Reeling Backward: "Von Richthofen and Brown" (1971)

There's a big difference between low-budget and cheap, and fairly or not Roger Corman's films have usually been associated with the latter.

"The Blair Witch Project" and "El Mariachi" were both made for next to nothing, but few observers would deny the craftsmanship of those pictures. Fewer still would say they saw such qualities in Corman's movies.

From a technical standpoint, he was not a great filmmaker. His eye for compositions was so-so, and his actors often seemed like they were flailing away with little guidance. But he inspired an entire generation of Boomer filmmakers, and made some memorable schlock -- and even some Edgar Allen Poe adaptations with a little ambition -- during his heyday of the 1950s and '60s. (He was given an honorary Academy Award a few years back.)

By 1971 Corman, still only in his mid-40s, was looking to wrap things up as a director. "Von Richthofen and Brown" was his last stint behind the camera for nearly 20 years, when he would direct his final picture, "Frankenstein Unbound." He continued on mainly as a producer thereafter, with a jaw-dropping 400 credits to his name ... and counting.

Regular visitors to this space will know that World War I aviation is a passion of mine, and through the Reeling Backward columns I've continually sought out films about that subject. (Including Howard Hughes' "Hell's Angels" just a couple of weeks ago.)

I guess the reason I find that era so enthralling is that we're talking about these airplanes being used for warfare just a few short years after they were invented. The Wright Brothers flew a few hundred yards in 1902, and a dozen years later their offspring became a key component of the science of war.

These WWI planes were claptrap machines, mostly wood and canvas, firing crude machine guns and powered by engines spewing oil onto their pilots. Early bomb drops were accomplished by the men literally tossing grenades out of the cockpit by hand. The pilot's controls were connected to the wings and fins by cables that could easily be shorn by enemy fire or obstacles.

Every time a new plane was introduced into service, it could turn the entire balance of the war in the air for the next few months. Many experts believe that the Fokker D.VII could have altered the tide of aerial combat if it had been introduced earlier than summer 1918. In just the last few months of the war, the plane racked up an impressive 565 kills. It could even fly straight up vertically for short periods, spraying enemies with gunfire from below.

Baron Manfred von Richthofen never got to fly the D.VII, perishing just before it was introduced into service. His death has remained controversial, but today nearly all historians do not believe the "Red Baron," the greatest flying ace of all time, was killed by a bullet from Canadian pilot Roy Brown. An anti-aircraft battery on the ground almost certainly fired the fatal shot.

Still, the legend has persisted, and Corman -- a pilot and aviation enthusiast himself -- decided to make a picture about the two men. The result, "Von Richthofen and Brown," is an authentic-looking film filled with complex fight scenes involving a dozen or more aircraft. The story, however, is pretty much a total concoction.

The movie, written by Jon William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington, essentially keeps the names and basic facts about notable German and Allied pilots in place, while completely fabricating their personalities and history. It's like keeping all the pieces of a chess board, but flipping around where they start and how they can move.

The main difference is that they show the war unfolding over months and years with Brown and von Richthofen on parallel journeys, culminating with their confrontation in the air. In fact, Brown was relatively new to air combat, while the German ace was a national hero. Von Richthofen commanded the most storied air team of the war, "The Flying Circus" -- so named for their brightly-painted aircraft -- while Brown was a comparative nobody.

Both pilots are dedicated to the craft of killing, though from different backgrounds. Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law) is an aristocrat who finds himself freed from earthly concerns up in the air, where he can play the role of hunter stalking a dangerous beast. He believes in a gentlemanly approach to war, where soldiers can kill their enemy without hating him, and aggressively bring the fight to him without endangering civilians or medical personnel.

Brown, played by Don Stroud, is a surly maverick who rejects his British comrades' vision of themselves as knight-errants out for some derring-do. He refuses to drink to von Richthofen, raising the ire of his fellow pilots, and espouses surprise tactics to take out their enemies before they have a chance to retaliate. He also organizes a raid on the German airfield, which prompts a brutal reprisal.

Brown is the cynical, jaded yin to von Richthofen's courageous, brash yang. Neither man quite fit in with the military hierarchy around him, but eventually bent it to his will.

The aerial fight scenes are energetic, though it's often hard to follow the action of who exactly is chasing who. In the finale fight Corman shows planes suddenly exploding into a million pieces, which is virtually impossible given the composition of the craft and the effectiveness of guns back then. Mostly the planes start smoking, and the stunt pilots turn them into sharp dives to simulate an aerial death.

