Trashing "Precious"

There's always one movie every year that the big, bad bullies of the internet like to get together and bash. Last year it was Slumdog Millionaire, before that it was Juno, then Little Miss Sunshine. I'll admit to not liking Juno, and making that quite clear. And I do tend to get annoyed when films that don't deserve to be in the final five get overpraised by rabid fans. But the vitriol surrounding this year's Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire is just beyond the pale.

I don't think I have ever seen such hateful, bitter vitriol thrown at a major Oscar contender as I have this one, some of it even seeming personal. And it's completely underserved. No, Precious is not a perfect film. Far from it. I made my issues with it clear in my review. But by no stretch of the imagination does it deserve how it is being treated by the hipster internet elite who try to prove their badassery by shitting on anything it appears the Academy will like.

Precious is not one of the best films of the year. It will not be in my top 10, 20, or even 30. But it is not a bad film. But few things make me angrier than the mean-spirited snark you start seeing on the internet around this time of year. The internet seems to breed snark. It's not witty, it's obnoxious, and most people aren't perceptive enough to tell the difference. People think it makes them interesting or cool or funny. But it doesn't, it just makes them look dumb. Just because every keyboard commando in their mother's basement has an outlet to spout their opinion doesn't mean they should. But I guess on the internet they can fool people into believing they're cool and aloof.

The biggest problem is that many of these "critics" and bloggers (mostly white) are calling it racist. RACIST! They say it is promoting negative stereotypes of black people. It was directed by a black man, written by a black man, based on a novel by a black woman, nearly its entire cast is black, and its producers are black. If you are white, and you call this movie racist, I can never take anything you say seriously again. You have no right. It's like saying Barack Obama is racist against white people when he's half white.

If you want to have an intelligent discussion about the merits of the construction and form of Precious, go right ahead, it deserves it. It's often very poorly directed. But you can't deny the powerful performances, and that hate now seems to be spilling over onto star Mo'Nique, who has publically said she doesn't care about the Oscar.

So what? Heaven forbid anyone shake up your insulated little world. Not care about Oscar? The nerve!

Grow up.

You Earned It

Source: Awards Daily

I'm Back

I know it hasn't been an unusual thing for me to not post every day for the last few months. The summer is usually very busy for me, I spend so much time doing shows that I don't have as much time to keep up the blog, even though I do keep up the reviews.

The fact is ever since October I have been sick a lot. Which is unusual for me. I got the H1N1 virus back at the beginning of October (a risk that is to expected when you work as closely with the general public in your theatre work, and especially children, as I do), which weakened my immune system, so before I even had the chance to build my immunity back up, I got tonsillitis. Which was followed by...another bout of tonsillitis. One thing led to another until this past weekend I had an infection that required hospitalization and emergency surgery on Saturday morning. I should have been able to go that afternoon or the next morning, but the anesthesia didn't really set well with me, and I spent most of the weekend with an extremely high fever and an inability to keep any food down. I was just released this afternoon. In other words, it was not a fun weekend.

I'm out now, recovering at home. It will be a few weeks before I'm fully healed, and I'm still in a good bit of pain. But I'm getting better. Just wanted to give you an update of where I'm at. I'll try to keep things up here a little more while I'm home recuperating, but I doubt there will be any new reviews for at least a week. I'm missing a lot of good press screenings while I'm out of commission this week. But, despite the fact that the first thing I said when the doctor told me I needed surgery immediately was "but I have a show to do tonight," there are indeed more important things for me to be concerned with.

Anyway, thanks for sticking around. I, for one, don't plan on going anywhere for a while. It will take a lot more than this to keep me down.

Review: "Dancer in the Dark"

*NOTE* This review was originally published as part of the Lars von Trier retrospective at In Review Online.

