Wednesday, November 28, 2007

GOTHAM LOVES INTO THE WILD, SICKO, AND ELLEN!

The 17th annual Gotham Awards, the first noteworthy Oscar precursor in the awards race, were presented this evening in Brooklyn. Here's a look at the nominees and winners, with some color commentary:

  • Best Feature: Sean Penn's Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage) beat out Great World of Sound (Magnolia), I'm Not There (The Weinstein Company), Margot at the Wedding (Paramount Vantage), and The Namesake (Fox Searchlight). While Into the Wild had to be considered the strong favorite in the category, an upset by I'm Not There or Margot would have shaken voter confidence about its long-term prospects, so this is definitely a good night for Paramount Vantage. (It's unimaginable that Juno and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead weren't in this field, though...)
  • Best Documentary: Michael Moore's Sicko (The Weinstein Company) held off The Devil Came on Horseback (International Film Circuit), Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains (Sony Pictures Classics), My Kid Could Paint That (Sony Pictures Classics), and Taxi to the Dark Side (THINKFilm). Again, Sicko was expected to take this, but a win by Taxi, the only other nominee that also made the Academy's docu shortlist earlier this month, could have shaken things up.
  • Best Ensemble Cast: In a strange twist, the casts of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (THINKFilm) and Talk to Me (Focus Features) tied as winners, emerging from a field that also included The Last Winter (IFC First Take), Margot at the Wedding (Paramount Vantage), and The Savages (Fox Searchlight). Frankly, I'm a bit dumbfounded how three relatively high-profile films with smallish casts (Before, Margot, and Savages), a film that petered out months ago (Talk), and a film nobody has heard of (Last Winter) got nominated over larger and more impressive group pieces like Into the Wild, Juno, and I'm Not There, but I digress.
  • Breakthrough Actor: The magnificent Ellen Page (Juno) prevailed from a category that featured four other men and women: Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild), Kene Holliday (Great World of Sound), Jess Weixler (Teeth), and Luisa Williams (Day Night Day Night). Realistically, this was a Page v. Hirsch race, and Juno-lovers (myself included) have to feel good about Page's chances going forward, while Hirsch backers have to feel he missed a chance to get a much needed boost into the mainstream Best Actor discussion.
  • Breakthrough Director: Great World of Sound led the field in terms of most nominations, so you had to figure it was going to show up somewhere, and it did: director Craig Zobel won over a field of equally no-name directors who apparently did nice work in the shadows this year: Lee Isaac Chung (Munyurangabo), Stephane Gauger (Owl and the Sparrow), Julia Loktev (Day Night Day Night), and David Von Ancken (Seraphim Falls).
  • Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You: Ronald Brownstein's Frownland snagged the prize over August the First, Loren Class, Mississippi Chicken, and Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa. (I forgive you and myself for not particularly caring; I mean, after all... these films are not and will not be playing at a theater near you!)
Posted by Editor at 01:26:25 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, July 09, 2007

