OVP: War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

Film: War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Stars: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn
Director: Matt Reeves
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

We live in an era of the revived franchise, an era focused on how we can mine our childhoods (or our parents' childhoods) for any bit of nostalgia.  It's an understandable concept (in the era of Donald Trump, who wouldn't want to reach back for happier times?), but it also makes for relatively boring film.  At best, many of the superhero and live-action retreads that have come to our summer blockbusters are middling at best, rarely finding something new to say that rivals the original.  Frequently, they suck the joy out of what is in front of them, making something more violent-and-edgy (every filmmaker appears to have seen The Dark Knight and is using that as a template).  So it's still surprising to me that of all of the franchise revivals, it was Planet of the Apes that somehow genuinely got it right.  We haven't had a chance to review the third installment yet on this site, a fact I'm going to correct today, but it's worth remembering what a joke these seemed to be when the first picture came out in 2011 (I literally remember people laughing when the title card came out the first time I saw a trailer for it at the theater), and how Andy Serkis's work (and some brilliant special effects artists) crafted together a truly compelling trilogy (and now that Disney owns Fox, almost certainly they'll go back to extending and pulling the franchise into a host of different directions, lessening this impact, but let's focus on the here-and-now).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place two years after the ape uprising in San Francisco, where Koba's faction went up against Caesar's (Serkis).  Caesar is hardened from the ape he was two years earlier, frequently trying to find a foothold in the war against the humans, which increasingly looks like something the apes are winning (even though most of this film itself is focused on one particular battle rather than a larger war).  We don't know why we get this feeling until later into the film, when the main human antagonist the Colonel (Harrelson) reveals that the Simian Flu (alluded to in Rise of the Planet of the Apes) has mutated, and the humans infected with it are becoming primitive and unable to speak.  Thanks to his own prejudice (confiscating a human toy from Caesar), the Colonel infects himself with the flu and kills himself before he has a chance to start to show the symptoms.  In  an epic battle, Caesar himself dies as a result of wounds he sustains, but not before he leads the apes, as well as a young girl, to a promised land, a place that surely is intended to be a callback to the original series (though there's problems if you want to get your inner film nerd on with the timeline), as we now have characters like Cornelius & Nova ready for Charlton Heston to land on the planet.

The film feels more cloistered than the prior pictures, and more reliant on the audience having invested in Caesar and his ape brethren than the previous installations, where we got a heavy amount of back story to invest in what was happening onscreen.  This is a risk for people who are casual film-watchers.  After all, if you're like me and haven't revisited the films other than your initial watch of the movies in theaters, you might struggle to be invested in what's happening in the flick, or honestly leave confused.  This isn't the fault of the directors, and it's not a small problem, but there were moments in the movie I felt like it almost needed to adapt to the new "binge-watching" strategy employed by Netflix where you need all of the titles at once, rather than several years apart.

But the movie is otherwise terrific.  Serkis is excellent, finding a core to Caesar that makes him stand alongside Gollum & Kong as some of his best work.  Few actors imbue their creations with such sensitivity and nuance, and Serkis manages to do that without even showing his face.  Harrelson is also great (though lately, when is he not?), giving the best performance by a human in the entire revived series.  I loved the special effects work-we've already seen what brilliance they can do with Serkis & Caesar (as well as supporting characters like Steve Zahn's Bad Ape), but the battle effects are on-point as well, with an army of men & apes fighting against (and sometimes alongside) each other.  I still feel like the second movie hit the biggest heights, but this is a strong closer to a trilogy of films that had no business being as good as it was, and one that should stand apart in a similar way to the Nolan Batman movies distinguishing themselves from the rest of the franchise.

Long Shot (2019)

Film: Long Shot (2019)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Andy Serkis, June Diane Raphael, Bob Odenkirk, Alexander Skarsgard
Director: Jonathan Levine
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

One of the great conundrums of my life is that I love discussing politics (less so in the past two years, but the passion is still there) and I adore movies (more so in the past two years, for reasons unrelated to the political embargo), so it makes sense to assume that I would like movies based on politics, but you’d be mistaken. Movies based on politics almost always tick me off, whether they be played for comedy or for drama, and the reason for that is the realism.  I like my plot to be grounded in some sort of fact, and so if I’m going to see a movie, even one that is meant to be quite silly like Long Shot, I need it to be anchored in some sort of reality, which even in the Trump Era this film simply isn’t.  If that weren’t enough, it’s not particularly compelling or funny even with two actors who are more than capable of being both.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is essentially a romantic comedy with thinly-disguised versions of our current political figures.  We have Charlotte Field (Theron), who is essentially Nikki Haley or Condi Rice, competent to a fault and more qualified for her job than her boss, which the movie is going to have a great time pointing out over-and-over in a weirdly anti-feminist fashion, being romanced by Fred Flarsky (Rogen), a Michael Moore/Jim Acosta-style figure who stands on his virtues as a reason to never get anything done, claiming if you don’t have compromise, you don’t have anything. Field is about to run for president because her boss President Chambers (Odenkirk, doing his best Trump impression), wants to become a movie star, and she is being hounded by Parker Wembley (Serkis) who is some combination of Roger Ailes & Rupert Murdoch.  Throw in Alexander Skarsgard as a creepy Justin Trudeau-style figure, and you have yourself an SNL parody sketch hoping to be a movie.

Unfortunately, it never rises above that sketch premise.  The problem lies in the way the film is written, especially when it comes to Charlotte.  It’s unfortunately plausible at this point to believe a buffoon could be elected president and that a candidate should only focus on the superficial, so Charlotte taking the job in the administration of a man lesser than her is an easily conceivable reality (again, see Condi Rice & Nikki Haley), but where this falls apart is that it never really feels possible that Charlotte would fall not only for Rogen’s character romantically, but that she’d fall for his “no compromise, give up all of your ideals and then everything will be sunny” attitude.  The sexism that they just lightly brush by (the fact that people are only interested in Charlotte’s likeability, beauty, and dating life…the fact that she’s smart-as-a-whip working for a moron), feeds into the notion that she still needs a man to show her how to do her job properly, despite Rogen’s character being a “play my way or I’m going home” sort of strict idealist who also can’t exist in Charlotte’s world. We spend so much of the film critiquing Charlotte, but almost none of it taking an introspective look at Fred. Even Fred’s redemption ark is almost entirely spent on him being told by his best friend (played by Jackson) that she’s gorgeous & famous…you aren’t going to do any better; there’s no self-reflection on his side.  One could claim there’s some feminism at work here if you say that Theron is taking the Richard Gere role while Rogen is playing Julia Roberts, which might be true, but that doesn’t really negate the fact that Rogen fixes all of Charlotte’s “problems” while he never fixes any of his own.

This would be easier to swallow if the movie itself were funnier, but it’s not.  There are some humorous bits (a particularly nasty one about Jennifer Aniston feels a bit sour after seeing the film as it also reads anti-feminist at the time, but it’s a ballsy enough joke that you’ll laugh at regardless), and Theron/Rogen are naturally-gifted comedians, but most of the film relies too heavily on tropes to have a really great, consistent source of humor.  These two are a good match in terms of chemistry, even if it’s eye-rolling that we have to settle for another goddess-meets-shlub idea from Hollywood, but this never finds anything interesting to say, and doesn’t work as a straight-up romantic comedy.

OVP: Black Panther (2018)

Film: Black Panther (2018)
Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurina, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis
Director: Ryan Coogler
Oscar History: 7 Nominations/3 wins (Picture, Production Design*, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Score*, Song-"All the Stars," Costume Design*)
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Believe it or not, one of the movies that I have not reviewed yet from 2018 is the year's biggest film.  When I was sitting down to write this review, I realized too much of it was forgotten from the first time I caught it, and since I'm on vacation & in a serious "let's just watch another movie" fix right now, I felt the need to rewatch the picture before I got to reviewing it, particularly considering this is a review I will link quite often when we get to the 2018 OVP as it appears destined to be nominated (a lot).  Hence the "Not So" from above, though I will state that my opinions of the film haven't changed much since I caught the film initially.  Black Panther, while not breaking any new plot ground (this is in many ways similar to say an Iron Man or Captain America movie) makes up for its lack of originality with the script by having a compelling lead, a strong villain, and crafting a world unique onto its own in a way few other Marvel universe films have been able to achieve.