Of all the genres for Danish provocateur Lars von Trier to tackle, the musical seems one of the most unlikely. Long associated with pure escapism, musicals conjure images of toe-tapping Busby Berkeley numbers lifting the nation’s spirits during the Great Depression, or Julie Andrews singing on a mountaintop without a care in the world. In von Trier's hands, however, the musical becomes another vehicle for one of the director's scathing critiques of America, eschewing traditional formula and peeling back the genre's slick veneer to expose darker themes. His film centers on Czech immigrant Selma (Icelandic recording artist Bjork, in a transcendent performance), who's been obsessed with musicals since she was a child. Selma came to America in hopes of earning enough money to afford an operation that could save her son, who's slowly going blind due to a hereditary, degenerative disease that she herself suffers from. Her trips to the movies with a close friend (Catherine Deneuve) both offer an escape from the day-to-day drudgery of her factory work and, in their lavish productions and unwavering optimism, perpetuate a vision of America Selma once believed in.

The musical numbers in these films resonate with Selma so much that she begins to imagine them superimposed on her own life, as relief and liberation from her impending blindness. The irony here is obvious: the musicals Selma so idolized as a child have given her a completely false impression of America; so now, in her mind, she creates imaginary musical scenes to ease the pain and hardship she faces living in the real America every day. It’s a sweeping denunciation of the myth of the American dream—the idealized America put forth by escapist Hollywood fare—and many of von Trier’s critics have taken issue with his condemnations of this country, since he's never been here himself. Likewise, they've scorned him for his misogyny (an accusation that's been reignited with the unleashing of his new film, “Antichrist”), and chattered about his fights on set with Bjork.

But the stunning results of the film are hard to deny. Bjork is fantastic, turning in one of the decade’s most raw, powerful performances, and it is to the Academy’s eternal shame that she wasn't even nominated. (Then again, von Trier has never had an easy relationship with AMPAS; his sole nomination is for co-writing with Bjork "Dancer in the Dark's" most memorable song, “I’ve Seen it All.”) And though the film makes no bones about its didacticism, it's also undeniably an accomplished technical achievement—the work of a master at the height of his powers. The 2000s would yield two great masterpieces by the Dane, “Dancer in the Dark” being the first. His greatest achievement would come three years later in the form of “Dogville,” followed by two minor works ("Manderlay" and "The Boss of it All") and one near-great rally at the end of the decade, with this year's "Antichrist." The iconoclastic auteur has sharply divided critics and audiences with each new film, but when it comes to "Dancer in the Dark," his status as one of today's greatest and most exciting filmmakers is tough to argue.

LAST WORD: “Dancer in the Dark,” von Trier’s first of two masterpieces in the 2000s, is one of the greatest films of the decade: a dark, powerful take on the folly of the American dream, and an ironic twist on the musical genre.

Review: "An Education"

Lone Scherfig's Sundance hit, An Education, is a respectable film in every way. It's smartly written, fantastically acted (especially by lead Carey Mulligan) , and handsomely mounted. It's the kind of immaculately constructed period drama that Oscar voters tend to fawn over, or at least they did at one time. But despite its obvious pedigree and its fine construction, An Education failed, for the most part, to bowl me over the way I felt it should.

Not to make this a personal review, but on the whole, An Education just feels a bit...underwhelming. Sure all the ingredients are there, it's perfectly adequate in every way, but it never asserts itself beyond that. It's a nice story with a nice message, and...well, it's just a nice movie. But nice does not great art make, and An Education never quite takes it to the next level.

The performances, on the other hand, do. All the hype is around Carey Mulligan, and rightfully so. Her turn as Jenny, a middle class girl in 1960s England living in a home that values education above all, is a star-making performance. She makes the film, and while she is surrounded by a capable supporting cast, with Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson, Olivia Williams, and Cara Seymour all doing solid work, Mulligan walks away with the film in her pocket.

