A boy's time travel adventure

French illustrator Ugo Bienvenu's Arco tells an  environmentally conscious story that follows 10-year-old Arco through a time-travel trip. Arco leaves a calm, futuristic world, heading backward into a more turbulent 2075. The story follows a basic adventure arc: Arco (Juliano Krue Valdi) has yet to turn 12, the age at which time travel is allowed. Sensing he may have gotten more than he bargained for, Arco tries to return home. Once he arrives in the past, Arco meets Iris (Romy Fay), a girl who becomes his companion and helpmate. Natalie Portman, one of the movie's producers, Mark Ruffalo, and Will Ferrell provide additional voice work, but the movie's real star is Bienvenu, whose imaginative creations include bubble shields that protect the suburban neighborhoods of 2075 from toxic fumes and raging fires. Iris's parents are so busy working, they rely on holographic figures to interact with their kids. A robot named Mikki handles the family's parenting chores. Despite environmental threats, Arco's overall mood lacks the caustic sting of many futuristic adventures. Nominated for an Oscar in the animated-feature category, the film -- Bienvenu's first -- layers emotion into the relationship between Arco and Iris, which anchors the story in the language of more conventional animated efforts. Still, a high level of craftsmanship bolsters Bienvenu's efforts, adding plenty of artistic uplift.

An actress tackles a sensational story

  Gracie was 36 when she slept with Joe. He was 13. 

  She went to jail for her choice and gave brith to a baby (his) while incarcerated. May December,  a movie about the aftermath of their affair, begins 20 years after Joe and Gracie made national news.

   The age difference disturbs, of course, but equally important, is the fact that Joe's marriage deprived him of the opportunity to grow into the role of husband and father. Joe and Gracie, who live in Savannah, Ga., have three kids, all older than Joe was when their life-changing affair began.

   In what feels like an attempt to give the story some mind-bending dimension, director Todd Haynes focuses on the arrival of Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), an actress who will play Gracie (Julianne Moore) in a movie that's soon to start filming.

   Elizabeth becomes increasingly insistent as she explores the lives of the characters who lived the story.

   Absorbing and quietly challenging, May December engages us in a pursuit similar to the one Elizabeth undertakes. We're continually trying to process scenes that don't quite compute, a father trying to relate to a teenage son who's going through a stage he never experienced.

     As she tires to nail the character, Elizabeth meets Gracie and her two twins (Gabriel Chung and Elizabeth Yu), teens who are about to graduate from high school, leaving Gracie and Joe (Charles Melton) as empty-nesters. An older daughter — the one born in prison — already has left home.

     Think about your life. Is the person you loved at 17 someone you could have spent the rest of your days with?  We wonder whether Joe and Gracie really love each other or have backed themselves into a corner, trapped into justifying behavior few would condone.

    The screenplay's focus on acting elevates content that easily might have turned trashy. As a result, May December hinges on Portman's performance as an actress who tries to penetrate Gracie's soul, ultimately in shockingly disreputable ways. Can acting be viewed as an invasion of privacy, even an act of aggression?  

   Under the guise of professionalism, Elizabeth also explores the salacious nature of the material. When she visits the stock room in the pet shop where both Gracie and Joe once worked and where they were caught having sex, she allows her imagination to reproduce Gracie's moment of ecstatic abandon. 

     Fortunately, the owner of the pet shop remains otherwise occupied and out of view.

    Portman's performance requires a degree of subtlety and seduction. Initially, she must seduce the audience, asking that we grant her the presumption of professional curiosity. But as the movie develops, Elizabeth's twisted psyche becomes more evident.

   Elizabeth’s quest broadens the movie’s scope: She talks to a variety of Savannah residents, including the man to whom Gracie was married (D.W. Moffett) at the time of her dalliance. She also meets with the lawyer (Lawrence Arancio) who represented Gracie at her trial and with her son (Cory Michael Smith) from her first marriage.

      Questions of control -- Gracie's over Joe and the rest of her family -- are reflected in the way Moore shifts identities: mother, seductress, wife, and lover.  

      Only Melton's Joe seems an innocent participant in a drama he never really controlled. Joe breeds butterflies, an overly obvious symbolic reference to his inability to escape the cocoon of his marriage and blossom into a fully developed adult.

       Should we believe Gracie when, late in the movie, she insists that Joe initiated their sexual relationship? And even if her assertion were true, does it altar the fact that she was an adult and he was still a kid?

      Those familiar with Haynes's work (Far From Heaven and Carol) won't be surprised that Haynes has little interest in sanctioning his characters or generating undue sympathy for Gracie, a woman who, after all, spent time in jail for second-degree rape.

      In the end, May December is as much about the way Haynes and his two principal actresses toy with the story than about the story itself. He provokes us to ask questions that revolve around a central inquiry,  "What becomes of people who have lived through this kind of experience?"

    With a screenplay by Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, May December is more than a trashy TV movie. Viewers may disagree about how much more because Haynes can confound as much as he clarifies, leaving us to wonder whether we're meant to take everything we see at face value.

     Whatever you decide, you may find yourself realizing that in the game Haynes and his cast of characters are playing, no one emerges victorious. 

Love, thunder, and a ton of silliness

     Director Taika Waititi follows his last Marvel outing, Thor: Ragnarok, with Thor: Love and Thunder and achieves pretty much the same result. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

    This edition of Thor adds more winking fun to a Marvel Universe that sometimes takes itself too seriously.

    Thor, of course, is a god. In case you’ve been wondering, gods do suffer. In this case, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been pining over a lost love, Natalie Portman's Jane Foster. 

   Love aside, the story wisely begins by introducing its villain, a character with one of the better marvel names, Gorr, The God Butcher (Christian Bale under a ton of prosthetics that make his head resemble a rotting hard-boiled egg.) 

    What's troubling Gorr? He hates the gods for not answering his prayers and saving his dying daughter. He decides that the best way to avenge himself is to kill every god.

   After acquiring a magical sword that will help him destroy the gods, Gorr gets to work.

    Of course,  other characters populate this shamelessly over-stuffed movie.

   Although his role isn't large, Russell Crowe brings an enjoyably odd accent to the role of Zeus. I've seen the accent described as "Mediterranean." Whatever it is, Crowe gives the movie a strange, campy quality that he underscores when Zeus playfully flounces the skirt-like garment he wears under his armor.

    If you judge only by the trailer, Love and Thunder isn't much to look at: Waititi and his team give Zeus's godly realm a gaudy golden grandeur and splay the story across a variety of sets ranging from low-rent to elaborate. 

    Tessa Thompson plays the movie's other main character, Valkyrie, a woman who runs a theme park version of Asgard, one of nine realms that ... Oh, who cares? 

   Only Marvel obsessives can keep track of all these characters, universes, and crossover features. I've given up even trying.

    Know, though, that the Guardians of the Galaxy make an appearance in Love and Thunder. Moreover, Korg, the rock creature voiced by Waititi, appears in what amounts to an extended cameo.

    In a possible bow to feminism, Portman's Jane Foster -- also known as The Mighty Thor -- wields Thor's hammer,  a task made more poignant by the fact that in her human incarnation Jane, an astrophysicist by trade, has terminal cancer.

   God? Human? Human who can assume godlike qualities? Let's just say Jane goes through changes.

   The movie has a mild emotional kick, but for me, it's saved by its unashamed silliness. Could we have done without it? Sure. But at least this disheveled bit of Marvel mayhem leaves you (or at least it left me) smiling.

   Maybe that's because Waititi knows how to be silly without being stupid.

Pop, violence and an attempt to say something

Powerful moments in Vox Lux don't quite add up.

Director Brady Corbet's Vox Lux might be a case of a movie taking a bite out of a big subject but failing entirely to digest it. Filled with pretentious title cards (Act I: Genesis 2000-2001, for example), the movie begins with a school shooting and propels itself toward a portrait of a pop star who's having a bad moment, perhaps after a long series of bad moments involving sex, drugs, and alcohol and trauma dating back to her high-school years.

Corbet opens the film with a riveting display of violence that takes place in the music room of a Staten Island high school. After suffering grave wounds, high-schooler Celeste Montgomery (Raffey Cassidy) writes a mournful song with her older sister (Stacy Martin). Because she's seen as a bona fide national victim, Celeste's song becomes a sensation.

Celeste's career rises from her horrific experience -- with help from a manager, played by Jude Law with an attitude of hard-boiled pragmatism.

Cassidy does a fine job of showing how Celeste -- with help from her sister -- begins to taste the high life that accompanies stardom. Maybe the movie never should have left those teen years in which Celeste still hasn't found her footing.

Natalie Portman takes over the movie's second half as the grown Celeste, who we meet on the day she's supposed to play a concert in her hometown. Natalie is having an awful day for a variety of reasons: She's arguing with her sister, trying to come to terms with her teenage daughter Albertine (also played by Cassidy) and meeting with a press corps that's bound to ask questions about the connection between one of Celeste's videos and another violent incident, a mass shooting on a beach in Europe.

Corbet plunges violence, celebrity, and cultural degradation into a jumbo-sized package as the movie searches for hyper-meanings. But the movie feels most convincing when it isn't reaching for thematic gold but making smaller observations, like how a journalist interacts with Celeste after being warned by a record company executive to stay away from certain subjects.

In a scene between Celeste and her daughter in a Manhattan diner, Corbet's camera generates the kind of uncomfortable immediacy that makes us a third party to their conversation.

But Portman's version of Celeste -- complete with leather jacket, baggy jeans, a New York accent and tons of attitude -- seems forced. To me, her performance screamed of striving more than it suggested a believable character.

Corbet's style, which comes on like fragments from a vivid dream, can't compensate for what I saw as the movie's lack of clarifying viewpoint about the amorphous web that's woven from elements of fame, violence and pop culture.

With Celeste vying for the title of the year's most unpleasant character, Vox Lux sweats its way toward something I think we're meant to take as seriously as the intermittent narration offered by an off-screen Willem Dafoe.

All I can say is that I tried, but I also wondered if effort (a palpable sense of reaching for something) didn’t outweigh the movie’s overall achievement.

A tough look at factory farming

Natalie Portman narrates Eating Animals, a documentary based on Jonathan Safran Foer's book about the horrors of factory farming. Take the word "horrors" seriously; I can't imagine anyone watching this documentary and not giving some thought to becoming a vegetarian. Now, that is not -- I stress -- the position of the documentary. In taking us to a variety of farms run in a humane fashion, the movie makes the case that we ought, at a minimum, not submit to the dictates of industrial-scale farming. To advance the case, we meet farmers who do not raise their animals under extreme conditions, which include horrible overcrowding and the introduction of antibiotics into animal diets. Frank R. Reese, the owner of the Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch, sends his beloved turkeys to their deaths with regret but makes sure that they aren't tormented or force-fed while they're alive. The movie also points out the environmental impact of some kinds of mass-farming operations. Hog waste, for example, can be pumped into outdoor pools that can lead to contamination of local water supplies. In reviewing Safron's 2009 book in the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote: "Mr. Foer's chief contribution to the subject seems to lie in the use of his literary gifts ... to give the reader some very visceral, very gruesome descriptions of factory farming and the slaughterhouse." The same might be said of the movie. Director Christopher Dillon Quinn's documentary seems intended to upset and provoke. Maybe it should. It raises an important question: If we're going to eat meat, don't we have some obligation to consider the welfare of the creatures that supply us with it? Or to put it another way. The novelist Isaac Bashevis Singer was once asked why he was a vegetarian. Health, he replied. Yours, asked the interviewer? No, the chicken's, said Singer.

The ordeal of an iconic First Lady

Natalie Portman stars in director Pablo Larrain's Jackie

The day of President Kennedy's funeral, I and several college pals were positioned directly across from the White House. We'd driven from New Jersey to arrive in DC in time for the somber spectacle. We saw the horse-drawn caisson that carried the president's flag-draped coffin. We heard the hollow sound of hoofs on concrete as the caisson rolled past. We heard the Navy band playing Chopin's inexorably grim funeral march. We saw the riderless horse, a backward boot in its stirrup.

We also saw dignitaries pouring out of the White House, where the funeral procession had traveled after leaving the Capitol: Jacqueline Kennedy, Bobby and Teddy, of course. But I most remember the diminutive Haile Selassie of Ethiopia walking next to the towering Charles de Gaulle, one of the world's great physical mismatches.

The deep sadness and magisterial pomp of the moment was so incredible, none of it felt real.

Somehow we sensed that the nation not only was burying a president, but its belief in a reality protected from extremes. From that moment on, we knew we could discount nothing.

All of that came flooding back to me while watching director Pablo Larrain's Jackie, a movie in which Natalie Portman plays the First Lady whose brave and composed public presence told the rest of us how we were supposed to respond to the unthinkable demise of a president we viewed as invincible and robust.

Larrain uses his camera to turn Jackie into a floating, near spectral presence while at the same time trying to make her as real as the presidential blood that spotted her pink Chanel suit, the one she wore with a pillbox hat. There's a near ethereal quality to Portman's performance, the sense of a woman in the midst of shock, grief and the isolation that came not only from losing a husband, but from living inside the Kennedy mythology.

The movie begins in Dallas and carries through to the state funeral that Jackie planned. Its story is built around a shop-worn contrivance. A journalist (Billy Crudup) travels to Hyannis Port, Mass. to interview Mrs. Kennedy at the Kennedy compound. I couldn't make sense out of Crudup's performance, which seems to lack a great deal of compassion for Mrs. Kennedy and which seems out of synch with the way the country responded to the events of November, 1963.

Mrs. Kennedy tells Crudup's character her version of the events surrounding the assassination. She sometimes reacts in revealing ways that she insists must be kept out of print. She's doing her duty to protect what she knew would become a legend.

The movie makes reference to a famous 1962 televised tour that Jackie gave of the White House in which she sounded doll-like and light-headed. It may help younger audiences to know that comedians used to make fun of Jackie's voice.

Larrain has gone to great lengths to replicate the interior of the White House; he certainly succeeds in creating a credible environment.

Alas, not all of the casting functions in the same way. John Carroll Lynch looks nothing like Lyndon Johnson. Peter Sarsgaard is even less convincing as Robert F. Kennedy. We see glimpses of JFK, who's played by Danish actor Caspar Phillipson.

These missteps are important because for the movie consistently to work, we must believe we're watching real people -- not half-cooked, shadow-play representations.

If there's a point here, it has to do with the notion that during the Kennedy days, the White House was regarded as a modern Camelot, a place where art was respected and people comported themselves with dignity and grace. It was the grandest of illusions, and Jacqueline Kennedy helped to create and sustain it.

There's unquestionable allure in getting behind the scenes -- in seeing a partly speculative account of what led to the moment when I found myself across from the White House.

But it's not always clear what Larrain is after: He gives us a scene in which Jackie meets with a priest (John Hurt), who advises her that the big questions with which she's grappling may be unanswerable. You also may feel you're watching what happens when a heretofore supporting player suddenly finds herself thrust into a central role in a very public drama.

At times, it also feels as if the movie is about the weight of emptiness inside Camelot after the king has died.

Jackie may be about all those things: I suppose Larrain wants us to think that Jackie knew that Camelot was an illusion but somehow managed to believe in it anyway.

A frustrating 'Knight of Cups'

Director Terrence Malick's journey through Los Angeles.

I know many serious film lovers who are slavishly devoted to the films of director Terrence Malick, so much so that they transfer the brilliance and emotional depth of films such as The Tree of Life to lesser works, notably the recent To the Wonder (2012).

With Knight of Cups, Malik provides another test for devotees because this strange foray into the libidinous world of Hollywood leaves a gaping maw of consternation in its wake.

Malick begins with a quote from The Pilgrim's Progress, a 1678 Christian allegory. Author John Bunyan's work about a journey to the Celestial City isn't the only source Malick quotes: He also cites passages from The Hymn of the Pearl, a Gnostic myth about a boy sent to Egypt to retrieve a pearl from a serpent.

I bring all this up not to demonstrate my knowledge of Christian literature, which is -- at best -- confined to perusals of Wikipedia, but to suggest that Malick's willful obscurity seems a frustratingly protracted exercise in navel gazing as filtered through what feels like a dense spiritual fog.

Equally troublesome is Malick's tendency to pepper his films with the barely audible thoughts of his characters. He blurs their speech and de-emphasizes anything resembling human connection. His characters live in worlds of their own.

This approach has been likened to dreams; but dreams and poetry always have been tricky stuff for movies, and they can do a filmmaker in as quickly as they can save him or her.

In Knight of Cups, Malick mostly abandons linear storytelling as he soaks in the often beautiful imagery of his collaborating cinematographer, three-time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki.

Taking its title from a tarot card, Knight of Cups casts the always adventurous Christian Bale as Rick, a screenwriter who's searching for meaning in his generally hollow life. Foundering in a sybaritic material world, Rick is a forsaken man.

When he's not engaged in sexual relationships, Rick is seen walking, driving his vintage convertible or looking at things. Of course, the gifted Lubezki gives Rick (and us) plenty at which to stare as Malick's camera explores Los Angeles.

Because most of Rick's quest (if that's what it is) involves women, Malick finds an opportunity to bring a diverse core of actresses to the screen.

Nancy (Cate Blanchett) plays Rick's ex-wife, a physician who works in a clinic. Karen (Teresa Palmer) appears as a Las Vegas stripper. Helen (Frieda Pinto) works as a model. Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) gets pregnant by Rick. She's married to someone else.

As if flipping through a deck of Tarot cards, Malick structures his story around chapter headings such as The Moon, The Hermit and more. It takes more effort than it's worth to connect these titles to the hazy unfolding of Malick's Los Angeles-based scenes, some which include Rick's father (Brian Dennehy) and his bother (Wes Bentley).

Father and son are locked in an explosively angry duet.

Antonio Banderas presides over a Hollywood party attended by various Hollywood "insiders," a boisterous Bacchanal.

At first, it seems as if Malick wants to make a movie about another lost soul snared by the siren call of Hollywood hedonism. But he also seems to want to give Rick's searchings spiritual meaning: A lost soul, Rick is separated from God and trying to establish a connection or maybe he's just seeking meaning in a godless world or maybe ...

Well, in the end, who really cares what Rick is seeking?

We've all got troubles of our own, and Malick never convinces us (or at least me) that we should get involved with his.

'Thor' swings a mighty (loud) hammer

Thor's motto: Talk loudly and carry a big hammer. Kenneth Branagh's entry into the world of superheroes provides some fun.

Thor drops the hammer that gets the summer-movie parade rolling, and if it doesn't quite hit the nail on the head, it delivers a pretty loud whack.

A Marvel Comics character since 1962, Thor does his hammer throwing in a grandly scaled entertainment that hits the screen with enough sound and fury to leave little room for doubt: Another comic book hero has left his calling card at the nation's multiplexes, and has done so in bold, emphatic fashion.

In chronicling Thor's transition from arrogant warrior to humble king, director Kenneth Branagh goes big, flooding the screen with everything from epic-sized fights to lightening-like flashes of energy to large men wearing Viking helmets that go heavy on horns.

What can I tell you? Any movie that makes room for Frost Giants and Anthony Hopkins can't be accused of taking itself too seriously. Hopkins plays Odin, Thor's father and king of Asgard, the realm where Thor and his fellow Norse gods cavort in robust fashion.

Thor is played by Chris Hemsworth, an Australian actor who looks like a cross between a Norse warrior and a California surfer. Hemsworth, who slips into the American argot as easily as he tosses off the script's portentous dialog, helps keep the movie from swirling down the cosmic drain. He's strong enough to pull a slightly scattered script together, has a godlike physique and manages to make his character more likable as the movie progresses.

After an hour so, you may feel comfortable enough around Thor to call him, "Dude,'' as in "Dude, where's your hammer?" Or maybe, "Dude, I like your cape." Better known for staging Shakespeare than for throwing spears, Branagh piles on the special effects as he paves the way for next year's Avengers movie, an exercise in comic book crossbreeding in which Thor joins other Marvel superheroes.

In this edition, the action alternates between Asgard and Earth. Thor lands in New Mexico after displeasing daddy. As punishment for leading an unauthorized raid on Jotunheim, the realm where the Frost Giants reside, Thor is banished to Earth.

Had Thor been less arrogant, he would have ascended to the throne in the movie's early going. Evidently ready for retirement, Odin wants to cede his kingdom to Thor. But the old king is put off by his son's epic-sized flaws: arrogance, impetuousness and an eagerness to make war.

Thor and Odin have an argument in which they shout mightily. Get used to it. At key moments, the actors don't talk; they bellow.

Working from a script by a trio of writers, Branagh mostly finds the right balance for a comic-book movie, blending action, humor, stabs at grandeur and thematic issues involving fathers, sons, sibling rivalry and a burgeoning love between a mortal and a god.

Natalie Portman portrays Jane, an astrophysicist who catches Thor's eye, setting up a possible romance between a mortal and a god. During his exile on Earth, Thor also encounters a group of scientists led by Erik Selvig, played by Stellan Skarsgard, whose befuddled expression suggests he may be asking himself exactly he's doing in this movie.

Despite her recently acquired best-actress Oscar, Portman's stuck in a supporting role, and she's not as interesting as another of Selvig's colleagues, portrayed by an acerbic Kat Dennings. On the Asgard side, we're introduced to various Thor loyalists, notably Volstagg, an ebullient Norse warrior played by Ray Stevenson with enough hair and beard to clog a thousand drains. A more carefully groomed Tom Hiddleston plays Thor's younger brother, Loki, a character with a complicated background that steers him toward treachery.

As is the case with most such movies, Earthlings in black suits eventually show up to add a note of bureaucratic menace. S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) leads the contingent of black suits; he's an investigator we've already met in the Iron Man movies.

Many of the Asgard scenes sprawl across spectacular backdrops that can't quite disguise their artificial look, but there's enough going on here to please comic-book fans, as well as those who like movies that leave them feeling as if they've been subjected to sonic boom.

And don't look now, but there's more where Thor came from. Due later this summer, another movie taken from Marvel's superhero storehouse: Captain America.

Notes from a forgettable Oscar night

Well, it's over. Oscar night proceeded pretty much as expected, which is not necessarily a good thing. In its 83rd year, Oscar came close to outdoing itself for sheer boredom and predictability. The whole show felt canned, and I'm glad to be done with it. The nominated actors and movies -- actually a strong and estimable group -- deserved better.

As hosts, James Franco and Anne Hathaway displayed little wit and even less facility for working the audience. Was Franco trying to act cool or was he just bored? You know something's amiss when one of the show's liveliest moments comes from a dead guy: The late Bob Hope, a former host, appeared in a black-and-white clip introduced by Billy Crystal.

After a couple of years, it doesn't seem as if the 10-picture format has added anything to the broadcast by way of suspense or increased interest, and Oscar's attempts to reel in younger viewers seemed a bust, unless, of course, young people are starved for tedium. I'm betting most younger viewers spent more time texting than watching the show.

The evening, of course, was capped by the widely predicted triumph of The King's Speech, a movie that restored middle-brow primacy to Oscar, and proved that English accents trump even all-mighty Facebook, which seems to have played a role in inciting revolutions, but couldn't push Social Network into the year's top spot.

Oh well, Hathaway changed clothes as many times as I was tempted to change channels, and I did learn one thing: I now know why people go to Oscar parties -- so they can drink their way through the torment.

Here are a few discombobulated notes I wrote to myself during the course of an evening devoted to glazed over eyes:

-- Colin Firth (The King's Speech) shows a bit of welcome wit in his acceptance speech for best actor, another of the evening's many non-surprises.

-- Natalie Portman (Black Swan) wins the best actress Oscar. Her victory also was totally expected, but Portman seemed poised and classy. Guess a Harvard education is worth something after all.

-- David Fincher (Social Network) is robbed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), who wins best director. To be fair, Hooper gave what might have been the night's best acceptance speech. He thanked his mom, who discovered the material on which The King's Speech was based. The moral, he said: Always listen to your mother. Good advice, unless your mother happens to be someone like the character supporting-actress nominee Jacki Weaver played in Animal Kingdom. And, hey, Portman's mother in Black Swan (played by Barbara Hershey) was no prize, either.

-- Celine Dion sings a dirge-like version of Smile while we review the list of those who died last year. Schmaltz for some gifted people who passed on.

-- Thank goodness the underexposed Oprah finally found a platform. She presented the Oscar for best documentary, which was won by Inside Job. Charles Ferguson, one of that film's co-directors, made a point of saying that three years after the financial meltdown, none of the responsible parties had yet been punished. Am I wrong or was that the first topical reference of the night? Where was Jon Stewart when we needed him?

-- Bad judgment, Mr. President. With a tip of the hat to Bill Maher, a new rule: Presidents shouldn't appear on the Oscar program unless it's to announce that they've made a terrible miscalculation and (guess what?) those dreaded budget cuts won't be necessary after all. Mr. Obama showed up in the intro to the best-song segment.

-- Alice in Wonderland wins best costume design. Aside from Helena Bonham Carter (as the Red Queen), the costumes were the best thing about the movie.

-- Everyone who wins for Inception makes sure to thank Christopher Nolan, who was snubbed for best director.

-- I look at my watch. It's 7:39 p.m., and wonder whether this is the dullest Oscar show yet?

-- The band tries hard to play Social Network's Aaron Sorkin (winner for best adapted screenplay) off the stage. I hate that. Let the guy have his freakin' moment.

-- Melissa Leo (The Fighter) wins for best supporting actress. She can act, but she sure as hell can't give an acceptance speech. She rambles and gets bleeped for using the F-word, an Oscar first and, if we're lucky, a last.

-- Franco and Hathaway (as hosts). Attractive and unimpressive. And, no, I never want to see Franco in drag again. He did a Marilyn Monroe bit.

And, finally, a few asides from the red carpet...

-- Tom Hanks, interviewed by red-carpet host Robin Roberts, always seems like a guy you'd like to know.

-- Justin Timberlake, interviewed on the red carpet, easily could have been nominated for best supporting actor for his work in The Social Network.

-- Ben Mankiewicz, a host on Turner Classic Movies, actually sounded intelligent on the red carpet. If you can sound smart in that setting, you are smart.

-- There should be a limit on how many times red carpet hosts are allowed to use the word "amazing."

-- Fantasy wish for the Oscars. Ricky Gervais shows up on the Fashion Skyway above the red carpet. You fill in the rest.

-- Has Oscar become like the Super Bowl? Coverage starts three hours before the Awards ceremony? Why am I watching? Come to think of it, I was asking myself the same question at the end of the show.

If you're looking for a complete list of winners, The Hollywood Reporter has one.

It definitely will be good to be 'The King'

Here's a bit of heresy from a film critic: I've never cared much about the Academy Awards. Over the span of a 30-year career writing about movies, I've rattled on about Oscar, but seldom with a major rooting interest.

Why is that, you ask?

Glad you brought it up. The Academy Awards basically are a way for Hollywood to assure the public that it's doing exceptional work. To which I (and you) should say, "We'll be the judges of that."

Besides, we've already had a slew of critics' association awards, the Golden Globes and the various guild awards (directors, writers, cinematographers, etc.). By the time Oscar rolls around, it can feel as if we're walking through an orchard where all the apples have been picked.

OK, so the biggest apples still hang from the tree, but you know what I'm saying: Amid so much TV coverage, journalism and end-of-the-year hype, Oscar can feel almost anti-climactic.

Nonetheless, critics face an annual ritual in which they dutifully predict the winners in major categories, so I'll oblige by following suit, mostly as a way of reminding you that the Oscar ceremonies are coming up this Sunday. And let me add one note about predictions: I sincerely hope I'm wrong in several categories; I'd rather be surprised than right as Hollywood plods through what sometimes feels like an interminable orgy of self-congratulation.

BEST PICTURE

Will win: The King's Speech

Should win: The Social Network

The King's Speech tells the story of how George VI overcame his stutter to give a speech that rallied a nation on the eve of World War II. Although Social Network started as the frontrunner and walked away with top honors from most critics' associations, it seems to have faded in favor of a more traditional choice.

The travails of a monarch and the man who helped him overcome his speech impediment probably will triumph over the entrepreneurial exploits of Mark Zuckerberg, one of the inventors of Facebook.

And why not? Shouldn't a story that amounts to little more than a footnote in history trump a picture about a phenomenon that has altered human behavior and may have provided a platform for upsetting power balances in North Africa and the Middle East?

I'm sure you can tell how I feel about it, but instead of a vote, my only recourse is facetiousness and a bit of sarcasm. I enjoyed The King's Speech. But best picture? Not in my world.

BEST ACTOR

Will win: Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Should win: Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network

The other nominees in this category -- Javier Bardem , Biutiful; Jeff Bridges, True Grit; and James Franco, 127 Hours - don't really stand a chance. Firth, nominated previously for his work in A Single Man, seems to have been leading this race from the outset, and won't likely relinquish the No. 1 spot.

There's no denying the power of Firth's achievement as the stammering King George. But consider what Eisenberg accomplished: He made an unlikeable character into someone we couldn't take our eyes off. In playing Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, Eisenberg created an indelible portrait of what happens when a nerd (and maybe the smartest guy in the room) winds up making billions.

And don't overlook Franco, either. He gave what amounted to a solo performance as Aron Ralston, a young man who amputated his own arm in order to survive entrapment in a Utah canyon.

BEST ACTRESS

Will win: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Should win: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Portman will beat her competitors: Annette Bening , The Kids Are All Right; Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole; Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone; and Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine.

Portman gave everything she had to play a disturbed ballerina in Darren Aronofsky's mesmerizing Black Swan. If Portman loses, it probably will be to Bening, who has plenty of old-pro cred. Bening played one half of a lesbian couple in The Kids Are All Right, a movie that - at least in my view - has been vastly overrated, but voters may be included to reward her for an impressive career.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win: Christian Bale, The Town

Should win: Jeremy Renner, The Town

I like all the nominees in this category, but Bale's performance as a meth-addicted former boxer from Lowell, Mass., will carry the day. It's the showiest performance in a strong field that includes: John Hawkes, Winter's Bone; Renner, The Town, Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right and Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech.

John Hawkes (Winter's Bone) played a meth-dealing Ozark man who could be both scary and sympathetic. Many jaws will drop if Hawkes were to win, but I'm thinking that voters will consider his dark-horse nomination sufficient reward.

And, yes, Rush remains a distinct possibility, particular if The King's Speech has coattails.

Why do I cast my vote for Renner? The guy scared the daylights out of me as an unrepentant thug in The Town.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

Should win: Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

Young actresses sometimes beat vets in this category. A Steinfeld victory supposedly became more likely when voters expressed displeasure over the fact that Melissa Leo of The Fighter reportedly campaigned for votes. Moreover, some observers think that Amy Adams and Leo, both nominated for the same movie, will split the voters.

Other nominees:; Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech and Weaver, Animal Kingdom.

I'd vote for Weaver who played the mother of a Melbourne crime family in Animal Kingdom. She gave a memorable performance, embodying equal amounts of motherly love and evil.

BEST DIRECTOR

Will win: Tom Hooper, The King's Speech

Should win: David Fincher, The Social Network

Hooper won the Director's Guild of America's top award, which almost always goes to the same director who winds up winning the Oscar. Hooper's competition: Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit; and David O. Russell, The Fighter.

I don't know how the tide turned on The Social Network, but if Fincher loses, he'll have been robbed. He made what could have been a dry story fascinating, and his task was much more difficult than Hooper's; Hooper directed what sometimes feels like a play on film.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Will win: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Should win: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network

Sorkin did a masterful job with a literate and entertaining script. He'll beat, Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, 127 Hours; Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, Toy Story 3; Joel & Ethan Coen, True Grit; and Debra Granik and Anne Rosellini, Winter's Bone.

But a word must be said about 127 Hours. Boyle and Beaufoy made something riveting out of a story about a guy stuck in a hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere. Quite an achievement.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Will win: David Seidler, The King's Speech

Should win: Mike Leigh, Another Year

Inception was nominated for best picture, and lots of folks thought its director - Christopher Nolan - should have found his way onto the best-director's list. The Academy could use this category to make up for a snub, a possibility that became more likely after The Writers Guild of America gave Nolan its top honor. Still, it's even more likely that Seidler will be swept to victory as part of the rising King's Speech tide. Other nominees: Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson, The Fighter; Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, The Kids Are All Right.

Another Year is the most adult movie in the bunch, but I don't think Leigh has much of a chance.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Will win: Inside Job

Should win: Restrepo

The other nominees are Exit Through the Gift Shop; Gasland; and Waste Land.

I can't get past the fact that directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger risked life and limb to make Restrepo, a deeply moving and sometimes frightening look at soldiers fighting in Afghanistan; I'm thinking (maybe "hoping" is a better word) that the Academy will recognize the power and importance of their achievement, even though most prognosticators seem to favor Inside Job, a terrific look at the recent financial meltdown.

Odds and ends. Toy Story 3 will win best-animated feature. Incendies (from Canada) seems the best bet in the foreign-language film category.

Best song? Do you care? I can't say that I do. So I'm going to stop right here and invite you to make your own picks. But I need to amend something I said earlier: I do have a rooting interest. I root for Oscar to be over so we can get back to going to the movies instead of wondering who's going to bore us with an interminable list of people who must be thanked.

Put another way: I love watching movies. Award shows? Not so much.

Will love get in way of wanton sex?

Portman's fine; Kutcher, not so much. No Strings Attached falters.

Having won a Golden Globe and a variety of critics' association honors for her performance as a disturbed ballerina in The Black Swan, Natalie Portman seems a shoo-in for a best actress Oscar. The new and, alas, negligible romantic comedy No Strings Attached, isn't exactly a warm-up for Oscars' big prize, but it probably won't do anything to diminish Portman's glow.

No Strings Attached isn't much of a movie, but consider this: Portman's playing a role that might have gone to such rom-com divas as Drew Barrymore, Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Aniston. If you see the movie, think about what it might have been had any of those actresses taken Portman's place.

Proving herself an able enough comic actress, Portman holds the movie together as it zips through a variety of situations that are designed to delay the inevitable union of on-again/off-again lovers.

No Strings marks the first movie to be directed by Ivan Reitman (father of Jason) since 2006's My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Reitman's spry direction and screenwriter Elizabeth Meriwether's mildly off-color script keep No Strings from feeling precisely like every other rom-com that's been cluttering the nation's multiplexes.

Meriwether builds her R-rated script around a provocative question: Is it possible for two young people to carry on a torrid sexual affair without wanting to deepen their relationship?

That brings me to Ashton Kutcher, the movie's other marquee name. Kutcher piles on his all-too-familiar sheepish charm, and, at one point, bounces his naked butt across the screen. When it comes to rom-coms, he may be the male equivalent of the Barrymores, Heigls and Anistons, which means he's entirely too predictable.

Here's how the story goes: Portman's Emma, a medical resident at a Los Angeles hospital, proposes a sex-only affair to Kutcher's Adam, an assistant on a TV sitcom. Scorched by a large helping of paternal humiliation - his dad (Kevin Kline) is dating one of his ex-girlfriends -- Adam agrees to Emma's proposition.

Adam and Emma go at it with enthusiasm until Adam begins craving some real intimacy. The emotionally defended Emma doesn't want to detract from her consuming schedule. She's also terrified of commitment.

No Strings is not without sour notes, the loudest of them sounded by Kline, who starred in Reitman's 1993 comedy, Dave. Kline plays Kutcher's father, a faded TV star whose embarrassingly randy behavior pushes the dejected Adam into a drunken evening during which he kicks off his relationship with Emma.

Gifted a comic actor as he is, Kline can't entirely remove the odor of unpleasantness from the role of an older man who craves the fawning attentions of younger women.

There's an increasingly familiar quality to its overall arc, but Meriwether's script makes room for some decent one-liners. Too bad it doesn't allow for more significant contributions from the supporting cast. The only minor character who gets any decent play is Adam's co-workers, an obsessive talker played by Lake Bell.

I'm told that folks who sleep together but maintain every other form of distance are called "friends with benefits." Think of No Strings as a mediocre movie with benefits, most of them due to Portman who - up until the script calls for her to suffer - seems to be having loads of fun. Why not? Someone had to have a good time.

Portman spreads her wings in 'Black Swan'

Director Darren Aronofsky's latest is at its best when its wild, furious and flirting with incoherence.

Black Swan begins with Natalie Portman - as ballerina Nina Sayers - dancing in a dream. It doesn't take long for an ominous-looking figure to invade Nina's sleep, thereby establishing the strategy that increasingly will dominate director Darren Aronofsky's arty thrill ride of a movie: Sensation will trump sense, and the movie's commitment to overstatement will be frenzied and brazen -- even intrusive.

Say this: Black Swan has a pulse, a feeling of agitated, intoxicating brilliance. Part thriller, part horror movie and part trippy exploration of the clash between reality and mad vision, Black Swan nonetheless is all of a piece.

In the world of ballet, Aronofsky has found an environment that allows him to move beyond the muddled excesses of The Fountain and the sweat-stained realism of The Wrestler. Black Swan is a movie about performance: Portman's, the main character's and, ultimately, Aronofsky's. It's almost as if the movie wants to merge all three in an act of furious consummation.

The story is relatively simple. Portman's Nina dreams of dancing the lead role in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a ballet that tells the story of a princess trapped in the body of a swan. To achieve liberation, the princess must win the heart of a prince. But a black swan also vies for the prince's affections. The same dancer typically dances the roles of the black and white swans.

Portman's Nina has dancing chops, but her repressed sexuality keeps her from fully emerging as the Black Swan. A tyrannical ballet master (Vincent Cassel) goads and bullies Nina toward sexual liberation, telling her that she must "let go'' in order to achieve total command of the role.

This is no easy task. Nina can't quite cross the threshold into womanhood. She shares an apartment with her domineering and sometimes resentful mother (Barbara Hershey) and sleeps in a room full of stuffed animals, not the most subtle of clues but still weirdly effective.

More than a gloss on Freudian themes, Black Swan is a balls-to-the-wall display of cinematic showmanship. Nervous to the point of impatience, Aronofsky's hand-held cameras move toward a finale in which the director searches for a dark and beautiful triumph. Does he find it? You'll have to judge for yourself.

Despite obvious differences, Black Swan covers some of the same ground as The Wrestler. Aronofsky's interested in the merging of personality and role in fulfilling acts of sacrifice. And just as The Wrestler introduces us to the grubby, locker rooms and physical torments of second-tier wrestling, Black Swan exposes us to the pain involved in preparing to dance.

Similarities, yes, but Black Swan plays to Aronofsky's strengths in ways that prove more invigorating than anything in The Wrestler. Aronofsky gives full vent to Nina's stark hallucinations, sexual fantasies, looming fears and acts of self-mutilation. He also uses the world of ballet to create an atmosphere in which technique ultimately means nothing without risk.

Portman reportedly did a lot of her own dancing, but it doesn't take long to notice that a fair amount of Black Swan's dance sequences have been shot from the waist up. This is not to say that Portman's performance is in any way a cheat. She's entirely convincing as a ballerina who's being buffeted by forces she believes to be beyond her control. She's an Alice in a frightening ballet Wonderland.

Some of the images created by cinematographer Matthew Libatique are truly amazing. The sight of Portman dressed as the Black Swan and strutting imperiously across the stage evokes memories of Norma Desmond, the character Gloria Swanson played in Sunset Boulevard. It's a hyper-theatrical immersion in character that celebrates both daring and delusion.

Aronofsky's additional casting is quite good. Hershey makes a convincing monster mom, a woman who sacrificed her own ballet career to raise her daughter. Cassel nicely fills the outlines of a role that's geared toward arrogance and intimidation.

Mila Kunis manages to present the most recognizably human face in a drama in which nearly everyone seems to be wearing a mask of some sort. As Lily, a rival ballerina, Kunis is able almost to sound natural in an environment dominated by artifice.

Winona Ryder, shows up as a fading ballet star who falls into a suicidal depression when she's no longer fit to dance the great roles; she's an inspiration for Nina, as well as a warning.

My reaction to Black Swan varied as the movie danced its way through multiple genres. At times, I found it dizzying and compelling. At other times, I thought it was much ado about far too little. Some of the movie's "horror" ploys struck me as embarrassingly garish. But even when Black Swan flirted with incoherence, I admired its dark showmanship.

Aronofsky isn't telling a great or even novel story, and he certainly owes a major debt to Tchaikovsky, whose music helps establish an air of fretful anticipation. But like a dancer looking for perfect synchronization with a great piece of music, Aronofsky's clearly attempting to fly. When he does, Black Swan soars.