THIS WEEK'S BRIEFING

  • Spielberg on Spielberg, the latest original documentary from Turner Classic Movies, will have its world premiere on the network tonight--Monday, July 9, 2007--at 8pm EST. I just watched a screener of the program, which essentially is an extended interview of director Steven Spielberg by Time film critic Richard Schickel in a screening room on the Universal lot, intercut with clips from his most famous films. Consdering Schickel's usual depth, the film is a bit disappointing, and far from the best thing to come out of TCM recently--their Brando special holds that distinction, in my opinion. It is strangely constructed, with films sporadically shown out of order and oddly-titled chapter headings unnecessarily separating them. Worse, it brings very little new information to the table--most of the director's anecdotes and scenes in the film are already familiar to even casual film buffs. And, considering that TCM specializes in championing classic movies--doing a magnificent, heroic job with that, I should add--it seems odd that the network would commission a documentary about a director still very much in the game. One almost gets the sense that Schickel decided on his own to interview Spielberg, and only subsequently took it to TCM in order to find a forum in which showcase it. None of this is to say it is a bad film, only that it leaves something to be desired--a missing piece that perhaps can only be supplied with a greater distance of time from the director's undeniably magnificent films. What it does best, in its opening minutes, is give a sense of Spielberg 'the man'--as opposed to the incomparably talented director--and the great drive and passion that burns beneath his outwardly serene demeanor. That makes it worth a look.
  • The latest documentary from maverick filmmaker Michael Moore may be his most widely-appealing yet. Sicko is an extraordinary, gripping, scary film about the origins and workings of the American health care system, the millions it leaves behind, and alternative systems in other nations--England, France, and yes, even Cuba--that serve their populations much more effectively. While Moore's films always stir up controversy, Sicko should not split audiences along party lines, but rather draw the attention of every American to an issue that, in an instant, can surpass terrorism, homeland security, border protection, and any other issue as the most important in their lives. How can a 79 year old man be forced to work full-time as a janitor in order to pay for his wife's medicine? How can a man who accidentally saws off his middle and ring finger be forced to choose which one to have reattached? How can the al Qaeda terrorists being held at Guantanimo Bay receive better health care than the emergency responders who incurred severe respiratory problems responding to the al Qaeda attacks of 9/11? How can this happen in America? Michael Moore is on the case--never allowing himself to overshadow the issue--and has arguably made his best film yet.
  • I've been fortunate enough to interview many film people who I greatly admire and enjoy, but I'm having an unusually hard time containing my excitement for a conversation that I have scheduled for Tuesday with Leslie Nielsen, the legendary star of several of the funniest movies of all time, including Airplane! (1980) and The Naked Gun (1988). Surely I can't be serious? I am... and don't call me Shirley. Nielsen, who is now a peppy 81 years old, has been gracious enough to agree to speak with me for my ongoing book project, in which I hope to interest younger people in older movies. Many will be surprised to learn that Nielsen had a very respectable career as a serious actor in films like Forbidden Planet (1956), Ransom! (1956), and The Poseidon Adventure (1972) before the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker spoofs came along and tagged a few decades on to this career. More on this to come following the chat.
  • I just realized that I neglected to post my thoughts following the press screening a month ago of potential awards contender La Vie En Rose, a film about the troubled life of iconic French singer Edith Piaf, whose most famous song shares the title of the film. Roger Ebert, the critic I most respect, fell in love with the film and calls it "one of the best bio-pics I've seen. " To me, it's not that simple. I think it is a tremendously flawed bio-pic with one of the best performances I've seen, which makes for a more difficult equation. One could not ask for a better performance as Piaf than the one delivered by the stunningly beautiful French actress Marion Cotillard, who was previously best known for playing Russell Crowe's love interest in the shortlived A Good Year (2006). Hers is the definition of a gutsy undertaking. Piaf, at her best, was less than stunning, and later in her life, when decades of abusing alcohol and drugs to drown away her sorrows caught up with her (along with cancer), she looked frighteningly older than her years. Cotillard has allowed the makeup department to recede her hairline, widen her eyes, and wrinkle her face, but has also taken on much of the physical transformation herself, adopting Piaf's hunched back, grand gestures during performance and, perhaps most vitally to the success of the movie, seamlessly lip-syncs to Piaf's music, which humbly allows the audience to hear the timeless music and lyrics that no actress could imitate. All of this results in a transformation as stunning as any since Charlize Theron in Monster (2003). So what is there not to like? Most of the things that are beyond Cotillard's control. Sitting through this movie is almost like stepping into a boxing ring with your hands tied behind your back--you feel helpless as you take punch after punch to the gut. We are introduced to Piaf as a neglected child, a sympathetic character. Typically, there would be an arc to the rest of the story, both emotionally and structurally. Instead, there is neither. The audience is exposed to two hours of tragedy after tragedy in this woman's life, and not necessarily in chronological order, which only confuses the situation. We barely have time to finish reacting to one tragedy before the next is thrust upon us! True, Piaf's life was tragic, and chaotic, and fast-paced, and over all too soon... but these, alone, do not a good movie make! Perhaps some lives do require the creative liberties that filmmakers are often criticized for taking. Perhaps some lives are not adaptable for the screen at all. That said, it can be nearly impossible to resist dissecting the lives of high-profile people like Piaf, who touched and continue to touch so many other lives. We want to understand the person. But sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and it can be a fruitless endeavor to try to understand a life by focusing on a few of its turning points--"Rosebud," anyone? What we have here is a grand E! True Hollywood Story, the story of someone who came out of nowhere and nothing to touch the hearts of a nation, all the while seeking happiness that would forever elude her. Now for the inevitable question: Can Cotillard's performance--boosted by some good reviews--overcome the film's downer feel, subtitles, and--perhaps its biggest obstacle--early release date, in order to be around during the awards season late in the year? It is a possibility, but I'm guessing no. Cotillard's situation brings to mind Gretchen Mol's candidacy for The Notorious Bettie Page last year--undeniably worthy, but too small and eventually drowned out by the higher-profile performances that take over theaters beginning around October. C'est La Vie, non?
  • Finally, I thought I'd pass along an email I received from a friend with a story that raises an interesting question:

"Don't know whether you heard about this, but Denzel Washington and his family visited the troops at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas (BAMC) the other day. This is where soldiers who have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the United States, especially burn victims. There are some buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher House is a hotel where soldiers' families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in the Hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on the base, but as you can imagine they are almost filled most of the time. While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He then took his check book out and wrote a check for the full amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it. The question I have is why do Alec Baldwin, Madonna, Sean Penn, and other Hollywood types make front page news with their trash and Denzel Washington's patriotism doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section anywhere except the local newspaper in San Antonio?"

Posted by Editor at 01:34:54 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, June 01, 2007

THIS WEEK'S BRIEFING


Michael Moore promoting Sicko, his new documentary, which was a big hit at Cannes

  • If you're looking for a good laugh this weekend, go out and see Judd Apatow's latest comedy, Knocked Up, which opens today and is far and away the funniest movie of the year so far. You may remember that I loved it when I saw it at a screening about a month ago... having just rewatched The 40 Year Old Virgin, I'm ready to go see Knocked Up again. For some fascinating added perspective about the crazy-like-a-fox minds behind these movies, check out 'Judd Apatow's Family Values,' a lengthy cover piece about the director from last week's New York Times Magazine; 'The Education of a Comic Prodigy,' a profile of star Seth Rogen by Joel Stein in the May 17 Time magazine; and 'Knocked Up Delivers Old-Style Comedy,' a review of the film by Richard Schickel in today's Time magazine in which the sometimes snobby critic refers to this film as 'a small and welcome miracle'; and, perhaps most impressive of all, 'Bye-Bye, Bong. Hello, Baby,' a review of the film by A.O. Scott in today's New York Times in which the esteemed critic says the film 'strikes me as an instant classic.' (In the interest of equal time, check out a less enthusiastic review of the film by someone whose opinion I respect, Peter Keough of The Boston Phoenix.) To me, the question is less whether the public will like this film than whether they will turn out to see it--we'll have to wait until Monday to see whether or not the box-office delivers a hit... or a stillborn.
  • The 60th annual Cannes Film Festival came to a close this week with the Golden Palm being awarded to the Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, directed by Christian Mungui. The Ethan and Joel Coen (Fargo) film No Country for Old Men, which stars Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, and Woody Harrelson, was reportedly hot on its heels. The bigger Cannes winner, however, may be Sicko, the latest documentary from controversial director Michael Moore, who elected to screen the film out-of-competition, having previously been awarded a special prize for Bowling for Columbine (2002) and won the Golden Palm for Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). Even Roger Friedman, the gossip columnist/film commentator for right-wing Fox News, called it "brilliant and uplifting." (For another interesting perspective on the Cannes awards, check out the 'Palm d'Hoberman'--as in J. Hoberman of The Village Voice.)
  • Changing subjects from a French film festival to a French language film, I will be seeing a press screening of La Vie En Rose on Tuesday. Marion Cotillard, Russell Crowe's love interest in A Good Year (2006), stars in this biopic of Edith Piaf, the popular WWII era French singer who may be best known for the song that is the title of this film. It has been rumored that Cotillard gives an awards-worthy performance, although an early release date (it has a slow rollout beginning June 8) and foreign language are always tough to overcome.