(Spoilers Ahead...though really, you read this blog and haven't seen Black Panther yet?) The movie picks up where Captain America 3 picks up (I'll be reviewing the two Ant-Man movies in the next week or so and will be addressing the odd "Chapter XX" aspects of the Marvel franchise then, but it's worth recalling that seeing these movies out-of-sequence has pretty severe drawbacks that I normally debit movies for not standing on their own, but perhaps I should stop as that's the way the world is now).  We have T'Challa (Boseman), the Black Panther, returning home to Wakanda after the death of his father to assume his mantle as the king.  We get an introduction relatively quickly to his life in this futuristic country, including his romance with longtime friend/ex-girlfriend Nakia (Nyong'o) and his brainy sister Shuri (Wright), who runs most of the technological advances in Wakanda.  The film quickly shows the parallels between T'Challa, who grew up in great wealth-and-prilege to his cousin N'Jadaka, who eventually goes by Killmonger (Jordan), who thanks to his exiled & dead father, grew up in the projects on Los Angeles, and wants revenge for the death of his father, as well as to arm black people around the world using Wakanda's technology as a weapon.  He challenges T'Challa to a fight to take the throne, a fight that he loses and nearly dies, but as this is a Marvel movie eventually recovers from, and fights Killmonger, killing him in combat but eventually conceding that Wakanda has to move out of the shadows and become a world leader, rather than remaining isolated.

The film tackles some heartier stuff than you usually see from a Marvel movie.  While occasionally the films go into ethical issues of privacy and terrorism, racism hasn't been central to past Marvel films because, well, there hasn't been a person-of-color lead in any of their pictures.  As a result, this film feels instantly fresher than some of the staler recent installments whose only outlets appear to make their characters more ridiculous (Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor Ragnarok).  Disney usually paints these sorts of arguments in broad strokes so as not to risk alienating audiences, but Coogler keeps in enough truth to his racial critiques (he's not throwing out ideas that aren't based in our own reality, rather than just Marvel's), to make the film feel modern and one of the more essential Marvel Universe pictures.

Boseman's lead character doesn't have enough differentiating qualities in my opinion, other than being proud, handsome, and noble; there's a risk with a superhero like this that they become Superman-impenetrable and too reliant on comic book cliche to be relatable to the audience.  However, the side characters are fresher & stronger than most Marvel movies of late, which helps elevate Black Panther.  Shuri is hilarious, and Wright plays her with a sense of actual teenage personality (she's the smartest girl in the room & she knows it), while Winston Duke's M'Baku is one of the more interesting non-main heroes/villains I've seen in a Marvel movie in a while.  His M'Baku is very similar to Killmonger (clearly worthy, but neglected thanks to his birth, and comes to the aid of T'Challa when he could so easily stay silent), and he has a wryness in his work ('we're vegetarians") that I'm excited to see come forward in a future picture.  And then there's Jordan, Coogler's most frequent muse whom he has gotten his strongest performances out of in the past (Fruitvale Station, Creed), and creates arguably Marvel's best villain to-date.  Think of that first scene with Jordan, where he takes a seemingly innocuous conversation with a white museum curator and turns it into both a moment to show his motives, but also to show the racial dynamic at play here.  While the focus in this scene is on an imaginary artifact from an imaginary country (Killmonger is trying to steal a vibranium weapon from this museum), he's name-checking actual African countries who were pillaged of this art by white colonialists, much like in real-life.  Jordan's performance is informed by important social issues involving race, and it's here that Coogler gets true depth added to his picture.  While the effects aren't always as bright as Ant-Man and the Wasp and the gravitas (or casting budget) doesn't approach that of Avengers 3, Black Panther stands apart because Coogler has a world-building vision in mind with crafting his picture, and it works because he roots it in some of the ugliness of our own existence.

