Reflections in a Golden Eye

Great trilogy

2011-07-19T21:14:00.003-06:00

And it's even better with repeated viewings. I recommend a little at-home marathon. All three movies are wonderful, but the final Ultimatum is easily the best.

Favorite Movie of 2011

2011-07-19T20:53:00.008-06:00

I know, we've got a long way to go before awards season and the annual Oscar madness; but I've already seen (twice) my favorite movie of the year. I'm not going to defend it any more to my friends who openly loathe it (although, yes, I'll admit that the creation montage goes on a bit too long and the dinosaurs just don't work for me). But something that is otherwise so startlingly good is reason enough for me to celebrate another great movie by my favorite American director. AO Scott's review in the NY Times still says it best.

2009-05-14T16:40:00.009-06:00

I can't remember when I have anticipated a movie more than Rob Marshall's upcoming NINE. The teaser photos we've seen for several months, especially those of Daniel Day -Lewis and the goddess supreme Sophia Loren were enough to confirm my curiosity that the best director for the job had indeed assembled an amazing cast for what might possibly be the best movie adaptation of a Broadway musical since Bob Fosse's CABARET. Today, the first official trailer appeard on ITunes and it's my new obsession. If the movie is anything like the preview (and we all know how often that is NOT the case), then I'll probably lose my senses when the movie finally debuts in November. In an homage to Fellini, Fosse, Minnelli, and maybe his own CHICAGO, Marshall has apparently created something pretty magical indeed. I'm a big fan of the original Broadway production and the equally splendid revival a few years ago. But the images from the movie suggest this might be the best evocation yet of Maury Yeston's dreamy score. (Of course if the movie is a bomb, I'll deny ever having written this.)

You can see the trailer at FirstShowing and in lovely hd over at ITunes. Be Italian. Indeed.

2009-05-14T16:27:00.004-06:00

We opened my production of Edward Albee's THE GOAT OR, WHO IS SYLVIA? last night at AtticRep. It could not have gone better, and I'm very proud of my splendid cast, crew and designers. And clearly our local theater critic for the Express News liked what she saw; this lovely blurb was posted on the ArtsBeat blog early this morning.

The photo above is a rehearsal shot of Andy Thornton and Gloria Sanchez as Martin and Stevie, imo Albee's most dynamic duo since George and Martha. Below are Andy and Gloria with Rick Frederick (L) and Robby Glass (R) as Ross and Billy, respectively, on Chris Sauter's truly amazing and beautiful set.

Samba Saravah

2009-05-13T15:04:00.007-06:00

Things have been more than a little bit nuts lately; as a result, regular blog postings (never my strong suit to begin with) ground to a halt. In the midst of all the craziness, I have found myself drawn to the early vocal sytlings of Pierre Barouh and/or watching Jacques Demy's lovely and heartbreaking "Umbrellas of Cherbourg." Not quite sure what all of this means, but if anyone was going to compose the soundtrack to my life right now, I hope it would be Francis Lai or Michel Legrand.

Little Dorrit

2009-03-30T12:33:00.005-06:00

The new adapation of Masterpiece Classic's "Little Dorrit" got off to a rousing start last night and quickly proved to be the best -- thus far -- of the the series latest crop of Dickens-inspired teledramas. It's not that I didn't care for the recent "Oliver Twist" ('tho I wasn't too wild about Timothy Spall's take on Fagin--and I usually love everything he does), but maybe I've just seen too many other adaptations. And the rebroadcast of the '99 "David Copperfield" seemed nothing more than a time filler (altho Maggie Smith's Aunt Betsy is a delight).

But this new "Dorrit" grabbed me right away. It's big and expansive and complete with Alun Armstrong on hand as the best possible Dickensian villain. OK, the streets of London are a bit too clean, the costumes perhaps a bit too lovely, and the dreaded debtors' prison not that particularly dreadful. But Andrew Davies' script is up to his brilliant "Bleak House" from a few years ago and the casting is top notch. Any opportunity to see Tom Courtenay, Judy Parfitt, Eddie Marsan and especially Matthew Macfadyen is reason enough for me to stick this one thru til the end.

2009-03-11T21:02:00.005-06:00

A popular posting over at Awards Daily, courtesy of one very passionate and articulate Ben Woulds, features the author’s interesting list of all the Oscar Best Picture nominees ranked from worst (the ’62 remake of “Mutiny on the Bounty”) to the best (“Grand Illusion” takes the top spot followed by “Citizen Kane” and then “Brokeback Mountain”)

This, is of course, one person’s opinion, but it’s a very impressive undertaking. It generated, needless to say, lots of commentary, including some heated and hysterical feedback, not to mention a few rambling replies from yours truly.

I was inspired to do my own consideration of Oscar’s choices --and oversights-- and came up with my top five contenders for the best of the year. It’s actually an exhausting task; I only made it back fifteen years, but hey, it’s a start. (Besides, I’m tired and a little worn out after last night’s viewing, at long last of Melville’s great penultimate classic, “Le Cercle Rouge” in all its Criterion Collection glory…. but I digress).

So if anyone is interested, here are my picks going back to ’93. These are the top Five in my book as of tonight. Remember, anything could change. All it could take is another visit to, say, "The Wrestler" or "Road to Perdition" and everything starts falling apart.

An asterisk indicates my choice for the best of the best. Interestingly, I only agree with the Academy twice (“Return of the King” and “Schindler’s List”)

2008
*Milk/The Reader/ Revolutionary Road/ The Dark Knight/ Happy-Go-Lucky or In Bruges

2007
*Assassination of Jesse James…/ No Country for Old Men/ There Will Be Blood/ The Diving Bell and the Butterfly/ Atonement

2006
*The Lives of Others / Volver/ United 93/ Casino Royale/ Little Children

2005
*Brokeback Mountain/ Munich/ The New World/ A History of Violence /The Constant Gardener

2004
*Vera Drake/ Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind / The Motorcycle Diaries /La Mala Educacion/ Kinsey or Closer

2003
*LOTR: The Return of the King /Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World/ Elephant/ Lost in Translation/ Mystic River

2002
*Far From Heaven/ The Hours/ Y Tu Mama’ Tambien/ Habla con Ella / Chicago

2001
*Gosford Park/ Moulin Rouge!/ Mulholland Drive/ LOTR: The Fellowship of the Rings/
Black Hawk Down or Lagaan

2000
*Almost Famous/ Amores Perros/ Crouching Tiger…/ Billy Elliot/ Sunshine

1999
*Topsy Turvy/ All About My Mother/ The Insider/ The Talented Mr. Ripley/ American Beauty

1998
*The Thin Red Line/ Saving Private Ryan/ Out of Sight/ Gods & Monsters /Elizabeth

1997
*Boogie Nights/ LA Confidential/ Titanic/ The Ice Storm / The Sweet Hereafter or In & Out

1996
*Fargo/ Secrets & Lies/ Lone Star/ The English Patient/ Evita/

1995
*Sense & Sensibility/ Dead Man Walking/ Apollo 13/ Babe/ The Usual Suspects

1994
*Pulp Fiction/ Ed Wood/ Queen Margot/ Quiz Show/ The Madness of King George

1993
*Schindler’s List/ The Age of Innocence/ Short Cuts/ The Remains of the Day/ The Wedding Banquet

That monologue about the fig

2009-03-10T19:59:00.003-06:00

I have not seen Ken Russell's marvelous (maybe brilliant?) "Women in Love" for several years. But I decided to give it another viewing last night when it showed up somewhere in the stratosphere of cable. Granted, the print wasn't that great but all that I remember -- Glenda Jackson's shocking and glorious performance, Larry Kramer's screenplay, that wacky score courtesy of Georges Delerue, the now famous full monty coupling-disguised-as-wrestling sequence, the drowning of the newlyweds --were still just as intriguing/startling as the first time I saw it. However, what really stood out this time was Alan Bates' performance. It really is his movie, from start to finish. Like Jackson's performance, it's more than a little bit brave; he's not entirely likeable but he's so gorgeous and complicated that you miss him every moment he's not on screen. I always thought he deserved a better film career (true, he did quite well on stage and TV) and rewatching his performance in "Women" makes me value his celluloid work even more.

A Brief --very brief-- Oscar Recap

2009-03-02T21:13:00.008-06:00

The last thing anyone needs to read, especially a week after the fact, is yet another review of the Oscar telecast.

It’s been a crazy several days so I apologize for this belated post. Let’s keep it short and simple. Bravos to Hugh Jackman, producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, Sophia Loren, Eva Marie Saint, Kate Winslet, Sean Penn, Meryl Streep, Penelope Cruz, the family of Heath Ledger, "Milk" and "The Reader", Danny and Dev and Freida and the kids. And the real star of the evening: Dustin Lance Black.

There was a sense of glamour and celebration that’s been missing for several years. I got a little teary when Kate’s dad whistled and when Queen Latifah sang “I’ll Be Seeing You” for the memorial reel. And I'd like to think that the trophy for la Cruz was also, maybe just a little bit, in recognition for her brilliant turn in "Volver."

The musical number, courtesy of Baz Luhrmann, wasn’t any better –or any worse-- than any other misguided and time-wasting song & dance extravaganzas we’ve been watching for decades, but at least it gave us a few opportunities to wallow in the fleeting pleasures of our stunning host along with Beyonce and Zanessa. Poor Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried should/could have stayed home.

Sure, I was hoping against hope that "Milk" would pull a big surprise for Best Picture, but the awards for screenplay and actor were certainly well deserved, and made for one of the most enjoyable Oscarcasts since "Chariots of Fire" grabbed the big prize. Now that was a night which all of us Alice Krige fans will never forget.

The final countdown

2009-02-20T15:49:00.007-06:00

It’s all over but the shouting, and predictions are now flying at full throttle all over the place. Over at Awards Daily, where I have pretty much been camping out the past few weeks, we at last have Daniel Kenealy’s projections for the big night. Of all the Oscar pundits out there, he’s one of the best. Enjoy his musings by clicking here.

As for yours truly, this is my 41st Oscar telecast. My first was the year “In the Heat of the Night” took best picture away from my top choice “Dr Dolittle”….. I mean, I was ten years old at the time and very sensitive; what do you expect? That was the telecasr in which Angela Lansbury brought down the house with her rendition of the title song from “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” a film which featured my then top contender for supporting actress, Carol Channing. Again, I was ten. A Dolittle/Millie/Camelot sweep would have made me very happy back then.

This was also the watershed year in American film, and thus the Oscars, that is analyzed so brilliantly in Pictures at a Revolution, Mark Harris’ GREAT book, one of the very best movies tomes I have read in years.

Looking back, I think the Academy actually got it right in several categories: Actor (Rod Steiger) Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons), and director (Mike Nichols). However, “Bonnie and Clyde” is easily the best movie of the year and diehard Hepburn fan that I remain, I think the actress prize that year should have gone to Faye Dunaway or Anne Bancroft. Supporting actor? George Kennedy is an ok choice, but Gene Hackman would have been an equally good choice. “Bonnie and Clyde” rightfully won cinematography but its losses in editing and screenplay are a pity. Editing and adapted screenplay went to “In the Heat of the Night” which wasn’t a terrible choice (and editing and s'play often go to the best pic winner), but original screenplay was awarded to William Rose for “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? At the time, perhaps this sappy soaper trying so hard to be a “message picture” could be taken a bit more seriously, but time has not been kind. Oh, I still love it for all the wrong reasons, but when the Academy history books tell us that it deserved the gold over “Bonnie” (and not to mention Frederic Raphael’s sharp and bittersweet “Two for the Road”), well, what can you do but add it to that really long list of bad choices?

But enough about ’67. Here are my final predictions for ’08. Some of them aren’t my favorites, but after pondering these nominations far too long, it’s time to move on. So here we go:

BEST PICTURE
"Slumdog Millionaire"
---it’s a runaway train at this point, but I certainly welcome a spoiler (i.e. my personal favorite, “Milk” but I just don’t see that happening.)

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
---Gus Van Sant is my worthy runner-up

BEST ACTOR
Sean Penn, "Milk"
----if Mickey Rourke wins, that’s fine by me. In fact, I would love to see a tie.

BEST ACTRESS
Kate Winslet, "The Reader"
---my top choice, altho’ I could live with a surprise victory by Leo, Streep, Hathaway or Jolie. It’s been a good year for this category.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
---perhaps THE best performance of the year; and I'd argue this is a leading performance

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
----my favorites in this category –Lena Olin, Rosemarie DeWitt and Kathy Bates—weren’t nominated. But Cruz is terrific here, and so is Tomei, who’s my choice among the nominees.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
---- if “In Bruges” happens to sneak in here, that would be kind of lovely, although I do believe Black deserves this award.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
---- not my choice at all. David Hare gets my vote. Or possibly Peter Morgan.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," Claudio Miranda
---- personally, I’d go with Wally Pfister for “The Dark Knight” or Roger Deakins for "Revolutionary Road." Oops. Wait. He wasn't nominated.

BEST FILM EDITING
"Slumdog Millionaire"

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
"Slumdog Millionaire," A.R. Rahman
---- my pick is Thomas Newman for “Revolutionary Road.” Oh wait… it wasn’t nominated.

BEST ART DIRECTION
"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button"

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
"The Duchess"
----I really liked this film; am surprised it didn’t find a bigger audience audience.

BEST SOUND MIXING
"The Dark Knight"

BEST SOUND EDITING
"The Dark Knight"

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
"The Class" (France)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
"Man on Wire"

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
“Wall-E”

BEST SONG
“JAI HO” from “Slumdog Millionaire”

update, 2/22: after yesterday's wonderfully entertaining Independent Spirit love fest, I'm beginning to wonder if Mickey Rourke might actually prevail. Golden Globe, BAFTA and now this trophy. Three great speeches. And Loki died. It's officially a nail-biter til the envelope is finally opened later tonight.

In Good Company

2009-02-16T00:23:00.005-06:00

This Slumdog juggernaut continues to intrigue me. This evening it won the ACE “Eddie” award for Best Edited Feature: Drama (Wall-E and Man on Wire won for Comedy and Documentary, respectively.)

Glancing back at all the Pre Oscar awards this season, it’s interesting to look at the few trophies that this movie HASN’T won. This includes a few of the established critics groups that gave their Best Picture citations to something else (NY went for Milk, NSFC for Bashir, and LA and Chicago for Wall-E)

So, with nothing better to do this evening, I took a look at best-picture-only awards over the past thirty odd years, going back to 1975 when the LA Critics began announcing their choices. At that time the group joined five other organizations already making annual awards: NBR, NSFC, NYFCC, Globes, and BAFTA. Taking these six groups –and only these six — for a tally of Best Picture awards, we get some interesting statistics.

Slumdog Millionaire got the majority this year, 3 out of 6. Not bad. With three wins, it’s keeping company with some other fine films which ultimately won Best Picture, such as ROTK and American Beauty, as well as several that did not (Sideways, Saving Private Ryan, and All the President’s Men, to name a few).

Slumdog did not do as well as a few others that actually nabbed 4 out of 6:
Brokeback Mountain, LA Confidential, Goodfellas and Terms of Endearment (the latter being the only one which actually won the Best Picture Oscar)

So far only one film actually went 6 for 6: Schindler’s List.

For what it is worth, Crash, Braveheart and (surprisingly) The Departed did not win a single one of these precursors. Amazing how a few wins from DGA, SAG, WGA, and the guilds can suddenly beef up your pre Oscar status, don’t you think?

The following films won the majority of these six precursor awards for their year. In the years not listed, a handful of films nabbed two apiece. And on two occasions, 1978 and 1988, every group named a different best picture winner.

Here are those, then, that made an impressive show:

2008 Slumdog — 3
2005 Brokeback Mountain — 4
2004 Sideways — 3
2003 ROTK — 3
1999 American Beauty – 3
1998 Saving Private Ryan — 3
1997 LA Confidential — 4
1995 Sense & Sensibility — 3
1993 Schindler’s List — 6. Perfect score.
1990 Goodfellas 4
1986 Hannah and Her Sisters – 3
1983 Terms of Endearment — 4
1982 Gandhi — 3
1980 Ordinary People — 3
1979 Kramer vs Kramer — 3
1977 Annie Hall – 3
1976 All the President’s Men — 3

I did not include Producers Guild, BFCA or Chicago since they are relatively new to the game. But a quick glance shows that the top films remain tops: Schindler picks up another two from PGA and Chicago (BFCA wasn’t awarding in 1993) and still holds the record with 8 out a possible 8. And of course you see Crash getting its award from Chicago and The Departed picking up Chicago and BFCA.

With all three of these newer awards under its belt, No Country becomes a contender (now with 5 total) but most of the others continue to expand their leads. So if you only go back to 1995 (in which the perfect score now becomes a nine), it’s still looking impressive – but not a slamdunk – for Slumdog. Here are the top films, with at least a majority of four out of the possible nine:

2008 Slumdog — 5
2007 No Country for Old Men –5
2005 Brokeback Mountain — 6
2004 Sideways — 5
2003 ROTK — 6
2000 Gladiator — 4
1999 American Beauty – 6
1998 Saving Private Ryan — 6
1997 LA Confidential — 6
1995 Sense & Sensibility — 4

One final note, going all the way back to the mid 1940s when BAFTA and The Hollywood Foreign Press jumped into the game, joining the New York Critics and National Board of Review, “Braveheart” and “The Godfather Part 2” remain to this day the only Best Picture Oscar winners not to claim any of these other best pic award. Even “The Greatest Show on Earth” won a Golden Globe.

2009-02-15T11:51:00.005-06:00

So, by most accounts, the big victors next Sunday night will be:

Slumdog Millionaire
Sean Penn, Milk
Kate Winslet, The Reader
Heath Ledger. The Dark Knight
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Dustin Lance Black, original screenplay, Milk
Simon Beaufoy, adapted screenplay, Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E, animated film

We’ll get to the technical and music awards later.

This is a quick post, just to say that I’m not totally sure of this proposed outcome; call me crazy, but I’m still pondering

(a) what looks to me like a continued head-to-head race between Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn coming down the final stretch;

(b) the possibility of Milk also losing screenplay to Wall-E; and

(c) potential upsets in Actress (Meryl Streep?) and Supporting Actress (Marissa Tomei).

I’ve given up on Milk taking a surprise Best Picture and am resigned to the anticipated Slumdog sweep. This year I must admit that surprises in three of the four acting fields wouldn’t be too unsettling; there’s lots of great work to be celebrated: Streep, Leo, Hathaway, Jenkins, Langella, Tomei. Of course, it would be even nicer to see Rosemarie DeWitt, James Franco, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sally Hawkins and Ralph Fiennes in the mix, but you can’t have everything.

2009-02-11T00:50:00.002-06:00

As expected, the WGA screenplay awards went to Simon Beaufoy and Dustin Lance Black (“Slumdog” and “Milk” respectively) this past Saturday night. Both gentlemen remain frontrunners for the Oscar, which is no surprise. I remain supportive of the Slumdog slamdunk, although I will always believe there are a few other equally deserving movies of 2008. I would begin with the screenplay award and encourage voters to also consider a few other adaptations, beginning with "The Reader."

The following evening, a rather deadly BAFTA gala confirmed most of the Academy’s frontrunners. Really, will anyone even bother to tune in to the Oscars on Feb 22nd? That is, anyone other than me? Methinks this will be the worst year ever in regards to the ratings. After the Golden Globs and SAG extravanzas (as well as BFCA and BAFTA galas available for anyone willing to go to the trouble to find them on cable), how can this year's meat parade offer anything that most viewers have seen already?

Back to Sunday night's BAFTAcast, there were a few highlights, of course, to enliven the snoozefest:
---the endless cutaways to Kate Winslet and mum with Robert Downey Jr behind them, smacking his gum and looking bored out of his mind. Can you blame him?
---Mickey’s acceptance speech;
---Goldie Hawn presenting the Heath award; and
---Mick Jagger.
That’s it. Seen here in a taped delay on BBC America, the 2 ½ hours seemed endless, but compared to recent Oscarcasts, absolutely breezy.

The winners were predictable and, for the most part, I think we’re looking at this year’s Oscar honor roll (with possible alternatives to Actor and Original screenplay). I was most happy when The Duchess nabbed the costume award, and I hope it does likewise at the Oscars.

BEST PICTURE: Slumdog Millionaire
BEST DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
BEST ACTRESS: Kate Winslet, The Reader
BEST ACTOR: Micky Rourke, The Wrestler
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
ANIMATED FILM: WALL•E
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: I’ve Loved You So Long
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
COSTUMES: The Duchess
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Slumdog Millionaire
VISUAL EFFECTS: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
MAKEUP and HAIR: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
PRODUCTION DESIGN: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
SCORE: AR Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
SOUND: Slumdog Millionaire
EDITING: Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-07T17:59:00.002-06:00

The scribes get honored this evening when the WGA announces its 2008 awards. Look for Simon Beaufoy and Dustin Lance Black to take the honors for “Slumdog” (adaptation) and “Milk” (original) respectively. I’m also predicting them as front-runners for the writing Oscars. At this point, any other choices would be a bit of surprise. For the past couple of years, WGA and Oscar winners have gone hand in hand; I see no reason why this won't continue (unless, of course, "Wall-E" manages to grab the Oscar over "Milk" on February 22nd. We'll see.)

On the small screen front, where are several more awards, I’d say that “Mad Men” is a strong and worthy contender, although I wouldn’t be upset if my favorite underdog, “Friday Night Lights” stole the spotlight. Comedy-wise, I still admire “The Office” over “30 Rock” but I’d say the safe money is on Fey and friends.

2009-02-06T16:27:00.007-06:00

Here's an interesting stroy from EW.com about Harvey Weinstein's campaign for "The Reader." Although I believe Winslet's win is almost guaranteed, a Best Picture victory would be an upset on the scale of "Crash" or "Chariots of Fire." Personally, I would be very happy to see "The Reader" or "Milk" stump "Slumdog" but I just don't see that happening. Anyway, it's at least something to ponder during this otherwise boring countdown to the Oscars.

WGA and BAFTA announce this weekend. More "Slumdog" victories are predicted (and it's hard to get too frustrated when Boyle, Beaufoy, Patel and company always appear so genuinely thrilled) However, let's hope that Dustin Lance Black earns his WGA for "Milk" and maybe also a surprise or two at the BAFTAs, just to keep things interesting.