Still, Corman's film amply shows off the acrobatics of these delicate pieces of machinery, tumbling and rolling and side-slipping through the sky.  It's important to remember that these planes traveled at about the same speed we now drive on the interstate.

Characterizations are kept to a pretty bare minimum. The main antagonist of the film is Hermann Göring (Barry Primus), the infamous Nazi leader who was a notable pilot in the first world war. Göring is shown opposing von Richthofen's genteel tactics and competing with him for command of the Flying Circus. In actuality, they never served together and Göring only took command well after the Red Baron's death.

As a piece of cinematic entertainment, "Von Richthofen and Brown" is a passably good war drama with some ambitious aerial sequences. As history it's pretty much useless. But it's certainly not a cheapie.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Rust and Bone"

"Rust and Bone" isn't about the relationship between two characters so much as their intersection.

These are people leading separate and very different lives until a random encounter at a bar. She gets into a drunken scrap, and he is the bouncer who helps her get home. Things would probably have ended there, except that she suffers a horrible tragedy and reaches out to someone, anyone who can serve as a lifeline. He's available and willing, and they form a bond that is something more than friendship, but less than soul mates.

Marion Cotillard gives a brave, understated performance as Stéphanie, a woman who trains orca whales at the French equivalent of Sea World. She loves her job, though it's clear from her expression during a performance that it's gotten a bit stale for her. Then an accident occurs, the stage supporting the trainers crashes into the water tank, and Stéphanie wakes up in the hospital to find both her legs have been amputated.

"What have you done with my legs?!?" she shrieks at the helpless nurse, in a scene that pierces us with its emotional thrust.

Director Jacques Audiard ("A Prophet"), who co-wrote the screenplay with Thomas Bidegain based on a short story by Craig Davidson, is circumspect about what exactly happened to her. Shots of the killer whale approaching with teeth thrashing would suggest that the panicked animal bit off her legs. No one else from the show was apparently injured, so this seems the best explanation.

Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a young roustabout with a 5-year-old son, Sam (Armand Verdure), in tow. When we first meet them, they are riding on a train, hungry and desperate. Ali scrapes together leftover food from the empty seats to keep them fed. He boosts a phone from a store, fleeing the security as Sam stands a few feet away.

We're not exactly sure what has happened, but the pair is completely indigent. They are traveling to Ali's sister, Anna (Corinne Masiero) for refuge. Ali has worked itinerant as a security guard, and manages to cobble together a couple of jobs at the bar and night security at a big-box store.

At the latter he meets Martial (Bouli Lanners), who installs secret cameras throughout the store. Ostensibly these are to monitor the customers, but Martial confides they are actually to spy on the employees. Martial also runs a side business managing street fighters, and recruits Ali. It's fast money, and a lot of it, so he's eager to dive in, shrugging off the threat of injury.

Neither Ali or Stéphanie are perfect, or even necessarily good, people. Stéphanie confesses that her relationships with men involve her teasing and taunting them, getting them turned on and then dumping them when she soon grows bored. There's no hint of what happened to her current beau after her accident, but either he took off her she shut him out. She spends a few months isolating herself in a convalescence home, seeing virtually no one until she gives Ali a call out of the blue.

Ali is both easier and harder to understand. He exists as pure id, a man comfortable with physical brutality who does not seem to spend more than a few seconds pondering anything. When people ask him how he is, he tends to just say "normal" or "OP," meaning operational. To him, as long as there is food, work, a place to sleep, someone to watch over his kid (something he tends to slack off on) and occasional sex, life is grand.

To say that Ali is not in touch with his feelings is an understatement; he's not in touch with anyone else's feelings, either. Sometimes we get the sense he's unacquainted with the very concept of feelings.

The push and pull of their relationship goes back and forth. At first she is the driver, leaning on Ali (literally) to help get her out of her shut-in funk. He takes her to the beach for a swim, out to social events, and even offers to sleep with her to find out if her libido has survived her ordeal. (It has. Libidos tend to survive just about everything.)

But then Ali starts to subtly push her away. He waits until they're fairly deep into their friendship before he even reveals he has a son. He takes her with him to his illegal fights. He takes her to a club and then picks up another woman and leaves with her.