Left to right: Carey Mulligan as Jenny, Peter Sarsgaard as David. Photo taken by Kerry Brown, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Jenny is nearing the end of her high school career. And like many other girls her age, is beginning to look at her options for university. Her father (Molina), a strict disciplinarian and believer in education above all else, wants her to attend Oxford, and Jenny has every intention of obliging. That is until she meets David (Sarsgaard), an older, wealthy playboy who begins to show her the ways of the world. Using his charm to sweet talk her normally strict parents, David squires her off to Paris and other exotic locales, and slowly the prospect of a college education begins to pale in comparison to the lure of high society on David's arm. But something isn't quite right about all this. And while Jenny begins to reject the dreams and values she once held dear, it soon becomes clear that David may just be too good to be true.

Scherfig sets up the central conflict as a slow boil, letting the audience get attached to David much the same way that Jenny and her parents do. But savvy audiences will catch on pretty quick, and one can't help but wonder how these otherwise strict parents fail to do so as well. The one person that seems to know what is going on is Miss Stubbs (Williams), Jenny's devoted teacher, and to some degree, the school's severe headmistress (Thompson). Miss Stubbs is the film's saintly hero, and it's a hard pill to swallow that the conservative headmistress turned out to be right.

Peter Sarsgaard as David. Photo taken by Kerry Brown, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

It is for that exact reason that An Education feels a bit confused. It's title has a double meaning, of course, referring not just to an actual academic eduction, but to Jenny's education in the ways of the world. And it isn't always pretty. Her first foray outside the confines of her protective home is disastrous to say the least. But Scherfig paints that foray as glamorous and almost enviable, with Jenny arguing passionately (and pretty convincingly) against the societal mores that the film ends up supporting in the end. The values of being educated over flitting around and being dumb is obviously a good thing, but the film treats it as an either/or situation, when in reality it isn't that black and white. Jenny is obviously very bright and intelligent, and the film almost suggests that she would end up being just as airheaded as David's friend, Helen (Rosamund Pike), which is not really the case.

I never really felt that An Education lived up to its potential. It treats the issues it raises as black and white rather than really exploring them in a satisfying way. Otherwise it's a solid film, competently put together and reasonably entertaining. It just never takes any risks or takes that next step into being something more.

GRADE - ★★½ (out of four)

AN EDUCATION; Directed by Lone Scherfig; Stars Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina, Emma Thompson, Olivia Williams, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, Cara Seymour; Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material involving sexual content, and for smoking.

Review: "La danse - Le ballet de l'Opéra de Paris"

Watching Frederick Wiseman's La danse - Le ballet de l'Opéra de Paris is a breathtaking experience, especially for anyone who has ever been interested in any kind of dance or theatre. It is an unprecedented, expansive tour behind the scenes of the Paris Opera Ballet, the takes us through the rehearsals, to the performances, to the business behind the art, even to the guys who clean the theater after each performance. La Danse really leaves no stone unturned. This is a massive, sprawling, comprehensive look at all the aspects that go into creating the beauty that is the Paris Opera Ballet.

Wiseman eschews typical documentary conventions, dispensing with the narration, interviews, talking heads, and other such trappings associated with the genre, opting instead for a roving look through the halls of the Ballet, unaided by any cinematic guide. He lets the world and its denizens speak for themselves, sitting in on rehearsals and business meetings, until we slowly begin to get to know some of the major behind the scenes players.

It's an extremely intimate tour, giving the audience the feeling of being a part of the proceedings, as if we somehow have some kind of control over the proceedings. It is the view of the ultimate insider, and we get to be a fly on the wall.

The real stars, of course, are the dancers themselves, and the ballet sequences are strikingly beautiful. Wiseman's camera captures the dances up close and personal, showcasing their talent in all its glory - the grace of their movements, the precision of their isolations, is simply jaw-dropping. La Danse is poetry in motion, and Wiseman is the master poet.