2009-02-05T14:49:00.002-06:00

Wrapping up my thoughts on the precursor awards, let’s turn to the BAFTAs which will be presented this Sunday evening (and telecast on BBCA America starting at 7 pm Central ) . These awards are always a bit unpredictable for me. The winners in the acting categories often go on to win an Oscar. But the best picture choices are sometimes quite different from the Academy’s and, more often than not are more, well, “British” in subject. For example last year BAFTA picked “Atonement” rather than “No Country for Old Men”. The year before it went for “The Queen” rather than “The Departed.”

BAFTAs five Best Picture nominees mirror the Oscar’s. I’d say that “Slumdog” has the strong lead based on its frontrunner popularity and its British roots. If there should be an upset, although that’s highly unlikely, I would bet on either “Frost / Nixon” or “The Reader.”

As far as the actors go, last year BAFTA went for Day-Lewis, Cotillard, Bardem and Swinton. The Oscars did the same. The year before that it was Whitaker, Mirren, Arkin and Hudson. Ditto the Oscars. (Given that Swinton and Arkin were not necessarily frontrunners, their BAFTA wins added, at least for me, a bit of suspense going into the Oscars that year.)

My predictions for Sunday night
“Slumdog Millionaire”
Danny Boyle
Sean Penn
Kate Winslet
Penelope Cruz
Heath Ledger
In Bruges (original screenplay)
The Reader (adapted screenplay…. I’m going out on a limb here. Simon Beaufoy probably has the lead, but if “Slumdog” takes picture and director, they may want to spread the wealth just a little).

Picking over the Precursors

2009-02-04T16:36:00.009-06:00

Over the course of this awards season, “Slumdog Millionaire” has managed a rather remarkable sweep of Best Picture prizes. For starters, it has snagged the top award from the Directors Guild, the Producers Guild, The Broadcast Critics Association, Screen Actors Guild for Best Ensemble and the Golden Globe. Not bad. Only three other films have accomplished this, and they have all gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar: “American Beauty,” “LOTR: The Return of the King” and “Chicago.” In addition, “Beauty” and “King” also took the best picture award at BAFTA. If "Slumdog" wins the BAFTA honor later this week, it looks like a done deal. (Actually, I think its Oscar victory is foregone conclusion at this point).

This sweep of the precursors is not at 100%, however. All four of the above-mentioned films start to stumble when it comes to those other awards: The National Board of Review, The National Society of Film Critics, and the critics groups from New York, LA and Chicago.

Of this quintet, only the NBR went for “Slumdog.” New York crowned “Milk,” LA & Chicago chose “Wall-E” and the NSFC cited “Waltz with Bashir.” (Now, in all fairness, it should be pointed out that NSFC has only agreed with the Academy’s Best Picture choice four times –4, count ‘em 4-- since it started handing out awards back in ’66.)

The “American Beauty’” juggernaut was broken up by “Topsy-Turvy” which took top honors from NY and NSFC (the latter in a tie with “Being John Malkovich”). “Return of the King” was not loved by NBR which went for “Mystic River” nor NSFC and LA which opted for “American Splendor.”

To find the one-and-only film that appealed to all groups, you need to go back to 1993 when “Schindler’s List” took the top prize from all of these groups. (All but SAG and BFCA which had not yet begun doling out prizes). Now that’s what I really call a sweep. Before “Schindler,” we need to wind our way back to the mid 60s when “Tom Jones” and “A Man For All Seasons” pulled similar grand slams (but with fewer awards organizations).

So let’s take a minute or two and look back at these other groups and how from year to year, their selections align (or not) with those of the Academy.

For the few years, the Oscars stood alone. Then by the mid 1930s The New York Film Critics and The National Board of Review entered the game. These two new groups often agreed on a Best Picture choice that was different from the Academy’s, which isn’t all that surprising since both groups were free of the politics of Tinseltown, not to mention the power and tyranny of Louis B. Mayer and friends. They selected “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940) when AMPAS went for “Rebecca,” and the following year they agreed on “Citizen Kane” over “How Green Was My Valley” They also both had the good taste in ’42 to agree on “In Which Serve” as the year’s best movie, instead of the creaky “Mrs. Miniver.”

The Golden Globes entered the derby in 1943, followed by both the Directors Guild and BAFTA by the end of the decade. With six groups now handing out awards it would not be until 1957 when all reached a consensus on Best Picture: David Lean’s “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” Two years later “Ben Hur” came close but was denied its grand slam when the NBR opted for “The Nun’s Story.”

1963 saw the next across-the-board agreement with “Tom Jones.” “A Man for All Season” enjoyed a similar sweep a couple of years later..

NSFC announced their first Best Picture in 1966 (for “Blow Up,” introducing right from the start a selection of best pic choices that would run counter to the Academy’s choices. It went with “Persona” the following year, then “Shame,” and then “Z.” “MASH” would be the first American film to nab its top prize. )

The LA critics started posting in 1975 with a tie between “…Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Dog Day Afternoon.” Chicago started announcing in 1988 followed by the Producers Guild the following year.

By this point, it was becoming increasingly less likely for the ever-growing number of groups to agree on any year’s best picture. Looking back over the last 20 or so years, let’s review the breakdown. Not so surprisingly, more often than not the film that racked up the most precursor best film mentions became the Oscar victor as well. But there are, of course, some exceptions. These are the champs:

1989: Driving Miss Daisy, 4 out of 9 awards
1990: Goodfellas , 5 out of 9 (Oscar’s BP Dances with Wolves took 4)
1991: Silence of the Lambs, 5 out of 9
1992: Unforgiven, 3 out of 9
1993: Schindler’s List, 9 out 9
1994: Forrest Gump 3.5 out of 9

At this point SAG and PGA enter the picture, upping the total possible Best Picture wins to 11.

1995: (tie) Sense & Sensibility & Apollo 13, both with 4 out of 11 (Oscar’s BP Braveheart did not get a single vote from these groups)
1996: The English Patient, 4 out of 11
1997: LA Confidential, 6 out of 11 (Oscar’s BP Titanic took 3
1998: Saving Private Ryan 7 out of 11 (Oscar’s BP Shakespeare in Love took 3)
1999: American Beauty 8 out of 11
2000: Gladiator 3 out of 11
2001: (3-way tie) A Beautiful Mind, Mulholland Drive, and Moulin Rouge!, all with 3 out of 11
2002: Chicago, 5 out of 11
2003: LOTR: Return of the King, 8 out of 11
2004: Sideways, 6 out of 11 (Oscar’s BP Million Dollar Baby took 3)
2005: Brokeback Mountain, 7 out of 11 (Oscar’s BP Crash took 2)
2006: (tie) The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine, both with 3 out of 11
2007: No Country for Old Men, 7 out of 11

31 Days

2009-02-04T16:02:00.002-06:00

I stumbled across “The Great Caruso” on TCM while having lunch today. Not a great movie, but how often can you see Mario Lanza canoodling with Ann Blyth while you’re knocking down a bowl chicken soup?

It’s part of the network’s fabulous annual 31 Days of Oscar. All the usual suspects in the TCM library --“2001” “Citizen Kane” “Lawrence of Arabia”-- are on the docket. But what makes this festival so enjoyable are some of the seldom seen chestnuts that they pull out of the vaults. To qualify, a film simply needs to have earned at least one Oscar nomination. This provides much-deserved airtime for several rather obscure chestnuts. But it also has it drawbacks. Do we really need to see “Yes, Giorgio” ever again?

Click here for the full schedule.

2009-02-02T16:36:00.006-06:00

Hats off to Danny Boyle and his DGA victory. This latest accomplishment all but guarantees the big prizes on Oscar night. Slumdog may not be my favorite movie of the year, but Boyle's accomplishments are certainly worthy of the hullabaloo. Now that Nolan is (unfairly) out of the race, I'd say that Boyle has it in the proverbial bag.

If you're all caught up on your Oscar movies, this might be a good time to check out Shallow Grave, Boyle's excellent debut feature (which won him, among other kudos, the Best British Film of the Year prize from BAFTA). It's three principals are perfectly cast: Kerry Fox, Ewan McGregor and one of my favorite actors, Christopher Eccleston. And there's that terrific screenplay by John Hodge, who would go on to work with Boyle and McGregor on the brilliant Trainspotting a year or so later.

So, if you don't know this one, add it to your Neflix list. You won't be sorry. It might not have the drive of Trainspotting or Slumdog, but it's certainly better than The Beach.

The Aftermath

2009-01-22T09:36:00.001-06:00

Biggest disappointments:

“The Dark Knight” and Christopher Nolan snubbed for Director/Picture. I feared this one. (See yesterday’s post)

“Revolutionary Road” snubbed for Actor (DiCaprio) and Cinematography (Roger Deakins)

Sally Hawkins and crew (Marsan, Leigh, et al) overlooked for “Happy Go Lucky”

Rosemarie DeWitt overlooked for “Rachel Getting Married”

Ralph Fiennes getting shut out completely, in spite of three great performances.

James Franco overlooked for "Milk" (I know, I know...this was a longshot, but between this AND "Pineapple Express" I was feeling a bit optimistic.)

“Frost / Nixon” still in the game with multiple major nominations. I still say the only award-worthy aspect of this film is Frank Langella’s terrific performance.

Nice surprises and validations:

“The Reader” for Picture, Director, Actress, Screenplay AND cinematography

Richard Jenkins for “The Visitor.”

Michael Shannon for “Revolutionary Road”

Screenplay nomination for “In Bruges”

Not surprising at all, but I’m happy they’re very much still in the game:

Sean Penn
Gus Van Sant
Meryl Streep
Anne Hathaway
Penelope Cruz
Viola Davis
And of course, Heath Ledger

2008 Oscar Predictions or, Oh Sister James! I have such doubts!

2009-01-21T19:57:00.017-06:00

So here we go. I give up. After weeks of resisting the common consensus, I’m ready join the swelling ranks of Oscar junkies and agree that the much-ballyhooed Big Five are pretty much a lock for both Best Picture and Best Director. I had hoped for some 11th hour inspiration to confidently suggest that tomorrow morning’s announcement would not be the very predictable line up of “…Button” “The Dark Knight” “Frost/Nixon” “Milk” and Slumdog Millionaire” along with their respective directors, Fincher, Nolan, Howard, Van Sant and Boyle. Yet, that appears to be the where everyone is going, with but a few diehard “Wall-E” fans still holding out for a miracle.

But can it really be that easy? Say it isn’t so. Where is this year’s “Atonement” or “United 93” just to keep us on our toes?

Now, for what it’s worth, I will admit to having a small, nagging feeling that “The Dark Knight” might just be shafted. I hope this isn’t the case, but if any of the top five take a tumble, I believe it will be this one. Like the other fantastic four, it has very strong support from all the guilds, except of course from SAG which denied it the ensemble nomination in favor of “Doubt.” More about “Doubt” in a minute. In addition, TDK was snubbed by the Globes and BAFTA. So, for the most part, was “Milk”… but there’s a difference. “Milk” represents an old AMPAS staple, that of the much-admired, well-reviewed biopic, the kind of movie they’ve been tossing Oscars at since George Arliss made “Disraeli.” On the other hand, to nominate TDK would be breaking new ground, God forbid, by welcoming into the fold what some/several voters may still want to dismiss as a comic book fantasia. I don’t buy that it will secure its nomination simply due to its box office. Yes, it’s impressive, but if that is the only reason it deserves a nomination, then I’d think that Shrek and Spiderman would be among recent contenders for the gold.

That’s why I suggest that “Doubt” might possibly be the dark horse. I’m probably wrong, but consider the fact that all four of its featured actors are shortlisted for nominations. To find a movie with at least four acting nominations but missing a bid for the Best Picture Oscar, you’ve got to go all the way back to 1966 and “Othello” and before that to prehistoric times with “My Man Godfrey.” Sister Meryl and her cohorts also have the SAG nod of approval as well as bounty of nominations from BAFTA, BFCA and the Globes. I’ll probably regret this scenario by tomorrow. And I’m still thinking/hoping that TDK pulls through. But of the five, it’s the one that has me just a little bit worried.

For me, I very much doubt that my own two favorites, which would be –big surprise—“The Reader” and “Revolutionary Road” are even in the game at this point. Third and fourth on my list would be “Milk” and “The Dark Knight” so I go into these final hours with a smattering of cautious optimism.

OK, enough of this babbling. What he hell do I know? Here goes:

Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Alternate: Doubt

Best Director
David Fincher, … Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant, Milk
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Alternate: Stephen Daldry

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Alternate: Brad Pitt

Sadly, I think Richard Jenkins is out of the race. I was ready to consider Eastwood a long shot until the recent surge of hoopla around his candidacy. No Globe, no SAG, no BAFTA nominations. BUT he did grab the National Board of Review award. And that actually has some weight.

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kristen Scott Thomas, I’ve Loved You So Long
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

Alternate: Angelina Jolie

Here’s where I’m probably going to get into a lot of trouble. Watch Hawkins and Thomas get trumped tomorrow by Angelina. Or Melissa Leo. Or Michelle Williams.

And may I just say one more time I how much I loved Cate Blanchett in “…Benjamin Button”?

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey, Jr. Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
James Franco, Milk
Alternate: Ralph Fiennes
I’m probably going out on a limb for Franco over Dev Patel, or Fiennes. Or Eddie Marsan, all of whom I liked very much. We’ll see.

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
Viola Davis, Doubt
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader
Alt: Amy Adams

If there’s a “Button” sweep, then Taraji P. Henson will probably bump one of the above. Although neither stand a chance, I would love to see Tilda Swinton or Lena Olin on this list.

For screenplay, I’ll play it safe.

Original:
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Adapted:
…Button
Doubt
Frost / Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Until tomorrow......

Road to Ruin

2009-01-19T19:42:00.004-06:00

While masses of moviegoers scurried off to see “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” this weekend, I was finally able to see “Revolutionary Road” which, at long last, made its way to San Antonio.

Having read Richard Yates’ marvelous novel last summer and then thinking about Frank and April Wheeler, its very troubled central characters, ever since, I was looking forward to the much-discussed and –given its release during Oscar season-- much-hyped film version. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s one of the best movies of the year. It has not proven to be a box-office bonanza and, sadly, may prove to be an also-ran in a year when “Slumdog Millionaire” is mopping up just about every critics list and will more than likely be the big Oscar champ. This is understandable. There is nothing uplifting or feel-goody about “Revolutionary Road.” Where’s the appeal in a domestic drama about a marriage in crisis, circa 1955, that exposes the emptiness and broken promises of the postwar American Dream? I agree with others who believe this movie will easily trump the test of time and be discovered (and rediscovered) and appreciated anew for years to come.

Winslet is even better than I had anticipated. April is almost an impossible role; it’s one of the novel’s greatest achievements that Yates keeps this desperate, maddening and sometimes ridiculous woman so sympathetic and believable. The fact that Winslet conveys –so skillfully, almost effortlessly—these same contradictions in a year when she has already delivered the year’s best performance in “The Reader” is a true testament to her remarkable talent as an actor.

I have always like DiCaprio but have to admit I found him lacking as a leading man. To me, there was a boyishness about him that, though appealing, sometimes undercut the gravity and maturity required of certain roles. For example, what worked well for “Gangs of New York” was all wrong for “The Aviator.” Not until “The Departed” (his best work to date, in my opinion) could I appreciate any real maturity of character. So I was hesitant to accept him as Frank and as much as I could see Winslet as April, believed that casting Leo was a rather crass and obvious pandering to the “Titanic” fanatics who might make this move another worldwide wonder. I could see Matt Damon or Aaron Eckhart in the role and perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow as another April possibility (and while reading the book last summer, I kept picturing Jon Hamm and especially January Jones….gee, I wonder where that came from?) This turns out to be one of DiCaprio’s finest hours. There is something especially good about his choices in two scenes with Winslet, and a third with Kazan. The reckless disregard and casual contempt with which he dismisses both wife and mistress is perfectly played. In these three brief passages he is able to convey Frank’s rottenness which lurks at the core of his despair.

This is the best acted American film of 2008. Period. End of discussion. You will not find a better ensemble anywhere. It’s only Sam Mendes’ fourth feature film but it has been assembled with a grace and confidence of a master. Given his success as a theater director it is no surprise that the performances here, as in his previous three films, are superb. A two-hour version of a rather epic novel dictates the cutting down of or total elimination of characters, which is always a shame but the necessary evil of adapting a book for the silver screen. Shep, Milly, Helen, John, Mona and Jack are all rich and complex characters, adding much (much) more to the novel than allowed in their brief screen cameos. However, think for a moment how incredibly rich each of these characters manage to be in their fleeting moments. Credit, respectively, David Harbour, Kathryn Hahn, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, Zoe Kazan and Dylan Baker for bringing such clarity and nuance not only to their performances but the film’s rich tapestry. Bates and Shannon are getting some –but not nearly enough—Oscar buzz for their work. Shannon has the showier, more sympathetic part but just take a moment and watch what Bates can do with something as simple as the early scene with Winslet, drinking coffee at the breakfast table. No hysterics, no melodrama, nothing flashy at all: just a reaction to an unexpected gesture of kindness. It’s a great moment. (If Hahn and especially Harbour had about five more minutes of screen time, they would be, without a doubt, deserving some serious supporting Oscar chatter, as well)

In a year when “Benjamin Button,” “The Dark Knight” and “Slumdog…” seem to dominate, understandably, all discussions and award banquets when it comes to technical achievement, it should be noted that “Revolutionary Road” has a sweep all its own. Without a lot of technical wizardry, it is still a marvel of design and composition.
While everyone is slobbering over Thomas Newman’s score for Wall-E, might I suggest that his work here (as in all previous collaborations with Mendes) is superior? And if this isn’t Roger Deakins Oscar year, especially with this achievement right on the heels of “No Country For Old Men” AND “…Jesse James…”, then I don’t know what is. What he can do with light and shadow is sometimes just short of miraculous.

On Thursday morning, we’ll all know who’s up for the little golden man, and who isn’t. Although I think it’s one of the top five movies of the year, and would also cite Mendes, Winslet, DiCaprio, Bates, Shannon, Deakens and Newman as deserving contenders , I’m doubtful that is going to happen. Winslet is a given. DiCaprio has a good chance but he’s fighting some other strong challengers (Jenkins, Pitt, Eastwood) all jostling for the final two slots following the Penn-Rourke-Langella trinity. And Deakins looks pretty strong, given his other fine work this year on “The Reader” and “Doubt” plus a nomination from the ASC. Still, this is a year of great-looking movies. When you think about Chris Menges, Wally Pfister, Claudio Miranda and especially Harris Savides, it’s impossible to pick “the best.” Isn’t it?

Worth the wait in gold?

2009-01-13T00:38:00.010-06:00

Say what you like about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. But they at least knew how to put on a good show last night . And it just might trump the Oscars. By the time AMPAS gets around to the grand finale next month, we may be well over this awards season, given how predictable things continue to be.

Last night’s telecast is getting good buzz from just about everywhere you look, and rightly so. There were surprises and just enough sentimental moments to make things more than a little compelling. In addition to Kate Winslet’s double whammy, Christopher Nolan’s tribute to Heath, and the showstopping response to Mickey Rourke’s win, we also had some memorable moments courtesy of Emma Thompson and Sandra Bullock, as well as Drew Barrymore’s most impressive Ann-Margret-inspired retro coif (altho’ what, pray tell, was up with her ardent Sapphic canoodling with the always glorious and "Grey Gardens" costar Jessica Lange? Is ).

I like “Slumdog Millionaire” very much. But I don’t love it. Still, only a real grouch could not be taken by how happy its seep made Dev Patel and Freida Pinto (both of them equally adorable) and director Danny Boyle who, if you ask me, is the frontrunner for the Best Director Oscar at this point. I’m a longtime fan. Has anyone seen (or does anyone remember) “Shallow Grave” ?

Despite decades worth of scorn and criticism heaped upon the HFPA’s Golden Globes --and, let’s face it, any group that would give Best Picture to “Scent of a Woman” or nominated for major acting awards Helen Hayes in "Herbie Rides Again" and Neil Diamond in “The Jazz Singer” is only asking for ridicule. To decide whether or not this little group of journalists has any real clout, just look at the volume of follow-up all over the web today, and start looking for huge “Golden Globe winner!!” attached to ads for Slumdog, The Wrestler, etc.

For me, the one thing that I like about the Globes is that they often give a final but very public tribute to certain actors that, from here on out, won’t be picking up any more steam. In some cases, an Oscar nomination, sure. But probably not any more major awards. This year, I think we can say this about both winners for Actor and Actress in a comedy/musical. Sally Hawkins and Colin Farrell were both very deserving.

I’d even say that Hawkins is still in the Oscar race. Forget winning the damn thing, but I like to believe she still has a shot at the final five. True, the SAG snub doesn’t help and last night’s victory may have been a little too late to influence Academy voters, most of whom have already submitted their nomination ballots. Still, she has that impressive tally of wins from various critics groups, and I believe last night’s GG victory puts her ahead – by one trophy – of Anne Hathaway in this season’s race. Even if they are tied at this point, that’s a pretty impressive haul for our Sally.

Also, 15 past winners of the Globes’ Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical went on to win the Oscar (one of them, Maggie Smith for “California Suite” would win her Oscar in the supporting category), which isn’t such a bad statistic. Also a Globe in this category is also a nice consolation prize; it has recognized some pretty great work including Rosalind Russell for “Auntie Mame,” Marilyn Monroe for “Some Like it Hot” Anne Bancroft for “The Graduate” and Julie Andrews for “Victor, Victoria”. OK, that last sentence sounded hopelessly gay. So be it. They were are all divine.

(Interesting bit of trivia: the only Best Actress Oscar winner whose performance was not nominated for a Golden Globe was Sophia Loren in “Two Women.”)

As for Best Actor in a Comedy or a Musical, the odds are not very favorable. Only five GG winners in this category went on to victory at Oscar night: Rex Harrison, Lee Marvin, Richard Dreyfuss, Jack Nicholson, and Jamie Foxx. George Burns tied with Walter Matthau for his role in “The Sunshine Boys” and, like Dame Maggie, would win his Oscar in the supporting category.

With his victory last night, Colin Farrell joins such illustrious past winners as Danny Kaye (“On the Riviera”), Glenn Ford (“Pocketful of Miracles”) Cantinflas for “Around the World in 80 Days” (he beat Yul Brynner for “The King and I”), Richard Harris for “Camelot” (he beat Dustin Hoffman for “The Graduate”) as well as my personal favorite, Alberto Sordi for “To Bed or Not To Bed”.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that many excellent Oscar-worthy performances were cited by the Globes in this category, including wins for Donald O’Connor in “Singin’ in the Rain” and James Mason in “A Star is Born,” just for starters.