  • On Wednesday, I will be heading out to Los Angeles to conduct several interviews for a book project, accompanied by my friend Harley Yanoff, a young actor who recently starred in a small indie called Remedial Attraction (2006) and will be appearing as one of Kevin Spacey's college students in the upcoming 21 (2008). While the days will be busy with work, we're slightly concerned that the city's nightlife will have collapsed, what with Lindsay Lohan checking into rehab and Paris Hilton checking into jail this week; alas, we have faith that L.A. will somehow find a way to go on. Among the film folk with whom I'll be speaking: A.C. Lyles, an executive at Paramount Pictures who has worked at the studio since 1928, on the studio lot; Corey Allen, best known as James Dean's rival whose car goes off the cliff in Rebel Without a Cause (1955); Carla Laemmle, niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, who utters the opening lines in Dracula (1931) and is the sole survivor of that film and The Phantom of the Opera (1925); Marsha Hunt, a popular M-G-M actress who was blacklisted and ruined by the House Un-American Activities Committee; my friend Peter Ford, the son of the late, great actor Glenn Ford; and several others who I will be able to discuss later. I might also check out the Student Academy Awards, which have previously been won by the likes of Spike Lee and Robert Zemeckis, and will be handed out on June 9.
  • Speaking of Lindsay Lohan, the young actress was supposed to begin shooting the dark indie comedy Poor Things on Thursday but, having been forced into rehab by her latest vehicular mishap, many speculated that she would be replaced. Instead, Shirley MacLaine (The Apartment, Terms of Endearment), the film's legendary star and co-producer (along with Rob Hickman), announced that they will rearrange their shooting schedule in order to wait for Lohan.
  • My home state, Connecticut, is generating some impressive visitors from the world of film, thanks to recently passed tax incentives that give a 30% tax rebate to filmmakers who spend more than $50,000 in the state. (My friend Carl Feen, a major player in the Connecticut Democratic Party, played a key role in making this happen.) Last summer, chunks of In Bloom (starring Uma Thurman) and 2007 awards contender Reservation Road (starring Joaquin Phoenix) were shot in Connecticut. This summer, Indiana Jones IV comes to the Yale University area of downtown New Haven, probably since Indy's son (Shia LeBouf) will be a college-age student, and Revolutionary Road, which reunites Titanic mates Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (and Kathy Bates), will begin shooting in Stamford in about three weeks. (All 'Roads' lead to Connecticut?) Here are some photos of Leo and Kate from the set.
  • John Travolta is reportedly 'remarkable' as a grossly-obese woman in the upcoming big-screen adaptation of John Waters' play Hairspray.
  • Variety has put an end to thirteen years of rumors by confirming that The Women, the classic American 'women's weepie' from 1939 that starred Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Marjorie Main, and Ruth Hussey, among others, will be re-made with Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Candice Bergen, and Debra Messing, all of whom "have either signed or are near committing." The first one is worth seeing, if only to hear the bitchy Joan Crawford line, "There is a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society--outside of a kennel."
  • The screening room: Just watched Hell's Angels (1930), Howard Hughes' passion project about WWI British aviators, which is notable for its great stuntwork (three pilots died during shooting) and an early performance from troublemaking blonde bombshell Jean Harlow (including the only eight minutes in which she ever appeared in color)... King Vidor's adaptation of Ayn Rand's controversial novel The Fountainhead (1949) today comes across as too preachy and repetitive, and its 'go it alone' and 'stay the course at all costs' mottos have been hurt by George W. Bush and Iraq, but it is interesting to see the beginning of the Gary Cooper-Patricia Neal affair. Neal, who I recently met with, was never sexier (or more sadistic) than in this film... The 39 Steps (1935) is an early film from Alfred Hitchcock, and features most of his usual trademarks--sabotage, secret agents, ordinary men (Robert Donat) dragged into extraordinary situations, sexy blondes (Madeline Carroll), etc. It is nowhere near one of his finest pictures, but it is worth a look, as is Hitchcock and Selznick, a great book by Leonard J. Leff about the fiercely independent director and the controlling producer who brought him to America, and their collaboration over six acrimonious years in the forties that resulted in Rebecca (1940), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), and The Paradine Case (1947).
Posted by Editor at 22:30:20 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Friday, May 18, 2007