This kind of free flowing documentary isn't easy to achieve. But Wiseman guides it with an expert hand. Even at two hours and forty minutes, La Danse feels nimble and light, never overstaying its welcome in any aspect of the Ballet's inner workings. I was reminded, in some ways, of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes, and I can't help but feel that if that film had been a documentary it would look and feel something like this. This, like The Red Shoes, can't help but be an inspiration for a generation of new dancers. For anyone who has ever dreamed of dancing, for those who long for the stage, the spotlight, and the adoring cheer of the crowds, La Danse is a paen to their hard work and sacrifice, and a monument for their dreams.

Neither idolizing or idealistic, La Danse is a remarkable look at the modern state of dance, the inner conflicts, the changing times, and the haunting beauty that springs forth from it all.

GRADE - ★★★½ (out of four)

LA DANSE - LE BALLET DE L'OPÈRA DE PARIS; Directed by Frederick Wiseman; Not Rated. Now playing in select cities.

National Board of Review Crowns "Up in the Air"

The winners are:

Best Film: Up In The Air

Best Director: Clint Eastwood, Invictus

Best Actor: Morgan Freeman, Invictus and George Clooney, Up In The Air (tie)

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, An Education

Best Supporting Actor: Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick, Up In The Air

Best Foreign Film: A Prophet

Best Documentary: The Cove

Best Animated Feature: Up

Best Ensemble Cast: It’s Complicated

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut: Duncan Jones, Moon, Oren Moverman, The Messenger and Marc Webb, 500 Days of Summer (tie)

Best Original Screenplay: Joel & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man

Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up In The Air

Special Filmmaking Achievement Award: Wes Anderson, The Fantastic Mr. Fox

William K. Everson Film History Award: Jean Picker Firstenberg

NBR Freedom of Expression: Burma Vj: Reporting From A Closed Country, Invictus, The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellseberg And The Pentagon Papers

Top Eleven Films (In alphabetical order):
An Education
(500) Days Of Summer
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Invictus
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Star Trek
Up
Up In The Air
Where The Wild Things Are

Top Ten Independent Films (In alphabetical order):
Amreeka
District 9
Goodbye Solo
Humpday
In The Loop
Julia
Me And Orson Welles
Moon
Sugar
Two Lovers

Top Six Foreign Films (In alphabetical order):
The Maid
A Prophet
Revanche
Song Of Sparrows
Three Monkeys
The White Ribbon

Top Six Documentary Films (In alphabetical order):
Burma Vj: Reporting From A Closed Country
The Cove
Crude
Food, Inc.
Good Hair
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers

Source: Indiewire

Well this is an interesting and most unexpected list. No love for Precious, The Lovely Bones, Nine, and several other big contenders, while films like Star Trek and Where the Wild Things Are made the cut. It's great to see Oren Moverman's The Messenger among the top ten, hopefully that will give it the boost it needs.

It's also interesting seeing Three Monkeys and The Song of Sparrows show up in their list of best foreign films. Both are very worthy, but often overlooked, films.

On "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphire"

From The Dispatch:

Precious' fantasies, brought on as an escape mechanism during traumatic moments, are distracting and grating, awkwardly pulling the audience out of the moment and interrupting it with something that is tonally incongruous with the rest of the film.

Those moments are what push "Precious" in the TV movie of the week direction. But when Daniels steps back and lets the story and the performances speak for themselves, this is powerful stuff. Newcomer Sidibe gives a fearless and magnetic performance as Precious, but it is Mo'Nique who really steals the show. Her mother-from-hell is one of the most frightening and repulsive screen characters in recent memory, and Mo'Nique imbues her with a subtlety that is both haunting and terrifying.

Click here to read my full review.

"A Prophet" Tops 2009 Sight & Sound Poll

Tahar Rahim as Malik in A PROPHET. Photo taken by Roger Apajou © 2008, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

The British Sight & Sound film poll, more known for its annual 10 year survey of the greatest films of all time, released its list of the 10 best films of 2009 today. They are:

1. A Prophet – Jacques Audiard
2. The Hurt Locker – Kathryn Bigelow
- 35 Shots of Rum – Claire Denis
4. The White Ribbon – Michael Haneke
5. Let the Right One In – Tomas Alfredson
6. Up – Pete Docter
- White Material – Claire Denis
8. Bright Star – Jane Campion
- Antichrist – Lars von Trier
10. Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino

I liked A Prophet, but I would be hard pressed to call it one of the best of the year. Let the Right One In is a 2008 film Stateside, of course, but it deserves its position here. I'm also glad to see some love for Antichrist, 35 Shots of Rum, and The White Ribbon, three of my favorite films of the year.

Source: In Contention

Review: "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"

Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee comes along at that time of year that studios seem to believe is the only time adults go to the movies. Sure, they're busy right now with Oscar bait (none of which, this year, actually seems strong enough to be called such), but every now and then a nice, quality drama gets slipped in quietly amongst the clamor for the Oscar crowds, family audiences, and vampire loving emo teenage girls.

While no one is going to mistake Pippa Lee for a great film, its strong cast and solid writing make for an overall pleasant experience, and a brief respite from the dearth of mostly disappointing films currently jockeying for Oscar attention. Honestly, it's just as good if not better than most of the Oscar bait, and while I'm by no means saying that Pippa Lee should be an Oscar contender, I think it's very telling of just how weak this year's crop of Oscar bait is.

Rebecca Miller grabbed Hollywood's collective attention with Personal Velocity in 2002, but while her films have always been critically acclaimed, she has resisted the urge to go big, and kept her focus on small, character driven dramas like 2005's The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring her husband, Daniel Day-Lewis.

Robin Wright Penn as Pippa Lee and Keanu Reeves as Chris Nadeau in Screen Media Films' THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE.

Her latest effort introduces us to Pippa Lee (Robin Wright Penn), a middle aged but still attractive woman who is married to much older man named Herb (Alan Arkin), a successful editor who is finally retiring and moving them into a retirement community. Suddenly, Pippa, a once free spirit finds herself a mild mannered, domestic housewife in an upscale retirement community, completely out of her element, and ultimately, completely lost. While her affection for Herb has kept her by his side, something just seems missing. And soon she is reflecting upon a life filled with youthful mistakes, obstacles, and tragedies that have brought her to this moment, and ultimately created the woman she is today, a free bird trapped in a cage with a plastic smile.

Then along comes Chris (Keanu Reeves), the enigmatic man-child son of her neighbor and close friend, Dot (Shirley Knight), who comes home to live with his parents after a fight with his wife. But there is much more to Chris than meets the eye, and Pippa is immediately intrigued, finding in Chris what she may have been looking for to bring herself out of this midlife slump once and for all.

Maria Bello as Suky Sarkissian and Blake Lively as Young Pippa in the scene of THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE.

It all sounds a bit standard, and honestly it is. But Lee and her fine cast do well by the material, keeping it grounded and real even at its most mundane. Reeves fails to really register, however, doing yet another version of his sleepy eyed zen-like love interest, which is frankly pretty boring. He doesn't provide the spark the film, or Pippa, really needs. But even the rest of the cast can't overcome the film's pat and cliched ending. It clips along at a nice pace, but by the time we reach the finale, the film suddenly wraps up its problems with a quick and easy fix that just doesn't ring true. Characters who had been bitter enemies suddenly make up with no catalyst to explain the change of heart. It's a weak and dismissive ending to an otherwise solid film.

There is an episodic quality to the film that doesn't quite work, but Robin Wright Penn's strong central performance and Miller's capable screenplay deftly navigate the familiar trajectory of the story (based on Miller's own novel of the same name). It's just a pity it had to cop out in the last leg of the race.

GRADE - ★★½ (out of four)

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE; Directed by Rebecca Miller; Stars Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, Keanu Reeves, Maria Bello, Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder, Shirley Knight, Blake Lively; Rated R for sexual content, brief nudity, some drug material and language.