I’ve been a big Farrell fan for years: “Tigerland,” “Minority Report” “A Home at the End of the World” and especially “The New World.” I don’t even mind admitting that liked him in “Alexander.” In spite of the bad-boy press and a particular home video which showcased another of his rather large talents, he’s done some good work. He’s always fun and even a little unpredictable. Remember “Phone Booth”?

As for “In Bruges,” it would be great to see Farrell in the Oscar race but I can’t even begin to consider that this year. I’m almost certain it’s a Langella, Rourke, Penn lock, with DiCaprio, Pitt, Eastwood, Jenkins vying for the other two slots.

The SAG awards should help us settle all bets.

Finally, as regards the other side of the barn yard, ie the TV awards, hooray for the much-deserving “John Adams” and “30 Rock”. And, of course, the best drama on TV, which would be “Mad Men.” Pity that Jon Hamm and January Jones were denied their awards. Gabriel Byrne and Anna Paquin are worthy contenders but not nearly as good as Mr and Mrs Draper.

2009-01-11T11:34:00.009-06:00

A “Slumdog” sweep? Not likely, if you ask me. But then again, what do I know? I have given up trying to predict the Golden Globes. This year it is especially nerve-wracking given the Kate conundrum: will she clinch the supporting trophy for “The Reader” (which I still maintain is a leading performance….and the best of the year) and thus snatch the prize from the fabulous Penelope Cruz in what is truly a supporting turn? Or will Kate grab the glory in the leading actress race for “Revolutionary Road” (which those of us in the hinterlands have yet to see) and trump what many are predicting as a showdown between Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway? Will, Meryl, as perhaps a consolation prize, win instead in the musical/comedy category, when many of us agree that no matter how much we love Mamma Meryl, this should be Sally Hawkins’ prize?

Oh, it’s all too confusing. And a little bit maddening. The best consideration of who might win tonight can be be found here at AwardsDaily, courtesy of Daniel Kenealy. As always, there’s plenty of good reporting and chatter here, the very best go-to awards website, hosted with customary vigor and good humor by Sasha Stone. For what it's worth, I do believe that Best Picture/Drama will more than likely go to Benjamin Button or even The Reader and that Slumdog will take a much deserved Best Director for Danny Boyle. Let's just wait and see.

I do think it’s curious that The Dark Knight and Milk didn’t make it into the Drama category. And ditto directors Nolan and Van Sant. But then again, that’s what is so predictable about the Globes: their unpredictability.

So, rather than making any predictions this year, I’m simply going with my favorites among the nominees. If I were a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press, here’s how I would vote. Believe me, I don’t think this resembles tonight’s final outcome. Think of it more as my own appreciation of a few movies and performances that I really enjoyed.

PICTURE, DRAMA, The Reader
PICTURE, MUSICAL OR COMEDY, In Bruges
DIRECTOR, Danny Boyle
ACTOR, DRAMA, Sean Penn
ACTRESS, DRAMA, Meryl Streep (r/u: Cate Blanchett on a write-in ballot, far and away the best thing about the over-hyped Benjamin Button)
ACTOR, MUSICAL OR COMEDY, Colin Farrell or James Franco.
ACTRESS, MUSICAL OR COMEDY, Sally Hawkins
SUPPORTING ACTOR, Heath Ledger
SUPPORTING ACTRESS, Kate Winslet (should be lead, in my opinion. r/u: Penelope Cruz)
SCREENPLAY, The Reader
SCORE, Slumdog
SONG, The Wrestler

2009-01-10T01:56:00.010-06:00

Yesterday the DGA announced its hotly anticipated roster of the year’s Best Director nominations. And said announcement was followed by a thud of silence. Actually, the only ones making any noise were those disappointed in how predictable it all is.

True, it’s been a long time since the list was as foreseeable as this one. In fact, it heralds the same five contenders that the PGA announced just last week. It’s not that these films aren’t worthy --for the most part, they most certainly are (except for Frost/Nixon, but more about that later) –it’s just that there have been no real out-of-the-blue surprises to satisfy the pundits, bloggers and awards junkies like yours truly who spend way too much time mulling and debating over the road to this year’s Oscar orgy.

So, ladies and gentlemen, here are, more than likely, your five nominations for this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

The directors of these films (David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Ron Howard, Gus Van Sant, and Danny Boyle, respectively) are the Chosen Five for this year’s DGA top honor, and they enter this race with various levels of early season support:

----Boyle has pretty much swept the critics’ prizes with 15 to date, including the higher profiled Chicago and LA groups as well as last night’s BFCA. Van Sant has 2, with Nolan, Howard and Fincher each nabbing one a piece.

---All five films received WGA nominations earlier this week.

---All five films were up for BFCA best picture and best director. Slumdog won both awards.

---All five films made the BAFTA long list.

---As mentioned before, all five films are the finalists for the PGA award.

---Four of the five nabbed SAG’s closest thing to a Best Pic nomination (Outstanding Performance by a Cast). The Dark Knight lost its slot to Doubt.

---Three of five are up for the Golden Globes’ best director and best picture. Nolan and Van Sant are the shut-outs here, with their slots going to Stephen Daldry/The Reader and Sam Mendes/Revolutionary Road.

---The Dark Knight made a gazillion dollars more than the other four movies combined.

With all of this hullabaloo, it still comes back to the DGA. As we all know, this is the most reliable forecaster of things to come: most of DGA nominees move on to an Oscar nomination for Best Director and most of their films, likewise, grab a Best Picture nom.
In addition, the winners, more often than not, follow the same path.

And so it goes. Of course, there is the occasional lapse such as in 2005, the Year of Shame and Infamy: Ang Lee won the DGA, then won the Oscar for Best Director. His movie (Brokeback Mountain) lost to Crash. And then there was the time Spielberg clinched both Best Director spots for Saving Private Ryan, only to see it lose the big prize to Shakespeare in Love. Groan.

And so, where might the surprises be lurking this year? Some circles are insisting that Wall-E will unseat one of these five for a Best Picture nomination. I don’t think this is likely, especially when it has its own category (animated) which it will no doubt clinch. I would wager that The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road are waiting in the wings. I am about to give up hope for two of my own favorites, Happy-Go-Lucky and especially The Reader.

Of these five, I would suggest that The Dark Knight and Milk are the most vulnerable as they lack SAG and Golden Globe support. Nominations, perhaps. Ultimate victory, not so sure at this point.

And although Slumdog Millionaire continues to steamroll its way through the various critics awards, and has done very well with guild nominations, don’t yet bet that it’s a lock for Best Picture. As of today, I’d safely wager that Boyle is the strongest (and perhaps most deserving) contender for Best Director, but I’m saying it’s still a toss up as to what wins the big prize.

As for my own best of the year picks, it’s not yet based on an all-inclusive review. Neither The Wrestler nor Revolutionary Road have made it to San Antonio. And Gran Torino started today. Hoping to catch that and Rachel Getting Married this weekend. So, the list will be updated and revised but, as of now, it would go something like this:

My top five films of 2008 (as of today)
The Reader
Milk
The Dark Knight
Happy Go Lucky
In Bruges

Favorite performances (and it's been a good year, with great work in often less than great films):

Kate Winslet, The Reader
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Cate Blanchett, Benjamin Button
Meryl Streep, Doubt (and Mamma Mia. Go ahead, shoot me. Loved her.)
Sally Hawkins, Happy Go Lucky
Eddie Marsan, Happy Go Lucky
Viola Davis, Doubt
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Hiam Abbass, The Visitor
Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Colin Farrell, In Bruges
Ralph Fiennes, In Bruges, The Duchess and The Reader
Sean Penn, Milk
Tilda Swinton, Benjamin Button
James Franco, Milk and especially Pineapple Express
Lena Olin, The Reader
David Kross, The Reader
Russell Brand, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Sweet Dreams

2009-01-10T00:25:00.007-06:00

The last time I saw Cocteau's "The Blood of a Poet" was during my Freshman year in college. That was a long time ago. I rediscovered it this week as a result of another movie (it often happens that way). I had been putting off watching "Les Enfants Terribles" because doing so signaled the near completion of my recent crash course on Jean-Pierre Melville. Right now, while pondering the best movies of 2008, nothing comes close to the pleasure and excitement afforded by "Le Samourai" and "Army of Shadows" and "Bob le Flambeur", all of which I saw for the first time this past year. And all of which I am already to see again. "Enfants" was a surprise to me, too, but in a different sort of way. Luckily the DVD extras, courtesy of Criterion, addressed what surprised and challenged me the most: the true authorship, or auteurship I suppose I should say. Melville or Cocteau? Kind of a lovely mishmash of both I think...a young Melville making a movie of the older (and more famous) Cocteau's popular book, with the author himself very much present on the set. In this, only his second film, Melville had not yet developed the unique stylistic signature that identifies his later work but there are certainly hints of it throughout. It's blunt and not very tasteful. There's a ragged and unrehearsed energy to it, propelled by a lot of Bach, which balances the extremes of Cocteau's fantasia. The whole thing rolls out like a feverish dream. It's a startling, engrossing little movie with some bizarre casting choices that only enhance its hypnotic weirdness. The title characters, a nasty and vaguely incestuous teenage brother and sister, are played by Nicole Stephane and Edouard Dermithe. The fact that they were both in their mid 20s when they made the film --and certainly look it -- is challenging at first. He looks especially silly in his schoolboy shorts and cape. But early on, you sort of conveniently forget the age issue and focus instead on Stephane's mesmerizing performance as a butch little man eater. Dermithe is a terrible actor and wasn't Melville's choice, but he's certainly a looker (apparently one of Cocteau's, ahem, protegees) and by the time brother and sis hop in the tub together, it makes perfect sense.

I followed "Enfants" a few nights later with "Poet" At only 50-odd minutes, Cocteau's loopy 1930 meditation on art and dreams, life and death, love and longing, is every bit as engrossing and entertaining as it was almost 80 years ago when he and Bunuel were happily provoking audiences and challenging the very definition of cinema. I had forgotten just about all of this movie, including a snowball fight among school boys which would show up again in "Enfants," and it was a treat to see it again, as if for the first time. Also enjoyable is Edgardo Cozarinsky's documentary on Cocteau, which is included on the Criterion disc. It explains a lot. Next up, what else? Orpheus. Stay tuned.

See Poppy Run

2008-12-24T00:35:00.004-06:00

When the critics started handing out their year-end prizes a few weeks ago, Sally Hawkins was sweeping up the Best Actress race for her delightful, poignant little tour-de-force in Mike Leigh's lovely "Happy-Go-Lucky". She's starting to lose steam of late, as the awards are now bouncing between Meryl Streep, Melissa Leo, and Anne Hathaway while a lot of the buzz favors Kate Winslet for an overdue Oscar victory with "Revolutionary Road."

The Gurus of Gold over at Movie City News still have Hawkins in the race, currently in fifth place behind Streep, Winslet, Hathaway and Kristin Scott Thomas (for "I've Loved You So Long"). I'm not saying that any of these performances aren't worthy of recognition, but I just hope we haven't seen the last of Hawkins' Poppy during this award season. Snubbed by the SAGs, let's hope she at least takes home her Golden Globe. Happily, she's in the comedy category, leaving several of the above-mentioned heavy hitters to duke it out with Angelina in the drama showdown.

I Don't Get It

2008-12-23T23:39:00.003-06:00

Am I the only person out here more than a little startled by "Wall-E" picking up Best Picture of the year by a couple of the critics groups? Can anyone explain to me how it is a serious contender for a Best Pic Oscar nomination? Don't get me wrong: there's much to admire about Andrew Stanton's eco-friendly, heart-tugging fable. But apparently simply liking "Wall-E" is not enough, and admitting I'm not particularly bowled over by it is not the wisest thing to do in certain circles right now.

Mad About the Men

2008-09-10T18:33:00.008-06:00

The Emmy count-down has begun. What are the chances that MAD MEN will prevail? Or, more likely, what are the chances that it will lose to one of its exhausted and jumped-the-shark rivals like BOSTON LEGAL or LOST? It's only the best show since DEADWOOD, with one of the classiest websites of any show, ever.

I stopped watching this particular awards orgy several years ago, opting instead for a late night scan in fast-forward once the horror has subsided, slowing down only for the occasional miracles and skimming quickly through most of the muck and the madness.

Frankly, I don't think I've been the same since BRIDESHEAD REVISTED lost to MARCO POLO (does anyone even remember MARCO POLO?) and, that same year, Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons were snubbed in favor of Mickey Rooney in BILL. You just can't bounce back --ever-- from something like that.

2008-08-29T15:14:00.004-06:00

ENJOYING MY SUMMER HIATUS...

WILL RETURN JUST AFTER LABOR DAY

HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME.

WISH YOU WERE HERE!

2008-08-29T15:05:00.002-06:00

Long before CGI, IMAX and all of this generation’s special effects gadgetry, jaws were dropping in theaters around the world when Alexander Korda unveiled THE THIEF OF BAGDAD in 1940. And lucky for us, Criterion has just released a beautifully restored 2-disc edition. Packaging and extras are quite nice (including commentary from Scorsese and Coppola), but it’s the movie itself –drunk on the excesses of early Technicolor and a lush Miklos Rozas score – that matters, and its rewards are many.

It won three Oscars (Cinematography, Art Direction, and Special Effects) for its delirious evocation of this fantasia spun from The Arabian Nights and it’s worth noting that the original UK title was THE THIEF OF BAGDAD – AN ARABIAN FANTASY IN TECHNICOLOR. Whew. The movie went through more directors than GONE WITH THE WIND (three are listed in the credits, including Michael Powell) and features a wonderfully over-the-top Conrad Veidt as the evil Jafeer (think of Addison DeWitt in a turban) and an exuberant Sabu in the title role. Rex Ingram is also on hand as the genie. Technically, it’s a stunner, maybe even a little groundbreaking for its time. And, like THE WIZARD OF OZ and THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, two other classic storybook adaptations from that era, it also has a pretty big heart.

Don’t miss this one. And be sure to share it with the kids.

The Big Surprise

2008-02-03T11:57:00.000-06:00

My favorite film of 2000 was Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. And Kate Hudson, in my mind, was going to take home an Oscar for her breakout performance as Penny Lane. She had garnered more than her share of critics prizes, plus a Golden Globe, and definitely had the buzz. So when the envelope was ripped open to reveal Marcia Gay Harden as the winner, I was more than a tad surprised. Harden had only won a single major award (NYFC), and Pollock, although well received, had made around ten dollars at the box office. Then I saw the movie. Harden was magnificent and so very deserving of her award. Was this, then, a case of AMPAS actually getting it right? Despite the Harden surprise, did the Oscar actually go to the best performance of that category?

Deserved or not, it’s the surprises that make for an enjoyable Oscar night. As much as I continue to fume over the “Crash” upset, you must admit that it at least stirred things up a little bit.

So this is where the fun begins:

Will Hal Holbrook pull off an Alan Arkin/Don Ameche/Jack Palance victory over Javier Bardem? And if so, will it be chalked up to sentiment rather than admitting that Holbrook is actually terrific and equally deserving of an award? Bardem is brilliant and gives, along with Day-Lewis and Cotillard, one of the year’s unforgettable performances. But in his own way, in a completely different style, Holbrook is fabulous, too. This is where the apples & oranges thing comes into play. Makes me crazy.

Lots of ink is now being spilled over Cotillard’s dark-horse status. As much as I love Christie and would love to see her take home #2, I would be equally delighted to watch Cotillard snatch the prize for her performance as Piaf.

Will the great Ruby Dee’s nod to Beatrice Straight actually earn her a career-capping Oscar? It’s looking more and more possible. Poor Amy Ryan. Actually, the Supporting Actress category is the only place where there doesn’t seem to be a lock.

And so it goes. Whether any of this comes to pass, it’s the kind of fodder that always keeps me fretting until the Big Night (whatever that may be this year).

So, my predictions, for today anyway, are as follows:

PICTURE:
No Country (surprise: Blood)

DIRECTOR:
Joel and Ethan Coen (surprise: Schnabel)

ACTOR:
Daniel Day-Lewis (surprise: none)

ACTRESS:
Julie Christie (surprise: Cotillard)

SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Javier Bardem (surprise: Holbrook)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Cate Blanchett (surprise: Dee)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Diablo Cody (surprise: Tony Gilroy)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Joel and Ethan Coen (surprise: Christopher Hampton)

The Final Five

2008-01-20T13:07:00.000-06:00

After much too much mulling and fretting over this year’s Oscar nominees, I have arrived at my final picks and I’m sticking with them. Paul Dano? He's my wild card this year... if Blood makes an impressive showing tomorrow morning, I'm going out on a limb and betting he'll be swept along for the ride. Tommy Lee Jones, my other dark horse favorite, is also in this category and it's been fun/frustrating deciding which of them might make it into the final five. Of course to make room for one of them I had to let go of Hoffman which, by tomorrow afternoon, will most certainly prove to be the silliest call I've made thus far.

As for Atonement, it's all or nothing. I just don't believe the Academy has changed that much to ignore the kind of lavish "prestige" pick it has loved and honored for decades. (And besides, it's a really good movie). But if it doesn't get a Best Picture nod (and my hedging all bets on Joe Wright as an underdog is probably not wise), then I'd say Knightley and McAvoy --and possibly Ronan -- are out in the cold. It's been a wacky week, I must say, with opinions and predictions changing daily. My own best picture picks have swayed away from what I thought would be a DGA-inspired quintet. I've moved Juno up and dropped Diving Bell to runner-up status.
Oh well, it will all be over with in the morning. The nominations will at last be revealed and we can all move on to a fresh round of insanity.

So here we go: my fearless, perhaps foolhardy predictions. I started with no more than ten contenders per category. Those listed as alternates and surprises are, therefore, the runners up.

PICTURE
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Alternate: Into the Wild
Nice surprise: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 3:10 to Yuma, Sweeney Todd, The Bourne Ultimatum

DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson
Joel and Ethan Coen
Sean Penn
Julian Schnabel
Joe Wright
Alternate: Tony Gilroy
Nice surprise: Sidney Lumet, Tim Burton, James Mangold, Paul Greengrass

ACTOR
George Clooney
Daniel Day-Lewis
Johnny Depp
James McAvoy
Denzel Washington
Alternate: Viggo Mortensen
Nice surprise: Emile Hirsch, Frank Langella, Josh Brolin

ACTRESS
Keira Knightley
Julie Christie
Marion Cotillard
Angelina Jolie
Ellen Page
Alternate: Cate Blanchett
Nice surprise: Laura Linney, Amy Adams, Helena Bonham-Carter, Nikki Blonsky

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck
Javier Bardem
Paul Dano
Hal Holbrook
Tom Wilkinson
Alternate: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Nice surprise: Ben Foster, Robert Downey Jr, Tommy Lee Jones

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett
Ruby Dee
Saoirse Ronan
Amy Ryan
Tilda Swinton
Alternate: Vanessa Redgrave
Nice surprise: Kelly Macdonald, Jennifer Garner, Allison Janney, Catherine Keener

The one that got away

2008-01-19T12:46:00.000-06:00

Every year, in the final throes of Oscar madness, there's always that one movie that still burns bright in my memory and I wonder why it's not a contender. (And no, for once, believe it or not, I am not talking about Atonement.)

I refer instead to Zodiac, David Fincher's brooding and brazen crime thriller about the notorious serial killer who terrorized San Francisco in the 1960's and 70's. It's just as nerve-wracking as No Country for Old Men and equally well-acted, with Robert Downey Jr guaranteed -- or so I thought -- an Oscar nomination for his performance as reckless and on-the-brink crime reporter. Yet, it hasn't appeared as a favorite on very many year-end polls. Don't blame it on the violence, not in the year of Old Men and Eastern Promises (and that's just for starters).

I know, I know: there's always a reason. But I can figure this one out. If you haven't seen it yet, add it now to your Netflix queue. Now. It's not easy to watch, but there is plenty to admire.

And while we're on the subject of movies you don't want to watch alone in the dark... here's a big happy birthday wish to the great Tippi Hedren, star of, in my opinion, still the most wonderfully creepy movie ever made.

Another year, another countdown

2008-01-19T11:13:00.000-06:00

And so the big day looms. Oscar nominations will be announced Tuesday morning, shrouded in doubt and uncertainty over the fate of the big show itself. This, however, has not hindered fans and fanatics form making their predictions in an especially heated, perhaps even frenzied, cycle of debates. I'd chalk this up to the number of really good movies released in 2007 which has resulted in an Oscar derby in which some genuine contenders will sadly be left in the dust.

I'll wait and make my own (traditionally misguided) predictions on Monday night. However, I'll go ahead and put my money on three nominees for the big prize: No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and even There Will Be Blood (although it's chances, I am told, despite its passionate support in some circles, might be tad wobbly depending on how it ranks in the final balloting...)

Now here's an interesting tidbit: every year since the Hollywood Foreign Press began doling out their globes, the winner of Best Drama and/or Best Picture has gone on to earn a Best Picture nomination from the Academy. There is only one exception in more than sixty years: waaaay back in '55 neither of the Globes' winners, East of Eden and Guys and Dolls made it to the Oscars' final five. With this in mind, it would seem to me that Sweeney Todd and Atonement, both just annointed by the HFPA, are still in the running for a Best Picture nomination, with the latter perhaps having the better shot. I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but I think its chances are still pretty good.

Finally, one last hurrah to Ben Foster and Peter Fonda whose names, alas, will more than likely not be heard come Tuesday morning.

2008-01-15T00:34:00.000-06:00

Let’s not waste time or energy discussing the debacle that was last night’s Golden Globes "press conference." And life is too short to even reflect back on the double whammy fright-fest known as Billy Bush and Nancy O’Dell. The event was so truly awful to begin with, but then having the Children of the Corn leading us through the horror of it all was more than I could endure.

But on to the awards. Although my predictions were indeed off the mark in more than one category, it was nice to see Atonement back in the race, having emerged from the Valley of the Guild Snubs. And Sweeney Todd snatching some much-deserved attention was also a good thing. This may possibly bodes well for the Oscar race, at least for Atonement. There are only three instances of a GG Best Drama not going on to earn a Best Picture nomination from the Academy: East of Eden, Spartacus and The Cardinal. In the comedy and/or musical category, the GG’s best picture winner isn’t always a sure thing for the Academy’s top five. Dreamgirls, Evita, A Star is Born, and Yentl –all winners according to the HFPA, not to mention my dear friend Ethel Cookies – did not do nearly so well with the Oscars. Can the same fate await Sweeney?

