Plummer, Mirren deserving of Oscar nods
Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren both properly earned Academy Award nominations for their performances in Michael Hoffman's Oscar-baiting domestic drama "The Last Station." Plummer plays the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Mirren plays his wife of 50 years, the Countess Sofya.
She suspects, properly so, that her husband's disciple Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) has been plotting against her by convincing the novelist to renounce his fortune and literary rights and surrender everything he owns to "the people."
The battle-of-wills that ensues is witnessed through our narrative touchstone, Tolstoy's young and handsome assistant Valentin (James McAvoy), a bumbling virgin who falls hard for Tolstoy's libertine daughter Masha (Kerry Condon), who supplies the movie with its under-AARP demographic appeal.
"Last Station" has a much better buildup than payoff. The story actually loses momentum the longer it plays, and writer/director Hoffman saddles McAvoy and Giamatti with one-note characters who are barely more than plot contrivances. (Seriously, does Giamatti's villain need to constantly twirl his evil mustache?)
Plummer and Mirren make this movie. Their scenes together spark and sizzle with the kind of keen instincts and performance precision that only comes with a wealth of experience and talent. They're the show in "The Last Station."
It opens today at the Century Centre in Chicago, the Evanston CineArts 6 and the Renaissance Place in Highland Park. It may expand at a later date. Rated R for nudity and sexual situations. 112 minutes. . . .
Oscars revealed!Join me and James Bond novelist/film historian Raymond Benson as we fearlessly predict the winners of the 82nd Academy Awards. Will it be Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" or "Avatar," by her ex-husband James Cameron? See clips from the major nominees. The program's free! And it's at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 11 at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, 500 N. Dunton Ave., Arlington Heights. Go to ahml.info or call (847) 392-0100.Two Jims make it rightDann: Your article (on the Oscar nominee predictions) accidentally refers to Diane Kruger as the "vengeful theater owner" in "Inglourious Basterds" when, in fact, the role was played by Melanie Laurent. Diane Kruger played Bridget von Hammersmark. - Jim AyelloDann: (Also in the same story) The sport featured in the film "Invictus" is rugby, not soccer. - Jim Schaefer, Mount ProspectJims: Thank you for your corrections. I had the right information in my original reviews, and I attribute my errors to a Diet Snapple overdose while on deadline. - Dann'Frozen' - cold terrorI don't normally cringe and shield my eyes during movies, but I did during Adam Green's dread-filled terror film "Frozen." I might have even whimpered a bit when the wolves entered the picture.This simple, nail-biter survival story introduces us to three snowboarders, Dan (Kevin Zegers), his girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell) and best friend Joe (Shawn Ashmore). We spend some boring moments getting to know these ordinary young people. Then one night, they are accidentally trapped on a ski lift 100 feet in the air as the lodge staff kicks off for the next five days.Unlike Green's earlier horror film - the style-challenged, disappointing riff of 1980s mad slasher film clich#233;s titled "Hatchet" - "Frozen" preys on real phobias. Fear of heights and fear of freezing to death. We can add fear of being eaten alive by wolves, too.(I didn't realize that scratching your frostbitten face actually tears your skin, did you?)Green pumps his movie full of heightened reality as the riders decide what to do as panic sets in, along with a snowstorm and dropping temperatures.Will Barratt's camera lens finds fresh, provocative ways to frame and shoot Green's cast so the visuals never feel redundant or dull. That's quite an accomplishment, considering the limited subject matter, three people in a dangling chair.If you got the heebie-jeebies watching "Open Water," you'll freak out watching "Frozen.""Frozen" opens today at area theaters. Rated R for violence and language. 94 minutes.