I enjoyed "Rust and Bone" for its strong performances, even as I never really felt like I got under the characters' skins. Ali exists as a Stanley Kowalski-esque primal beast, and her attraction to him is laced with an undercurrent of repulsion that's difficult to grasp.

The story is organic to the point of feeling unstructured, as events unspool without much rhyme or reason. The characters drift about, crashing into each other and then sliding away, so the impacts aren't as forceful as they might be. A little more narrative coherence would have served the filmmakers better.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "The Last Stand"

Just a quick review/rumination on "The Last Stand" today. Nick Rogers is handling the main review over at The Film Yap, so head over there to check that out for a more complete take.

I see "The Last Stand" as a marker. It's less a movie meant to be enjoyed in its own right than a question for the audience, and the Hollywood machine. And that is: Can Arnold still cut it as an action star?

Based on this old-school shoot-em-up, ably directed by Korean filmmaker Jee-woon Kim, I'd say the answer is definitively yes.

The movie itself is big, dumb and loud. It's one of those flicks where the audience is encouraged not to think much about whether the plot makes a lick of sense or if the characters are thicker than plywood. It's one big excuse to dive into a whole lot of gunfire and mayhem, interrupted by funny bits and Schwarzenegger's patented quips.

"The Last Stand" takes its own good time to get rolling -- the screenplay doesn't really take off until the 45-minute mark -- but once the explosions and machine gun fire starts up, it's a glibly visceral thrill ride the rest of the way.

The plot is straight and simple: a Mexican drug cartel chieftain named Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) has escaped from the feds during a bold breakout in Las Vegas. He's driving a hyper-fast Corvette prototype toward the sleepy Arizona border town of Sommerton Junction. After the various federal law enforcement agencies muck up the job, it's up to the local sheriff, Ray Owens, and his three deputies to stop Cortez.

Now, Schwarzenegger does not look like a "Ray" or an "Owens," but he fits comfortably into the town's laid back culture. We later learn he was once a hotshot Los Angeles narcotics cop who gave up the fast lane 20 years ago to detox in Sommerton.

It's sort of funny to think about the fact that the Austrian Oak has lived in America for 40 years or so, but his thick wiener-schnitzel accent hasn't diminished one iota. Still, it's clear that despite his name and speech, Ray isn't a native -- at one point he tells the bad guy, "You make us immigrants look bad."

Arnie is still a badass in this movie, but a more down-to-earth and human one. He looks a mite stiff and slow during the fight scenes. Schwarzenegger also seems physically smaller, like a Norse titan cut down to size by his earthly existence. I noticed he appeared shorter than a number of his male co-stars. My memory of him is that he towers -- and glowers -- over everyone else.

Other cast members include Johnn Knoxville as Dinkum, the local screwball who operates an ersatz firearms museum -- open every third Thursday of the month, noon to 3 -- just so he can legally own all sorts of high-powered weaponry that will come in handy later. Peter Stormare has a fun role as the kingpin's henchmen, who dresses like an Old West dandy and even fights with an ancient six-shooter.

Luis Guzman is Ray's right-hand man, who suggests they look the other way when the heat comes, but walks tall in the end. Rodrigo Santoro is the town drunk, who happens to be an ex-Marine. And Jamie Alexander is convincing as the only female cop.

At age 65, how  many more movies like this does Arnold Schwarzenegger have left in him? I'd like to think a few -- especially if he comes back in other roles like this where he's not playing a superman, but just a tough old-timer with a few tricks left in him.

Personally, I would love to see him make some more Conan movies -- as I often point out to people, the original Robert E. Howard books took the character out to age 70 or so.

The most telling moment in "The Last Stand" comes at the end. Having defeated the bad guy -- what, you didn't think he would? -- the sheriff is sitting on the curb, torn up and bloody from his travails. Over walks the FBI chief (Forest Whitaker) who had been overseeing the chase from afar, offering Ray information, advice and not a little condescension.

Ray goes to stand up, struggles to do so, and the G-man holds out a hand to help him up. He glares at the outstretched hand, clearly peeved that it is seen as being necessary. Then he winces with pain, bows to the inevitable and lets the younger man help him to his feet.

Time catches us all, and even the biggest action movies stars should have the grace to acknowledge it.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Mama"

I'm openly skeptical of PG-13-rated horror films, but the coolly creepy "Mama" passes the fright test.
This unnerving movie crawls its way under your skin and just keeps scratching at you, like an insect that has burrowed its way in and just keeps sinking its proboscis deeper. The filmmakers effectively blend computer-generated effects, jumpy editing and haunting sound effects for terrifying scares.