THIS WEEK'S BRIEFING

  • This coming weekend (5/18-20), Shrek the Third opens nationwide, but I have never been able to get myself excited about the franchise--there is a new Shrek drinking game, however, that has been brought to my attention... The following weekend (5/25-27), Captain Jack is back when Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End hits theaters. (I'll be checking it out on Monday and post early reaction for those interested.) Arguably the most anticipated release of the summer, and quite possibly the one that will prove the biggest blockbuster, this third installment in the action-adventure franchise re-teams producer Jerry Bruckheimer, director Gore Verbinsky, and lead actors Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, and Orlando Bloom. It follows The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), for which Depp earned a surprise Best Actor nomination, and Dead Man's Chest (2006), which featured great visual effects with the Bill Nighy character, but was otherwise over-long, under-structured, and markedly worse than the first. Hopefully this third installment marks a return to form, but I'm a little concerned, because chunks of it were shot at the same time as the last movie to cut costs. Regardless, from what I can gauge, Bloom and Knightley seem to be hitting the pavement hard promoting the film everywhere, but Depp has been noticeably absent. True enough, his daughter was recently very sick, but that has been dealt with, but Disney has a lot riding on this movie, so it does come as something of a surprise. For some perspective: The first movie had a $46.6 million opening weekend and finished at $305.4 million domestically and $652.1 million internationally. The second movie had a $135.6 million opening weekend and finished at $423 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide. So what's the likely ceiling for the third? Can it top Spider-Man 3's $148 million opening weekend from earlier this month? I haven't seen tracking statistics, but my guess is yes. With more kids out of school, better word-of-mouth, a sexier leading lady, and a major role for Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (upon whom Depp largely based his character's look and mannerisms), I'll predict, for the heck of it, a $154 million opening weekend.
  • A big thank you to my friends at Turner Classic Movies, who were kind enough to send along a copy of Brando, their brand new documentary about Marlon Brando, the man who redefined the profession of acting. The network aired the program--and many of the actor's referenced films--earlier this month, earning a rave review from the New York Times (subscription required), which made it all the more disappointing for me to have to miss it due to a scheduling conflict. Now, I look forward to popping in the DVD to try to better understand this complicated man through snippets of his own work from over the years and interviews with a diverse group of fellow actors--Eli Wallach, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, etc.--who discuss what it was like to work with and learn from him. From my own interviews with actors over the years, I have come to appreciate the profound impact Brando had on fellow actors and his profession--there really was pre-Brando acting and post-Brando acting--and it is about time that someone broke this down for people.
  • Congratulations to Natalya Trifanova, an old family friend and gifted filmmaker, who is the associate producer of Wide Awake, an experimental documentary about director-producer-writer-editor Alan Berliner's lifelong battle with insomnia that will screen at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on Saturday night and then make its primetime debut on HBO next Wednesday at 8pm.
  • Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11), everyone's favorite fat liberal Canadian, will be back in theaters with his latest documentary, Sicko (out this June), which addresses the manifold problems of the American health care system. Moore has already stirred up controversy--and well-timed attention for his movie--by traveling with sick patients to Cuba and, in effect, glorifying the health care system under dictator and longtime American adversary Fidel Castro. Moore granted Time magazine an exclusive sneak-peak at the film and interview about it, answering their questions and insisting that Sicko should appeal equally to red-state and blue-state Americans, since we all share the same problems when it comes to our health and how our country responds to them, or fails to.
  • Not all celebrities are assholes, but those who are generally prove it in such a big way that they earn a bad reputation for the rest of the crowd. Case in point: Mark Wahlberg and his entourage, among others, at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. (This piece also gives a sense of the immense cost of bringing a movie, not to mention its talent, to Cannes--I'm appalled by the costs of bringing them to a small film festival, but you'll be appalled when you hear what it takes at the world's biggest.)
  • Although the focus of this site is film, we keep a watchful eye on Broadway, because many productions from the Great White Way end up as Hollywood movies--especially vehicles for lead actors. Going into Tony nominations this week, the big question was which of an extraordinary number of lead actor performances would make the cut--the results are in, and Frank Langella (as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon), Christopher Plummer (as a surrogate of Clarence Darrow in Inherit the Wind), and Liev Schreiber (as a radio talkshow host in Talk Radio) all earned spots for Lead Actor, but Bill Nighy (The Vertical Hour) was bounced from the category in favor of Boyd Gaines (Journey's End) and Brian F. O'Byrne (The Coast of Utopia). As far as female leads, Vanessa Redgrave (as Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking) seems to be the favorite over the apparently immortal Angela Lansbury (Deuce), Julie White (The Little Dog Laughed), Swoosie Kurtz (Heartbreak House), and Eve Best (opposite snubbed Kevin Spacey in A Moon for the Misbegotten).
  • Taking a cue from David Poland over at The Hot Blog, I thought I'd share some of the unusual Google searches that have led people to this site, according to our internal software. Hint, people--next time you decide to look for information about Bob Barker being a male prostitute, or other matters of comparable importance, put quotes around the search so that you find sites that actually address the matter, not sites that simply have used all four of those words. Or, better yet, don't--that way, we'll see searches as funny (and odd) as these:
    • Lana Wood transsexual
    • pictures of grandpas having sex with their granddaughters
    • sex in Japan
    • Benicio Del Toro smoking
    • Keisha Castle Hughes paparazzi
    • Meryl Streep hand gestures are annoying
    • hitchhiker brokeback
    • Tupac went to Juilliard
    • Kenneth Pinyan video clip
    • Bob Barker male prostitute
Posted by Editor at 05:22:49 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |