oscar predictions. . .
it's not the mtv movie awards. it's not the international cinephile society awards. so, in defense of the oscars, can we just let it be the oscars. they are never going to award the mainstream sci-fi, superhero and raunch-com fare that, even when good for its genre, doesn't fit into the sort of cinematic archetype the oscars are designed to reward. similarly, one never expects the grand achievements of arthouse auteurs to have much of a presence at the oscars either. there are other venues to reward these films, but not here. so let's just agree that the oscars give awards to the best oscar movies of the year, and acknowledge the fact that a nomination for hooper, spielberg or scorsese isn't coming at the expense of nolan, apatow or von trier. they were never going to be invited to the party in the first place. my predictions:

supporting actor:
will win. . . christopher plummer is likely to win, but it is still a relative toss-up between him and max von sydow. in any case, regardless of which one wins, it will be an alan arkin-type lifetime achievement win rather than an award for the performance for which they are specifically nominated.
should win. . . of those nominated, christopher plummer. but this is a very weak field. my personal choice in the category would be brad pitt in the tree of life.
my five. . . brad pitt, christoph waltz (carnage), albert brooks (drive), armie hammer (j edgar) and christopher plummer

supporting actress:
will win. . . octavia spencer. i suspected a year ago, before even knowing who she was, that she would be in contention for an oscar for this role. and she definitely deserves the award, although i don't think she is necessarily the best in her category or her film. that would be, rather-
should win. . . jessica chastain. not only has she given like six acclaimed performances this year, but she was really the overall highlight for me in the help.
my five. . . jessica chastain (the help), octavia spencer, jessica chastain (the tree of life), melanie laurent (beginners) and carey mulligan (shame)

actor:
will win. . . jean dujardin. i really feel like george clooney is out in this category. he has a relatively recent win. instead, i think the race here is between dujardin and brad pitt, who is really due and gave two great performances in best picture nominated films this year. still, the safest bet is on dujardin.
should win. . . i hope i'm not being suckered in (since i haven't seen any of his other work and could just be dazzled by his personality) but i did love dujardin in the artist.
my five. . . jean dujardin, ryan gosling (drive), michael fassbender (shame), leonardo dicaprio (j edgar), and demian bichir.

actress:
will win. . . per usual, this is the category with the fewest real contenders this year. that's because they make so few movies with female leads. it is certainly no coincidence that only one of the five nominated women comes from a best picture nominated film. that being said, viola davis has no competition in the category.
should win. . . of the five, viola davis. although, unfortunately, the single best onscreen performance of the year was not nominated. that would be kirsten dunst in melancholia. absolutely my favorite performance of 2011.
my five. . . kirsten dunst, charlotte gainsbourg (melancholia), viola davis, berenice bejo (the artist) and meryl streep.

original screenplay:
will win. . . woody allen. they will probably want to reward allen's "comeback" somehow, and this is where it will be. incidentally, i am dumbfounded at the praise being heaped on this film, but that's how i pretty much always feel about his work.
should win. . . in this category, it's tough for me to say, as I have yet to see a separation, and i thoroughly hated both midnight in paris and margin call. plus it would be hard for anyone to convince me that the artist has much of a screenplay. i'm sorry. overall, my favorite screenplay of the year is without a doubt the exquisite but not nominated script for the tree of life, by terrence malick.
my five. . . the tree of life, melancholia, beginners, weekend, and shame

adapted screenplay:
will win. . . much like in the original category, here they are likely to want to reward the descendants somewhere so screenplay is the most likely bet. i certainly wouldn't be shocked to see moneyball upset though in this category, especially since aaron sorkin's name is sort of vaguely attached.
should win. . . the ides of march is probably the best nominated adapted screenplay and truly the best of 2011 overall.
my five. . . the ides of march, the help, carnage, drive, and jane eyre.

director:
will win. . . michael hazanavicius is likely to win for the artist, and it would no doubt be a tremendous surprise were anyone to overtake him at the last minute.
should win. . . it is a tremendously difficult decision to choose between two such evenly matched filmmakers who each surpassed all expectations in creating the best artistic pieces of the year and of their careers. in the end, and i'm sure i will be second guessing myself tomorrow, i choose terrence malick over lars von trier, but only by the slightest of margins.
my five. . . terrence malick, lars von trier, michael hazanavicius, wim wenders (pina) and kelly reichardt (meek's cutoff)

best picture:
will win. . . the artist was going to win best picture six months ago. it's still going to win best picture. people might be disappointed with the lack of drama in the category this year, but i doubt many are disappointed with the outcome. well deserved.
should win. . . the tree of life is the best of the category. melancholia is the best of the year. but, as i said in the beginning, the oscars isn't really the place for these kinds of films. that being said, i certainly won't be sad to see the artist win here.
my six. . . melancholia, the tree of life, the help, drive, the ides of march and shame

cinematography:
will win. . . hopefully the academy will want to reward the tree of life with something and it will rightfully get its award here. still, i'm predicting the artist.
should win. . . once again, i am very very narrowly choosing the tree of life over melancholia here, but it's such a close call.
my five. . . the tree of life, melancholia, war horse, the artist and drive

art direction:
will win. . . many are predicting hugo to win this one, but i would really be surprised to see the artist miss out here. plus, i just think that the sets and artistic backdrop behind the artist far outweighs the sort of superficial look scorsese put together for hugo. perhaps just a matter of taste really.
should win. . . of those nominated, definitely the artist. my personal pick for best art direction is a little bit out on a limb, but i really admired the sort of avant garde work of wim wenders' dance documentary, pina.
my five. . . pina, the artist, the help, tinker tailor soldier spy, melancholia

score:
will win. . . the artist. it certainly has the most prominent and memorable score of any film this year. i wouldn't say it was exactly groundbreaking really, but it fit the film perfectly.
should win. . . the artist. the film couldn't have succeeded without this score.
my five. . . the artist, the help, hanna, jane eyre, and tinker tailor soldier spy  ¶ 2/23/2012 09:08:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  my top 10 of 2011
it really seems that good film years and bad film years alternate annually, and this has definitely been one of the latter, in my opinion. i have been disappointed by highly anticipated films far more this year than i have been wowed by them. i could make a top 10 list in and of itself of films that i should have liked but just didn't. that might actually have been easier than trying to come up with a list of the year's ten best, honestly.

i think it really says something that a great many of critics' top ten lists this year are overpopulated with indie arthouse fare that is really only yet available in new york, la and on the festival circuit. and since many of us here in tucson haven't had the luxury of seeing films like we need to talk about kevin and wuthering heights, i can't include these on my list.

with that being said, there were five movies this year that i truly loved and at least a handful more that i found remarkable in at least some way. although admittedly not all truly exceptional, my top 10 films of 2011 include:

10. meek's cutoff. . . i don't know if "sparse" is a good enough word to describe the incredibly frugal filmmaking style of kelly reichardt. as in her debut work, the haunting wendy and lucy, meek's cutoff is a film that chooses to show rather than tell. deeply introspective, this isn't so much a narrative film as it is a voyeuristic gaze upon these characters. reichardt rarely seems to make her actors perform on camera. the cameras always just seem to be out of the actors' sight, simply watching as the action unfolds, unperturbed. the result is an imperfect but deeply beautiful work of art.

9. j. edgar. . .for the third time in a row, clint eastwood has made a film that is simply not being given credit for being as good as it truly is. not that there aren't problems. yes, the makeup simply isn't very good, and i was distracted by it. but if you can get beyond that, what you are left with is a really interesting, complicated look at an interesting, complicated historical figure. in a lot of ways, i think critics would have been happier if eastwood had taken sides and made a more straightfoward biopic (think other far inferior, but critically lauded works like ray, walk the line, milk) but eastwood chose to go another way, in short to eschew conclusions. and this decision really elevated the work.

8. weekend. . . the field of queer cinema is so bereft of much of anything of quality, that to say that weekend is one of the best queer films i've ever seen is really to downplay its accomplishment. strangely, many critics of the film seem to downplay its queerness, arguing that this is really a broader film about love and human interconnectedness. no. this is a film about how these heteronormative concepts are confronted by queer communities. that is not to say that weekend was made solely for a gay audience. i think that anyone watching it, gay or straight, would be affected by its revelations.

7. beginners. . . the sad thing for me about beginners is that nearly all of the film's praise has been heaped on christopher plummer, who only really appears in it for a matter of minutes. although he is good in a very small (albeit central to the plot) role, there is so much more to like about this movie. every year, we are given at least a dozen romantic comedies that are either snarky, nasty, cliched or some combination of the above. and, if lucky, we are given one or two that are clever, genuine or at least somehow original. this was the film that filled that quota for 2011.

6. shame. . . this is a hard film to love. its characters are hopelessly despicable. the sex is painfully unerotic. and as a viewer, i was often left feeling like an unwanted voyeur watching something i simply wasn't meant to see. that being said, it takes a sort of expert filmmaker to elicit this sort of uncomfortable feeling from an audience. shame is definitely a film that stays with you long after you've seen it. and i give director steve mcqueen special credit for crafting a final scene that does anything but provide closure. my favorite film ending of the year.

5. the ides of march. . . i found george clooney's first directorial success good night and good luck to be a sanctimonious diatribe, and it stands as one of my all time least favorite films. so i wasn't really all that hopeful about his most recent work. but i was surprised. much like good night, ides is a work deeply guided by a social message. however, rather than bludgeoning the viewer over the head with this message, clooney rather chose to create an incredibly entertaining narrative that really stands on its own. probably my favorite political thriller since 2000's the contender.

4. drive. . . this is just one of those movies that was destined to be iconic from its inception. the costumes, the music, the art direction, even the title font, all will go down in film history as essentially, originally, iconically drive. it probably isn't much of a surprise that the conservative academy didn't see fit to much acknowledge this exceptionally violent work, but i almost think that it is such a cool film, that a best picture nomination might actually have damaged the work's inevitable cult film status.

3. the help. . . simultaneously the most dominating and undervalued film of 2011. why is it that hollywood studios repeatedly refuse to market non-romantic movies featuring female leads? hopefully the immense success of the help will change this, but it is unlikely. even so, and despite a best picture nomination and sag ensemble prize, many still argue that help is sort of bland and average. overall, the help is probably the most entertaining film i saw all year and is likely to be the one i rewatch the most in the future. and it is punctuated by strong performances, excellent direction and a strong screenplay. it's remarkable that the help isn't in competition as a best picture frontrunner.

2. the tree of life. . . although 2011 may not have been an overall banner year for cinema, the year's two best works nearly make up for this larger film recession. i went into the tree of life fully expected to hate what was sure to be an intentionally weird non-narrative film experiment. but i was almost immediately enraptured. yes it is weird. yes it is non-narrative. but it is a beautiful, insanely intelligent work that plumbs the very questions that root humanity to this planet. how any filmmaker could have ever thought it possible to successfully make a film about the origin of life on earth is beyond me? how malick was able to successfully envision and create this work is truly remarkable.

1. melancholia. . . in my opinion, perhaps a career best achievement by the greatest living filmmaker working today. in melancholia, von trier really seems to be stretching himself an auteur, using cinematography in a way he has never done before, at times expressing himself through images alone. inspired by the paintings of french artist jean genet, melancholia serves as a sort of visual artistic spectacle in and of itself. but that isn't to say von trier hasn't also given us a profoundly moving screenplay as well. in sum, an elegant, moving meditation on the meaning of life at the end of the world.  ¶ 2/21/2012 09:45:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  2011, the year in film
each year, perhaps only by coincidence, there seems to be a single major theme that ties together many of the year's major films, a sort of singular cultural zeigeist that several filmmakers chose to inhabit seemingly simultaneously. this year i'm not entirely sure that you can quite so easily point to any overarching narrative linking together the films of 2011. sure many can point to the prominence of the idea of nostalgia, and in particular cinematic nostalgia, but this really only calls together a couple of major works (the artist and hugo, namely). instead, i think that 2011, the year in film, is best defined by two films, the year's absolute best, that operate as sort of bookends of one another, at the same time mirroring major social preoccupations of our age: terrence malick's the tree of life and lars von trier's melancholia.

although in some ways practically opposites of one another, the parallels between these two films are so uncanny, that one wonders at some points if the directors somehow collaboratively crafted them as part of some sort of grand film experiment. in its essence, the tree of life represents the birth of existence, everything that has happened since the beginning of time that has brought us to this point, right now. and in its essence, melancholia represents the end of existence, what it would mean if all life, the planet itself, were to cease to be at this point, right now.

the directors even seem to be mirroring one another in the cinematographic tools they employ. perhaps the most striking sequence in the tree of life, is a long operatic one in which malick visually depicts the birth of the earth from nothingness, and the gradual emergence of life on this planet. similarly, one of the most striking sequences in melancholia is the similarly operatic one that opens the film, in which von trier slowly unveils the last moments of life on earth. interspersed with one another, these segments alone could have made up a singular filmic meditation on life and death.

what is even more striking, however, is that although both dealing with literally opposing subject matter, both von trier and malick seem to come to similar conclusions regarding what could be the central question guiding both of their works, that is the meaning of life itself. as we see sean penn's character in the tree of life, essentially the culmination of all history, we hear in his head the greatest on screen utterance of the year: "mother, father, always you wrestle inside me, always you will." by this point, we have seen a billion years of history unfurl before us. we have literally seen the cellular birth of life. but what has shaped this character the most is the relationships he has formed throughout his life, and which he continues to carry with him.

similarly, in melancholia, we watch for two hours as kirsten dunst's justine attempts to shrug off the end of the world, literally telling her sister at one point that when the earth evaporates, nobody will miss it. then, in the final moments before the apocalypse, we find justine, her sister and nephew hastening away to a "magic cave," where they can be together, sharing the moment as a family. once again, no matter how much she attempts to deny it, dunst proves herself deeply shaped by and inextricable from those around her.

it is most certainly not coincidental that these two films came to us at this point in history. in 2011, our world is experiencing increasing preoccupation with both the end of the world, and the beginning of life. at the same time, our society includes those feverishly attempting to predict the rapture or interpret mayan doomsday prophecy and those attempting to decode the human genome and scientifically reproduce the big bang. archaeologists scour mt. ararat for noah's ark, while biblical scholars scour the book of revelation for apocalyptic codes. we are a society that deeply feels that the end of the world may not be far away. and before that day comes, we'd like to figure out what it all means. and both melancholia and the tree of life engage with and emerge out of these dichotomous preoccupations.

malick's and von trier's works stand out among the films of 2011, not only because they so perfectly represent where our society was in this year, but because they are simply the two best works produced in this year. although for many the tree of life and melancholia have been pushed away in terms of popular culture in favor of more digestible faire, i hope that in ten or fifty years, people will look back on these films as those that truly define the year in film—

that is, if people are still around by then. fingers crossed.  ¶ 2/20/2012 10:01:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  what's to say?
i think at this point there are a number of conclusions one can make after seeing this morning's oscar nominations announcement.

1. this three year experiment must be brought to an end, bringing the best picture category back to a five nominee slate. when the change was originally introduced, it was presented as a way to honor more of each year's most deserving work. what has clearly happened over and over again is that the same brilliant filmmaking that was ignored before the change is continuing to get ignored. instead, the best picture category has simply made more room for mediocre-but-oscar-baity material and the works championed by powerful hollywood producers. after three years of >5 nominees, we still have powerful works like drive and melancholia left out, but have a growing list of dubious and all but already forgotten best picture nominees like district 9, the kids are all right, and now—

2. extremely loud and incredibly close. seriously. i can't say so definitively, but this will have to go down as one of if not the all time worst reviewed best picture nominee in history. even the 44 percent of the film's reviews rotten tomatoes is claiming as positive are at best tepid. all this nomination shows is that producer scott rudin and directed stephen daldry are becoming matched only by the weinsteins in their power over the oscar voting community.

3. i am finally willing to openly accede to the argument that has been made over and over again over the past several years: the academy is simply out of touch. it was so easy for them to just hand over a best pic nomination to steven spielberg, as well as two nominations to his films' scorer john williams, despite the fact that they produced bland, unoriginal and self-derivative work, while completely ignoring edgier and far more deserving films like drive, shame and we need to talk about kevin. i guess one can hope that we might be finally reaching a point where it is actually cooler to be snubbed by oscar rather than recognized by it. i'm sure that's how tilda and michael feel at least.

4. the best original song category needs to be put out of its misery. this has been patently obvious for years now. the songs nominated in this category are almost invariably terrible, contributing little to the films they are featured in. it is difficult even to remember the winners in this category over the past decade. now this year we have a category with just two nominees, one of which nobody who has seen the film even remembers. We need to switch over to a new category that recognizes excellence in film music more generally. this will be a category to honor works like black swan, inglorious basterds, magnolia, drive and others that superbly use music to tell their story, but not necessarily in the form of a score.

5. and finally, the documentary category. there are no words. year after year the academy simply refuses to even nominate the year's best works in this genre, let alone give it the ultimate prize. i don't know who is orchestrating the debacle that is the year's best documentary feature, but let's just fire her and be done with it.  ¶ 1/24/2012 08:55:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  oscar nominations tomorrow
in a lot of ways, the oscar nominations announcement is really a lot more exciting than the actual ceremony. by the time we get to the end of february, most everything is pretty sewn up, and the chances of anything unexpected or even eventful happening at the actual awards ceremony is pretty slim. but when you're sitting there watching the nominations announcement, you feel for a moment that anything could happen. i mean, sure, after the fifteen minute broadcast is over, you're pretty much left with a slate of nominees that is exactly what you expected to see. but at least for the moment, there is the potential that something interesting could occur.

this year, (and i hate to give the academy credit for doing something right, but) things seem even more exciting, as the rules have changed, allowing for anywhere between five and ten nominees. if we had a guaranteed slate of ten films nominated for the top award, one could pretty much script out which films that would be, but the nebulous number of nominees leaves things sort of up in the air. this coupled with the fact that the nominees will not be presented in alphabetical order, promises to make things a little exciting tomorrow morning.

in addition, i anticipate that the manner in which the best pic field is chosen could result in some surprises at least in that category. that is, since the academy essentially chooses best picture nominees based on how many number one votes the films receive, the final slate could differ slightly from the top five and ten lists already compiled by guilds and critics groups that use a more straightforward method of vote tabulation. for the academy awards, what matters is how many voters think a particular film is the best. it doesn't matter if a thousand voters agree that a movie is one of the top five best of 2011, if none of them mark it down as the absolute best, it won't get a nomination.

this leads me to the one out-of-the-blue prediction i am making regarding the nominations announcement. the help. everyone seems to agree that this one is a shoe in for a nomination. i'm going to say nuh-uh. sure, a lot of people, including me, really enjoyed this film. but is it really going to get a lot of first place votes? on a guaranteed ten nominee slate, the help would definitely be on there, but i honestly don't think enough academy members will put this movie in the top position on their ballots to net it a mention.

when you're making your best pic predictions, you have to think what are the movies that have a strong following. Even if the majority of the voters leave one film off the list altogether, if a strong core constituency thinks it is number one, it will still make the cut. so what films fall into that category? first, you have the artist, the girl with the dragon tattoo, hugo, and the descendants. those are all in. i suspect that midnight in paris, war horse, and moneyball will also get enough number one votes to make the cut. and, going somewhat out on a limb, i am going to say that the tree of life rounds out a slate of eight nominees, as, despite the fact that it has missed out on almost all the guilds, there are definitely those out there who will put it in their number one slot.

this leaves the also-rans: the help and tinker tailor soldier spy. they will get some votes, certainly, but i don't suspect either one to get enough number ones to secure a nomination this year.

In other categories, best supporting actor is one of the strangest acting categories i can remember in years. frankly, none of the expected front runners are all that great, and it is hard even to imagine who should be there instead. i'd like to see armie hammer there, as i thought he was great in j. edgar, but i think it is unlikely. same for philip seymour hoffman who was the bright spot for me in moneyball, and gave a nomination worthy performance in ides of march, but he won't make the cut. i didn't care at all for jonah hill in moneyball (far outshined by hoffman in a much smaller role), and i don't buy that the academy will go for him either. similarly, i can't imagine extremely loud and incredibly close's max von sydow or warrior's nick nolte (did anyone even see this movie?) making the list. i am going to bet on christopher plummer (beginners), albert brooks (drive), kenneth branagh (my week with marilyn), ben kingsley (hugo) and brad pitt (tree of life) making up the nominees. pitt is probably my out on a limb pick, but i have been thinking he might be a double nominee for a while now. it was nice to see guy lodge at in contention had the same thought, including him in his final nominations.

in the best actress race, the at best underwhelming rooney mara is a shoe in for dragon tattoo, despite many thinking of her as an underdog. many assume this will be at the expense of glenn close, but it is probably more likely to knock tilda swinton out of the nominees. how great would it be to see kirsten dunst shock everyone by getting nominated for melancholia though? hers will definitely go down as my single favorite performance of the year by any actor.

the supporting actress nominees are pretty wrapped up, and as mystified as i am that bridesmaids has been uttered at all in awards conversations, it looks like melissa mccarthy is in. check one for loud, stereotyped, scatological humor in awful, unfunny "comedies." if only the academy would change their rules barring an actor from being nominated twice in the same category (sorry jessica chastain).

best actor is another one where i really think there could be a surprise. remember a couple years ago when tommy lee jones got a surprise nomination for in the valley of elah after pulling off a string of awards worthy performances? i just don't think the academy will be able to deny nominated ryan gosling for something, after he turned in three top tier performances in two years. i think he is in for ides of march. it should be for drive, but i think march is more likely. so who's out? probably michael fassbender. his movie is not very academy friendly, and despite the fact that he too has given a number of great performances this year, he is still pretty new to the scene, and maybe doesn't seem to deserve it as much at this point as gosling does. dicaprio is in too, despite many who think he might miss the cut.

the director category is another weird one, as it is mostly going to be populated with filmmakers popular with the academy, rather than those who truly deserve to be there. the exceptions are michael hazanavicius and alexander payne. but i don't think that too many could say with a straight face that expected nominees woody allen, david fincher and martin scorsese made better movies this year than should-be nominees terrence malick, lars von trier and nicholas winding refn.

overall, i would love for there to be just one or two surprises. dunst showing up in the best actress category, or for that matter, melancholia showing up anywhere would be awesome. I'd love to see a stronger than expected showing for the tree of life, and would especially be excited for a well deserved director nod for malick. it would also be a welcome surprise to see ryan gosling nominated for drive. finally, one can hope that dragon tattoo sees a low showing and that there are no nominations for mara, mccarthy and hill.  ¶ 1/23/2012 09:22:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  The Help a film full of unsung stars In Contention's Guy Lodge once again hits the nail on the head in this very late rumination on The Help. Although I don't know why he waited this long to finally see and write about the film, he is one of the first reviewers I have seen to cite Jessica Chastain's performance as perhaps the film's best. I couldn't agree more.

The Help is no doubt a rather populist film, much more accessible than some of the year's other earlier releases now jockeying for awards attention (see: Meek's Cutoff, Drive, The Tree of Life). And I am of the opinion that there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. Much like with the overly-eviscerated recent best picture nominee, The Blind Side, The Help is able to take source material that too easily could have become a Lifetime-movie-for-women and elevated it to a smart, well crafted and eminently watchable film. And much of the success of the film has to be credited to its astonishing cast.

If The Help is practically assured one accolade this awards season, it has to be the SAG best ensemble prize. Every performance in this film is nuanced and finely crafted, and they all fit together so compatibly. That is, Emma Stone gives an excellent performance, but it is the equally excellent work done by Allison Janney as her mother that really makes her work shine. In this way, it seems to me that no single performer in this movie is really any more deserving of awards attention than any other.

However, from the very beginning, critics have pointed out two of the film's actors as the cream of the crop: Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer. Davis no doubt gives an incredible performance as the film's lead and deserves the Oscar she seems destined to receive for the role. However, in terms of supporting performances, I am not sure I would pick Spencer's as the film's best.

Once again, I think all of the film's actors performed ably, but the one that really affected me the most was that of Jessica Chastain as the town outcast Celia Foote. Chastain's performance was just more multifaceted, a little deeper, and frankly more affecting than Spencer's sassy maid Minnie Jackson. In leaving the movie, the one character from the film that stuck with me days afterwards was Chastain's.

The good news is that Spencer and Chastain are likely to each find themselves on the best supporting actress slate come this February. However, Chastain's nod is likely to come for what for me is her much less interesting turn in The Tree of Life. Still, I will be happy to see her get some attention regardless. T  ¶ 11/09/2011 08:13:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  red band trailer for drive
the festival circuit reviews (like this one) for nicholas winding refn's drive have been nothing short of fawning, and my interest was definitely piqued months ago when the film debuted at cannes. it wasn't until this week, however, that we got our first look at the film. now that i've finally gotten to see a trailer for the movie, i think it's safe to say that this movie is going to be awesome. i don't think that there is another movie coming out this year that i am looking forward to more than this one. ryan gosling is definitely due for an oscar nom, after his unconscionable snub last year, and it looks like he is definitely in the running again this year. assuming he has some decent dramatic scenes to work with here (in addition the action) i think we'll definitely be seeing him in the running come january. watch the trailer and see for yourself.  ¶ 7/27/2011 11:23:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  thought of the day "It strikes me that von Trier’s thoughts are far more complex than his off-the-cuff fumbling with the English language is equipped to express. But how can anyone confuse the human capacity to feel a grain of sympathy for a Nazi with being a Nazi sympathizer? There’s important nuance there, and a lot of people are missing it."

from ryan adams at awards daily  ¶ 5/19/2011 03:51:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  titanic in 3D april 6, 2012 james cameron announced today that his 3D reissue of titanic will be hitting screens on april 6, 2012, the 100 year anniversary of the day the ship set sail for the first and last time. on the one hand, i feel a little nauseated at the thought that one of the most iconic films of all time and one of my personal favorites is being reimagined in any respect. but on the other hand, WE GET TO SEE TITANIC ON THE BIG SCREEN AGAIN *YEA*! why can't they just show the original sans 3D? oh well.  ¶ 5/19/2011 10:22:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  new trailer: the help
the new trailer for upcoming awards season hopeful the help was released this week, and i am a little bit surprised. reading imdb synopses can really confuse you, because i was expecting this to be a sort of drama. the trailer makes it look like a light dramedy in the vein of the julie & julia or vintage rob reiner maybe. in any case it definitely looks decent and i stick by my earlier prediction that viola davis and octavia spenser are sure to be supporting actress contenders.  ¶ 4/19/2011 10:47:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  a plea for m. night shyamalan
okay, okay, i give the people behind this website some credit for their creativity in attempting to raise money to send m. night shyamalan to the nyu film school AND i am certainly sympathetic to the over 500people who have thus far donated money as part of this effort. however, i must plead with anyone reading this, PLEASE DO NOT DONATE MONEY TO SEND "FILM"MAKER M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN BACK TO FILM SCHOOL. first of all, i do not support any public effort that may enable this man to continue making movies. and secondly, i don't really think that he could get into nyu even if he wanted to. instead, i plead in the reverse that the public should band together in agreement that we will no longer give this man any means to continue in his artistic pursuits. this means, we all must stop renting, purchasing, and attending screenings of his movies, even if we are doing it ironically. no good can come out of furthering this man's career.

although he is certainly not the only one in his boat, i am so irritated with this handful of big budget filmmakers (read, shyamalan, bay, emmerich, et al.) who continue to get investors to donate buckets of cash to the trash they are putting out there, while so many smaller films go viewer-less and certainly in want of funds. it would be in everyone's best interest if we took that money we were going to spend to send shyamalan back to film school and spent it to go see kelly reichardt's upcoming low budget indie work meek's cutoff.  ¶ 4/19/2011 10:29:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  yea for comeuppance!
sasha stone at awards daily posted this short documentary today, and everyone should watch it whether or not they are into film simply because it is extremely entertaining. the overwhelming message behind this film is "don't treat people like dirt or it will come back to haunt you." and who doesn't like a story where bad people face some serious comeuppance.

the story is: some guy named bhindi was running this very successful scam by holding faux film festivals all over the world. the scam was that he accepted all films submitted to his festivals, but charged filmmakers 30 dollars for each acceptance. then, he gets a local school or small theater or whatever to donate space. he then shows all of the accepted films basically on a loop in small classrooms or closets or whatever is available with no schedules. that is, unlike a real film festival with "screenings," there is no schedule or anything at these festivals and bhindi just shows the films whenever and wherever he can in order to technically fulfull his end of the bargain. on top of that, there is absolutely no money spent on promoting these festivals, and thus there is no audience present outside of the few filmmakers that show up. then, on top of all of this, bhindi tops off his scheme by holding a black tie awards reception at the end of the festival which, you guessed it, forces filmmakers to pony up additional fees. the whole thing is essentially a fairly low tech version of those "who's who in american high schools" books, this time in film festival form.

now the comeuppance: two filmmakers from california recently attended bhindi's swansea international film festival in wales in order to promote a documentary they had filmed. they were of course shocked upon arrival to realize that there was no schedule of when the films were to be shown, so they couldn't invite anyone to their film's screening. they are simply given an estimate of when the screening might take place, and the time happens to be opposite the time when the festival is holding a party at which all the filmmakers are expected to be in attendance. the documentarians politely bring their concerns to bhindi's attention. his response is to rudely accuse them of being poor filmmakers who have an inability to attract viewers to their poor work.

unfortunately for bhindi these filmmakers turned out to not be so inept after all. in fact they proved their talents by making this short documentary about the absolute failure that is swansea. the film has garnered a significant audience, especially among those who were previously involved in the festival. all of the celebrities affiliated with the festival, the media involved, the local government and the groups that donated facilities dropped out. the scam has garnered national media attention in wales, and bhindi's operation is more or less squashed.

the lesson to be learned: if you're fucking people over the least you can do is try and be nice about it. i guess this lesson seems pretty commonsensical to us in the u.s., but then again we have congress.  ¶ 4/13/2011 11:15:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  melancholia trailer just yesterday i was thinking how boring the movie universe had been lately, and today i wake up to the trailer for lars von trier's melancholia.



maybe it's just the score playing over the trailer but this seems like it could be different than anything he has done before-- von trier's experiment in melodrama maybe? in any case, it looks like he might have gotten the kirsten dunst to deliver the best performance of her career. time will tell.  ¶ 4/08/2011 09:40:00 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  review: jane eyre
jane eyre is an ambitious book to adapt to the screen, so it's interesting to note that, according to imdb, it has been adapted no less than 20 times. the book itself is something like 600 pages long and is broken down into five or six large sections demarcated by the title character's travels in life. because of that, bronte's book lends itself particularly well to a miniseries, a collection of films or even a four or five hour gone-with-the-wind-esque epic work. however, it is clearly a difficult task to cram all of the events and characters from such an ambitious literary work into a simple, sleek two hour drama.