But they also manage that rare trick of weaving a pervasive blanket of dark mood, an almost suffocating sense of dread that sets up the boo-gotcha moments.

The film, produced by Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, boasts a largely Spanish-language crew. Director Andrés Muschietti, who co-wrote the script with sister Barbara Muschietti and Neill Cross, expanded their 2008 short film of the same name. Astonishingly, all three principles are feature film first-timers.

The story begins with a man (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) killing his wife and kidnapping their two young daughters. But the escape turns to even deeper tragedy when they crash in remote Cotton Forge, and all three disappear.

Flash forward five years, and the man's brother Luke (Coster-Waldau again) has been paying hunters to search for any sign of his family. Just as his money runs out, the girls are located living in a ramshackle cabin, subsisting as feral creatures who crawl about on all fours.

Brought back for psychological counseling, the sisters are placed into Luke's custody along with his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain). A punk rocker bedecked in tattoos, Goth makeup and a perpetual sneer, Annabel isn't crazy about suddenly becoming an instant stepmom to two little girls who barely even talk.

Their psychiatrist (Daniel Kash) helpfully explains that the sisters survived in part by creating an imaginary protector they called Mama, the memory of whom will fade as they gradually bond with Luke and Annabel.
But then, as they say, strange things start to happen.

At first the girls -- Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) -- seem odd, but fairly harmless. They doodle on the wall with crayons, and Lilly sleeps under her bed. Annabel grows more suspicious when she overhears them humming to themselves, and then their voices are joined by a deeper, haunting one.

"Mama" isn't terribly hard to suss out, both in terms of the apparition's nature and where the story will go. But the filmmakers make up in tone and atmosphere what they lack in novelty.

Chastain, newly nominated for her second Oscar, is solid in a somewhat underwritten role. Annabel is resentful and rebellious about the situation she's forced into, but slowly takes up the mantel of maternal warrior. Her scenes with the young actresses playing the sisters (both spot-on) have a distinct emotional tug you don't expect in a frightfest.

The CG used for Mama (Javier Botet did the stop-motion capture) is really good, a smoky mix of root tendrils, inky goo and insects. Mama feels like she just crawled up out of the earth, full of wriggly energy and animalistic primal urges. I could almost smell her.

Muschietti plays it for maximum effect, only letting us see suggestions and glimpses of Mama for most of the film. This movie is a prime example of how computerized imagery can enhance a cinematic experience without overwhelming it.

As a scary movie purist, I can't help pointing out "Mama" could have been even better with some judicious gore to amp up the white-knuckle experience. Still, as PG-13 horror goes, this is about the best I've seen since "The Ring."

3 stars out of four

Video review: "The Other Dream Team"

During a slow week for new video releases, you might want to take a timeout from mainstream fare to see “The Other Dream Team,” a scrappy little documentary about the Lithuanian national basketball team.

Playing in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the Lithuanians did not prove much of an actual challenge to the better-known Dream Team, which consisted of American NBA stars like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. (The U.S. beat them 127-76.)

But the team from Lithuania, which had for decades been absorbed as part of the Soviet Union, made history representing themselves as a sovereign nation – winning the bronze medal and defeating the Russian team in the process.

Director Marius A. Markevicius keeps the pace zippy, mixing archival footage of basketball games, news reels of Lithuanians marching for their independence as the Iron Curtain fell, plus contemporaneous interviews with the players and their opponents. Some are familiar faces – like Arvydas Sabonis and Sarunas Marciulionis, who both went on to productive NBA careers – while many others we’re meeting for the first time.

Particularly interesting is the portion about the 1988 Olympics, in which a USSR team with four Lithuanian starters beat the heavily-favored American squad. It led directly to the creation of the U.S. Dream Team. And it helped Lithuanians see that, despite being a tiny nation of 3 million, they could compete against the best teams from across the globe.

One misstep is repeatedly returning to the tale of Jonas Valanciunas, a Lithuanian player who ended up being drafted by the Toronto Raptors in 2011. Valanciunas isn’t a very compelling screen presence, and Markevicius doesn’t adequately tie in his story to that of the ’92 national team.

Still, “The Other Dream Team” is an often thrilling portrait of young men who were playing for their country at a time when it was shrugging off the shackles of totalitarianism. They were living the real hoops dream.

Video extras are fairly measly. There’s an audio commentary track by the director and his co-writer/producer, Jon Weinbach, plus a Q&A segment with the same pair.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 2 stars

Reeling Backward: "Hombre" (1967)

Paul Newman, of course, looks about as much like an American Indian as I do an Aboriginal chieftain. Even as half-breed Apache John Russell, it's an entirely unconvincing portrait -- the bad wig and bandana he wears briefly during the opening scene doing nothing to help.

But Russell is a compelling anti-hero in "Hombre," notable for two reasons. First, he's a powerful advocate for a revisionist look at how Indians are portrayed in Western films, delivering a stern uppercut to white characters who look disdainfully down on his people. To the snooty upper-crust woman who talk in horrified tone about seeing some Apaches eat dog meat, he tells her she's never known real hunger. "You'd eat dog, and fight for the bones."

And that line gives a clue to the other aspect of the character: He is one of the unkindest, most unlikable men  you're apt to meet in a mainstream film. He kills without enjoyment, but he does so with a total lack of hesitation or compassion. Russell is not above shooting a man in the back after he's come to parley if he thinks the other a threat.

Lots and lots of men of this ilk are portrayed in movies, particularly Westerns, but their grimness is always a front for a fairly typical heroic outlook ... or, at the very least, their severity is eventually triumphed by altruistic feelings. Think of the Man with No Name, whose trilogy was recently profiled in this space. Clint Eastwood wears the visage of a selfish killer, but almost from the get-go he's looking to help out the downtrodden.

Not John Russell. Newman's steely performance makes quite clear that he gives not a fig for the Caucasians (and one Mexican) with whom he shares a stagecoach. when they find out he's half-Indian, Russell is forced to ride up top with the driver. When the coach is stopped and robbed by bandits -- one of them hidden among the passengers -- Russell is ready to let them all die so long as he's not harmed.

In the end, of course, Russell does sacrifice himself for the greater good. But it's damn clear he's not happy about doing it. It's an act of heroism, but executed with a sneer and resignation rather than a kind heart.

Elmore Leonard must hold some kind of record for most novels turned into films, due in part to the fact that he leapt through genres gleefully. Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch adapted the book for the screenplay, turning in a spare, economical script with surprisingly little dialogue. Russell himself rarely speaks more than a sentence or two at a time.

Director Martin Ritt was a well-regarded journeyman who had previously worked with Newman on "Hud," "The Long, Hot Summer" and and several other pictures. Visually "Hombre" isn't terribly novel, though Ritt has a flair for extreme close-ups of faces that is in some ways reminiscent of Sergio Leone.

His real strength as a filmmaker, I think, was in eliciting sharp, strong performances from his cast. All the characters in "Hombre," from the lead to the smallest supporting role, have a resonance and authenticity that's gripping. Even a Mexican bandit (Frank Silvera) -- who's only credited as "Mexican bandit" -- gets a few choice lines and a dramatic death scene.

It's no surprise that Ritt, who scored only one Oscar nomination during his long career, saw his films garner an astonishing 11 Academy Award acting nominations, with two wins.

The plot is pretty bare, though it bears some similarities to an updated version of John Ford's classic "Stagecoach."

A party of disparate souls are packed together for a journey through dangerous lands, with one of them an outcast. Russell, who had been corralling horses in the mountains with other Apaches, learns the white father who adopted him has died and left him a boarding house. He takes one look at it and the harried, soulful woman running the place and decides to sell it for a herd of horses.

Jessie (a terrific Diane Cilento), acts as the moral conscience of the group, repeatedly trying to shame Russell into helping the others instead of just looking out for himself. Jessie has her own problems. In addition to just losing her livelihood, she proposes marriage to her boyfriend, the local sheriff Braden (Cameron Mitchell), and is told, "Not a chance." By her own reckoning she's been married, widowed, used and abused, but she has a strong sense of self and is in some ways hardier than Russell himself.

Fredric March plays Favor, an elderly professor and Indian agent who's been robbing Russell's tribe blind, carrying $12,000 in cash along with his much younger refined bride, Audra (Barbara Rush). Also along for the ride are Billy Lee (Peter Lazer) and Doris (Margaret Blye), a very young and recently married couple whose lives seem headed toward misery. Mendez (Martin Balsam) runs the coach line and is the closest thing in the world Russell has to a friend.