Honestly, I’m not sure if either has a strong chance, now that we know the Producers Guild nominations:

No Country For Old Men
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
There Will Be Blood
Juno
Michael Clayton

These five films, along with Into the Wild (which nabbed a DGA nomination over Juno) have dominated the critics’ polls and guild nominations and thus seem to be the heavy hitters as we go into the home stretch.

On another note, on the TV side of the Golden Globes’ anointed few, there were some truly deserving victories: Glenn Close, Tina Fey, Extras, Jeremy Piven, and especially Jon Hamm and his terrific Mad Men from AMC, easily the best new dramatic series of the season. Don’t believe me? Repeats begin later this month. Be there. You won’t be sorry.

2008-01-13T00:02:00.001-06:00

My predictions for the Globes are as follows. To what extent will a conference replacing Tinseltown's most gloriously awful awards gala impact the strike? It's all rather strange.

Poor Nikki Blonksy.

My picks:
No Country for Old Men

Juno

Joel & Ethan Coen

Daniel Day-Lewis

Julie Christie

Marion Cotillard

Javier Bardem

Cate Blanchett

Possible surprises/shockers: Ellen Page, Julian Schnabel, Saoirse Ronan (call me crazy).

2008-01-11T17:08:00.000-06:00

It’s not looking good for Atonement. Joe Wright’s marvelous film, which only a few weeks ago seemed to be a shoo-in for serious Oscar consideration, has suddenly lost its steam after the Actors' , Writers’ and Directors’ guilds all decreed it unworthy of their nominations. At least the Art Directors s showed some appreciation, but having the ensemble, Christopher Hampton and Wright all being overlooked by their peers is really disappointing.

I just don’t get it. And neither do many others, given the postings and debates on various forums. Check out the banter and more than a hundred postings on ths very subject at Awards Daily to see what I mean. True, some of the reviews weren’t exactly rapturous, but other critics and moviegoers find it to be one of the best films of the year. That’s the camp to which I belong (and Peter Travers, too…see his review here. )

What bores me the most are those who whine and snipe, “It’s too Masterpiece Theatre! It’s too English Patient-y! Oh, please it is sooo Merchant-Ivory!!” Fine. And to each of them I say, kindly excuse me while I shove my tea and crumpets up your Howards End.

Atonement is great. It’s one of the best films of 2008, anchored by Hampton’s terrific adaptation of Ian McEwan’s lovely and difficult-to-adapt tome. And the performances are among the best of the year (I even loved Brenda Blethyn’s wild-eyed attack on the police car by moonlight). But what makes it such a treat for me is Joe Wright’s direction. Here’s a young guy who is obviously crazy about the magic of movies, and delights in nudging, sometime shoving the boundaries of this art form’s wizardry. I thought his take on Pride and Prejudice was delightful. Yes, I love the novel, too. And yes I loved Simon Langton’s 1995 five-hour adaptation that naturally gave us much more Austen. But Wright’s version still captured its essence, due, of course, in large part to Keira Knightley’s sumptuous performance which once and for all exorcised all memories of Greer Garson – and it also delighted us with that wonderful, show-offy tracking shot during which the camera weaved and danced throughout the ball at the Bingley manor.

This was obviously a warm-up for the greatest sequence in Atonement, and easily my favorite moment of any film this year, and that is the scene at Dunkirk. I read somewhere that this shot rolls on uninterrupted for more than five minutes. All I know is that I’m pretty sure my jaw dropped half way through. I thought about similar shots in Boogie Nights, and Goodfellas, and Touch of Evil. Maybe I’m just a sucker for showmanship. And maybe I’m losing some credibility here, but when a big sweeping historical romance comes along with all of its production values so absolutely right, then I’m very happy indeed.

I know it’s not over yet. Maybe the Globes will be kind. Let’s hope.

And So It Begins

2008-01-09T18:07:00.000-06:00

Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men

Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton

Sean Penn, Into the Wild

Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Countdown has begun. At least for me. Until today, I have been following the awards season hoopla and filling in my annual Oscar prediction charts with every new announcement from another critics’ circle. But the announcement of the DGA’s annual nominations is, for me, the official kick-off to another Oscar derby. Of course, whether there will actually be an Oscar derby this year remains to be seen. And it's not looking good.

Anyway, back to the Directors Guild. As in the past, probably four out of these annointed five will go on to earn a directing nomination from the Academy. And, thus, it follows that more than likely four of the five scoring a directing nom will also score for best picture. But it's never likely that that only five films will earn the complete trinity of nominations --DGA , Oscar Director,and Oscar Picture -- and this year is no different. I can't help but think that somewhere in here lurks a nod at Atonement or maybe Juno?

Gilroy is a nice surprise, but a surprise nevertheless. Given his relative newbie status and the fact that Michael Clayton was much admired but not embraced with quite as much fervor as the other four, I was expecting the fifth slot to go to Joe Wright, Mike Nichols, Tim Burton or perhaps, as an affectionate gesture, Sidney Lumet. Anyway, good for Tony. (And, let’s face it, he did write those three marvelous BOURNE scripts.) But does he, as they say, have the legs to take him into the Oscar race?

Although I may change my mind tomorrow, I would say that Anderson, Schnabel and the Coens will go the distance. And given how much the Academy loves honoring those actors-turned-directors (Redford, Beatty, Eastwood, Gibson, Streisand --- oops, well, male actors- turned-directors anyway ---) Penn also stands a good chance. My fifth prediction would probably go to Wright or Burton who, along with Schnabel and the Coens, earned nominations from HFPA and the Broadcast Critics. Then again, Anderson was snubbed by both groups, so what do I know?

For the one truly big mystery to me, for the one movie I really thought would be in hot competition right now, kindly read the following post.

See this movie. Right now.

2008-01-09T17:23:00.000-06:00

So, one of the year’s very best movies hit the shelves at Blockbuster this week.

And I don’t mean Joshua.

I refer, of course, to James Mangold’s thrilling western yarn 3:10 to Yuma. How Mangold, editor Michael McCusker and that terrific company of actors have been routinely overlooked during this awards season is truly surprising. It’s easily in my top five of 2007 thus far and will no doubt remain there even after I catch the few remaining must-sees that have yet to open here. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale were both, in my obviously misguided appreciation, candidates for Oscar nominations. Ben Foster easily gave one of the best, most compelling supporting performances of the year and Peter Fonda, in an extended cameo, was equally good.

Maybe I just have a soft spot for really good westerns which for the most part have always been snubbed in awards circles and top ten lists. (Trust me, there’s more to the genre than just The Searchers which –dare I say it? – is overrated.)

Patty Rocks

2007-07-28T11:46:00.000-06:00

When it comes to Glenn Close, I’m a rather giddy fan. For years I have loved and admired her work: stage, movies, TV, you name it. (OK, I’m willing to overlook that misbegotten South Pacific….). Think of all the great stuff: The Real Thing, Benefactors and Sunset Boulevard on Broadway, the Lion in Winter remake for Showtime, her stint on The Shield, and all those terrific, often madcap movie performances including those which should have easily won her a couple of Oscars, …Garp and Dangerous Liaisons. Hell, she even made that wretched Stepford Wives remake worth a second visit late one night.

Unlike most actors working today, Close always seems to be having so much fun in everything she does while managing a bulls-eye commitment to every role. So, I eagerly awaited the premiere of Damages which landed on FX this week. Close stars as Patty Hewes, a terrifyingly high-powered attorney who won’t be ignored. In one particularly memorable moment, she lashes out at Tate Donavan (as her wimpy associate) with a furious bravado while channeling Alex Forrest and Cruella DeVil. It’s another marvelous characterization: smart, stylish, and flirting with camp.

The show itself is fine, I suppose. But when Patty’s not around, it looks like any other slick legal thriller and some of the casting isn’t quite right. For example, poor Zeljko Ivanek is saddled with a cornpone Southern accent (why are all sleazy lawyers-on-the-take now required to sound like they stumbled out of a John Grisham opus?). Ted Danson and Rose Byrne offer little in terms of interesting characters. At least the always reliable Phillip Bosco is, well, very reliable.

But I’ll keep watching, after that guy from Cincinnati over on HBO, Close’s Patty Hewes is the best thing to happen to TV this summer.

2007-07-23T14:47:00.000-06:00

I was, as they say, otherwise engaged, during the mild brouhaha that accompanied the announcement of the American Film Institute's latest list of the Greatest 100 Films list. Now, a few weeks later, finding myself at last in catch-up mode, a quick perusal of the list leaves little surprises; it’s not much different than the first. Although it’s a bit discouraging to see new additions like The Sixth Sense and Titanic bumping Stagecoach and The Manchurian Candidate off of the list. But, of course, this isn’t exactly the Sight & Sound Survey. As before, it’s a list that is provides a great introduction to all that is good about American ci-ne-mahh. And it celebrates dozens of truly great American film. Too bad it ignores dozens of other truly great American films in order to honor such favorites as, Toy Story, for instance (OK, a good movie, to be sure, but let’s face it: it’s not From Here to Eternity).

What makes this list so valuable to me is that it inspired a lot of film buffs and bloggers to reply with lists of their own. Sure, they are all reflections of personal choice (just like the one you’re going to see momentarily) but they all reminded me of some real gems that I hadn’t seen in a long time or, better yet, have never seen before.

It’s impossible for me to offer up a list of Best Films. I just can’t do it in a way that would garner respect and admiration among the high-minded and serious movie scribes.
As I have mentioned before, yes, on my list you will find all the usual suspects (Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Singin’ in the Rain) but they settle in next to the likes of The VIPs and Star!

Growing up an Air Force brat, I was lucky. An adolescence spent at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio provided me with five on-base movie theaters which showed just about everything you could hope to see. Premium movies got the prized Sunday-Monday or Thursday-Friday slots, everything else played one night, and then moved on to the next theater a few blocks away. Admission was something like 35 cents. If you liked a certain movie a lot (such as Airport, Chisum, Butch Cassidy...), you could catch it several times during its on-based rotation. I recall countless nights and matinees spent with my best pal Lester or with my parents (both avid moviegoers). It was at the Fairchild, The Chaparral, the Corral, among other Uncle Sam bijous, where I saw everything from Half a Sixpence and Planet of the Apes to Count Yorga, Vampire and What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? One day it was Z, the next day is was Yours Mine and Ours. Custer of the West. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The first Italian Job.

There’s probably a much longer story here, about coming of age at the movies amidst thousands of troops who are one night watching Doris Day frolic through Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? and then shipping off to Vietnam a day later. But we’ll save that for another post.

There was something else about all those movies and movie theaters at Lackland: on occasion, there would be festivals during which over the course of a week you could see all of the James Bond movies (there were only five at that point, but still…. I saw Dr. No I don’t know how many times) or take in a big helping of Clint Eastwood (the Man-With-No-Name trilogy PLUS Hang ‘Em High and Coogan’s Bluff). I also recall the very big deal surrounding the premiere of Patton. We got it on base a few weeks before its commercial release.

After Lackland, my father was transferred to Ankara, Turkey where about a dozen theaters were showing primarily American and European movies from the 60’s and early 70’s. Big beautiful theaters and modern little cinemas where every movie had an intermission. I could see Tobruk, Two for the Road, and a Sound of Music with most of the songs lopped out, all in the course of a weekend. Two days later it was Dr. Zhivago and Die! Die! My Darling! followed by Justine and the remake of Stagecoach. And all with Turkish subtitles. Also, since there was no rating system in place, as high school sophomore I could walk right into Midnight Cowboy and The Music Lovers.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make: as a kid, I devoured movies. Good and bad. And I still do. Thus any list I would offer can only be on of my all-time favorites. I’m perfectly capable of jotting down my selection of “the Best” but where’s the fun in that? Some of them I would probably never watch again. Did someone say L'avventura? Sorry, life’s too short.

I have been thinking about my own 100 list for quite some time. But what criteria would assure a truly representative list? Finally, it boiled down to this: Did I (a) love it? And/or (b) admire it? Would I happily see it again? Have I already –happily—seen it again? And again? Would it make the Desert Island list? If I am channel surfing at 3:30 a.m. and ran across it, would I settle in and watch, even if the DVD already sits in my library? An affirmative answer landed each title on the list. But I then had almost 200. I had to get ruthless. This, as it turns out, was no easy task. So, I decided to offer up my list of favorites that did not make the AFI list, or Sight & Sound. And none of them won the Oscar for Best Picture. All of those great movies, from Casablanca to Lawrence of Arabia to Chinatown and Raging Bull….well, they get a lot of love, anyway. Here, then, is my list of much-loved Runners Up. The List could change tomorrow, but here we go:

1925 Ben-Hur
1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc
1933 The Invisible Man
1933 Queen Christina
1935 Top Hat
1935 The Bride of Frankenstein
1936 Way Out West
1938 Holiday
1938 Alexander Nevsky
1938 The Dawn Patrol
1939 The Hound of the Baskervilles
1939 Stagecoach
1939 The Women
1939 Tarzan Finds a Son
1940 The Philadelphia Story
1944 Laura
1945 Mildred Pierce
1944 Cover Girl
1946 Notorious
1948 The Red Shoes
1949 On the Town
1954 A Star is Born
1954 Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
1956 The Ten Commandments
1956 Giant
1958 Auntie Mame
1958 Suddenly, Last Summer
1958 Touch of Evil
1961 Breakfast at Tiffany’s
1961 La Dolce Vita
1962 The Manchurian Candidate
1962 Dr. No
1962 How the West Was Won
1963 8 /12
1963 The Birds
1964 The Americanization of Emily
1965 Dr. Zhivago
1965 The Great Race
1966 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
1966 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1967 Two for the Road
1968 Star!
1968 Romeo & Juliet
1968 The Lion in Winter
1969 The Damned
1969 They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
1970 Chisum
1971 McCabe and Mrs. Miller
1971 Death in Venice
1971 The Garden of the Finzi Continis
1973 Cries and Whispers
1973 Ludwig
1974 Amarcord
1975 Barry Lyndon
1977 Julia
1977 The Turning Point
1977 New York, New York
1978 An Unmarried Woman
1979 Manhattan
1979 The Marriage of Maria Braun
1981 Chariots of Fire
1982 Victor/Victoria
1982 Veronika Voss
1983 Fanny and Alexander
1983 The Right Stuff
1983 Tender Mercies
1985 Ran
1986 Hannah and Her Sisters
1986 A Room with a View
1987 Maurice
1987 Law of Desire
1988 Hairspray
1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
1990 Dances with Wolves
1992 Howards End
1992 The Last of the Mohicans
1993 The Age of Innocence
1995 Clueless
1996 Fargo
1997 Boogie Nights
1998 The Thin Red Line
1999 Topsy Turvy
1999 All About My Mother
1999 Election
1999 Magnolia
2000 Tigerland
2000 Almost Famous
2001 Gosford Park
2001 Ghost World
2002 The Hours
2002 Far From Heaven
2002 Y Tu Mama’ Tambien
2003 Kill Bill 1
2004 Bad Education
2005 Brokeback Mountain
2005 Pride & Prejudice
2005 Munich
2006 Volver
2006 Casino Royale

A Cavalcade of Insults

2007-07-19T12:15:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to this year’s Emmy winners.

Wow. What a great line-up; each and every one so totally deserving!

Drama:
Deadwood, Ian McShane, Lindsay Duncan, Dominic Chianese, Paula Malcomson

Comedy:
Weeds, Jason Lee, Mary Louise Parker, Jeremy Piven, Jaime Pressly

Oh. Wait a minute. Sorry. I must have drifted off. The awards won’t be handed out for a few more weeks. And most of the above contenders weren’t even nominated.

The Emmy Brigade strikes again.
Cocksuckers.

2007-07-17T23:13:00.001-06:00

Yesterday marked the centennial of the great Barbara Stanwyck. Rather than offer up an appreciation which may sound like the ravings of a Stage Door Johnny, let me direct you to two excellent must-reads courtesy of Edward Copeland on Film and The House Next Door . Both will surely inspire you to adjust your Netflix line-up immediately.

In a salute to the great dame, I stayed up til the wee hours last night, watching her in Robert Wise’s Executive Suite. I love this movie. A sharp and tidy little gem from 1954, it’s not Stanwyck’s greatest achievement but, golly, does she shine in her small but oh-so-pivotal supporting role. Walter Pidgeon, Fredric March, William Holden, June Allyson, and a lovely (and Oscar-nominated) Nina Foch fill out the very all-star cast.

Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for Ball of Fire.

No Regrets

2007-07-08T21:52:00.000-06:00

Forget the surprisingly knuckleheaded reviews being offered up by some of our most reliable critics and judge the many merits of La Vie En Rose for yourself. Olivier Dahan’s biopic is downright marvelous. A big, overstuffed Dickensian melodrama, it careens around the screen with the reckless spirit very much like that of its hallowed subject, Edith Piaf. The jolting jumble of the chronology which has made some reviewers apoplectic is, as far as I’m concerned, an appropriately cinematic representation of the chaos that was Piaf’s life. And in a career-defining performance, Marion Cottilard breaks your heart as the legendary Little Sparrow. Beautiful cinematography courtesy of Tetsuo Nagata , by the way. And a dashing turn by Jean-Pierre Martins as boxing champ and Piaf’s one great love, Marcel Cerdan.

A wonderful movie. My Top Ten List of 2007 has officially launched.

The Honorable Brigham Anderson

2007-07-04T19:16:00.002-06:00

Turner Classic Movies recently wrapped up its terrific SCREENED OUT festival of gay-themed (or gay-related) films, offering quite the banquet of the good, the bad and the forgotten. A prime example of the latter would be Staircase, Stanley Donen’s little stinker from 1969 with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison mincing their way through a kitchen-sink soap opera that, by comparison, makes The Boys in the Band upbeat and life-affirming. It’s a forgettable flick, but still worth watching just to see movieland’s Caesar and Antony flitting about as two desperate old poofs.

Happily, the Screened Out series, inspired by Richard Barrios’ 2005 study, Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall , offered lots of treats, including such seldom seen novelties as Hal Roach's hilariously bizarre screwball comedy Turnabout as well as George Cukor's brittle drawing-room comedy Our Betters made the same years as his Dinner at Eight and Little Women (1933)and featuring a rather grand leading-lady turn by Constance Bennett.

At the other end of the spectrum was Otto Preminger’s great, sprawling Advise and Consent which remains one of the most entertaining movies ever made about our nation’s capitol. It’s a marvelous political potboiler that actually makes a confirmation hearing a juicy springboard for all sorts of intrigue. It’s not a gay movie, per se, but since secrets and blackmail are essential to the plot, you can easily guess the subject of the cover-up. Based on Allen Drury’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the movie is dark and jaded, showcasing some real Hollywood bluebloods in outstanding performances (Henry Fonda, Lew Ayers, Walter Pidgeon, a gorgeous Gene Tierney, and world-weary Franchot Tone), the best being a scenery-gobbling Charles Laughton, in his last performance, as Senator Seabright Cooley of South Carolina.

It’s said that all the major characters are based on actual politicos, thus Peter Lawford’s suave and charming take on JFK, his brother-in-law, is certainly irresistible. Among the youngsters in the cast, handsome and stalwart Don Murray is also quite good as the Mormon senator from Utah, Brigham "Brig" Anderson, the one with that desperate secret. And Inga Swenson is also on hand, as his long-suffering and noble wife. Weep for her.

Introducing Miss Kitty Twist

2007-07-04T19:11:00.000-06:00

Added to my Guilty Pleasures list last week: Walk on the Wild Side (1962), Edmund Dmytryk’s lurid tale set in a French Quarter bordello, starring Barbara Stanwyck as a stylishly butch and aging madam with the hots for Capucine (can you blame her?) Also on board are Laurence Harvey as a Texas (?) farm hand also in love with Capucine (can you blame him?) and Anne Baxter as a Mexican (?) owner of a truckstop café who pumps gas in high heels and quietly smolders for Harvey.

Best of all, however, is a young Jane Fonda as a piece of trashy jailbait named Kitty Twist. Yes, yes, yes: she’s a great thespian with Coming Home and Klute and Julia and a few other rightfully praised performances under her belt…but this is early Fonda, the Jane We Love of The Chase and –best of all—Hurry Sundown. She sizzles in this one and appears to be having one hell of a good time. And when she disappears for the second act, we miss her (although Baxter’s impersonation of Katy Jurado keeps us glued, as does Stanwyck’s aching loins). But Kitty’s too tantalizing not too pop back into the picture, which she does with scene-stealing abandon.

Really, this is a major delight. If the camp doesn’t seduce you, then at least take time to appreciate Elmer Bernstein’s groovy score with that pounding theme song and the naughty opening credits, courtesy of Saul Bass, with that angry black cat

What Should Have Been A Night to Remember

2007-06-10T21:43:00.000-06:00

What a shame. What a bore. What should have been a celebration of a pretty great Broadway season was, instead, the Berlin Alexanderplatz of commercials, a three hour blitzkrieg of advertisements interrupted every few minutes for a quick snippet of an awards show. I can't remember when the Tony Awards have ever been stripped of their customary razzle dazzle as they were this evening. You can't blame Christine Ebersole or Raul Esparaza or the cast of Spring Awakening (or Fantasia, for that matter) for doing their best, but they fought a losing battle.

In recent years the Tonys, overproduced and overlong, have only hinted at the horrors of what could be. Tonight, it all came to pass. The show was not about excellence on Broadway, but about corporate shilling.

What should be remembered for The Coast of Utopia’s seven awards (a record, I think, for a non-musical), the canonization of Spring Awakening, the crowning of Ebersole and Wilson, the surprise victories of Julie White and David Hyde Pierce, and all the other fun stuff that came and went too quickly, will instead be remembered for the eight thousand commercials for some godawful-looking show called Viva Laughlin which CBS clearly thinks theater enthusiasts are going to embrace simply because it features Hugh Jackman (Tony winning wonderboy who saved The Boy From Oz from oblivion a few seasons past and proved to be a delightful Tony host on more than one occasion). How sad, we saw much more of Jackman’s costar, Melanie Griffith, than we did Vanessa Redgrave and Angela Lansbury combined.

It’s unlikely that anyone had it tougher than Jane Alexander. She appeared in the pre-show webcast to present the Regional Theatre award, then had to come back on at the end of the broadcast, nine hours later, to announce that she had given the award earlier in the evening. Poor thing. In between appearances, I hope she got to go home and take a nap.

Tony Vs. Tony

2007-06-10T17:02:00.000-06:00

It’s just about an hour until the Tony Awards kick off… and the webcast is streaming from the red carpet…Christine Ebersole looks great, by the way, and so does Donna Murphy (but God help whoever sits behind her and that huge hair), ...and tonight’s show should be pretty great, even though that other big event is taking place over on HBO.

This has always been my favorite of all the award galas. Recently, while watching lots of this season’s big moments on YouTube (especially Spring Awakening and Company), I remember getting my first VCR just in time to record the telecast from 1984; that was the year Julie Andrews and Robert Preston co-hosted, when La Cage beat Sunday in the Park with George for the Best Musical prize, when Chita Rivera finally won her first Tony, when Bea Arthur and Angela Lansbury were reunited for a show-stopping rendition of “Bosom Buddies.” It was almost too much. Every single viewer had no choice but to embrace, with pride, their inner gaiety, if only for the remainder of that singularly sensational evening.

That was also the year that the original production of The Real Thing swept the non-musical field. That was a great production: Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Christine Baranski (all winning Tonys), not to mention Peter Gallagher and Cynthia Nixon, all under Mike Nichols’ direction. To this day, one of those “great nights in the theater” that you never forget. Now, I also recall how the great Rosemary Harris was nominated that season for the revival of Heartbreak House. She lost to Close who played Annie in The Real Thing. Many years later, Harris would be nominated for Waiting in the Wings, and she lost again, this time to the actress playing Annie the revival of The Real Thing who also happened to be her daughter, Jennifer Ehle.

I’ll probably be one of about ten viewers outside of New York who tune into CBS tonight and then catch The Sopranos a little later. I doubt that David Chase will disappoint us with anything like the ultimate M*A*S*H or Seinfeld sendoffs, and even if it doesn’t reach the brilliance of, say, “White Caps” or “Long Term Parking,” it’s already guaranteed a place in TV history simply for being the last one. I’m not really sure what to look for this evening since my expectations have been so wonderfully undermined during the past two seasons. However, in retrospect, everything makes sense within the world of these characters. (Of course Tony had to kill Christopher.) I think I actually gasped when Adriana showed up in Carmela’s dream during the Paris visit. And there is a look that Aida Turtorro gives Steven Schirripa in the recent “Soprano Home Movies” that is so great, so heartbreaking, that you knew, then and there, Bobby was doomed. Edie Falco’s Carmela is the one I’ll miss the most (we even named our dog after her) with Lorraine Bracco’s Dr. Melfi pulling a close second. And I think she should still get a retroactive Emmy for the “Employee of the Month” episode.

Gotta wrap this up. It’s almost curtain time at Radio City.

I Remember Mama

2007-05-30T22:04:00.000-06:00

Roger Michell’s The Mother (2003) is the kind of movie where half way through you want to take a sledgehammer to your DVD player. Or at least switch over to reruns of Cheaters or Friday Night “SmackDown.” Anything, you think, will be better than this experiment in agony. Yet, for some reason, you stick it out til the end. Probably due to the lovely performance by Anne Reid as the widowed grandmother who pulls a Dolly Levi and decides she won’t let the parade pass her by, at least not yet, and emerges from the dreary doldrums of a bad marriage by boffing the sensitive/brutish young handyman who, coincidentally is also boffing her whining wretch of a daughter. That’s about it. The handyman is, incidentally, Daniel Craig, saddled with a dullard of a character who’s about as awful as everyone else in this plodding potboiler who in some way or another manage to block Granny’s second-act attempt for, you know, a life ripe with meaning. And orgasms.

This, and Sofia Coppola’s surprisingly marvelous, crafty Marie Antoinette are maybe the only two movies I have seen in the past two months. It’s been one of those madcap, difficult stretches (I am terrible at over-committing) during which I have not focused on anything more challenging than the season finale of Workout (big Jackie fan here) and the nightly/early morning offerings at TCM. Thank Heaven for Robert Osborne (and the inspired programmers who can still get me excited about the umpteenth broadcast of Stagecoach.)

Sometimes I find that just a snippet or two from a favorite film is all I need to take the edge off. Believe me, a nice little chunk from It Happened One Night or Bringing Up Baby or The Big Sleep provide the kind of nightcap that only old school Hollywood can provide. Who needs Grey Goose?

I keep a running journal entry of movies that I watch, but lately, it’s more like a list of scenes…favorite moments or maybe films where I land in the middle and snuggle in til the end. Over the past month, “the list” reveals an interesting little catalogue of viewing delights, not a single one in its entirety:

--I Want to Live!

--Morning Glory (in which Hepburn is so bad, so annoying, so over-the-top ridiculous that to this day it remains a mystery and miracle that she’s the same thespian who, five years later would become, at least in my opinion, the greatest American actress of four decades)
--The Shoes of the Fisherman (it goes on for about a day and a half with all the pomp and gravity that accompanied those “prestige pictures” of the 1960s but, taken in small doses, it’s kind of fun)
--Stella Dallas
--Brief Encounter
--A Farewell to Arms (’32 version, featuring Helen Hayes in one of her few screen appearances where she doesn’t play First Lady of the American Theatuh and dare you to resist wanting to smack the crap out of her)
--Lord Jim
--Mary of Scotland (John Ford does a costume drama. Badly.)
--The Catered Affair
--The World of Henry Orient (which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. Very strange movie. But it has Paula Prentiss. Who could ask for anything more?)
--As You Like It (impossible to watch for more than fifteen minutes, but still fascinating and a little bit horrifying. Olivier is adorable and oh-so-gay while Elisabeth Bergner makes you want to stick an ice pick in your ears)
--The Hurricane
--The High and the Mighty
--Yours, Mine and Ours

OK, so not exactly the kind of line-up you would find on the Sight & Sound survey, but comfort-food movies have their place in our hearts, if nowhere else. If you had to play the desert island scenario and you had to pick, say, Clueless or The Passion of Joan of Arc, which one would get your vote?

Last week I checked out Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf, but I just couldn’t do it. So I opted instead for Flower Drum Song, which really may be one of the worst big screen musicals of all time. But there’s something very reassuring about Miyoshi Umeki, in a warm-up for her turn as Mrs. Livingston, singing “A Hundred Million Miracles” while Nancy Kwan vamps like nobody’s businesses. I don’t know, maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for Bergman that night. Or maybe I was still smarting from The Mother.

One more thumbs-up to TCM in anticipation of what I think is it’s first Gay and Lesbian Film festival. Screened Out: Gay Images in Film promises to deliver, over the course of Mondays and Wednesdays in June, “a 44-Movie Festival that examines gay sexuality in the cinema from the silent era up to the films that challenged Hollywood's rigid Code…” Oh boy. Anything that brings us everything from Franklin Pangborn to The Killing of Sister George is something worth celebrating.

You should SO be watching this...

2007-05-08T09:43:00.000-06:00

So I received an email from my dear friend Laney the other day. The subject line was:
Oh, you should SO be watching this…, and was an alert that William Wyler’s classic DODSWORTH (featuring Walter Huston and Madame Ouspenskaya, among others) was playing on TCM. And Laney was so right. We should all be watching DODSWORTH right now, especially since there’s not much being offered at the local Cineplex these days.

Maybe I’m getting cranky but it seems to me there is just more and more junk out there. I’m turning into my parents, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Twenty years ago they started in with the “they just don’t make movies like they used to.” I rolled my eyes and took off to see GREMLINS or COCKTAIL.

Scanning this Sunday’s movie listings, I must admit there was nothing that I cared to see, or at least nothing that couldn’t wait til it ended up on DVD at Netflix. OK, I do want to see SPIDER-MAN 3 on the big screen but must wait until the hullabaloo dies down. And despite its boffo box office this weekend, the so-so reviews might make this happen a bit sooner than anticipated. Actually I’m probably the only person who goes to the Spiderman movies in anticipation of another great turn by Rosemary Harris.

But who can possibly attend a big summer blockbuster anymore without resisting the urge to smack a few people? When did going to the movies stop being about the movie and instead, become a gathering place for half-witted yokels to have a family reunion while gobbling tubs o’ corn and guzzling buckets o’ Diet Coke? (And what good do these behemoths think they are doing, downing a gallon of diet cola, when their veins and vessels are already packed with sludge from the nacho cheese goo they have slathered all over their Jumbo Trough o’ Chips at the concession stand?)

Forgive the rant, but it’s becoming impossible to enjoy a movie any more without having to deal with compulsive talkers who, even when attempting a sotto voce whisper, sound like King Kong grunting at Naomi Watts. Then there are the boisterous gobblers attacking their Milk Duds and Twizzlers with a chomping desperation as though it were their last supper. And it’s bad enough when a cell phone goes off, it’s even worse when the person next to you answers it, like the nit witted hag at CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON who ---during the last magical moments of that movie--- answered her phone (with a ringer that sounded like an air-raid warning) and launched into a full-throttle gab session with her gal pal. And that was years ago, but the memory still scars me.

I’m a nice person. Really. And I love movies. But I’m starting not to love people. At least the people who are, more and more, robbing me of the pleasures of a few hours in the dark staring at the silver screen. One of the very few pleasant experiences I have had in the past year was when I attended a 10:45 a.m. matinee of THE QUEEN. Perfect. Of course the entire audience was made up of me and about 200 genteel Rosemary Harris look-alikes. Now that was a lovely day.

Soon It's Gonna Reign

2007-03-27T23:57:00.000-06:00

There’s really not much to say about The Tudors except that it doesn’t differ all that much from that other Showtime series, Queer as Folk. Only this time, the queens are real women.

Just like QAF, this new saga is short on intelligence but big on bed-hopping, handsome men, and a numbskull narrative that offers us Merrie Olde England by way of Aaron Spelling. In short, it’s irresistible. All that’s missing is Sharon Gless whipping up some bangers and mash.

Henry, his six wives, and the big break with Rome has inspired so many movies, plays, miniseries and even one big Broadway floperoo that we get a queasy sense of deja-vu just minutes into the first installment. But then Jonathan Rhys Meyers arrives on the scene. He looks about as much like Holbein’s Henry as Charles Laughton favors Elvis, but he immediately gives us what he does best. He smolders. He broods. He pouts. Then he gets naked and the games begin. His isn’t the only flesh that’s flashed, by the way. Lusty lords are leaping and many a maid is mating in nooks and crannies hither and yon.

Which is probably a good thing since the show doesn’t offer anything new in its consideration of history or the Who’s Who of familiar faces. Sam Neill gives us yet another Cheneyish Cardinal Wolsey, while poor Jeremy Northam hasn’t much to do as yet another nobly pious Thomas More (but then again, the man was a saint for all seasons, there’s really not much more you can do with him). Natalie Dormer plays Anne Boleyn as, what else?, a tarty sexpot while Maria Doyle Kennedy gives us one more tragic and put-upon Queen Katherine. Only Steven Waddington, as Buckingham, provides anything close to a performance but history being what it is, don’t get too attached. Remember that several unlucky players lose their heads in this oft-told tale.

The show looks great and exudes self-important pomp. And although it fades quickly when compared to the dearly departed Rome, it at least gives us something to look forward to on Sunday nights. . Not since The Private Life of Henry VIII or Carry On Henry (with its working title Anne of a Thousand Lays) has royal watching been so much fun.

Hail, Caesar! But beware the Ides of March...

2007-03-15T19:32:00.000-06:00

So yesterday I was having coffee with my friend Roberto when our conversation turned to Julius Caesar. He’ll be directing a production of the Bard’s classic later this summer, and we were sharing our enthusiasm for the Joseph Mankiewicz movie version from ‘53, in particular Brando and James Mason, as Antony and Brutus, respectively. He also indulged my babbling on about HBO’s Rome and how there were only two episodes left, what I am going to do, etc. Anyway, we failed to realize we were having this chat on the very eve of the Ides of March. Fancy that.

In fact, I didn’t even think about today being that fateful date until I read the latest posting over at The Phantom Professor. This has little to do with Caesar being carved into cutlets, but it’s still one of the funniest things you will read all week. The Phantom Prof is actually a much-beloved college buddy. I was a wide-eyed freshman when, as a world-weary senior, she took me under her wing. She was like Dorothy Parker, Hedda Hopper and Eve Arden all rolled into one. Still is. For a sampling of her quick wit, read the post, "Beware the Hides of Zarch." Like me, you will probably laugh out loud.

Back to Caesar, just for a minute. If you haven’t seen the Mankiewicz film, be sure to do so. I’ve seen it several times and it never gets old. It’s much better than Stuart Burge’s 1970 version which, to be fair, at least offers, among its few pleasures, Gielgud in the title role (he was a great Cassius in ’53) and Diana Rigg, still looking like Mrs. Peel, popping in as Portia.

And as long as we’re thinking about old Julius, let’s offer a tip of the toga to Rex Harrison’s Oscar-nominated Caesar in Cleopatra, Ciaian Hinds in Rome, John Gavin in Spartacus, as well as Warren William and Claude Rains who played opposite the Egyptian queens of Claudette Colbert and Vivien Leigh.

And finally, this is a stretch, but a closing “Hail!” to the late Richard Kiley who, in one of his least successful Broadway romps, played Caesar to Leslie Uggams’ Cleopatra in that fabulous, fabled flop from 1968, Her First Roman. Kiley had just left his Tony-award winning smasheroo, Man of La Mancha for this misbegotten adaptation of Shaw’s play. You have to love a show that opens with the chorus boys, as Roman soldiers, belting out that memorable ditty, “What Are We Doing in Egypt?” It closed after 17 performances and lost more than half a million dollars.

Tonight We Dine in Hell!!

2007-03-14T23:43:00.000-06:00

Why am I not surprised? I mean, it was probably bound to happen: the loincloth worn by Gerard Butler in 300 is now up for grabs on eBay. If you don’t believe me, check it out.

When you stop to think about it, this makes perfectly good sense. Ever since 300 launched its brilliant marketing campaign several months ago, we have been bombarded with a PECtacular promise of man meat. Butler, as King Leonidas, has been featured prominently, perhaps giving new meaning to “coming attraction.” The movie does not disappoint. It celebrates heroism and sacrifice. But no more than that, it also honors beefcake and brawn. For all its well-intentioned prattle about valor and machismo, it is also the gayest movie since Auntie Mame. Pumped up and edging its audience towards an orgiastic bloodbath, 300 pulls on everything from Steve Reeves movies to Tom of Finland cartoons with such confidence and authority that it is impossible not to surrender to this mind-numbing, jaw-dropping extravaganza.

In his very funny review for the New York Times, critic A.O. Scott wrote, “300 is about as violent as Apocalypto and twice as stupid.”

To a certain extent, Scott is right. The movie may very well be a simple-minded sword and sandal saga, gleefully choking on its own guts and gore. But as far as Cro-Magnon entertainments are concerned, this one is hard to beat. Director Zack Snyder, adapting Frank Miller’s graphic novel, has brought forth something very new and rather strange: it’s part amusement park and part video game disguised as a movie. And it works. Brilliantly.

It covers familiar territory, already drawn out on the screen in The 300 Spartans (1962): Sparta’s King Leonidas (Butler) leads his army of a mere 300 soldiers against Persia’s King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, late of TV’s Lost) and his bazillion troops at the Battle of Thermopylae. But Snyder’s movie is much less a history lesson than a brutal, nihilistic, musclebound glorification of cinema’s future shock, where things like acting and design are replaced by blue screens and the marvels of technology. Sin City (also based on a Miller work) and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow have already hinted at the possibilities of computer-generated movies. 300 claims that movies like these are here to stay. Design-wise, it’s a winner. It’s pretty to look at it, in a blood-drenched kind of fashion, with excellent editing and a lovely score. Be on the lookout for a sequence involving the sinking of Persian ships. Wow.

Much has been written this week about the film's boffo box-office ($70 million in less thn than a week) and how fansites and comic book enthusiasts have assured its popularity. That’s fine. But what may be a tad worrisome is that the things that many of us hold dear, like craft for starters, is replaced here by spellbinding gadgetry. The story doesn’t simply unfold. It is catapulted off the screen right into our laps and, in case we are newcomers to nuance, there’s a narrator on hand to make sure we understand exactly what we are supposed to know. The acting, if you can call it that, is even less subtle. The entire cast preens and struts, flexes and poses. For all his swaggering and breast beating, Butler doesn’t act as much as be barks and bellows. But boy, does he pack that loin cloth. (He also sounds just like Sean Connery every time he brays “Shhhhpartaaaah!”)

The rest of the cast members are about as wooden as the Bill Baird marionettes performing “The Lonely Goatherd.” Those cast as the Persians are especially one-dimensional but it’s hard to poo-poo the brave souls writhing around in Xerxes’ orgy, especially when they are credited with characters such as Transsexual Asian #1, Kissing Concubine #2 and Transsexual Arabian #3. Oh, that Xerxes. He was an equal-opportunity libertine, that’s for sure.

And yes, when it is all over and accounted for, it really comes down to the loincloth. Bidding is currently underway. May the best man win.

Fair Weather Friends

2007-03-13T17:55:00.000-06:00

Our friends over at Turner Classic Movies are offering a treasure trove of Gene Kelly classics right now. Kelly is their Star of the Month, which means within the span of thirty days you can catch up on a bundle of his movies, not to mention the American Masters documentary as well as Robert Osborne’s visit with a charming Stanley Donen.

For someone like me, a longtime Kelly fan and wide-eyed enthusiast for anything that came out of MGM’s fabled Freed Unit, this retrospective is heavenly.

Last night I settled in for a near six-hour marathon and saw two old favorites and one that I have never seen until now, It’s Always Fair Weather. I know, I know: in some circles this is like saying that I never saw Seven Samurai or The Tree of Wooden Clogs. What can I say? Only that it’s nice to still be discovering a few treats from yesteryear. Lately, I’ll pop in a DVD to watch a favorite scene, listen to new commentary, or watch the extras. Sometimes watching on TV, with Robert Osborne’s dependably masterful and loving introductions, is actually more satisfying.

I don’t know how often I have seen On the Town (which along with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers remains my favorite from the MGM library. That’s right: I even prefer it to Singin’ in the Rain. I prefer An American in Paris, too. Call me crazy. Anyway, as always, On the Town is as brash and buoyant as always. It might just be the happiest movie ever made.

Roaring onto the screen in 1949, and one of the first musicals to actually shoot part of its story on location, the now familiar tale of three sailors (Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin) on 24-hour shore leave in New York City remains thoroughly engaging and even a little poignant. Ann Miller, Betty Garrett, and Vera-Ellen are on hand as the boys’ all-singing, all-dancing love interests. Alice Pearce, the only veteran of the original Broadway cast, is also on hands for additional comic relief. Ann Miller, hot off the set Easter Parade, is my favorite here, especially as she leads the gang through the frenzied “Prehistoric Man” number.

The only disappointment here is the second-rate “second version” of the musical score. The Broadway original (music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green) is brilliant. Rooted in Bernstein’s great work “Fancy Free” for Ballet Theatre, the Broadway version, which opened in 1944, has a modern day urgency that is both jazzy and symphonic. In my mind, it’s an instant classic and one of Broadway’s best mid-century compositions, pointing ahead to Candide and West Side Story. For the movie version, Comden and Green signed on and penned several new lyrics to songs by composer (and associate producer) Roger Edens. The new songs aren’t particularly bad; they just pale in comparison to the originals. Only three of Bernstein’s songs remain, plus some ballet music. (Ironically, Edens and Lennie Hayton won the movie’s only Oscar, for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.)

Cover Girl (1944) finds Kelly freelancing over at Columbia in between Thousands Cheer and Anchors Aweigh at MGM. Directed by Charles Vidor, this was probably Columbia’s most successful musical until Funny Girl and Oliver! came along forty odd years later. The studio was never a real contender when it came to big screen song-and-dance fantasias, but it did have something to offer in the 1940’s that MGM and Paramount could not: Rita Hayworth. All these years later, it is still so easy to see what all the fuss was about. She was the ultimate movie star and, in my book, the most beautiful and enchanting creation of Hollywood’s dream machine.

The story follows Rusty Warren (Hayworth) from her hoofing at a Brooklyn nightclub with boyfriend Kelly and sidekick Phil Silvers to fast fame as a fashion model and, naturally, Broadway star. Romance troubles quickly develop, but with a happy ending guaranteed. Cover Girl, even with its creaky, farfetched plot and a couple of over-the-top musical numbers destined for camp classic status, remains a real pleasure thanks to Hayworth’s performance (and, boy, can she dance). Her Rusty Parker has been one of my favorite screen characters for as long as I can remember.

Kelly, although like everyone else, politely eclipsed by the leading lady, has some sparkling sequences. His most memorable moment is “The Alter Ego Dance” in which he dances with, well, his alter ego (just see it, don’t make me explain); it’s a clever number conceived with his cohort-in-choreography and future co-director Stanley Donen. Eve Arden is also on hand to play, who else?, Eve Arden. She’s marvelous. Phil Silvers, on the other hand, is not. I never cared much for his on-camera mugging. It was as if he never understood he was playing to a camera lens and not standing room only at the Winter Garden. There’s a wonderful Jerome Kern – Ira Gershwin score that includes one of my top-ten desert island standards, “Long Ago and Far Away.” (which was Oscar nom’d for Best Song but lost out to “Swingin’ on a Star” from that year’s Academy champ, Going My Way).

By the way, there was only one film in Hayworth’s career separating Cover Girl from her even bigger, some would say iconic, Gilda. That movie was Tonight and Every Night. Dismissed by most critics and fans, it does have songs by Jules Styne and Sammy Cahn, as well as Janet Blair and Marc Platt in supporting roles. Platt was a member of the Ballets Russes (and was one of the Pontipee brothers in Seven Brides...). Anyone who saw terrific documentary on the Ballet Russes last year will remember Platt from that. Tonight and Every Night was his movie debut. And I’ve never seen it. Until now. Happily, TCM has it on the roster for later this week.

Finally, It’s Always Fair Weather is a real treat. Watching it, you know that MGM’s musical heyday is about to come to its crashing demise. This is 1955. Big-budget Brigadoon has opened by this point and was not a hit. Les Girls, Silk Stockings and The Opposite Sex would follow (and stumble) with only Gigi left to make any real money (and gobble up the Oscars for 1958).

There’s a bitterness that hangs over this movie like a shroud.

It was first conceived as a sequel to On the Town, but that was scrapped when Sinatra and Munshin were not available. So the three happy-go-lucky Navy buddies are now three happy-go-lucky Army buddies: Kelly, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd. Home from World War II, they toast to a lifelong friendship and vow to reunite ten years later. They do, but they’re not particularly happy and realize they have nothing left in common except a shared disillusionment. Dreams have faded, self-loathing is creeping in to stay, and the man-in-the-grey-flannel-suit cynicism of the Eisenhower years is everywhere. This is one of the darkest screenplays (by Oscar nominated Comden and Green) to ever try and dovetail with an MGM musical. It doesn’t always work but the resulting grumpiness is fascinating. The movie is obsessive in its critique of advertising and television. Given that TV was, at this time, Tinsel Town’s newly feared and hated adversary, the lampoon is pretty timely.
One question you have to ask: for whom was this Best Years of Our Lives Meets On the Town intended? Kelly and Cyd Charisse are reunited again but they never dance together (a duet was filmed, but cut, as was a lengthy solo number for Michael Kidd). There's no romance and no real laugh-out loud moments except for a couple of set pieces with Dolores Gray (see below). Other moves of the era like On the Waterfront and Marty could get away with being gloomy. They didn't have Cyd Charisse.

Among the brighter moments are Kelly’s great “I Like Myself,” in which he roller skates around town on one of the biggest sets since DW Griffith gave us Babylon in Intolerance. It’s a knock-out number and especially refreshing for those of us who have seen the puddle-jumping gaiety of Singin’ in the Rain one too many times. The whole movie looks great and showcases the wonders of wide screen nicely, escpecially in a big number featuring Charisse and a motley group of boxers.

The true highlight of this film for me, however, is a bizarre and vastly entertaining performance by Dolores Gray as Madeline Bradville, a musical Madwoman of Madison Avenue. The star of a TV show that is part variety hour and part “Queen for a Day,” Gray gives us a creation suggesting the lovechild of Audrey Meadows and Charles Nelson Reilly. On her broadcast, when not shilling for the big sponsor, she delivers a showstopper called “Thanks a lot, but no thanks” in which slithers and careens around the stage, knocking off a whole battalion of chorus boys.

Gray had just arrived from Broadway (with a Tony for Carnival in Flanders) and by way of London (where she starred for three years in the West End’s smash hit Annie Get Your Gun). She also had to her credits a less-than-happy outing with Bert Lahr in Two on the Aisle (written by Comden and Green). Maybe singing Annie Oakley to the last row of the balcony for over a thousand performances at London’s Coliseum had made Gray a bit, um, overwhelming for the camera. She’s certainly larger than life here, this close to a drag queen, and very very funny. She would quickly go on to play essentially the same character, just with wardrobe changes, in MGM’s Kismet and The Opposite Sex.

Serious movie critics can point to several scholarly reasons why this is a must-see film. And I’m sure they are right. But for me, it’s Gene Kelly on roller skates and the clowning of the daffy, delightful Dolores Gray.

"Attia of the Julii, I call for justice!!"

2007-03-08T17:02:00.000-06:00

They’re dropping like flies on Rome right now. The body count is bigger than Hamlet and I, Claudius combined. Like everyone else, I was prepared for one last showdown between Atia (Polly Walker) and Servilia (the divine Lindsay Duncan) before the latter had to join most of the Season One cast out there in the great beyond. However, nothing prepared me for the spectacular theatricality of her leave-taking this week. Wow.

I have complained lately about this sophomore (and final) season. Comparing it to last year, it’s been too hysterical, too lurid (and in last Sunday’s heaving, grunting tryst between Pullo and Gaia, something like a an ancient twist on Russ Meyer). Anyway, throughout the recent travails wherein domestic troubles have exceeded historical truth, I have still enjoyed this spectacular romp which has combined the tastes and expectations of both Alistair Cooke and Bob Guccione. Any sequence involving Duncan has been a stand-out. And her descent into madness (and who can blame her?) singles her out as the only character for whom we really feel any compassion. Obviously Rome’s creative team felt likewise as her send-off was most memorable. She and Suzanne Bertish (as the devoted Eleni) bit the proverbial dust like a sword-and-sandal version of Thelma and Louise.

Antony (James Purefoy) put it best: “Now that is an exit.”

On other fronts, poor Octavia: let’s not forget she and Servilia enjoyed a December-May Sapphic canoodling. So witnessing her former lover’s suicide just before being married off to her mother’s lover, well, she just didn’t have a very good week.

Everything is Connected

2007-03-08T16:54:00.000-06:00

For some reason, I never got around to seeing Syriana last year. I finally corrected that oversight last night and am very glad that I did. As political potboilers go, this one is wound pretty tight, and it reminds me of Oliver Stone’s JFK with those mounting feelings of unease and dread that maintain a stranglehold til the final fade-out.

Looking back, I’m surprised it was not in the running for more awards at Oscar time, especially Original Score and Editing; but then again those categories were already crowded with strong contenders. Clooney, although quite good, doesn’t really merit his accolades for this one (I’d give him gold for Out of Sight or Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? before Syriana). If I’m not mistaken, this was Stephen Gaghan’s first time out as director; for a freshman feature it is remarkably assured, well-paced, and balances its large cast and multiple storylines quite masterfully.

Not a great movie. But a very good one (and thank God for closed-captioning which made possible an easy appreciation of the topsy-turvy plot). Matt Damon and Alexander Siddig are stand-outs. Ditto, as always, Chris Cooper. And Captain Von Trapp smacks his chops with villainous glee.

All the other banal bogies

2007-03-04T00:09:00.000-06:00

A year or so ago, there was a bit of a hubbub about the long-awaited DVD release of Arthur Hiller’s The Americanization of Emily. Someone, somewhere – and I wish I could remember who – wrote a great piece proclaiming it one of those overlooked great movies deserving of rediscovery. It’s been on my must-see list ever since. I finally caught up with it last night. And I watched it twice.

It’s astonishing. A sinister, darkly hilarious satire, I’m not quite sure how it even got made when it did (1964), nor how Bosley Crowther’s nice review failed to consider the scalding satire sure to offend anyone with patriotic tendencies. Paddy Chayefsky, in his blistering adaptation of William Buie Howard’s novel, delivers a screenplay every bit as audacious –and as entertaining – as his Network.

In his charming commentary to DVD edition, Hill says that the movie is “not anti war, not anti American, but anti the glorification of war.” In these dark days of a new century, the movie packs more of a wallop than ever before.

On the eve of D-Day in a dreary, rain-sopped London, American Navy officer Charlie Madison (James Garner, never better) meets up with war widow and motor pool driver Emily Barham (Julie Andrews, also in her best performance). Having lost a brother in the war and experience firsthand the horrors of battle, Charlie is now an unrepentant coward, enjoying the relative safety of his work as personal assistant to Navy Admiral Jessup (the great Melvyn Douglas fresh off the set from HUD). He’s a “dog robber,” or procurement officer who keeps the brass happy with good booze and easy broads, and a warehouse supply of rationed and contraband steaks, fruit, and other delicacies.

Emily doesn’t approve. He calls her a prig. She seduces him. They fall in love. And both being strong-willed, their bumpy road to romance is punctuated with the kind of gleefully delivered dialogue and debate rarely heard in movies anymore.

Emily:
I despise cowardice, I detest selfish people and I loathe ruthlessness. Since you are cowardly, selfish and ruthless, I cannot help but despise, detest and loathe you. And that is not the way a woman should feel about the man she’s going to marry.

There is great chemistry here and I would wager that one of the reasons the film was never a huge success has nothing to do with its themes but rather with Andrews’ marvelous performance as a smart and sensuous woman who contradicted everything that Mary Poppins (and soon Maria and Millie) stood for. Fans must have stayed away in droves.

Soon, Charlie pays a visit to Emily’s house, to meet her mother, and he arrives bearing gifts (Hershey bars, of course)

Emily:

Well, that’s very American of you, Charlie. You just had to bring along some small token of opulence. Well, I don’t want them. You Yanks can’t even show affection without buying something.
Charlie:

Well don’t get into a state over it. I thought you liked chocolates.
Emily:

I do, but my country’s at war and we’re doing without chocolates for a while. And I don’t want oranges or eggs or soap flakes, either. Don’t show me how profitable it will be to fall in love with you, Charlie. Don’t Americanize me.

Charlie then meets mum (a brilliant turn by Joyce Grenfell), who has lost a husband, son, and son-in-law to the war. She’s charming and a bit loony, still in denial over whom and what she has lost. As she pours tea, they share a polite and utterly ruthless exchange that cuts to the chase of what Emily is all about.

Charlie:
We shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogies. It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers; the rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widows’ weeds like nuns and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices. My brother died at Anzio – an everyday soldier’s death, no special heroism involved. They buried what pieces they found of him. But my mother insists he died a brave death and pretends to be very proud.

Mrs. Barham:
You’re very hard on your mother. It seems a harmless enough pretense to me.

Charlie:
No, Mrs. Barham. No, you see, now my other brother can’t wait to reach enlistment age. That’ll be in September. May be ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution. What has my mother got for pretending bravery was admirable? She’s under constant sedation and terrified she may wake up one morning and find her last son has run off to be brave.

Soon, of course, Charlie finds himself in harm’s way. Big time. And I’m not going to offer a spoiler here. You’ll just have to see it for yourself. Let’s just say the final act provides James Coburn, as Charlie’s gung-ho playboy buddy Lt Commander Bus Cummings, some dastardly funny scenery chewing. He and Garner have an easy rapport here (they had just done The Great Escape the year before). There’s also pitch-perfect cameo by Keenan Wynn as a drunken sailor. Look briefly, too, for that soon-to-be Sock It To Me gal, Judy Carne, as one of Bus’s bedmates.

Like Network, the characters here know what they want and how they want to say it; people never talk like this in real life but Chayefsky’s script makes you wish that we did.
Hiller, coming on after original director William Wyler (and original leading man William Holden) exited the project, makes a confident leap to the big screen following several years in television. This was an early feature, following the sex romp The Wheeler Dealers the year before (also with Garner). It’s a shame that, with the exception of Chayefsky’s The Hospital ten years later, he never really had another great movie to his credit. Some good stuff (like the original Out of Towners but nothing on the level of Emily. And, no, I don’t consider Love Story (his only Oscar nomination, and his only Golden Globe win) worth celebrating.

Shot in crisp, beautiful black-and-white by Philip Lathrop (who balanced crap like Don’t Make Waves and Girl Happy with his grand, gritty Point Blank and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?), there’s not a moment of waste here. Every scene is worth savoring.

There is, alas, one sticky wicket that cannot be dismissed, and that’s the fact that Emily vigorously asserts its thesis upon a war that was, to a large extent, necessary. However, even World War II had its share of fools, exploitation and crackpot schemers (as Flags of Our Fathers recently reminded us). Whether you agree with its politics or not, there is plenty to admire about this movie, beginning and ending with one of the best screenplays not nominated for an Oscar. Go to Netflix and put it in your queue. Now.

Marty's Party

2007-02-26T01:39:00.000-06:00

Well. That's that. Despite its length, and despite at least an hour’s worth of unnecessary filler that made me long for Debbie Allen’s old dance routines or even Rob Lowe’s jitterbug with Snow White, it was somehow one of the livelier Oscarthons in quite some time.

Even though it began a week ago and even though you could hear a nationwide symphonic clicking of remotes to “mute” when Celine Dion was hauled out in honor of poor Ennio Morricone, the show was a bit more upbeat, stylish, and fun than I can remember it being for several years. When was the last time that the big stars of the evening were a beloved director and former Vice President?

Although The Departed isn’t the year’s best picture, its mini-sweep of editing-screenplay-director made its Best Pic victory a no-brainer by the evening’s end. And all of the movie’s winners - Thelma Schoonmaker, William Monahan, Martin Scorsese and Graham King – seemed so genuinely elated by their wins. The long ovation for Scorsese was especially nice (and certainly deserved).

I still don’t understand why winners are booted off the stage with that annoying “exit music” yet Jerry Seinfeld can yammer on into the night, offering up an endurance test that was almost as challenging as any number of those useless montages and that bizarre salute to the wonders of sound effects.

Can’t Philip Seymour Hoffman afford a haircut?

Am I the only one who felt a little sorry for Peter O’Toole?

In my next life, I want to be Catherine Deneuve.

Poor Guillermo Del Toro. To have your movie pick up three early Oscars and then lose Best Foreign Film, supposedly a slam dunk, must have been hard.

Ellen got off to a good start, but after the monologue she went the way of all hosts before her: unnecessary. It wasn’t her fault. They just never really know what to do with the host once things get rolling. Her schtick with the vacuum cleaner made me laugh, though.

I love Diane Keaton. Always have (even if her L’Oreal commercials are a bit creepy).
Like most of the women on parade tonight, she looked terrific. And how great to end the evening with her and Jack onstage together, especially having just seen them recently, again, in Reds. About Nicholson, have I missed something? What’s with the King of Siam do? He actually looks like Victor Buono when he played King Tut on Batman.

The overblown Dreamgirls songfest was a bit too much and sadly, a little too late. The gals were working hard but, like the orchestra that continued to play as the Titanic went down, it was difficult to enjoy.

Can we please pass some kind of legislation that forbids any future broadcasting of any red carpet repartee? The, um, “hosts” (for lack of a useful moniker) are, every last one of them, useless, fawning, mush-mouthed idiots. Who are these people? Didn’t they spend their childhoods watching and learning from Army Archerd and Rona Barrett?

So there we have it. Another Oscar night has come and gone. No Vanity Fair bash or Governor’s Ball for me. Instead, I think I’ll catch the end of Meet John Doe on TCM.

It All Comes Down to This

2007-02-25T13:56:00.000-06:00

In a few hours, it will all be over but the shouting. And something tells me that this year, no matter what the final outcome, there will be a lot of shouting.

First, though, a hearty round of applause for Half Nelson so-stars Ryan Gosling and the brilliant Shareeka Epps for snagging Best Actor and Actress at yesterday’s Independent Spirit Awards. In this last prize party prior to the Oscars, the big winner was, not so surprisingly, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE with several nods, including one for best picture.

A host, a multitude, a nation of Oscar forecasters have emerged this season and all pretty much share the same predictions for acting and director, with the Best Picture race anyone’s guess. And most everyone has declared “who will win and who should win.” On this variation on a theme, I’m offering who I think will win and, if there is an upset, who would make for a fun (and deserving) surprise victory tonight.

Happy Oscars, everyone.

PICTURE
Prediction Little Miss Sunshine
Nice Surprise The Queen

ACTOR
Prediction Forest Whitaker
Nice Surprise Peter O’Toole

ACTRESS
Prediction Helen Mirren
Nice Surprise Penelope Cruz

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Prediction Eddie Murphy or Alan Arkin
Nice Surprise Mark Wahlberg

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Prediction Jennifer Hudson
Nice Surprise Adrianna Barazza

DIRECTOR
Prediction Martin Scorsese
Nice Surprise Paul Greengrass

FOREIGN FILM
Prediction Pan’s Labyrinth
Nice Surprise Water

The End is Near

2007-02-22T01:16:00.000-06:00

It finally happened. I reached my limit today. I can’t read about, or think about the Oscars any more. Today, while spending way too much time at the invaluable Oscarwatch and then spinning off to various links, posts, and commentary, I must have read a dozen persuasive arguments for why Babel, The Departed or Little Miss Sunshine will most definitely win Best Picture. As of now, it appears that The Queen and Letters… have lost what little steam they had to start with, thus making them the two contenders for upset winner. Whatever. Let’s just get it over with.

It appears that the real race is still between LMS and Departed. The fact they are so different at least makes this an intriguing race (if there really is a race to the finish between these two). Comparing these two films makes about as much sense as the old apples-and-oranges exercise. How do you do that? One is a smart, heartwarming and economic comedy; the other is an operatic crime saga. Both of them apply, with skill and panache, the mechanics of filmmaking to achieve their purposes.
In the end, they are both very good –but not great—motion pictures. Great movies didn’t get nominated for best picture this year. I think there was some rule or mandate about that. That’s why Volver, Water, Pan’s Labyrinth and United 93 aren’t on the roster. Maybe that’s why I’m so crabby. As of today, my own personal Top Ten of 2006 would go something like this:
Pan’s Labyrinth
Volver
Water
Children of Men
United 93
Casino Royale
The Queen
Little Miss Sunshine
Dreamgirls
Babel

None of my top five makes Oscar’s top five. Now, taking one last look at the various Guild and Critics awards which we have been tallying since December, The Departed takes the lead just ahead of LMS. And, if my calculations are right, Babel follows, next come Letters, and The Queen stumbles and falls. Of course, as a dependable predictor of anything, this data is absolutely useless (he sighs with rather huffy resignation, still smarting from last year’s Brokeback snub.)

My disappointment in The Departed has, admittedly, softened a bit (although the third act still lags and languishes, and I just don’t believe Vera Farmiga’s character for a second). This is, like United 93 and Pan, so much a director’s picture, that even if he had one a couple of Oscars already, Scorsese should still be the frontrunner in that category. In the early part of the movie, there is vigor, an excitement, that takes us right back to Mean Streets. Scorsese has never stopped loving the movies, or moviemaking. So even if The Departed isn’t his greatest opus (and it isn’t), it is the best directed American film of 2006. Give him the award already and let’s now focus on The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

So this is my last Oscar post until the much-anticipated morning after. (I say that anyway; but I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow.)

Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials...

2007-02-19T09:18:00.000-06:00

... Just leave us alone." (Thanks, Mr. Beale. More to follow in a bit)

The Film Editors guild bestowed their Best of 2006 awards this past weekend.
In the musical/comedy category, Dreamgirls took the prize. Surprisingly, there was a tie between The Departed and Babel in the drama category (I had been predicting United 93 but quietly rooting for Casino Royale, which is just another indicator of how wobbly my predictions have been this season). I’m not so sure this award gives either of these movies a better chance at Oscar glory. We’ll see. At least the countdown has begun.

One of the nicest things about TCM’s "31 Days of Oscar" is the chance, while surfing, to check in with many old favorites. Even if you have the title in you own library, there’s something very comforting about dropping in for a few minutes and realizing that, no matter how often we gripe and groan about the winners, Oscar often gets it right, i.e.:
--Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
--Patricia Neal and Melvin Douglas in Hud
--Legends of the Fall and Reds (for cinematography; even cramped onto a TV screen, these are two great-looking movies).

--and, of course, Network. One of my all-time favorites. Maybe Sidney Lumet's finest film. Paddy Chayefsky's too. Anyway, I can't tell you how many times I have seen it but late one night, a week or so ago, TCM had it on. Fifteen minutes, I told myself...I won't even stay with it til Howard's "mad as hell..." just see it get started. Impossible. It's like Casablanca, or Godfather 2, or Psycho or Top Hat .... I'm hooked every time. This is another example of where Oscar got it right: were Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway ever better? (OK, maybe just as good in Sunday Bloody Sunday and Chinatown, respectively). We'll save the Beatrice Straight victory for another post. Still baffles me to this day. (If there was a Best Cameo, then the award was hers for the taking...but..oh well...)

Now, not to quibble, but to qualify for TCM's annual festival, all a movie really needs is a nomination. Even so, the inclusion of The Hawaiians (1971) is a bit of a stretch. This sequel to George Roy Hill’s hugely successful Hawaii, picks up where that one leaves off (and still doesn’t wrap up the Michener novel on which it is based). It had just one nomination for best costume design, which it lost to Cromwell. This is a second-rate potboiler at best, and one of my favorite movies growing up, for all the wrong reasons. The Globes, by the way, gave Tina Chen a nomination which was understandable. She brings a bit of gritty grace to the otherwise over-the-top shenanigans played by Charlton Heston (as Whip Hoxworth, which I think would be a great name for a porn star) and Geraldine Chaplin as his wife, Purity. Yes, that’s right. Anyway, it might be worth a visit, if not for the whole thing, then at least a juicy scene or two.

Women on the Verge of a Nomination

2007-02-17T16:15:00.000-06:00

So I was having lunch with my good friend Carol yesterday and our conversation quickly turned, as it always does among likeminded movie fans at this time of year, to the Oscars.

After agreeing to disagree on the merits (or lack thereof) of The Departed and Dreamgirls, we could at least concur on the much-praised performances of Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Hudson. However, this prompted my reinvigorated rant regarding Hudson’s place among supporting actresses. Again, I would wager that she has just as much screen time as most of the Best Actress nominees. Compare this juggernaut performance to Oscar winning turns like Judi Dench’s in Shakespeare in Love, or Beatrice Straight’s peek-a-boo cameo in Network, and you have to agree wiht me. At least a little bit.

Hudson’s much-deserved acclaim and newfound celebrity cannot be disputed. She’s great. It’s just too bad that the other four nominees in her category, who are truly supporting, are being eclipsed. And then this past week, I need to add two more prize-worthy thespians to this group: Shareeka Epps in Half Nelson and the amazing, glorious Carmen Maura in Volver.

Epps, along with star Ryan Gosling and director Ryan Fleck, has garnered various newcomer and breakthrough awards for this film (plus a Best Supporting Actress nod from the Boston critics). As a wise-beyond-her-years inner city kid named Drey, Epps is lovely and tough and even a little heartbreaking. Award-caliber work, without a doubt. Just don't look for her at the Kodak next weekend. What a shame.

And then there is Maura. Where to begin? Let’s just say I came to Almodóvar because of her. It started around 1987 when I saw her in Law of Desire and immediately sought out anything else available on video. This quickly led me to a festival of early 80's comedies, all a little raw and naughty and smart, and all of them directed by Almodóvar. In other words, I ended up discovering one of my favorite directors by way of Carmen Maura.

Anyone who has seen Law of Desire can surely understand my fascination. To even begin to describe her fabulously fascinating character, Tina, one needs to give away about half of the plot turns. Just see it, ok? Maura has won a bounty of awards and nominations from various European film circles, including 4 Goyas. This one should have brought her an Oscar.

And while you’re at it, check out 85’s What Have I Done to Deserve This?, Almodóvar’s last raggedy-looking comedy before his production budgets began to soar. This is the one where Maura plays Gloria, a poor and put-upon cleaning lady who one day knocks off her abusive husband (she whacks him with a ham bone) and sells her randy teenage son to a dentist. And you really can’t blame her. Especially when the money earned on the sale allows her to buy a much-needed curling iron.

Anyway, a couple of years later, around the time of the dazzling Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, I wrote a piece on the Maura-Almodóvar partnership for the Dallas Observer about the time Cinevista video released some of their earlier projects. Searching through the archives this week, I found the article and must admit I pretty much agree with my rather giddy appreciation of Almodóvar’s talents. Focusing on Maura’s performances, I enthused….

Maura is even more mesmerizing in Law of Desire, Almodóvar’s dizzying sex-and-murder farce in which the black and white creepiness of film noir has been colorized with shocking acrylics….anarchy rules with often hilarious results. The film bubbles with betrayal, death, and copulation all fused together in a giddy observation of sex roles and gender confusion. At the middle of this whirlwind is Maura’s Tina, a voluptuous, tarty tornado who plows through life like a one-woman Greek tragedy. Scenery chewing is too often the result of unattractive egomania, but Maura somehow manages to tun it into something resembling an art form, something almost heroic…..like the Griffith-Gish and Bergman-Ullmann collaborations before them, Almodóvar and Maura seem to have found in each other the perfect partnership between director and star. Long may they conspire to delight us.

Alas, they actually went their separate ways after this and I must admit finding the director’s follow-ups much less interesting (especially stuff like The Flower of My Secret and Kika). Then the wonderful Talk to Her, and All About My Mother, and Bad Education came along, making way for the beautiful Volver which, for me, is just about perfect as it sustains the artistry of his recent movies and is enhanced by the return of Maura to his marvelous company of great dames. It’s especially fun to see her sharing a movie again with Chus Lampreave, the Thelma Ritter of Almodóvar’s stock company. They go back more than 20 years to that wacky (and, frankly, not so great) comedy about, well, wacky nuns, Dark Habits. When she first appears, it is a startling and breathtaking moment. It's almost as if her Gloria has returned, only a little older and wiser, and this is a reason to celebrate. From that point on she brings balance and dignity and quiet, heartwarming humor to a great tragicomedy about mothers and daughters. And while we cheer Maura and Lampreave, let's not overlook Penelope Cruz in the best role of her career, as well as Blanca Portillo, Yohanna Cobo and Lola Duenas, all of whom shared the Best Actress honors at Cannes this year.

I'm starting to ramble, I guess. Let's wrap this one up with a big thumbs-up to Sony Classics recent Viva Pedro which brings together eight of the director’s best works. The earliest movies aren’t included and I would certainly make a case for a DVD release of Labyrinth of Passion from 1982. Among its many delights, it introduces two of Almodóvar’s favorite players: the delightful Cecilia Roth (later to star in All About My Mother for which she deserved an Actress of the Decade award, if you ask me) and a 22-year-old Antonio Banderas in his second movie, warming up for his impossibly sexy scene stealing in Matador and Law of Desire a few years hence. It's crazy and a little reckless; its breathless rollercoaster of a plot and dizzying pacing prepare us for many of the great comedies yet to come.

Viva Pedro indeed. And Carmen, too. In my book, this year’s best supporting actress.

Writers and "Letters"

2007-02-13T11:21:00.000-06:00

Members of the WGA handed out their trophies this weekend and, not so surprisingly, the screenplay awards went to The Departed (adaptation) and Little Miss Sunshine (original), thus giving both pictures a little more clout in preparation for their big showdown on Oscar night. It’s important to remember that the WGA awards are not the best precursors for the Academy’s best picture. A lot of WGA winners may go on to win gold in the screenplay categories, but fall short in the final Best Picture. Still, this year, from all reports, it is looking like these two are the major contenders.

It really is an odd year. Although the majority of soothsayers are settling on Scorsese, Mirren and Hudson at this point, the major categories still seem to have some mild quibbling over Supporting Actor (Murphy is the favorite but Arkin and Wahlberg are stil in the running) and Actor (despite Whitaker’s incredible sweep of all other awards, several longtime Oscar watchers are suggesting a surprise and sentimental victory for O’Toole). As far as Best Picture goes, it is still anyone’s guess. This is at least keeping things mildly interesting until the big night, now less than two weeks away.

As for yours truly, I cannot claim a solid, unflagging allegiance to any of the BP contenders this year. Personal favorite of the bunch? Little Miss Sunshine, without a doubt. Movie I most admire? Letters From Iwo Jima. Best acted? The Queen. Eventually I’ll need to make my prediction if I hope to win any of the numerous guess-the-Oscar-winner sweepstakes to which I am so easily drawn. I’ll probably go with LMS. And as soon as I do, The Departed will emerge as champ. Just watch. It happens every time.

A lot has been written this past month about Iwo Jima and I will agree with the praise and admiration heaped upon this very fine film. It is one of the best anti-war films ever made and perhaps the crowning achievement in Clint Eastwood’s career. Yet its surprisingly scant number of nominations (four) and the fact that it is in a foreign language hinder, I think, it’s chances of ultimate Oscar glory. Too bad, too, that the Academy failed to recognize with nominations for two of the year’s best performances (Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya) as well as Tom Stern’s cinematography and the fine editing courtesy of Joel Cox and Gary Roach. Cox has edited most of Eastwood’s movies and won a much-deserved Oscar for Unforgiven back in ’92. And Stern just won the 2006 Satellite for his work on the director’s other WW2 epic Flags of Our Fathers.

I’m not saying there isn’t strong competition in these fields already this year (and of those in the running, I’d go for Children of Men in Cinematography and United 93 for Editing,) It’s just too bad there isn’t room for a few more nominations here.

If you haven’t seen this one, do so NOW. It is easily the best of Oscar’s Big Five and demands (and deserves) to be seen on the big screen.

A Funny Thing Happened at the Siege of Mutina

2007-02-05T22:47:00.000-06:00

It was a little jarring on Rome last night when Pullo looked up to see Octavian and, lo and behold, he had changed from Max Pirkis to Simon Woods. I suppose that dreary thing called historical accuracy demands that the young Caesar now be a bit more mature and manly than the young Pirkis could deliver. Too bad, he gave one of the best performances in a show that has gone from brilliant to bad in record time. But if we must say toodaloo to Pirkis’ aspiring emperor, I suppose we could do a lot worse than Woods’ grown-up version. He’s certainly dashing, and his scene with Allen Leech as Marcus Agrippa had a kind of softcore Abercrombie & Fitch-ish energy to it (But who was that Clifton Webb clone lounging around the tent whining about poetry?)
Anyway, there is plenty of fuming and fussing over on the HBO bulletin boards today as a result of this switch. Granted, it’s not as shocking as that time on Dynasty when Stephen, played by Al Corley, went in for some facial reconstruction and then turned into Jack Coleman when the bandages came off.

Overall, this second season has been a disappointment. I’m not a prude, but do we really need another torture scene? (More to the point, does poor Lindsay Duncan really need another torture scene?) Will Kevin McKidd ever do anything other than scowl? Why does Polly Draper’s no-longer-amusing Atia get so much screen time? Where are Sian Phillips, Brian Blessed and Derek Jacobi when you need them?

Decline and Fall, indeed.

Mrs. Moore! Mrs. Moore!

2007-02-05T21:28:00.000-06:00

It’s that time again: as the last, feverish wallow in all things Oscar really heats up, we have our friends at Turner Classic Movies to remind us why we care. The annual 31 Days of Oscar is underway with wall-to-wall screenings of the Academy’s winners and nominees. Late Saturday night I re-watched part of David Lean’s last great epic, A Passage To India. Doesn’t really hold up like some of his other true masterworks but it’s worth the trip just to see Peggy Ashcroft's wonderful, career-capping performance as Mrs. Moore. In addition to her Oscar, she nabbed a few other Best Supporting Actress honors that year, and the NY Film Critics and NBR went to far as to elevate her to Best Actress. Good for them. And good for Dame Peggy. She deserved it.

Apocalypse Now

2007-02-02T10:17:00.000-06:00

In the days leading up to announcing this year’s Oscar nominations, I noticed Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men showing up on several lists, not to mention its recognition by critics groups and guilds, especially for Emmanuel Lubezki’s eye-popping cinematography. This one was, according to its most loyal supporters, a true contender for the Big Prize.

I saw it last night and was most certainly impressed, if not moved, by Cuaron’s horrifying glimpse at doomsday, based on PD James’ novel from the early 1990s. The movie is a perfect example of a talented filmmaker and storyteller working at the peak of his talents. There’s a also a fine, raggedy performance at its center courtesy of Clive Owen (who I thought was the only logical successor for James Bond, that is until Mr. Craig came along…but I’m digressing again…).

Leaving the theater, while mulling on how much I admired this film, I thought about all of the other good movies this year that, like this one, are certainly praiseworthy but so depressing or even nihilistic: Babel, United 93, Flags/Letters, The Departed, An Inconvenient Truth, Little Children, even Notes on a Scandal. Acclaimed works, one and all, but none of them exactly uplifting. Could this be one of the reasons Little Miss Sunshine has captured the collective fancy? Are we drawn to it not because it’s a well-made movie but because, unlike most of its competitors, it makes us happy? Just wondering.

By the way, for a good appreciation of Children of Men, check out Jonathan Romney’s excellent piece in the current Film Comment.

While hanging out over at Oscarwatch, where I spend far too much time these days, I discovered yet another good blog, this one hosted by Edward Copeland. There is lots of good stuff here, including several posts that welcome and encourage response from his loyal readers. I quickly and happily jumped into the mix, in response to a good entry about how journalists continue to get their Oscar facts wrong. Another piece, “When Did Oscar First Betray You?” has a multitude of fun, even feverish replies. Check it out.

It was robbed!!
No matter how often we agree with the results of an Oscarcast, there seem to be more instances when we are enraged, appalled, and swearing to boycott the Awards for the rest of our lives. How often have you agreed with the Best Picture champ? If you ask me, they rarely get it right (exceptions being Lawrence of Arabia, Godfather II, and Schindler’s List which come quickly to mind.) So, let’s take a moment and rewrite history. If you were the High Priest/ess of Oscardom, what would you have anointed as the year’s best? It need not be one of the five nominees. Let’s only go back a decade or this thing could get really complicated. My choices are as follows:

1995 Sense and Sensibility
1996 Secrets & Lies
1997 Boogie Nights
1998 Saving Private Ryan
1999 Topsy-Turvy
2000 Almost Famous
2001 Gosford Park
2002 Far From Heaven*
2003 LOTR: The Return of the King
2004 Sideways
2005 Brokeback Mountain

*This was an unusually great year. In addition to Heaven, we also had The Hours, El Crimen de Padre Amaro, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Talk to Her, Chicago, LOTR: The Two Towers (my favorite of the three), Gangs of New York, Bowling for Columbine, and Frida.

Heavenly, indeed.

At Long Last Love?

2007-02-01T15:29:00.000-06:00

After this weekend’s DGA awards, we can all start slouching towards Oscar night with one last round of debates and soothsaying. If Scorsese does emerge victorious, then I think his chances of taking his long-denied Academy Award are pretty strong. Should this happen, it would he his first DGA as well as his first Oscar. People seem to forget, when bemoaning the fact that he’s never been acknowledged with the little golden guy, that the members of the Directors Guild have been equally withholding.

Also, if Bill Condon or Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton take the prize, it will be the first time since Ron Howard won for Apollo 13 (1995) that the DGA would have honored a director without an Oscar nomination. And here’s where it gets really tricky: Apollo 13, like LMS, was at least nominated for Best Picture. If the DGA actually crowns Bill Condon, and granted this is unlikely, then he would be the first victor whose film failed to earn a Best Picture nomination from the Academy. That would be fun. Can you just imagine how much havoc that would cause? After all, it’s these little moments –like the surprise BP nomination for Letters - that nourish our love-hate affair with this thing called Oscar.

Assault on a Queen

2007-01-29T12:19:00.000-06:00

I finally saw Notes on a Scandal over the weekend. It’s a marvelous, poisonous little bon-bon of a movie. It’s not nearly as great as some surprisingly gushing reviews led me to expect but it’s still a treat to see Dench and Blanchett going at it. And their final fisticuffs, which went way over the top, reminded me of the slap-down between Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon in one of the greatest forgotten camp fests of all time, What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?

Anyway, Dame Judi and Cate make quite a pair. And don’t forget, in this year when the Mighty Mirren is sweeping up trophies for her portrayals of both Elizabeth I and II, that these two great dames got Oscar nominations in the same year for their own portrayals of the Virgin Queen. Cate lost to It-Girl-of-the-Moment Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love, giving a performance that was truly lovely but about as meaty as Doris Day’s in Pillow Talk. But Judi managed to snag hers for the same film in which her eight-minute portrayal was, granted, one of the highlights. Forgive the tangent, but anytime I can gripe about Shakespeare in Love ruling and ruining an Oscarcast (like Titanic and Forrest Gump), I just can’t hold back.

What Becomes A Legend Most?

2007-01-29T11:59:00.000-06:00

The SAG awards pretty much rolled out as predicted. No big surprises in the movie categories- which certainly would have livened things up a bit - but we have worthy winners in all five slots. Whether this latest victory puts LMS in the lead for Oscar's best picture, I have no idea. Lots of pros and cons on this topic can be found everywhere this morning.

I would prefer to focus, instead, on the two real highlights (for me, anyway). First, the prolonged ovation given to the greatest TV ensemble ever and my own favorite program of all time: The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Not even the best comedies on the tube today -- Scrubs, The Office, Weeds -- can hold the proverbial candle to this great company of actors. I just wish a clip reel had accompanied their all-too-brief appearance on stage.

The other sparkling moment for me was the tribute to my beloved Julie Andrews.
However, one small quibble: although it didn’t surprise me at all, given the success of The Princess Diaries franchise, that Anne Hathaway started the presentation, couldn’t they have done a little better? I mean Carol Burnett was right there, for crying out loud.

Where’s Charmian Carr when you need her ?

Anyway, we all have our big screen crushes. Mine has always been Dame Julie.
It began when, as a sensitive lad of seven, I sobbed uncontrollably at the end of Mary Poppins. Why did she have to leave Jane and Michael? Couldn’t she stick around a little longer? Obviously not, because she had to go get ready to play surrogate mother to another bunch of lucky urchins, the Von Trapps. Three years later, I was finding comfort in my rather rocky adolescence by standing in front of the mirror and lip-synching the entire soundtrack of Star! or pretending to be John Gavin (or Carol Channing) to her thoroughly modern Millie.

I lose all credibility with film snobs when I mention that The Sound of Music is one of my top five movies. Listen, I can debate the merits of Vertigo or Wild Strawberries with the best of ‘em, but there is nothing in the vaults of Tinsel Town that makes me happier than that glorious, widescreen confection. Something good, indeed.

And so it continues..... SAG Awards tonight

2007-01-28T01:40:00.000-06:00

Tonight’s SAG Awards should provide the next big log tossed on the roaring fire of Oscar speculation, which seems to be more heated than ever before. I mean everyone has an opnion, and a lot of the more seasoned Oscar bloggers have perfectly good arguments for their predictions, even if no one can seem to agree on anything except Helen Mirren’s win for Best Actress.

I really don’t think the ultimate SAG winners will do anything to lock down any of the categories. For every person that says “Crash won SAG’s Best Ensemble Award and then won the Best Picture Oscar. It stands to reason that whatever wins Ensemble tonight is the frontrunner for the Oscar,” there is another person who can easily counter with “SAG gave the Ensemble award to The Full Monty but the Best Pic Oscar went to Titanic!” (sidenote: hooray for SAG!) Then, you have “SAG supporting actor went to Paul Giamatti last year, but the Oscar went to George Clooney. SAG is useless in predicting Oscars!” Then we hear “not so! SAG and Oscar agreed on the other three acting categories. Thus, a SAG win either guarantees an Oscar or at least a really good chance….”

My point is that nothing --no major sweep of the critics awards, no Golden Globe victory, no SAG triumph –can guarantee the final glory at the Kodak next month. Whatever happens with SAG and then with the upcoming DGA will only heighten the frenzy of this year’s surprisingly impassioned Oscar season.

There is so much stuff out there this year. My favorite commentary of the past few days comes to us courtesy of Nikki Finke at LA WEEKLY. It’s a great read. And very, very funny. Check it out.

OK, so a word about the five Best Actor nominees. They are the same for SAG and the Academy, and four of them represent the only nomination for their respective films. In other words, people like their performances but nothing else in their movies rate a nomination. I’ve been scouring the record books and I can’t find another year when this happened in this category. Sure, there have been years when winning actors had the only nomination for their films…but four out of five nominations in a single category? Hmmmm.

Furthermore, we seem to be looking at a showdown between Forest Whitaker and Peter O’Toole, yet their movies (The Last King of Scotland and Venus, respectively) are bottom feeders at the box office. As much as I’d love to see O’Toole snatch a surprise victory on Oscar night, is it even possible when his movie has made, as of today, less than $400,000 in its limited release? Is it possible that Leo D may win? At least Blood Diamond pulled in a few more nominations and did so-so at the b.o. And of course, there’s that other movie, you know, The Departed, in which he happened to star. I’m just wondering.

DREAMGIRLS WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU (...but, then again...)

2007-01-24T00:21:00.000-06:00

Whew. What a day. I won't even attempt an analysis of what it all means. For that, and so much more, click on over to Oscarwatch where the experts, pundits and about a million bloggers and posters have plenty to say. While there, be sure to read Dan Kenealy's great analysis of today's pandemonium.

Like everyone else, I am very surprised by the Dreamgirls, Condon, and Nicholson snubs. (I'm not a fan of the latter's performance in The Departed but still thought his nomination was a sure thing.) Likewise I am bit baffled by the shut-out of Volver in certain categories. I'll give myself a fast and humble pat on the back for predicting Eastwood over Dayton-Faris in the Best Directing category, but then I totally didn't give Greengrass a chance. (This is a worthy nomination, by the way, but already a real dark horse since his United 93 didn't get a BP nom.)

So I'll now be spending the next month catching up on the pile of movies that have all, at last, come to town (Notes, Letters, Pan, Little Children of Men, et al) and enjoying the build-up to Oscar night.

Did anyone watch the coverage on E! this morning? Am I the only person who cannot abide Giuliana? Did anyone see how she kicked her cohost Leo (who makes Billy Bush look like Walter Cronkite) out of the way so she could slobber all over Salma Hayek? I miss the old days. Where is Hedda Hopper when we need her? Or Rona Barrett?

As for Dreamgirls, it's loss of best picture and best director nominations must surely come as punch in the pants to many. But think about the many, many other movies, all better than this one, who were also snubbed (and didn't at least have eight nominations to soften the blow). We'll start with the obvious, like Vertigo and Some Like it Hot and The Searchers and then conclude with a nod to one of the greatest movies of the past ten years, Far From Heaven.

The Academy's failure to salute Todd Haynes' masterpiece is just plain stupid. I've already complained about this in a previous post, so I'll not go down that road again.

Let's change the subject and end this little entry with happy birthday wishes to the great, the one and only Chita Rivera. West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Chicago, The Rink, Spider Woman, Nine...my goodness. And the list goes on. And I even saw her in Merlin.

Oscar madness

2007-01-22T23:42:00.000-06:00

It all boils down to this: all the speculations will draw to a close when the 2006 Oscar nominations are announced in about seven hours. My predictions run the same course as just about everyone one else. Surprises? Maybe Pan's Labyrinth, United 93 or Children of Men in a few major categories, but that's unlikely, I think. Still, I hope there is at least one out-of-left-field nomination to shake things up. We'll just have to set our alarm clocks and see.
Until then, good night, and good luck.
Oh, right. My predictions in the Big 6 categories, for what it's worth:

Picture
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

Director
Martin Scorsese
Bill Condon
Stephen Frears
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Clint Eastwood
(or maybe Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris)

Actor
Forest Whitaker
Peter O'Toole
Will Smith
Leonardo DiCaprio
Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat
(or maybe Ryan Gosling)

Actress
Penelope Cruz
Judi Dench
Helen Mirren
Meryl Streep
Kate Winslet

Supporting Actor
Eddie Murphy
Jackie Earle Haley
Djimon Hounsou
Alan Arkin
Jack Nicholson
(or maybe Mark Wahlberg)

Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett
Abigail Breslin
Adrianna Barraza
Jennifer Hudson
Rinko Kikuchi
(or maybe Catherine O’Hara)

Friends, Romans, Etc.

2007-01-19T15:24:00.000-06:00

It's been a crazy week, with too much time spent in front of the small screen. Looking past the gunk and grime of the Idol return and the disappointment of Dirt, not to mention a perfectly mesmerizing repeat of Deal or No Deal featuring a so-in-need-of-medication soccer mom who made strange barnyard noises during her short-lived quest for a family fortune, there were, thankfully, some highlights.

In addition to Season 2 of Ricky Gervais' marvelous Extras (kicking off with a surprisingly very funny turn by Orlando Bloom), I finally caught Matthew Vaughn's Layer Cake which only fuels my this-close-to-obsessive fascination with Daniel Craig. I admit this freely because, let's face it, I'm not alone. Violent, darkly funny, and way too aware of itself in spots, it's definitely a must-see crime caper worthy of the good press it got a year or so ago.

And the return of Rome offered plenty of reasons to feast on Sunday night's episode and go back quickly for seconds. This has got to be the best company of actors on television. And although the two leading ladies may never quite reach the pinnacle of stylish and bravura bitch-goddessdom defined by the brilliant Sian Phillips in I, Claudius, both Polly Walker and the divine Lindsay Duncan returned in full force as the eternal city's answer to Krystal and Alexis. I do hope they have a tussel in a lily pond, or the Trevi Fountain, before this season is over. The Vorenus-Pullo storyline is already darker than dark and, at last, James Purefoy's Anthony appears to be moving front and center of the action, after a first full season in which he spent most on screen time just brooding around Atia's boudoir. This second and, alas, final season has lots of promise.

It's very reassuring to me, in these not so cheery times, how many blogs have been giving above-the-fold coverage to sweet TR Knight's admittedly inarticulate and mildly befuddled response to Ellen's questions about the ongoing nastiness with Isaiah Washington. I mean, it's everywhere, from the usual Tinsel Town websites to those, um, other cyberspace destinations that usually focus on naked lumberjacks or hidden-camera locker room shenanigans. Anyway, kudos to Dame Degeneres for the interviews (ok, it maybe got a wee bit mutual-admiration-society towards the end, but why quibble?) Given the several celebrity coming-outs this past season, not to mention those adorable wedding pictures of John Barrowman and Scott Gill, I must admit I'm glad this one is getting so much air time. It's too bad the root of this is hate-speak but it's a good thing that Washington, who just can't seem to keep his big mouth shut, won't be allowed to walk away from this. Although fodder for tabloids, this and other "news" items can only help a lot of that younger generation currently grappling with sexual identity. I mean, I wish I had a Rosie or an Ellen while growing up. The best I could hope for was a juicy exchange between Mike Douglas and Zsa Zsa Gabor. (Yes, that explains so much. I know.)

