant, an Indian woman, tries to walk out the door, but is stopped by Stony and stands nervously against the wall.

Over a minute has passed already, and so far no one has said a word as the camera panned slowly across the room. The station master steps forward and breaks the silence, beginning to order the men around to the front window, but thinks better of it beneath Snaky’s disquieting gaze. He retreats behind the desk and tears off 3 train tickets, holding them out to Snaky, who has also stepped forward. Snaky takes them, but instead of paying, he opens his fingers and lets the paper flutter away in the wind. He reaches out his now empty hand and firmly grasps the station master’s neck, finally allowing himself a cruel half-smile of amusement before marching the old man across the interior and shoving him into a dark side-room or closet, lifting one finger with a threatening “shhh.” Knuckles closes and locks the door, bolts slamming like whip cracks as the screen goes black and the credits announce that this is “A SERGIO LEONE FILM.” Another minute and a half has gone by.

The camera cuts back in on a shot of Stony putting his hat back on his head, then jumps behind him and we see that he is watching the Indian woman leave at a dead run, kicking up dust as she flees into the empty country surrounding the station. The three men move outside and spend the next several minutes idly waiting for the train to arrive. Stony takes off his duster and ties it to his saddle horn on the left side of the station, then strides slowly across the platform to take up his position. The camera follows him from several angles, revealing how truly isolated the station is. The train track stretches off into the distance in both directions, and there is nothing but open country as far as the eye can see.

Next to the platform are a water tower and a rusty windmill, which has been squeaking steadily since the opening frame of the film, but has not appeared until now. The exterior is as weathered and rickety as the interior. Everything creaks and groans at the slightest touch, whether of man or wind. The metal surfaces are rusty, and every surface is dusty. The wood that the small corral and the broad station platform are made of is rough and warped and ill-fitting. The windmill, station house, water tower, and aqueduct that runs between them all appear ready to collapse, or topple in the wind.

Knuckles takes a seat next to the water trough on the left end of the platform, and Stony moves underneath the water tower on the right. Snaky relaxes in a rocking chair in front of the station office. What are these men waiting for? The audience waits patiently with them for the answer to appear, and the camera lingers on each one in turn as the time ticks slowly by. The shots are lengthy, continuing for anywhere from several seconds to nearly a minute, and the camera remains stationary. The credits continue to appear throughout this sequence.

Knuckles drags his hands slowly through the water in the trough and absently stares off into the distance, pausing to crack every joint in his gun hand. Stony, who has removed his hat again, is annoyed by a persistent drip from the water tower landing on his head, and puts his hat back on. Snaky tries to nap, but is annoyed by a tenacious fly. He finally draws his gun and traps the insect inside the barrel with his finger, then holds it up to his ear and smiles contentedly as he shakes it periodically to keep the fly buzzing frantically. In bits and pieces, we get a rough portrait of these characters.

Knuckles, with his unkempt hair and beard and eyes open just a bit too wide, seems to walk a fine line between sanity and insanity, chattering at a caged bird in the station and fidgeting constantly even when he is sitting. Stony is the opposite, a cold killer whose expressions of emotion are visible, but tightly controlled. Every movement is measured, no motion is wasted. Snaky takes pleasure in the pain and distress of others (the station master, the fly), and carries himself with the relaxed ease of a man in charge who is used to being instantly obeyed . . . or else.

Throughout these scenes, the soundtrack is dominated by the noise of the nearly deserted station. The windmill creaks with a steady rhythm (which comes and goes with the wind), and is occasionally joined by the staccato clicking of the telegraph (until the annoyed Snaky rips the wires out of it), the dripping of the leaky water tower, Knuckles’ fingers splashing idly in the trough, etc. At long last, above the irritatingly loud buzzing of the trapped fly, comes the one sound they are there to hear: the shrill scream of the train whistle in the distance. No sooner does this noise become audible, then the camera cuts to a position just under the nose of the approaching train and the distance shriek becomes a roar as the locomotive rolls by overhead.

Back at the station, the three waiting men slowly stir and prepare for action. Stony sips water from the brim of his hat, having collected a puddle from the drip overhead, and loads his rifle. Snaky releases the fly and gets slowly to his feet. Knuckles, already nearly in position, turns to watch the approaching train in extreme close-up, his head dominating half of the frame. The camera moves back inside the station and watches Snaky from behind, through the arch, as he holsters his gun and strides forward across the platform and the locomotive glides in from the left.