Last and least is Cicero Grimes, the head of the robber gang who poses as a passenger (by intimidating a soldier into giving up his ticket). Richard Boone has a splendid turn as the amoral Grimes, who's relentless and folksy at the same time. He's a loathsome man -- at one point he makes a semi-serious rape attempt on Doris -- but the movie only hits its highest gear when he's around.

3.5 stars out of four

The Year of the Snub: Oscar nominations

 Somebody really doesn't like Ben Affleck.

Make that a lot of somebodys -- at least in Hollywood, where Affleck failed to score a much-expected nomination for directing the political drama "Argo."

Kathryn Bigelow being ignored for director also seems high puzzling, and probably quite infuriating to critics of the Academy Awards' long history of ignoring female filmmakers. It's hard to see how "Zero Dark Thirty" isn't among the contenders for best-directed movies of the year.

In a better-than-average year for movies, the Oscars seem to be making 2012 the Year of the Snub. The nominations announced earlier today seem notable more for who they excluded than those who were honored.

Quentin Tarantino was also left off the list of director nominations, though that was expected after a growing backlash to "Django Unchained" and the fact that he wasn't nominated by the Director's Guild of America, one of the closest harbingers of the Academy Awards. Tom Hooper's lack of recognition for "Les Miserables" indicates a tepid regard for that film -- which has gotten decent but hardly great reviews, and the film I picked for the #1 spot on my list of the best.

I was thrilled to see Joaquin Phoenix get a Best Actor nod for "The Master." The film is ambitious and troubling, and I have many problems with it, but Phoenix gave the performance of the year, in my humble opinion. Yes, it was filled with lots of tics and "behavior," but he brought a real center to that character and made those physical manifestations a part of the gestalt, rather than defining the role.

At the same time, I am absolutely crushed about the lack of a nomination for John Hawkes for "The Sessions," and the general disregard the Academy seemed to hold for that wonderful film. No Best Picture, Director or Screenplay nominations. That's just staggering to me. Helen Hunt's nod for supporting actress was its only nomination.

Instead, Academy voters seem to have made a point of honoring smaller pictures, especially foreign ones that few people have seen. Normally I'm all for the Oscars recognizing the smaller-budget non-Hollywood stuff -- it's just that this year they bestowed their graces on the wrong  movies.

The film that got the biggest bump was the Austrian drama "Amour," about an elderly couple dealing with deteriorating health. It scored nomination for best picture, foreign language film, director, screenplay and actress. I've seen the film and found it worthy, but it's an extremely well-executed version of a story we've seen many, many times before. I half-jokingly referred to it as "Million Franc Baby" and "My Old, Paralyzed Left Foot." The movie held zero surprises for me.

I hate to say it, but the Best Actress category seems to have been stacked just so they can brag about having the oldest nominee ever (Emmanuelle Riva in "Amour") and the youngest ever (Quvenzhané Wallis) in "Beasts of the Southern Wild." I don't think either is particularly deserving.

First of all, Riva doesn't even really have the lead role in that film -- the actor playing her husband does nearly all of the heavy lifting. And yes, Wallis was very good for a 6-year-old in "Beasts." But there's little interior to that role, just outward behavior.

I know lots of people were overwhelmed by the primal beauty of "Beasts of the Southern Wild," but it struck me as a lyrical tale about terrible parents forcing their kids to live in abject poverty so they could get high all the time.

Putting those two in over Meryl Streep in "Hope Springs," Helen Mirren in "Hitchcock" or Mary Elizabeth Winstead for "Smashed" is just plain wrong.

"Perks of Being a Wallflower," one of the most sensitive portrayals of high school existence in years, came out with a great big goose egg -- no nominations. Outrageous.

The award for biggest surprise nomination probably goes to Jacki Weaver for "Silver Linings Playbook." She was solid playing the harried mother, but it's a very modest part. Her character stays in the background the entire time. Robert De Niro at least has a few scenes that belong to the dad.

What about Doona Bae in "Cloud Atlas?" What about Javier Bardem in "Skyfall," Jude Law in "Anna Karenina," William H. Macy in "The Sessions?"

"Life of Pi" also did unexpectedly well, with nominations for best picture, director, screenplay and some technical awards. It's a very good film that hardly anybody saw. It's not in the top five in any of those categories for me, but I'm not upset about seeing it in there.

Big winners:

Silver Linings Playbook
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Amour

Big losers:

Argo
The Sessions
The Perks of Being a Wallflower