Annie Award Nominations

Best Animated Feature
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – Sony Pictures Animation
Coraline – Laika
Fantastic Mr. Fox – 20th Century Fox
The Princess and the Frog – Walt Disney Animation Studios
The Secret of Kells – Cartoon Saloon
Up – Pixar Animation Studios

Directing in a Feature Production
Wes Anderson “Fantastic Mr. Fox” – 20th Century Fox
Pete Docter “Up” – Pixar Animation Studios
Christopher Miller, Phil Lord “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” – Sony
Pictures Animation
Hayao Miyazaki “Ponyo” – Studio Ghibli
Henry Selick “Coraline” – Laika

Music in a Feature Production
Bruno Coulais “Coraline” – Laika
Michael Giacchino “Up” – Pixar Animation Studios
Joe Hisaishi “Ponyo” – Studio Ghibli
John Powell “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” – Blue Sky Studios

Click here to download the full list of nominations.

Independent Spirit Award Nominations

Gabourey Sidibe stars as Claireece 'Precious' Jones in PRECIOUS: BASED UPON THE NOVEL 'PUSH' BY SAPPHIRE.

BEST FEATURE
“(500) Days Of Summer”
“Amreeka”
“Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire”
“Sin Nombre”
“The Last Station”

BEST DIRECTOR
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, “A Serious Man”
Lee Daniels, “Precious”
Cary Joji Fukunaga, “Sin Nombre”
James Gray, “Two Lovers”
Michael Hoffman, “The Last Station”

BEST FIRST FEATURE (Award given to the director and producer)
“A Single Man,” Director: Tom Ford, Producers: Tom Ford, Andrew Miano, Robert Salerno, Chris Weitz
“Crazy Heart,” Director: Scott Cooper, Producers: T Bone Burnett, Judy Cairo, Rob Carliner, Scott Cooper, Robert Duvall
“Easier With Practice,” Director: Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Producer: Cookie Carosella
“Paranormal Activity,” Director: Oren Peli, Producer: Jason Blum, Oren Peli
“The Messenger,” Director: Oren Moverman, Producers: Mark Gordon, Lawrence Inglee, Zach Miller

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
(Given to the best feature made for under $500,000; award given to the writer, director, and producer)
“Big Fan” Writer/Director: Robert Siegel; Producers: Elan Bogarin, Jean Kouremetis
“Humpday” Writer/Director/Producer: Lynn Sheldon
“The New Year Parade” Writer/Director: Tom Quinn; Producers: Steve Beal, Tom Quinn
“Treeless Mountain” Writer/Director: So Yong Kim; Producers: Bradley Rust Gray, Ben Howe, So Yong Kim, Lars Knudsen, Jay Van Hoy
“Zero Bridge” Writer/Director: Tariq Tapa; Producers: Josee Lajoie, Hilal Ahmed Langoo, Tariq Tapa

BEST SCREENPLAY
Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman, “The Messenger”
Michael Hoffman, “The Last Station
Lee Toland Krieger, “The Vicious Kind”
Greg Mottola, “Adventureland”
Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber, “(500) Days Of Summer”

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Sophie Barthes, “Cold Souls”
Scott Cooper, “Crazy Heart”
Cherien Dabis, “Amreeka”
Geoffrey Fletcher, “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”
Tom Ford, David Scearce, “A Single Man”

Helen Mirren stars in THE LAST STATION. Photo taken by Stephan Rabold, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Maria Bello, “Downloading Nancy”
Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
Gwentyth Paltrow, “Two Lovers”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”
Nisreen Faour, “Amreeka”

BEST MALE LEAD
Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “(500) Days Of Summer”
Souléymane Sy Savané, “Goodbye Solo”
Adam Scott, “The Vicious Kind”

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Dina Korzun, “Cold Souls”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Samantha Morton, “The Messenger”
Natalie Press, “Fifty Dead Men Walking”
Mia Wasikowska, “That Evening Sun”

BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Jemaine Clement, “Gentleman Broncos”
Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”
Christian McKay, “Me and Orson Welles”
Raymond McKinnon, “That Evening Sun”
Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”

Michael Stuhlbarg stars as Larry Gopnik in writer/directors Joel & Ethan Coen's 1967-set A SERIOUS MAN, a Focus Features release.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Roger Deakins, “A Serious Man”
Adriano Goldman, “Sin Nombre”
Anne Misawa, “Treeless Mountain”
Andrij Parekh, “Cold Souls”
Peter Zeitlinger, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”

BEST DOCUMENTARY (Award given to the director)
“Anvil! The Story of Anvil” Director: Sacha Gervasi
“Food, Inc.” Director: Robert Kenner
“More Than a Game” Director: Kristopher Belman
“October Country” Directors: Donal Mosher, Michael Palmieri
“Which Way Home” Director: Rebecca Cammisa

Tahar Rahim as Malik in A PROPHET. Photo taken by Roger Arpajou © 2008, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

BEST FOREIGN FILM (Award given to the director)
“A Prophet” (France), Director: Jacques Audiard
“An Education” (UK/France), Director: Lone Scherfig
“Everlasting Moments” (Sweden), Director: Jan Troell
“Mother” (South Korea), Director: Bong Joon-Ho
“The Maid” (Chile), Director: Sebastian Silva

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD
(Given to one film’s director, casting director, and its ensemble cast)
Robert Altman Award
“A Serious Man”
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Casting Directors: Ellen Chenoweth, Rachel Tenner
Cast: Richard Kind, Sari Lennick, Jessica McManus, Michael Stuhlbarg, Aaron Wolff

PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD
Karin Chien, “The Exploding Girl,” “Santa Mesa”
Larry Fessenden, “I Sell the Dead,” “The House of the Devil”
Dia Sokol, “Beeswax,” “Nights & Weekends”

SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
Kyle Patrick Alvarez, “Easier With Practice”
Asiel Norton, “Redland”
Tariq Tapa, “Zero Bridge”

TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD
NNatalia Almada, “El General”
Jessica Oreck, “Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo”
Bill Ross, Turner Ross, “45365”

Source: Indiewire

Pushing "Precious"

Say what you want about the film (although I'm in the positive category, with some reservations), the artwork for Precious so far has been gorgeous, like this new FYC ad:

Source: Awards Daily

Trailer: "The Expendables"

This...looks amazing! I was a sucker for Rambo...I am totally in the bag for this!

The Expendables - Trailer
by flogoo

Gleiberman Defends "New Moon" - I Respectfully Disagree

In my earlier, formative days of being a film buff, my only immediate source of film news or reviews was Entertainment Weekly. I eagerly awaited each issue, got excited every time a new Fall Movie Preview or Oscar Preview issue was released, and pretty much lapped up every piece of information from it I could get.

As I grew older and my horizons expanded, I left behind EW and now rarely, if ever, read it at all. One thing that always stuck out to me though, was that I preferred film critic Lisa Schwartzbaum to Owen Gleiberman. And after reading his rather smug and completely off-base defense of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, I remembered why.

In the article, he says:

The ascendance of the Twilight saga represents an essential paradigm shift in youth-gender control of the pop marketplace. For the better part of two decades, teenage boys, and overgrown teenage boys, have essentially held sway over Hollywood, dictating, to a gargantuan degree, the varieties of movies that get made. Explosive truck-smashing action and grisly machete-wielding horror, inflated superhero fantasy and knockabout road-trip comedy: It has been, at heart, a boys’ pig-out, a playpen of testosterone at the megaplex. Sure, we have “chick flicks,” but that (demeaning) term implies that they’re an exception, a side course in the great popcorn smorgasboard.