The three men are spread evenly from end to end of the short train, waiting and watching for any signs of activity as the engine hisses and puffs. Suddenly, a cargo door slides back. Stony’s head whips around and his hand drops to his gun, but it is only a package being tossed off by the conductor. The men relax, exchange glances, and smile. No one has disembarked, and the train is preparing to leave again. Snaky motions the other men to join him, and they gather at the end of the platform as the train begins to pull out, then turn to leave.

Just as they begin to walk away from the tracks, the haunting wail of a harmonica floats onto the soundtrack. The camera cuts to a position just in front of and above the departing men, with the train pulling away behind them, and they stop and turn slowly just as the final car of the train moves out of the way to reveal a man standing on the other side. As he comes into view, the camera drops down and right, placing him in the center of the frame. He is holding a bag in his right hand and playing the harmonica with his left. He sports a white hat, coat, and pants. Snaky smiles and nods to Stony. This is what they were waiting for. Knuckles adopts a wide gun-fighting stance as his duster blows in the wind, but the other two men seem more relaxed.

As the newcomer finishes his tune, the camera moves between an extreme close-up of his face, a perspective shot of the other men from behind his left shoulder, and a close-up of Snaky. Then, he slowly lowers the harmonica and begins to speak. Learning that the man he is expecting hasn’t come with the other three, he asks whether they’ve brought him a horse. This strikes the other three as funny, and they laugh as Snaky laments, “Looks like we’re shy one horse.” They know he won’t be needing one.

At this point, Harmonica should definitely be concerned, but if he is, there is no indication of it on his face. His expression never changes as he slowly shakes his head and replies, “You brought two too many.” The others’ smiles die, and the tension ratchets up several notches on the soundtrack. Knuckles and Stony are already prepared to draw, and Snaky brings his hands around from behind his back. The camera cuts measuredly back to Harmonica (whose gun hand is still encumbered by a carpetbag, an apparently significant disadvantage) and then returns to Snaky for a single second before his hand flies to his gun.

Just as Snaky’s hand reaches the handle, the camera jumps to a close-up of Harmonica’s right hand, from behind his back. Moving almost too fast to see, he lets go of the carpetbag and has his gun (previously not even visible, but in his hand the whole time) out and firing before the bag hits the ground. He shoots three times in less than a second, flicking the hammer with his left hand. As he is firing, the camera has pulled back to encompass all four men in the shot. Harmonica fires from right to left. Knuckles flies wildly backward, arms flailing, and Snaky leaps back as well, falling heavily flat on his back, but Stony doubles over, clutching his gut.

The camera cuts to a medium shot of Stony as he gets off a single rifle shot, then cuts back to Harmonica as the shot spins him completely around, and once again to a full-length shot from behind Stony as Harmonica falls off the back of the platform and Stony slowly topples onto his back like a falling tower. One final cut goes to an extreme close-up of the center of the spinning windmill, and its persistent creak re-enters the soundtrack. The camera zooms slowly out to encompass it and the nearby water tower, sole witnesses to the carnage below, as the wind whistles across the lonely landscape.

The scene is a masterpiece of genre atmosphere. Arriving at the beginning of the film, this is the Old West showdown at its most iconic. There is as yet no plot and no character background. There is only setting: a fateful crossroads in the midst of the lawless frontier where a man in a white hat and three men in black hats meet for a life-and-death contest of wits and reflexes. There is no one to congratulate the victor or bury the defeated. Moreover, as far as the audience can see, no victor has emerged from the exchange, only a small pile of corpses.

Actually, the scene is not truly over. Harmonica soon regains consciousness, patches his wounded arm, and departs on one of the horses (leaving behind the “two too many”). But Leone lets the silent aftermath of the gun battle hang for a full, deliberate 30 seconds as he slowly pulls back from the squeaky windmill, letting it sink in. By this point, the film has run for 12 long minutes, building up to a shootout that lasts about 3 seconds. The characters we have spent time with during this scene are all dead in a hail of gunfire.

In Sergio Leone’s depiction of the American West, the violence of the frontier is made shocking, both by its devastating suddenness and by the contrast between the lightning-fast shootout and the quiet, deliberate way that Leone has built up to it. The impact of the violence is heightened further by developing and then killing off characters who, in most Westerns, would have been walk-on cannon fodder. Leone’s attention to these details establishes the vast dimensions of the canvas on which he will depict life and death, rise and fall, good and evil, revenge and rebirth, past, present, and future. And it begins with three men at a lonely station, waiting for the train.

Beneath went into production with a critical handicap: Charlton Heston was unwilling to play a major role in the film. As Taylor was the only sentient human character left alive at the end of the first movie, Heston’s decision left any potential sequel without a protagonist mainstream audiences could relate to. Of course, this needn’t have been a handicap at all. Any number of interesting ways to approach such a problem and take the story in a bold new direction consistent with the edgy, ambiguous ending of the original immediately suggest themselves. Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to go completely the other way instead.

The new protagonist is Brent, played by James Franciscus, yet another astronaut from Earth’s past, the sole survivor of yet another crashed spaceship, this one sent in search of Taylor and his crew. Brent immediately encounters Taylor’s mute girlfriend Nova, still carrying his dog-tags, then stumbles his way through an onerous retread of Taylor’s experiences from the previous movie that occupies roughly half of the runtime of this one. We learn via flashback that Taylor and Nova, after riding off together into the Forbidden Zone, encountered a series of strange phenomena (walls of fire, lightning without clouds, earthquakes), and then came upon a large cliff-face where nothing had been before. Taylor, apparently acting on impulse, dives right through the seemingly solid rock wall and vanishes until the end of the movie.

Meanwhile, Brent observes the gorilla army preparing to invade the Forbidden Zone (to confront the someone or something that apparently inhabits the region) before he and Nova escape from Ape City using the long-abandoned tunnels of the New York Subway, learning for the first time that he has arrived on a future Earth rather than another planet. Traveling deeper into the huge system of tunnels, Brent finally stumbles upon an underground society of mutant humans with powers of telepathy and a religion based on the worship of a nuclear “doomsday” bomb occupying the altar amidst the ruins of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Here Brent is finally reunited with Taylor, who has been taken prisoner by the mutants. The mutants then nearly succeed in forcing them to murder each other using their telepathic powers, but the pair manage to escape. The gorilla invasion is successful thanks to the leadership of the orangutan Dr. Zaius, who sees through the mutants’ telepathic illusions. As the gorillas charge in and lay waste to the mutant society, Brent and Taylor attempt to prevent the mutants from purposely detonating the nuke, and the gorillas from accidentally setting it off. Their efforts backfire horribly when Taylor is riddled with bullets and falls on the activation switch. In the film’s final seconds, the screen goes completely white and a solemn voice intones, “In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead.”

Apart from being a total downer, the film’s destruction-of-the-planet ending is rendered absurd in retrospect. What looked like a definitive end to the series was actually only the second of five films. Beneath the Planet of the Apes also tries very hard to be more action- and effects-driven than its predecessor, which just ends up making it far less thoughtful. There are, however, a few glancing attempts at social commentary. Most notable is a scene where a small chimpanzee peace protest is forcibly removed from the road to allow the gorilla army to pass. The soldiers grappling with the protesters is shot up-close with what seems like a shaky, hand-held camera, presumably meant to evoke news footage of Vietnam War protesters. The army then proceeds, trampling the peace banners under their horses’ hooves.

The heavy-handed evocation of Vietnam is nothing, though, compared to how this movie tramples on the first film’s rich thematic discussion of the tension between science and religion. Someone seems to have realized that the apocalyptic ending of the first film rendered its defense of science over religion fascinatingly ambiguous: Sure, religious dogma in ape society deliberately holds back scientific progress, even to the point of repression, but if the alternative is the complete destruction of civilization itself, which is really the lesser of the two evils? Beneath the Planet of the Apes works overtime to redeem science from the onus of nuclear devastation established in Planet of the Apes and shift the ultimate blame squarely onto religious fanaticism.