30 Random Thoughts on the Oscar Nominees

Andy Serkis & Tiffany Haddish

Okay, so if you've noticed a lack of posting, first off, bless you for checking in, and secondly, I'm on vacation, road-tripping through nine states and unlike past vacations, I didn't get ahead of my posts and have been too busy trying to actually vacate (I start a new job in two weeks for the first time in many years, so I'm trying to relax before the storm) so posts have been sparse.  However, yesterday was the Oscar nominations, and I figured it was important to get a random thoughts article out as we normally do since this is one of the biggest days of the year around here.  Without further adieu, here are 30 random thoughts I have on this year's nominees:

1. I was genuinely thinking CMBYN would miss in Best Picture, so it's a relief to see it nominated.
2. What was the deal with The Post?  It's so obviously up Oscar's alley, it got decent reviews, and it has perhaps the most resonant message of this year, and yet only managed two nominations?  Someone point me in the direction of a think piece, as Phantom Thread managed to rebound on the "released too late" front, so why couldn't this?
3. The Shape of Water feels like this is its best sucker punch to Three Billboards so far this season (with McDonagh missing), but it's still a movie about a woman having sex with a fish, so I am not counting it our Best Picture winner just yet...also I continue to have a feeling Get Out could surprise.
4. If you think about Daniel Kaluuya's nomination objectively for two seconds (he's young, hot, an unknown, and in the "straight leading role against more distinctive supporting characters"), it seems odd that he ever gained this traction.  Kaluuyahah, indeed (and everyone who is bagging on Tiffany Haddish this morning needs to get a life-I thought she was funny, particularly her Dunkirk aside, and she had to watch her Oscar chances slip away so give her a break on the pronunciations).
5. Then again, this Best Actor lineup is going to end up being a 1975/1994-style lineup, isn't it?  Weak year, relatively uninspired list of nominees (Denzel gets in again for a movie that people have already forgotten existed...even though he's actually very interesting in the part).  I'm still surprised they didn't throw us for a complete loop like Gyllenhaal or Bale or something here since there was room for it.
6. Meryl gets fifth place, but adds on #21 since we don't see the vote totals.  That Best Actress lineup is going to look as set as 2006 in hindsight, but really the precursors got creative where Oscar chose not to do so.
7. First doubly-nominated film in Supporting Actor since Bugsy, though I'm stunned people didn't go for at least one CMBYN actor.
8. Octavia Spencer is going to get nominated again before Viola Davis does.
9. Well done to Lesley Manville, our only No Globes/No SAG nominee this year.  She used to be married to Gary Oldman, you know.
10. I will try not to get on my soap box too hard about unearned nominees, but it is hard to imagine how someone saw Mary J. Blige in Mudbound and thought "that was one of the year's five best performances."  Was it just the music star factor, or does someone actually think what she was doing was "fine acting"...because if so I worry for the acting branch?
11. Kumail Nanjiani is super funny, and his Twitter reactions to his nomination were my favorite of the morning.
12. I guess the writer's branch didn't get the memo on Phantom Thread.
13. Ugh-I had so wanted to avoid seeing Logan, but I guess I have to do so now.  Also, superhero movies inch ever closer to their first Best Picture citation (again, weird that if they liked it here they couldn't get momentum for Patrick Stewart).
14. The Oscars sure avoided a landmine on James Franco, didn't they?  It was probably the stories that broke on him at the last minute that cost him here, but I think it might more have been that actors don't like someone being honored who makes a mockery of acting.
15. Congratulations to Lebanon on their first nomination!  I always love when countries break through that barrier!  I have four movies left to see here, as I don't live in NY/LA, but according to my local theaters/Netflix account, I should have three seen by mid-March.  Get on it, The Insult.
16. Jane may have been the biggest snub of the morning, made all the more disappointing by the fact that it's fantastic, but I haven't seen any of these nominees so I can't totally bag on the snub (though I doubt very seriously that it gets upstaged by all five).
17. Kobe Bryant has more Oscar nominations than Myrna Loy, Donald Sutherland, Sergio Leone, and Jean-Luc Godard, because sure.
18. My biggest disappointment of the morning is that In a Heartbeat wasn't nominated.  It would have been such a great breakthrough for the filmmakers to be cited and it's SO GOOD (check it out, it's short)...I truly hope it's one of the "additional" films they highlight in the ShortsHD roundup.
19. Jonny Greenwood finally breaks through for the Best Score branch.
20. It is so, so hilarious to me that the music branch even got the memo on The Post...but still found room for John Williams because they can't help themselves.  This is his fifth citation for the Star Wars series, and he'll certainly lose-is Williams a good sport like Meryl, or does he just stay home?  The composers never get as good of seats as the actors, so I don't actually know the answer here.
21. All of those song nominees feel like the performances should be good on Oscar night, even if I don't agree with all of them.  I didn't notice until this morning that Diane Warren is cited...can she get a Kevin O'Connell-style movement going, or does she lose to Pasek & Paul?
22. The 5/5 matchup in Sound means I have an even harder task of explaining the difference between Sound Mixing & Sound Editing to lay fans of the Oscars this year.
23. Hoyte von Hoytema FINALLY gets his nomination.  Is it he or Laustsen who is Deakins' biggest competition this year?  And also, does anyone else feel like this is Deakins year?  I've got that vibe.
24. I wish I was more excited about Rachel Morrison breaking that glass ceiling, but Mudbound is by far the least inspired of an otherwise stellar lineup, and I can think of a dozen movies that had better cinematography without batting an eye.  Still cool that a woman finally was cited, but man do I wish they'd actually deserved it.
25. Beauty and the Beast's sets were about as inspired as a Disneyland ride, because that's essentially what they were.
26. I genuinely love Jacqueline Durran, but neither of those nominations were earned, particularly against something like Wonderstruck or The Lost City of Z.
27. In what universe does I, Tonya deserve an editing nomination (the skate sequences alone should have disqualified it), or Three Billboards, for that matter, which has literally no editing panache
28. Still, well-done to Baby Driver as those are all deserved Oscar citations.
29. War for the Planet of the Apes won't win, but at some point we're giving Andy Serkis an honorary Oscar, right?
30. With Kong: Skull Island breaking through, I officially have seven OVP films that I need to see still...otherwise we could have write-ups shortly (and yes, when I return from vacation we'll get back into 2015).  Also, I will start knocking out the nominated films' reviews as soon as I'm done with vacation, as I know I have a few (including at least three Best Picture nominees) that I haven't brought up here on the blog yet.

OVP: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Film: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Stars: Andy Serkis, Toby Kebbell, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell

Director: Matt Reeves

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I don’t always catch a film during the height of its popularity.  Whether it’s a friend cancelling on you (totally the case here) or because I cannot afford the film that week (the case most of the time) or simply because I didn’t have an interest in the film initially and then was convinced to go later, I find that there are the rare summer flicks that I head out to a few weeks after they are released.  That was the case with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which assuredly most of you have already gone to and have parceled through and formed your opinions toward.  However, forgive me my tardiness and let me belatedly join the discussion.

(Spoilers Ahead) Three years ago when the first film in the revival came out, I was kind of flummoxed.  Why was a film this good being tagged onto a series that included a truly awful recent revival?  It was like Edward Norton’s Hulk film, except superb.  The movie, with some wonderfully inventive stop-motion effects and a powerhouse performance by Andy Serkis, surprised audiences by being a deep, fascinating look at the hubris of man paired with a wonderful action sequence at the tail end of the film.  We pick up about a decade after those events in Dawn, when a Simian flu has swept the planet, killing off billions and leaving the human race in a state of abject decay.  Meanwhile, the apes who raided San Francisco now number into the thousands and continue to advance with both their language and cognitive skills.

The film is at its best when it is tracking the dawning of different, difficult civilization-building happenings amongst the apes.  Andy Serkis returns as Caesar, and again gives a brilliant performance (people who think animated performance should get their own category at the Oscars are crazy, but that doesn’t mean that Serkis himself couldn’t get a deserved “Honorary Oscar” if the Academy is in the mood considering his pioneering work in stop-motion over the past dozen years).  I love the way that his character seems trapped by his advancement-how he learns the truth about others too quickly and realizes too swiftly how conformity of opinion is impossible to maintain, even if that opinion is “the right one.”

That’s really when the film is at its most fascinating-when it is tackling hard issues such as betrayal and diverging thoughts on government.  The relationship between Caesar and one of his top lieutenants (Koba) is Shakespearean in element, and works well because both creatures are coming into their own knowledge about the world.  We see in this film the pointlessness of war (it says something that the director maintains a pretty solid amount of sympathy for both sides, and that we get to see that both sides are going to war more out of fear than out of any specific reason), and we see how something as pointless as prejudice is the catalyst of such violence.  The film is a technical marvel, and it says something about both the effects team and the writing/acting skills of all those involved that Koba brandishing a machine gun doesn’t strike us as a ridiculous or comic visual, but instead a terrifying one.