No more. With New Moon, the Twilight series is now officially as sweeping a juggernaut on the big screen as it ever was between book covers. And that gives the core audience it represents — teenage girls — a new power and prevalence. Inevitably, such evolutions in clout are accompanied by a resentful counter-reaction. For if power is gained, then somewhere else (hello, young men!) it must be lost.

So all the Twilight hate is because of some twisted Freudian desire for male dominance? Not because it's, you know, a piece of trash. Some thick necked frat boys may laugh it off because it's a "chick flick." But Transformers 2 (which, make no mistake, is still the box-office juggernaut of 2009) is just as dumb. But you can hardly say that all, or even most, of Twilight haters feel that their fragile male egos are being challenged. I'm male and I hate Twilight. I also hate "explosive truck-smashing action and grisly machete-wielding horror, inflated superhero fantasy and knockabout road-trip comedy" as he puts it. So where does that leave me? I have nothing against movies targeted at females doing boffo box office. I was there on opening day for Sex and the City, and loved every minute of it. I got annoyed at all those fanboys pulling for The Dark Knight to topple Titanic as the all time box office king of the world, because, frankly, I think Titanic is a far superior film, and has remained one of my personal favorites since I saw it in theaters way back when I was just 11 years old. His argument here just doesn't hold water.

Later, he makes an even more outrageous claim:

I went into New Moon having not read the book, and so I didn’t really experience the movie as an adaptation, or watch it as any sort of Twilight die-hard. Leaving aside a few leaping boy-to-wolf transformations (which could, at this point, have come out of any routine horror film), what I saw, in essence, was a moody romantic melodrama from the 1950s, a movie that told its story, more than anything else, with faces. For two hours, they loomed up there — Stewart, with her pale crystalline severity, her ability to communicate desire and distress at the same moment; Robert Pattinson, with his sweet-but-not-too-safe, hurtin’-eyed, chalky-skinned delinquent chivalry; and Taylor Lautner, with those naturally wolfy features, as the group’s Troy Donahue, a friendly, quick-grinned stud-muffin who’s just buff enough to divert the heroine without threatening to capsize her devotion to her true love.

Say what? I know he knows better than that, after naming Far From Heaven his #1 film of 2002 for its haunting evocation of the 1950s melodramas of Douglas Sirk. New Moon is about as far from Sirk's masterful All That Heaven Allows as you can get. There are no delicate emotions here, no deep, unspoken desires, just some whiny self-loathing. The actors aren't emoting, they're mumbling through their lines and occasionally twitching an eyebrow. But mostly they just look nauseous. Let's not forget, however, that most of those quickie, drive-in 1950s melodramas were terrible.

But here's the kicker:

...the reason I believe that the big-screen success of the Twilight saga bodes well for the future of Hollywood movies is that the teenage girls who are lining up to see New Moon are asserting, in an almost innocent way, their allegiance to a much older form of pop moviemaking: the narcotic potency of mood, story, and romantic suggestion over the constant visual wham-pow! of action, effects, and packaged sensation.

Mood? New Moon is about story and mood? What story? Nothing happens! The books are filled with endless passages of breathless fawning over Edward's glittering body. New Moon drags on and on and on chronicling a shallow, pointless romance between two characters without chemistry who are given no reason as to why they should be together other than "she smells good" and "he's hot." Did I mention that he is an emotionally abusive jerk? Thankfully he's absent for most of the film, so most of the film is filled with moping and self-pity, at least until it occasionally remembers it had some random sublpot about a vampire woman wanting to kill Bella...but that's not very often.

There is a difference between mood and moping. If there is any mood to be had here it's thanks to Alexandre Desplat's lovely score. Otherwise it's just awkward. The only thing that happens in the movie resembling a solid story or a plot happens in the last 20 minutes or so, and by then it's far too late and the supporting characters far too underdeveloped. You want mood? See Claire Denis' mesmerizing 35 Shots of Rum, or Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys, or Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, or even Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, a film that is everything Gleiberman claims New Moon is, but isn't. This is not mood. It's emo whining with a captial E.