watching the latest jane eyre adaption, i imagine that director cary fukunaga and especially screenwriter moira buffini are tremendous admirers of the victorian novel. this is especially evident in the attention that was paid to not excising any major character, setting or storyline from the novel in this film. however, it seems to me that maybe this could have been a better film if it had been written and directed by people who weren't too attached to the source material.

the bulk of the problems i had with jane eyre appear immediately as the film begins and are most evident throughout the first third of the two hour run time. for some reason fukunaga chose to begin the film somewhere in the middle of the novel's storyline as jane arrives at the home of the rivers family. then it jumps back and forth between this scene, jane's pained childhood at home with her aunt and her time at lowood school. in the novel, these represent the first three major sections of text, representing the first three stops on jane's journeys, and this is maybe a quarter to a third of the novel. however, in the film, fukunaga crams these events into maybe 15 or 20 minutes. this entire section of the film is overly complicated, confusing (perhaps especially to viewers who read the book and trying to follow it on screen), and strangely evocative of a "last week on jane eyre. . ." tv series intro.

after jane arrives at thornfield and her storyline with mr. rochester begins, the film immediately straightens itself out and morphs into a more linear, easily discernible narrative. after the film arrives at this point, i could follow what was going on and began to really enjoy what the director was putting out. michael fassbender absolutely embodied mr. rochester, and i couldn't imagine anyone performing the role better than him. and i quite liked mia wasikowska as the tortured, melancholic and overly pale victorian heroine. all in all this was a movie with a lot of good qualities and one that i enjoyed despite its numerous flaws.

still, i would argue that this could have been a much better movie if the filmmakers had been willing to take a chance and tinker with the source material a little bit. given how much better the movie got once jane arrived at thornfield, why couldn't fukunaga just cut the earlier material out and make the entire film revolve solely around the relationship between jane and mr. rochester? this would have yielded a much better, much less cluttered narrative. yeah, maybe some hardcore bronte-philes would have been irritated by the revision, but at least the film would have been able to mark itself off as unique from the twenty earlier adaptations of the book (and the three or four others that are bound to be made in the next decade).  ¶ 3/30/2011 10:37:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  thank you darren aronofsky. let's get one thing clear. i couldn't care less how much natalie portman danced the lead role in black swan and how much was danced by her body double. she didn't win any awards because of her dancing. (honestly, there isn't really even that much dancing in this film if you think about it). that being said, i can't stand the idea that there could be a looming asterisk over her best acting oscar. enter mr. aronofsky who released the following clearly researched and irrefutable statement on portman's dancing:

“Here is the reality. I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math that’s 80% Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time over 90% would be Natalie Portman.

And to be clear Natalie did dance on pointe in pointe shoes. If you look at the final shot of the opening prologue, which lasts 85 seconds, and was danced completely by Natalie, she exits the scene on pointe. That is completely her without any digital magic. I am responding to this to put this to rest and to defend my actor. Natalie sweated long and hard to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I don’t want anyone to think that’s not her they are watching. It is.”

and now we can officially put this minor drama to rest.  ¶ 3/28/2011 03:21:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

  30 years of glbt cinema
yesterday sasha stone at awardsdaily posted a very extensive poll asking readers to rate their favorite examples of glbt cinema over the past thirty years. stone was able to come up with no less than 170 films for readers to choose from. no surprise which film came in first, brokeback mountain, nor is it really a surprise that the top 25 is more or less full of more mainstream oscars-ey fare mostly released in the past 10 or 12 years. given that the glbt films that i admire are largely more indie-leaning i had to resist the urge to get angry that awardsdaily readers couldn't come up with any better examples of queer cinema than black swan (#6), american beauty (#7) and the talented mr. ripley (#9). there's nothing wrong with any of these films. in fact, each one is among my favorites. still, i wouldn't characterize any of them as prime examples of "glbt cinema."

after considering the poll a little further, however, i guess it makes sense that there isn't a lot of what i would call truly queer filmmaking and storytelling or, for that matter, films with provocative queer characters on the list. the truth of the matter is: most queer films kinda suck. for a variety of reasons there just haven't been a lot of really good queer films in the past thirty years. sure there have been plenty of decent movies with gay characters and even prominent gay storylines, but very few of them actually work to plumb sexualities or challenge the dominating heteronormativity of hollywood filmmaking. and the few examples of work that i actually do admire as queer cinema is often pretty obscure, as it's hard to find a mainstream audience for movies that work to challenge the viewers' understanding of their own sexual being. so if filmgoers really do need to turn to marginally gay films like philadelphia or chasing amy to fill a "best-of" list for the genre, i suppose they can't be blamed. what needs to be blamed is an industry that really hasn't yet begun to engage with sexuality (or gender for that matter) in the same ways that it has long dealt with race and class.

of course there is a growing list of glbt films, some even prominent-if-plucked-from-obscurity-by-the-awards-gods, and it seems that now we can expect that at least one gay character is going to be considered for an oscar nomination each year. the problem is that i find the vast majority of glbt cinema falls into two problematic categories.