My principle problem with the film remains the way that the writers cannot seem to make the human characters interesting.  This wouldn’t bother me so much, but the human characters take up a large chunk of the film.  This was the main problem with the last film, but here we are more reliant on the human characters to carry the story.  Jason Clarke’s Malcolm is haunted by cinematic clichés (dead wife, in love with a wounded woman, estranged and artistic son), and isn’t given enough to do to really overcome his role as a mirror to Caesar.  He isn’t actively bad in his part, though, as Gary Oldman unfortunately is.  I don’t know if Oldman was just confused as to whether he was a villain or not (I know I sure was), but his character is far too underwritten and Oldman does it no favors by acting as if he’s Commissioner Gordon in some scenes and a mad scientist on the brink of discovering an apocalyptic drug in others.  Either way this is the worst part of the film, and that’s a rare sentence to write about such a usually brilliant performer.

Still, though, this is a very good film that seems to only be a disappointment in my eyes because it could have been a marvelous one.  In a sea of summer films where even the good ones had severe flaws (like Guardians of the Galaxy, which doesn’t wear as well as you sit with it), it’s nice to see a movie that was trying to be something important.  It tries to be the sort of summer hit that Gravity is-clearly effects-driven but also so much more.  That it falls short of that goal is a bummer, but this is still a most worthy of ticket-price investments.

OVP: Visual Effects (2011)

OVP: Best Visual Effects (2011)

The Nominees Were...

Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, and John Richardson, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman, and Alex Henning, Hugo

Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor, and Swen Gillberg, Real Steel

Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, and Daniel Barrett, Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler, and John Frazier, Transformers: Dark of the Moon

My Thoughts: We now head into another relatively new category (at least in Oscar terms), that of Visual Effects.  I'm still a bit undecided about whether this category really needs five nominees, as opposed to the more traditional three, but considering where movies have taken us (last year every single one of the Top 10 Box Office films relied heavily on special effects), that probably seems appropriate.

I want to first discuss the films I think deserve to be here the least, and that has to start with the giant boxing robots of Real Steel.  The first question that should go through anyone's mind is who the hell greenlit a movie about giant, boxing robots?  I mean, it did make $300 million, so that person is probably doing just fine with their cushy bonus, but still-this movie made six-times as much as The Tree of Life?  This is why we can't have nice things, people.

While I will try with all of my might to separate the movie from the technical aspect on display, it's hard to deny that this movie is just. plain. stupid.  Boxing robots and a hackneyed portrait of an estranged father/son-come on!  That being said, even the effects are one-dimensional-everything that is happening in this movie was already done, and done far, far better in the Transformers movies.  It's like they took the rejected robots from that franchise, gave them a dash of dirt and mud, and suddenly we are supposed to be amazed, but I'm left unimpressed.  Unless Hugh Jackman's spectacular biceps are what we're judging (in which case, hand over the Oscar right now, because hot damn), this film doesn't deserve to be included on this list.

I also have to kibitz a bit with the Academy's choice of Hugo.  Yes, this film is far superior than Real Steel, but it's not really a step forward in the world of visual effects.  Considering that this category has honored Titanic, The Two Towers, and Avatar, it's difficult to consider Hugo a huge advance in Visual Effects.  And since it isn't a huge advancement, then it should excel in incorporating its effects seamlessly into its story and in making those effects aid its story, and even here, it isn't a huge victory.  I have to admire the 3-D work, but I feel that is more Thelma Schoonmaker's splendid editing than brilliant visual effects work-the movie feels gaudy in places, and while there are splendid sights, I felt a little cold from them toward the end of the movie.

If you're looking for advancements in Visual Effects, it's hard to look further than Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the brilliance of Andy Serkis.  At some point, an Honorary Academy Award seems appropriate for Serkis, who has become a magician when it comes to stop-motion performances.  It's hard to know whether it's Serkis or the above-mentioned team that brings Caesar to life, but that doesn't stop the entire creation from being a triumph.  In a film that had no business being this excellent, we are treated to a dizzying array of apes storming the Bay Area, and we have a superbly tight and compelling storyline to go with the film.  I think part of the reason the film lost was that it may have frightened some Academy members who are worried about visual effects replacing actors onscreen, but I think that Hollywood would be very foolish to go down that path (I think people would reject it as readily as they did the onslaught of 3-D), but an occasional foray into that field, particularly with an actor as excellent as Serkis, would be most welcome.

The effects of our last two entries have the distinct disadvantage of being worlds we are most certainly familiar with-we have made multiple trips with the Autobots and aboard the Hogwarts express.  So it is left to the films' visual artists to try and wow us once-again.  Transformers arguably had the most lavish effect of any film in 2011-the Driller is a stunningly complex work of technological savvy-it's the sort of effect that ensures that people will always want to go to a movie theater to experience movie magic-the biggest screen possible is needed to fully appreciate this marvel onscreen.  The rest of the film also has excellent effects, though few are of the same par as the Driller, and seem to rely largely on previous films, which means that they are exciting, but not exactly ground-breaking, which is a mild disappointment, especially since no one goes to the Transformers movies for the sparkling dialogue and sensical plot structure (I'd feel bad for Frances McDormand for signing on here, except she probably got a house in the Hamptons out of the whole thing).  That said-this film is damn impressive in regards to visual effects, and this isn't a nomination we should be questioning.

The final nomination went to our wizardly trio.  We've already seen Harry's makeup work in a previous entry, and I will admit that this nomination is even more deserved.  Unlike Transformers, which seems to simply be a giant special effect without an actual story to aid it, this is a film that happens to have excellent special effects, but that is clearly not driving the strong plot and characters.  That said, you are left awestruck by the effects on multiple occasions-in particular the aging dragon springing forward from Gringott's and the giant forcefield shielding Hogwarts from impending doom.  Unlike the Michael Bay series, which has been consistently excellent in this department, Harry has seen a stronger crescendo from its earliest films (remember that Troll?) and therefore has more room to grow and amaze as it fleshes out J.K. Rowling's expansive universe.

Other Precursor Contenders: Again, it's hard to find a lot of precursors for tech awards-critics groups seemed to embrace Rise of the Planet of the Apes rather readily, while the Visual Effects Society Awards saw fit to include Captain America: The First Avenger and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides for their top awards, completely skipping Real Steel (Rise and Hugo ultimately won the top prizes).  We actually got to see the shortlist for the Oscars, which obviously included the above five, as well as Captain America, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Pirates, The Tree of Life, and X-Men: First Class, and BAFTA kicked out both the transforming and boxing robots in favor of the more traditional spectacle of War Horse, as well as The Adventures of Tintin (with Potter winning the prize). 

Films I Would Have Nominated: Like I said above, this is a category that should find a balance between honoring groundbreaking works and films that use visual effects to push the narrative and structure of their story-in a perfect world (like in, say, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) it would do both.  Like Rise, The Tree of Life succeeds on both levels.  Bringing in Visual Effects genius Douglas Trumbull, Malick's creation of the universe is a stunning blend of traditional effects and high-speed photography, not just relying on the "been there, done that" nature of computer graphics.  As a result, we are left with one of the most impressive sequences to be put on film since...well, 2001, Trumbull's previous magnum opus.  Also, though the Academy doesn't quite know how to categorize The Adventures of Tintin, but however you classify it, the effects on display are fun and sublime.

Oscar's Choice: Oscar went with the magical robots and twinkling city of lights of Hugo, probably as much for the nostalgia of Melies as for overall recognition of a film the Academy clearly adored.

My Choice: With Trumbull's brilliant work out of contention, this is an easy choice for me-Rise of the Planet of the Apes manages to do that wonderful hat trick of having revolutionary effects, a brilliant story to support them, and a visual effects team that knows when to say "less is more."  In descending order, my next choices would be Harry Potter, Transformers, Hugo, and Real Steel.

And now, of course, I welcome you to discuss in the comments-of the five films, what movie deserved the trophy?  What films should have been nominated?  And of all films in 2011, which had truly the best Visual Effects?

Also in 2011: Makeup, 2011 Recap