In mutant society, religion is depicted at its most absurd extreme in the mindless adulation of an inanimate object. That these bomb-worshiping nitwits also happen to be a race of hyper-intelligent beings with the power to control minds and the intellectual sophistication to turn the apes’ own religious superstition (the gorillas’ one significant handicap) against them doesn’t seem to have struck anyone behind the making of this film as a significant contradiction. Ultimately it is the wild-eyed nihilism of the faithful that dooms the world to nuclear destruction, rather than the cold, emotionless logic of the scientists who created the doomsday weapon that does the job.

For all that it gets wrong, though, Beneath the Planet of the Apes somehow manages to be memorable in a so-bad-that-it’s-good sort of way. Sure, it’s not particularly coherent, but it does bring a number of indelible images to the screen, mostly having to do with the telepathic mutants, the hideous visages they hide under their normal-looking human masks, the shining, phallic bomb they worship, and the wild illusions they produce to confound their enemies. The scale is also somewhat grander in this film, with the impressive gorilla army seen training for battle, traveling in formation, and marshaling for the final attack. Their leader, the charismatic, war-mongering General Ursus (who loudly declaims, “The only good human is a dead human!”) is an interesting new addition to the cast of ape characters.

It’s hard to deny that the film is a failure by any real standard of movie quality, and this remains the easiest of the series to skip without missing any essential details of the overarching plot (which the filmmakers were just making up as they went along anyway). Nevertheless, there is actually plenty of good, campy fun to be had in the watching of it, and any true Apes fan won’t want to miss out. And you’ve got to hand it to that ending: For all their threats to humanity, how many movies actually follow through with the total destruction of Earth and all human life?

Films had to be about something, and with audiences standing by to consume the latest movies as fast as the studios could crank them out, there was no time for a lot of originality.  Filmmakers turned to two established sources, drawn by the warm glow of familiarity, for inspiration: adaptation and genre. Film as a growing art form was quick to capitalize on the successes of the other narrative arts (literature and drama), and to revisit, over and over again, the kinds of stories audiences responded to, like romantic melodramas, slapstick comedies, westerns, and even the odd flirtation with horror.

However, as Carlos Clarens observes in his seminal Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films, “unlike the Western and slapstick comedy, horror movies were not indigenous to the American screen. Horror is nourished by myth, tradition, and legend—all of which require centuries of rich elaboration.” Still over a decade away from its sesquicentennial, the United States seemingly lacked the ingredients for horror that its European counterparts enjoyed, but for a canny director with a vision, there has always been plenty of material to work with.

In 1914, that director was none other than D. W. Griffith, in the midst of a highly successful transitional period in his career. The previous year, as an employee of Biograph, he had secretly made his first feature-length film, Judith of Bethulia. Biograph, peeved at Griffith’s defiance and convinced that audiences would not sit still for the full hour, refused to release it. In response, Griffith took his entire crew and defected to the Mutual Film Corporation, where he was given autonomy to produce his own films as joint head of the new Reliance-Majestic Studios. The Avenging Conscience (subtitled “Thou Shalt Not Kill”) was the last of four feature films that Griffith produced that year before beginning work on The Birth of a Nation. It is America’s first feature-length horror film.

For inspiration, Griffith turned to the man whose name is synonymous with the American tradition of Gothic terror and suspense, Edgar Allan Poe, freely adapting elements from several of Poe’s best-known stories and poems into an unmistakably Griffith-ian tale of morality and melodrama. Griffith had used Poe as a cinematic subject at least once before, in a brief biographical short made five years earlier to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the author’s birth. (How strange to realize that this film is further removed from us than that event was from Griffith.)

The plot of The Avenging Conscience draws most heavily on “The Tell-Tale Heart,” depicting the travails of a young man (played by none other than Henry B. Walthall, the star of Birth of a Nation) whose uncle (and guardian) forbids him to marry his true love, a girl whose appearances are accompanied by quotations from Poe’s “Annabel Lee” (Blanche Sweet, whose credits include the title role in Judith of Bethulia). Thwarted and despairing, the young man observes a spider killing a fly that has been caught in its web, and then watches a swarm of ants kill a spider. In his troubled state of mind, he concludes that nature is “one long system of murder,” and hatches a plot to kill his uncle (whose eye-patch suggests the single, dead “vulture eye” of Poe’s story) and conceal the body behind the brick facade of the fireplace. Unfortunately, there is a witness to his crime, and he is blackmailed for a portion of his inheritance.

To make matters worse, his new independence is tainted by the intrusion of his uncle’s accusing spirit, and he is plagued with remorseful visions of a melancholy Christ and of Moses angrily wielding the 6th Commandment. Suffering a nervous breakdown, he has himself committed to a sanitarium, which both fails to cure him and arouses the suspicions of an investigating detective. The young man’s fragile psyche quickly disintegrates in the face of intense interrogation, and he confesses to his crime before fleeing. A brief manhunt ends with the young man hanging himself and his sweetheart throwing herself off of a cliff. However, in a surprise twist, the young man awakes to find that it has all been a dream and his uncle is still alive and has reconsidered the situation, and everyone ends happily and at peace.

All of Griffith’s talent as a cutting-edge filmmaker and shortcomings as a hopelessly old-fashioned storyteller are on full display here. The cast includes several Griffith regulars like Spottiswoode Aitken, George Siegmann, and Mae Marsh (all of whom would go straight on to major roles in Birth of a Nation), but Marsh’s character is a particular oddity here. She plays a lovestruck maid opposite Robert Harron’s oblivious grocery boy in a comic subplot that feels jarringly out-of-place, and then vanishes 20 minutes in.

The whole first act, which ought to move swiftly into darker territory once the characters have been established, lags on and on as though Griffith is reluctant to reach his destination. The final scene in the movie is reminiscent of the grand conclusions of Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, depicting the two lovers enjoying a natural scene overlaid by a beatific vision of Pan charming forest animals and children in cheap costumes, but the slight subject matter renders the device even sillier here.

Still, despite obvious flaws, The Avenging Conscience excels throughout what is presumably the “dream sequence” portion of the film. Griffith’s seamless editing in the scene where the young man observes the brutality of nature serves as an apt and visually-arresting device for introducing the idea of murder. Griffith then ratchets up the tension as the young man works himself up to the deed. Having him forgo the relatively clean kill with his revolver to physically strangle the old man is a particularly visceral touch, and the audience is immediately implicated in the terror of the young man’s guilt through the suspense of whether he will be caught. Trick camera effects are also well-employed at several points to summon the ghostly uncle.

The film’s greatest success, though, is the confession scene. Lacking both sound and descriptive text to suggest the beating of the victim’s “hideous heart” that drives the protagonist of Poe’s story over the edge, Griffith relies on a tour-de-force of impressionistic editing to evoke a rhythmic tapping that is almost audible.  Cutting rapidly between the ticking clock, the detective’s foot tapping the floor, his pencil tapping the table, and the nephew’s darting eyes, Griffith works both protagonist and audience into a near-frenzy until the nephew rushes to the door, half-mad. Throwing it open, he witnesses a ghoulish procession of images suggesting hell, death, and encroaching doom. The combination of anxiety and the grotesque make this scene the horrific climax of a film that offers little in the way of true horror.

The many elements of romantic melodrama in the movie, coupled with the overtly didactic tone indicated by the subtitle “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” and the general lack of legitimate scariness (particularly to a modern audience) may render this film’s horror pedigree somewhat questionable. Nevertheless, it does fit Robin Wood’s definitive description of the genre in “The American Nightmare”:

the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses, its reemergence dramatized, as in our nightmares, as an object of horror, a matter for terror, and the happy ending [...] signifying the restoration of repression.

In early cinema, in fantasy films as well as horror and other genres, the involvement of the supernatural was almost universally revealed at the end to have been “only a dream” (a device that remained common after the advent of sound films, as evident in such famous examples as 1939′s The Wizard of Oz). As Wood explains, “the conditions under which a dream becomes a nightmare are that the repressed wish is, from the point of view of consciousness, so terrible that it must be repudiated as loathsome, and that it is so strong and powerful as to constitute a serious threat.” The overuse of this device in early films may well indicate the heightened repression of a pre-Jazz Age audience and their need for reassurance before exiting the “dream world” of the movie theater.

In this case, the emergence of the repressed occurs within a literal nightmare, which (by Wood’s definition) is somewhat redundant. Still, there is an element of catharsis when the young nephew of The Avenging Conscience awakes from his dream and is relieved to discover that he has not committed a murder. He proceeds to reveal the dream to his uncle, and the two share a hearty laugh about it. It does not seem to occur to either of them that the dream has revealed the nephew’s true (though repressed) desire to enact his uncle’s death. The audience, as well, is comforted to learn that young people in love are not capable of patricide, after all, even if they are frustrated with the restrictions placed on them by their elders.

The film’s central conflict also fits Wood’s description of the basic formula of horror: “normality is threatened by the Monster,” and either is or is not defeated. Here, as in many of Poe’s presciently pre-Freudian tales of psychological terror, “normality and the Monster are two aspects of the same person.” The young man is a dutiful nephew and devoted lover, but also a coldly-calculating killer. That this murderous monster exists “only” in a Poe-fueled dream should hardly be comforting to anyone who recognizes the truth it reveals: that everyone has a dark side waiting to be unleashed. But for movie-going audiences in 1914, such truths were best confined to a dream within a dream, as only the feverish nightmare of a character inhabiting the collective reverie of the motion picture screen.

Picking up immediately where the first part left off, as the evil Lord Voldemort (Fiennes) takes possession of the powerful Elder Wand and launches an all-out attack on Hogwarts, Harry Potter (Radcliffe) and his friends must move swiftly to recover and destroy the remaining Horcruxes that make Voldemort immortal and invulnerable before the forces of darkness overrun everything they hold dear.

Hard to believe now that, 15 years ago, Harry Potter existed only in the imagination of author J. K. Rowling. Strange to realize that the current generation of kids and teenagers don’t remember a world without Harry Potter and the cultural juggernaut that he became. And yet, all things must eventually come to an end, even the longest-running, most financially-successful continuous film franchise in history.* Given that status, Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has a great deal of expectation to live up to, though my own hopes for this series have remained low since every film after the third sacrificed character development and the richness of the wizarding world to focus on the action set-pieces.

I have made no secret of my annoyance with the mediocrity of the second half of the Harry Potter film series, which I would classify as barely coherent “good parts” versions of the books on which they are based. Even the more exhaustive approach of the first half of Deathly Hallows felt like too little, too late, and only underscored the woeful inadequacies of the previous films.

Happily, none of that baggage really seemed to matter amidst the sweeping grandeur of the final film of what suddenly feels like a far more epic saga. Trying to imagine Deathly Hallows crammed into a single film is impossible (almost as impossible as imagining the same treatment for Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, or Half-Blood Prince, but okay, I’ll let it go). The final battle is both huge and deeply personal, as familiar faces flash past, locked in mortal combat. The level of death and destruction is frightening, driving the threat palpably home, and the effects are dazzling, probably the best the series has ever offered. Best of all, the supporting characters, brought to life by perhaps the most star-studded cast of all time, finally have a chance to shine one more time before the end.

In addition, splitting the story in half has allowed time for emotional revelations and plenty of significant, lingering glances (although perhaps a few too many of the latter). Here is a film that never lets us forget its portentousness. Some moments are so weighted down with the gravity of their own significance that they bring the film to a grinding halt, too, but perhaps this is an indulgence that can scarcely be avoided in the grand finale of an 8-film story arc that has been a decade in the making. Another difficulty for a film that is all climax is the anti-climactic feeling of let-down at the end. This is not so easy to dismiss. The movie builds and builds and builds to an unbearable pitch, and then drops the audience into the end credits almost entirely sans catharsis.

To explain why that is, it is necessary to take a moment to discuss the film as adaptation, and to reveal some details in this paragraph and the next that could be considered spoilers, particularly to anyone who hasn’t read the book. In Rowling’s version, when Harry has his final showdown with Voldemort, they are surrounded by all of the other characters, and Harry’s victory is accompanied by a jubilant outburst that explodes off the page as everyone celebrates the end of the long months of worry, sadness, oppression, and death. In the film, there are no witnesses to the final battle between Harry and Voldemort, nor is there any indication that anyone else even knows the Dark Lord is dead when Harry re-enters the school and finds everyone calmly eating breakfast. There is an enormous sense of relief, but no feeling of joy. The film draws to a close in a mood of quiet, contemplative exhaustion, but without any of the elation that we would expect.

This is a Big Deal, and I think it brings the franchise limping into port when it should have entered triumphantly under full sail, but large ships are unwieldy (almost as unwieldy as this analogy is becoming), and the filmmakers are to be commended for at least bringing this one in more or less intact. Meanwhile, I had two more quibbles with the adaptation, both of which relate to the religious undertones of the book, which I might as well air here. The first is that Harry does not extend a chance for redemption to Voldemort, as they do not really converse during their final duel. (Much of that dialogue is compacted and transferred to a later scene.) The second is, as near as I can tell, a new line of dialogue where Dumbledore stops and amends one of the greatest and most significant phrases in the series “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it” to “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who deserve it.” I don’t want to take up too much space here going into why I have such a problem with this change, but more importantly, I can think of no reason that explains why it was done or what it is meant to signify.

These are relatively small matters. There is no doubt that this the greatest Potter film since Prisoner of Azkaban. I look forward to the chance to watch both parts of Deathly Hallows back-to-back, and I might even be convinced to rewatch the entire series in light of its successful conclusion, though I have seen the last four only once apiece and not felt the lack. Neither of the final films seems to have been meant to stand alone, and, if they can’t quite hold a candle to the pleasures of reading the series they are based on, they at least live up to the cinematic promise that such a massive undertaking has led us to expect. As adaptations of beloved stories go, it would be greedy to ask for anything more than that.

*A handful of other franchises have run longer than 8 films (most notably the Bond films, with 23), but none without regularly cycling through major characters or the actors who play them.

When billionaire oil tycoon Sir Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard) stages the first-ever World Grand Prix to showcase his new alternative fuel, Lightning McQueen (Wilson) agrees to compete, bringing best friend Tow Mater (Larry) along for the globetrotting ride. Soon, the bumbling Mater is working with British spies Finn McMissile (Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Mortimer) to foil a sinister plot involving Big Oil and a confederation of maligned and bitter “lemons.”

What a terrible novelty Cars 2 is: A bad film by a studio that has been reliably cranking out masterpieces for a decade and a half. It’s almost the reverse of last year’s How to Train Your Dragon from DreamWorks, which was a masterpiece from a studio that has reliably delivered mediocre films. Cars 2 is not the first Pixar film to be less than perfect; A Bug’s Life will probably never be considered a “classic,” and the first Cars was none too compelling. But while fans might argue themselves hoarse deciding which is the greatest of the many magical stories Pixar has brought to life, there isn’t any room left for disagreement about which is their worst.

Is this a bad film, though, or merely bad by comparison? Am I just holding Pixar’s movies to an impossible standard (albeit a standard they have set), thus ruining what would otherwise have been a more enjoyable experience? Perhaps, but I don’t believe so. I know what I like, and I disliked this movie after going in with low to moderate expectations. In fact, if it weren’t a Pixar production, I wouldn’t have gone at all. Maybe this movie was simply not for me, though. I am not a fan of NASCAR, or car racing in general, and I know very little about cars beyond how to drive and maintain them. There were definitely jokes and references in Cars 2 that went over my head, but again, I don’t think that’s the whole story.

Any movie that genuinely rates a sequel introduces us to a group of memorable characters who inhabit their own unique world. Whatever else we might say about Cars, it did do that much. A good sequel, then, will find new ways for those characters to grow and change, introduce new and interesting characters, and give us a chance to see more of the world they inhabit. The trouble is that Cars 2 only manages the second of those things, and only partially succeeds at that.

The most obvious problem is the world of Cars. It’s stupid. It doesn’t make any sense. We didn’t really see enough of it in the original for this to pose a significant problem, but in the jet-setting sequel, it’s impossible to get away from the issue. In Pixar’s other films, their characters inhabit the same world humans do, and much of the imaginative charm of these stories is the way they depict the secret lives of toys, bugs, monsters, fish, rats and what have you as they go about their business undetected. There are no humans in Cars. There are only, well . . . cars. This raised some strange questions. In Cars 2, those questions grow so large that they totally overwhelm the story.

Leave aside for a moment the quandaries of a world in which cars presumably manufacture themselves and exist as a sentient life-form that is an end in itself rather than as a mere means of transportation. In Cars 2, the characters journey all over the globe, and we are constantly slapped in the face with the fact that this isn’t just some alternate world inhabited by cars instead of people; it is our world and we have been mysteriously replaced by our vehicles with everything else left untouched.

Everywhere the cars travel they are surrounded by recognizable landmarks of our cultures and societies: Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, a rustic Old World village in Italy, Buckingham Palace and the Big Ben in London, etc. So many of these man-made (car-made?) landmarks that the film visits are in cities that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years, but the oldest automobile is, what, 150 years old? Where did all of this stuff come from? Did the cars’ ancestors build it all? Were they wagons? Chariots? Carriages? But the horseless kind, right? Because there aren’t any animals in this world. In one scene, a flock of tiny airplanes flutter away from a fountain, but that’s about it.

As these questions started to accumulate, I found it more and more difficult to make sense of anything, and my suspension of disbelief started to implode. There is a throwaway joke at one point, a cheap laugh, where Mater asks, “Is the Popemobile Catholic?” Then, a few scenes later, we see the Popemobile attending the race in Italy, riding in what is presumably the Popemobilemobile. Wait, what? I had idly wondered a few scenes before why cars would have churches: To worship and observe the sacarments, of course. Was the Jesusmobile wrecked for the sins of all vehicles? Do they gather for the Eucarist and sip motor oil and nibble hubcap wafers? The world of Cars is built on a whimsical but shallow conceit that it cannot sustain in any sort of coherent fashion.

I am over-thinking this to an absurd degree. The point is: Whatever was going on in Cars 2 was not interesting enough to keep these sorts of things from distracting me. Maybe I am an anomaly in this respect. Maybe these things won’t bother anyone else. The world of the movie, for all its absurdity, is still gorgeous to behold. Pixar hasn’t slouched in the visual department. So let’s lay that aside and consider the real reason this movie exists: Every year since 2006, Cars has been a multi-billion dollar merchandising bonanza. Cars 2 stands to boost those profits to a degree that exceeds my imagination by exponentially increasing the number of things that can be turned into cool toys, and deploying them in what amounts to a feature-length commercial.

Certainly the new major characters are a lot of fun, particularly Michael Caine’s way-cool, gadget-laden spy car and John Turturro’s charmingly arrogant Formula 1 Italian, Francesco Bernoulli. I would totally play with a toy based on Jason Isaacs’ Siddeley the spy plane, or the mad genius Professor Z. There are also some fantastic cameos, like Bruce Campbell’s brief appearance as an American spy car. But so much of the expanded population we see in the movie seems based on paper-thin stereotypes. There are some great laughs in the Cars 2 versions of Japan, France, Italy, and England, but I couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that some of these cultures were being reduced to their broadest caricatures (okay, I’ll stop).

That uncomfortable feeling was only heightened by Mater’s character arc. Most of the original characters, though present, are lost in the crowd this time around, but Mater has moved to the fore as a celebration of loud-mouthed American ignorance abroad. As the automotive avatar of redneck culture, it is only natural that Mater’s fish-out-of-water experiences outside of his beloved Radiator Springs would form the comedic center of the movie, but by making him the main character, his abrasive buffoonery becomes the problematic target of that all-too-cliche kid movie moral: Be true to who you are.

Early in the movie, Mater’s oblivious and often rude antics are a source of constant embarrassment for Lightning McQueen, and even cause the loss of a race at one point, creating a rift between the two friends. Later on, Mater finally realizes that everyone sees him as an idiot, and painfully recalls his outrageous behavior, prompting him to seek reconciliation. But not so fast, because it is McQueen who comes crawling back first to tell Mater that he doesn’t have to care about what other people think, a view which is further confirmed by the supporting characters.

Thus, Mater’s intolerable boorishness and bad manners are affirmed, and even lionized, as an admirable quality. Presumably a character learning that you don’t have to sacrifice your identity to be polite and that it isn’t arrogant or elitist to acquire a little cultural sensitivity is just too nuanced, even for a movie filled with international intrigue in a battle between fossil fuels and alternative energy.

I get it. I really do. Cars 2 is a feature-length version of the sequences at the beginning of the first and third Toy Story films, where Andy stages imaginative and outlandish adventures in his bedroom. This is John Lasseter, playing in his bedroom with his toy cars for 2 hours. But there’s a reason the hilarious train robbery scene that kicks off Toy Story 3 didn’t continue into the rest of the movie: It would have amounted to empty, if sporadically entertaining, spectacle from storytellers who have consistently prompted us to develop an appetite for something more, and then delivered that something more. Cars 2 was not an unbearable experience, but I went home hungry.