on the one hand we have the inauthentic films. in my mind, the worst offender in this regard is brokeback mountain, a film about two purportedly gay cowboys whom i never once for a moment believed to be gay. to a somewhat lesser extent i felt the same way about this year's the kids are all right. milk is one more case of a film with gay characters that never really showed a glimpse of what it's like to be gay. the problem as i see it is that it isn't enough to simply insert glbt characters into a script to make a queer film; to do that one actually needs to toy with the conceptions of filmmaking and storytelling themselves. in brokeback mountain i see two men who sleep together, but that is the extent of the gay content in this film. and the truth is that there is more to being gay than sleeping with members of the same sex and getting persecuted for it.

great queer film actually thinks queer. that is, there is a deeper effort by the filmmakers behind these superior works to challenge conventional depictions of sexualities including conventional depictions of homosexualities. probably my favorite glbt movie is the british coming of age/coming out story beautiful thing. in beautiful thing, director hettie macdonald assembles an almost nonsensical cast of characters, through each one of them attempting to illustrate the nonconformity of the everyday that is characteristic of living in an urban working class british neighborhood. in this setting, main character jamie doesn't struggle with coming out of the closet or with getting people to challenge their prejudices but rather with illuminating the quotidian strangeness around him and illustrating that his difference fits into the larger pattern of difference in his neighborhood. in the end, beautiful thing, always sort of lyrical and unexpectedly (for its content) happy, culminates in an unapologetically joyous movie-musical-type ending. what macdonald was able to do here was queer the very conception of the "coming out" movie. the typical scenes of tortured personal anguish are, if not gone entirely, transformed in a way that shows the variability of the experience itself. everything about the film from its chronology, to its soundtrack to the characterization of the mother character is unexpectedly fresh and provocative. this is one example of a film that, to me, is purely and authentically representative of gay experience.

whereas i take issue with the vast majority of mainstream glbt films for their inauthentic depictions of what it feels like to be gay, i also take issue with the vast majority of more subcultural glbt films directed at a largely gay-identified audience for another reason entirely: their inability to escape queer stereotypes. in movies about gay men in particular all characters are either sex-obsessed hot young gay men, sex-obsessed aging men lusting after hot young gay men, and the sassy effeminate friends of hot young gay men. granted there are a lot of movies that fall into this category that i enjoy (trick, the broken hearts club), but i would hardly call them great glbt films (they're more like guilty pleasures). the bigger problem for me emerges when movies like last year's a single man garners some measure of prestige. a single man, albeit beautifully crafted and well acted, operates entirely off a stereotype that is neither unexamined in glbt cinema nor in need of revisiting. all we get from this movie is one more example of old gay men who can't age gracefully and can't help admiring the sweaty nubile young adult bodies around them. a single man, which i was really looking forward to last year, particularly disappointed me, because here was an open opportunity to do a really smart and engaging character study of a queer character, and what we got was another tired stereotype. it just dumbfounds me how every year there are so many deeply memorable new movie characters of every variety, but when it comes to gay characters they have to fit into a few very narrow molds.

where are the great gay characters in film? strangely, i think that if you are looking for really well drawn examples of queer characters in film you need to avoid movies on the glbt-interest shelf and dig a little deeper through the mostly supporting screen roles in not-necessarily gay themed movies. that being said, my favorite gay character in film is kevin spacey's depiction of jim williams in eastwood's vastly underrated midnight in the garden of good and evil. i think i like this character in a lot of ways because, like every character in this film, he defies any sort of compartmentalization. jim williams shows me that gay characters on screen can be interesting. the film largely centers on issues concerning jim's sexuality, yet this movie never once even remotely ventures into "gay-movie"(tm) territory. it is just a movie about a deeply troubled, deeply complicated man. and his sexuality contributes to these complications. midnight in the garden of good and evil isn't a movie about a gay man; it's a movie about a man who is many things, one of which is gay. i wish more filmmakers would just allow gay characters to develop organically in the way eastwood does with jim williams. instead, the vast majority of gay characters will always and only ever be gay characters.

i don't know how sasha stone went about collecting her list of 170 gay films to include in her ambitious poll. and i admit that this was a very nice attempt to gather a list of titles that might not have been previously available. however, in the end i argue that if you are seeking out the absolute best in queer cinema, you might be advised to look past any movie that is apt to slap a sticker on the dvd cover identifying it as a "glbt" film. the truly best queer films are those that in no way identify themselves as queer but which strive to make the viewer consider her or his heteronormative conceptions of society, filmmaking and/or their own sexualities. when watching kelly reichardt's haunting wendy and lucy, robert rodriguez' uber-violent from dusk till dawn or arthur penn's classic bonnie and clyde, your first reaction might not be to classify any of these as glbt films. ostensibly at least there aren't any gay characters in any of them. however, i would characterize each of these films as examples of great queer cinema, as they each strive to queer conventionality and illuminate certain seemingly inalienable aspects of the human condition as mutable, temporary or somehow questionable. that is what really great glbt movies accomplish: they make the viewer question. in the end, that might be the only qualification necessary to make a film a glbt film. forget the requisite drag queen.  ¶ 3/25/2011 05:34:00 PM 0 Comments Links to this post