This brings me to another clip, one that didn't get much of a replay. Or if it did at the time, I just missed it. It's our own little Doogie singing the confrontation scene from LES MIZ with his How I Met Your Mother cast mate Jason Segel on Megan Mullally's gab fest. I've liked Neil Patrick Harris for years, and, ok, he's about as butch as Felix Unger on the current show, but so what? I'll always be a fan because he recorded the best rendition of Sondheim's Evening Primrose ever. Yes, I know, Mandy did one with Bernadette, but it's over-wrought and hammy and I've never been a big MP fan, but this always comes up with anything about Sondheim, so I just have to say that and get back to where I started. Whew. OK, so check out Primrose; he's got a great voice that suits this heartbreakingly lovely mini musical. But back to this clip. I think it's hilarious. Judge for yourself.

And now, in closing, the doubly devilish, doubly delicious Livia:

The Party of the Year?

2007-01-16T19:25:00.000-06:00

A search over at YouTube brings forth, sadly, very little on the Golden Globe Awards except for a bounty of clips from last night’s shindig. Give it some time and hopefully we will see scenes from the Globes in their glory days, back before they ever even pretended to be respectable, back before they became hot and holy precursors to the Academy Awards.

I remember a ceremony years ago when the late Nell Carter bounced onstage crooning THE most ridiculous song every composed for an awards show. “This is the party of the year,” she sang, while the lyrics awkwardly listed stars in attendance. Nell would blurt out a celeb’s name and the camera would find Susan Anton or Pia Zadora or Cornelia Otis Skinner for a candid camera “gotcha” moment. Everyone was always crowded at tables, getting snockered, ignoring the proceedings on stage until their name was called and they’d stumble up with humble gratitude and, usually in hushed and reverent tones that recalled Anne Baxter's Eve Harrington, graciously thank the Hollywood Foreign Press before slouching off stage to an after party with John Derek or maybe the Landers sisters.

Not any more. Last night’s show was fun but waaaaay too respectable. The last thing I need to do here is provide any kind of analysis on how these awards impact the Oscars. Plenty of experts, soothsayers and bloggers have already spoken on that topic today.

Let’s just say that the movie winners came as no surprise. In fact, for the first time I was 100% correct on my predictions. However, on the other side of the fence, with the TV honorees, there were surprises and disappointments aplenty. To begin with, they gave the trophy to the wrong Jeremy. This was Mr. Piven’s year. I am smitten with Ari Gold to the extent I was once smitten with Charles Ryder, as brilliantly and seductively essayed by the other Jeremy in Brideshead Revisted. For that one, Mr. Irons deserved a Globe, which he lost (parenthetically) to his costar Anthony Andrews. But, well, ok, here’s the thing: am I the only one out here who was more than a tad underwhelmed by Elizabeth I? Except for la Mirren’s great work, the whole thing was a creaky, ho-hummish affair. And Claus von Bulow’s performance, while certainly better than most stuff we see on the small screen, was a little dull and a bit mannered, especially when compared to anything the praiseworthy Piven put forth in this season’s Entourage. And what was he wearing last night? It looked like something discarded from Dangerous Liaisons – on Ice.

Ugly Betty is better than Weeds or The Office? Don’t think so. And why was there even a roster of nominees for comedy actress? It’s Mary Louise Parker. There is no one else. (apologies to fans of America Ferrera.)

Give me those heady days when Anne Francis could rightfully snag Best TV Star – Female for Honey West. Or take me to those fabulous jaw-droppers when supporting actors were all tossed into one line-up, regardless of how many episodes or type of show, and you would get Kirk Cameron going nose to nose with Sir John Gielgud. Or, even better, Justine Bateman going down to the wire with Olivia De Havilland. It just doesn't get any better than that.

.......Still, Someone Said She's Sincere

2007-01-11T00:14:00.000-06:00

The lovely Yvonne De Carlo died this week at the age of 84. I suppose it was inevitable, but did we really need headlines such as "Munster Mom Dies"? Let's not forget all of her other achievements, including marvelous work in so many movies, including of course her Sephora in The Ten Commandments (ok, so she didnt' get to camp and vamp like Vincent Price, Anne Baxter and Nina Foch, but she still grabbed fifth billing in a cast of thousands.)

And let's all remember that she was the first Carlotta in the original Broadway company of Follies. She was the first to sing and record "I'm Still Here," Sondheim's great survival ballad brayed, bellowed and yodeled by every aging chorine from Elaine Stritch to Nancy Walker. But she sang it first. I have always loved the photo (see above) of De Carlo with Follies co-stars Alexis Smith and Dorothy Collins. It's from an issue of Time right after the show opened on Broadway. I was 14 years old when I saw it. Winter Garden Theatre. Saturday matinee. It's something I will never forget.

The Final Five?

2007-01-10T23:51:00.000-06:00

And so, with the announcement of the DGA nominations, this year’s frenzy of Oscar speculations begins, at last and as always, to narrow down to the chosen few.
This year’s noms:
Bill Condon, Dreamgirls
Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Babel
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

For me, the only real surprise --and a nice one, at that-- was seeing Dayton and Faris on this list (I thought it would be Eastwood). It has been a long time since a directing team got a nomination here. I think we may have to look all the way back to 1978 when Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for their shared duties on Heaven Can Wait.

Anyway, the five films represented here may very well be the five films that grab the Best Picture Oscar nomination. Looking back, the majority of films that snag a DGA nomination find themselves in the running for the Academy’s top prize.

Oddly enough, they have a better chance of taking a Best Picture nomination than Best Director. Although last year the same five went for DGA, Oscar’s Best Director and Best Picture, that is rarely the case. The year before better represents what I’m yammering about. The DGA nominated:
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
Marc Forster, Finding Neverland
Taylor Hackford, Ray
Alexander Payne, Sideways

The Academy went with four out of the five, but swapped out Marc Forster in favor of Mike Leigh (for Vera Drake). Yet the five Best Picture choices were Baby, Aviator, Neverland, Ray and Sideways.

The year before the Academy went with four of the five, but snubbed DGA choice Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) and went instead for Fernando Meirelles (City of God). Seabiscuit, however, rebounded with a Best Pic pick.

Are you following this? Does anybody care? I do. But please don’t ask me why. Any thoughts on who may miss out on the Directing nomination but still might swing one for Best Picture? My guess would be Dayton and Faris. Clint will take that slot away from them, but their Little Miss Sunshine will still be in the running for Best Picture.
We’ll see.

And the winner is "Claire's Knee"

2007-01-08T01:41:00.000-06:00

The National Society of Film Critics just announced its 2006 award picks and, as always, this group did not disappoint. No Babel or Departed or Dreamgirls here.

As it does more often than not, this particular gaggle of critics selected as Best Picture a movie that isn't in the countdown as a possible Oscar contenders, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Sure, this one rates on lots of Top Ten lists and stands a good chance in the Foreign Film category (especially if ...Iwo Jima doesn’t land there too) but not as one of the Academy’s Big Final Five.

You can always count on these guys to shake things up a little just when the final stretch to Oscar Night suddenly becomes a grind. Over the years, the NSFC has selected as Best Picture such gems as Yi Yi, Mulholland Drive, Out of Sight, Topsy Turvy, Day For Night, and Scenes From A Marriage. In fact, since 1966 they have only agreed with the Oscar for Best Picture on four occasions.

Last year, the group was one of the few that did not cite Brokeback Mountain, or even Crash. It went with Capote. (Maybe its weakest choice since it deemed Babe worthy to bring home the big bacon). Anyway, take a look at the NSFC choices over the years. You’ll find lots (and I mean lots) of Bergman, either as best director or for guiding Liv, Bibi and Ingrid to their victories. But there’s plenty more foreign, offbeat, and indie-type films here than on the rosters of any other awards group. You’ll probably find a few titles to add to your Netflix queue.

Here are the 2006 selections, dedicated, incidentally, to the memory of Robert Altman:
Best Picture: Pan’s Labyrinth
Best Director: Paul Greengrass, United 93
Best Actor : Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress : Helen Mirren, The Queen
Best Supporting Actor : Mark Whalberg, The Departed
Best Supporting Actress : Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada and A Prairie Home
Screenplay : The Queen, written by Peter Morgan

Note, please, another nod for Marky…the likelihood of his Oscar candidacy is just driving some people crazy. I love that. I hope he gets nominated AND wins. Not gonna happen, but how much fun would that be? Cheers, too, for recognizing Streep’s great and fabulous work in the category where it belongs: supporting.
So did anyone watch Dirt on F/X? I caught a repeat of the debut episode earlier this evening. It’s a perfectly fine trash wallow but not up to the standards of its network’s Rescue Me or The Shield. (I would have also mentioned Nip/Tuck had it not slouched its way into shock-value tedium this season. Ho Hum.) And that Grease audition/reality show is a true clunker. But I’ll probably tune again for at least one more episode. And I must admit that at one point tonight Billy Bush made me laugh. How often can you say that?

I guess I’m just waiting for Rome 2 and Color Splash, which pretty much illustrates how just how shamefully and widely swings my pendulum of small screen entertainment. Reality TV has more than its share of hunks du jour, but none any sweeter than David Bromstad. Other than that, it's more than likely Family Guy ("Who wants chowder?") and The Office or simply high-tailing it back to TCM where I seem to be spending most of my surfing time these days. Caught a few minutes of Theodora Goes Wild this morning…Irene Dunne at her best.

The Narrowing of the Nominations

2007-01-04T12:01:00.000-06:00

So the Producers’ Guild announced its five nominations for Best Picture yesterday.
No real jaw-droppers here:
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

For the record, I was really happy to see Sunshine on this list. With each passing day its chances for a Best Pic Oscar nomination seem more likely.

Then SAG announced this morning and except for the scuttlebutt over Leo’s demotion to the supporting category (and thus, more than likely, booting either Jack or Marky out of this company), there were few surprises. Best Ensemble mirrors the Guild’s best picture choices with the exception of The Queen ko’d by Bobby, which really isn’t that surprising since at least half of the SAG members were in the latter.

At least things are starting to sort themselves out at this point as regards front-runners. Of the groups that have announced nominations (Producers, HFP, Online, Broadcast, and SAG) only Babel and The Departed have snagged Best Picture noms from all five. Sunshine and Dreamgirls grabbed four out of five. The Queen, with three, rounds out the Top Five contenders, for me, at this point in the race.

I would suggest that Letters from Iwo Jima remains a possibility as does United 93 (which currently has more Best Picture nods from the various critics groups….but this, of course, means nothing.) DGA nominations will, as always, help to focus or muddy final predictions.

For a banquet of discourse on the above and all things related, scoot over to Oscarwatch or Movie City News. Handy links are to your right.

Great Caesar's Ghost

2007-01-03T00:28:00.000-06:00

Rome returns next week. And I can’t wait. At least we have something to look forward to over at HBO, given the confusion over the fate of the Deadwood movie sequels. For more on that topic, head on over to the bowels of HBO's website where some of Al Swearengen's most passionate fans are not holding back.

As for Rome, if the second season is even half as good as the first it will still be one of the best things on the small screen. Of course, now that Caesar is gone, we won’t have the weekly pleasure of watching Ciaran Hinds, one of our generation’s best actors, sink his chops into the juiciest portrayal of Emperor Julius we’ve ever seen. It was fascinating to watch him slide from noble warrior to power-crazed dictator. Blame it on Cleopatra, I suppose.

Maybe, if we are lucky, the writers will follow Shakespeare’s lead and bring back his ghost for a couple of scenes. If not, we still have guilt-wracked Brutus and studly hunk Antony (Tobias Menzies and James Purefoy) to keep things rolling along in the political arena, while Mommie Dearest Atia (Polly Walker) continues wreaking havoc on the home front.

And, let’s face it: any program that brings us the great Lindsay Duncan as Servilia, one of the original Sisters of Sappho, is a program worth watching.

The Year's Best Movie?

2007-01-02T23:15:00.000-06:00

So I finally saw United 93. Like a lot of people, I let it pass me by when it was released this past spring. Despite its excellent reviews and high praise, I just had no desire to see it. Too depressing, I told myself. Wait until DVD. Well, I waited. And then the awards started piling up a few weeks ago. I can see why.

Is it the best movie of 2006? Maybe. Will it win the top Oscar? Hard to say at this point, although I’m hoping that it does. Then more people, like yours truly who put it off for the lamest of reasons, will be more likely to see it.

I’ll leave it to a few of the big guns like Kenneth Turan to discuss its merits. I’ll simply say here that I have never experienced anything quite like it. In less than two hours director Paul Greengrass and company remind us just how powerful movies still can be. It was hard to watch but even harder not to watch. And the last fifteen minutes just about tore my heart out. I cannot stop thinking about it.

Day For Night

2007-01-01T19:37:00.000-06:00

After babbling in the last post about Best Supporting Actress, it is only fitting that we extend happy birthday greetings to the great Valentina Cortese. You may recall that her grand and Oscar-nominated performance in Truffaut’s Day for Night was overlooked in favor of Ingrid Bergman’s sweet and amusing cameo in Murder on the Orient Express. However, recognition still came Valentina’s way on Oscar night when the marvelous Bergman used her time at the podium to declare that Coretese, blowing kisses from the audience, should have been the winner. Good old Ingrid. What a sport.

Reflected Glory, continued: 2006 Movies in Review

2007-01-01T19:15:00.000-06:00

As of today, the majority of the critics’ groups have proclaimed their top picks for 2006. Of course, garnering the lion’s share of these trophies means nothing in the final Oscar competition (think about Julianne Moore in Far From Heaven. Think about Brokeback Mountain.) Yet if Oscar gold was based on critical consensus, then we could wrap things up right now and bestow the honors as follows:

Best Director, Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Best Actor, Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland
Best Actress, Helen Mirren for The Queen
Best Supporting Actor, Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children
Best Supporting Actress, Jennifer Hudson, for Dreamgirls
Best Picture, a toss-up between United 93 and The Departed.

But the race isn’t over yet. So let’s wait and see how things stand after the few remaining critics polls and the NSFC announce their choices in the coming weeks. I would suggest the only slam dunk at this point is Mirren for The Queen. She has taken every single critics’ award so far. The other four nominees should just stay at home on Oscar night. Then again, I really shouldn’t say this. After Crash stole the Best Picture Oscar, no bets are safe. Don’t worry, I won’t go down this oft-traveled road except to say that Brokeback Mountain had simply won too many pre-Oscar prizes not to be the front-runner. And if there had to be an upset, it should have gone to Munich or A History of Violence. (Wait. Sorry. The latter wasn’t even nominated). It’s old news, of course…but if you want to read the best commentary on this debacle, let me point you to Matt Brunson’s great essay from the archives over at Creative Loafing.

The Academy has often blundered with the Best Picture category; there is a long tradition of foolishness that goes all the way back to Cavalcade and extends up to Driving Miss Daisy and beyond. Voters haven’t made as many jaw-dropping choices in the acting categories, which makes me think Mirren’s chances are as good as gold. Also, other than Judi Dench in what is quickly becoming her annual Oscar nomination, does she really have any competition? Especially in a year when she has already thrilled us with her other Elizabeth and another Jane Tennison?

And while we are on the subject, am I the only Meryl Streep fan who is puzzled over the many pundits who see her as dark-horse winner? Don’t me wrong, she is delightful in The Devil Wears Prada, but Best Actress? Come on, she has less to do in this film than Nicole Kidman did in The Hours. I think Kidman is great. And we'll start with To Die For and Moulin Rouge! when listing the movies for which she deserves leading lady kuddos, but in The Hours she didn't have much more to do than her equally excellent colleagues, Streep and Julianne Moore, and may actually have had less time than that year's best supporting actress, Catherine Zeta-Jones. Oh, it's all too confusing.

When the best of our best offer small, meaty, intelligent, admirable, and praise-worthy performances but still manage to land top and above-the-title credit, it is immediately a leading role. Look, la Streep had more to do –and better showcases for her divine acting chops - in Adaptation and The Hours, yet she was considered supporting in both of those classics. But I bet if you get out a stop watch she had just as much, if not more, screen time in those movies than she did in Prada.

Meanwhile, over in the supporting category, it looks like Jennifer Hudson pretty much has her Oscar nom in the bag. Certainly the break-out star of the season, she’s getting much-deserved acclaim for her tough and soulful portrayal of Effie in Dreamgirls. She’s also leading a pretty close race in the critics’ derby for Best Supporting Actress (with Cate Blanchett hot on her heels). But there’s the problem, if you ask me: she’s not a supporting actress. She’s the star of the movie. When the show opened on Broadway, Jennifer Holliday won her Tony Award for Best Actress. In the film version, Effie’s role is just as substantial (if not more so, given her addition of a nifty new song) and Hudson should, therefore, go up against Mirren, Dame Judi, Meryl and gang.

So who will be among the overshadowed and runners-up this year? Let’s see, Abigail Breslin and Adriana Barraza for starters…they might make it into the final five, but I’d say their chances of winning are slim if they keep company with that powerhouse, Miss Effie Melody White.

New Year's Eve and Lady Caroline Lamb

2007-01-01T18:03:00.000-06:00

Happy birthday to the marvelous Sarah Miles. Ryan’s Daughter, The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, Blow-Up, Lady Caroline Lamb: the list goes on and on: memorable performances in movies great and awful. However, nothing can top her fabulous Alice de Jange in that nasty little opus from 1987, White Mischief. You would go numb from boredom so easily if it were not for the Divine Sarah, obviously game for anything that was tossed her way.

Even fellow kook Geraldine Chaplin fails to entertain in this dreary catalogue of scandals set among a circle of naughty British expats in Kenya on the eve of World War II.

So it’s up to the madcap Miles to salvage this thing, which she does in, saving her greatest moment for the final reel. Here she pays her final grief-soaked respects to the corpse of Charles Dance, who has given an appropriately deadly performance throughout. Rattled with grief, her Alice reaches down to her nether regions and gives them a jolly good tickle, then wipes her fingers across the stiff’s lips, sealing them forever with her very personal, um, glaze. Brava! Where was her Oscar nomination for that one? She was robbed, I tell you. Robbed.

Reflected Glory 2006: Movies in Review

2006-12-29T01:24:00.000-06:00

It's that time again.

God help us.

Oscar fever is upon us.

And it won't go away.

A few of the likely Oscar contenders have not yet opened in San Antonio, so I’ll wait a little while before stopping the presses to announce my own 2006 Top Ten List. However, I must say it’s been an odd year, without a stand-out great film emerging to lead the pack of hopefuls to that tinsel-tarnished finish line. Where is this year's Brokeback Mountain or Munich? It is also little strange, but quite liberating, to admit that right now, as Oscar’s chaotic countdown kicks into high gear with the usual hype and hoopla, the best movie I have seen all year is Casino Royale.

And no need to repeat all the much-deserved praise heaped upon director Martin Campbell and leading man Daniel Craig. There’s nothing new to be said here, nothing new left to cheer. No need to repeat the dozens of testimonials claiming this to be one of the best, maybe the best Bond epic ever. But if you haven’t seen it, then get thee to the Cineplex this weekend. Even if you don’t share my enthusiasm, you can at least tell your grandkids you were there when cock-and-ball torture was introduced to mainstream cinema.

Maybe I am getting old, or maybe all those Bergman movies I watched obsessively during my college years are finally catching up with me. Maybe that’s why I wake up shivering after yet another nightmare featuring Liv Ullmann or Max Von Sydow. Who knows? But lately what I want at the movies or from Netflix is simple: solid, well-crafted entertainment. And Casino Royale offers just that. Over-the-top, pulse-pounding fun.

I have loved movies obsessively all my life but lately the very thought of revisiting The Tree of Wooden Clogs or Berlin Alexanderplatz sends me screaming into the night in search of a Thelma Ritter marathon on Turner Classic Movies. The Seven Samurai? Maybe next month, but right now just give me Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Look at what’s out there right now. The usual round-up of serious, high-minded and, in a few cases, compelling films. Take Babel, for example. The directing-writing team of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo Arriaga have given us another fine and masterful work, if perhaps a tad over-arching and maybe not quite as great as Amores Perros. Yet it delivers on its promise to be one of the big, serious movies of the year when things like The Good Shepherd and Flags of Our Fathers aren’t really living up to their great expectations. Inarritu has made a marvelous –and harrowing—meditation on several topical themes, fully loaded with standout performances, including two amazing and heartbreaking portrayals courtesy of Adriana Barazza and Rinko Kikuchi . It will probably land a spot on my “best of 2006” list but, like Schindler’s List and Greed and Grease 2, I doubt I can ever sit through it again.

I’m also very fond of Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen but when looking at the list of Oscar hopefuls, I am surprised to find myself in a minority when it comes to The Departed. In a nutshell, I didn’t like it that much. With an overwrought and improbable plot, Scorsese’s magnificent misfire at least offers a few treats, namely Nicholson’s fabulous, this-close-to-shameless scenery munching and some smart and funny work, in smaller roles, by Ray Winstone and Mark Wahlberg.

Otherwise, I find it too long, with a tedious third act and a bizarre performance by the LA Critics darling Vera Farmiga who seems to have wandered in from a Group Theater production of The Wild Duck. And, oddly, it serves up Matt Damon in maybe his least-compelling performance to date. Give me another viewing of The Bourne Identity, please. Now that's entertainment.

Here’s the thing: the movies for which Scorsese should have taken home the trophy is an exhausted, worn-out discussion. And I am betting that rather than install him in the company of Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Burton and Agnes Moorehead, the Academy is going to give him the gold this year, no matter what. No deathbed honorary Oscar for Marty. Hell, he could have directed The Santa Clause 3 and his nomination –and win- would still be this close to a sure thing.

And who’s willing to bet that despite his umpteen critics’ awards, Forest Whitaker will go nose to nose with Peter O’Toole? Admittedly, I haven’t seen either of their films yet, but then again, when was it ever required to actually see a movie before being qualified to handicap its Oscar chances? I mean, when did not seeing every nominated film ever keep an Academy member from casting a ballot? Handicapping the annual Academy horse race has, in the end, very little to do with any familiarity with the movies in question. Of course, this is another topic that has been chatted and chewed to death; so, back to O’Toole vs. Whitaker. I am a big fan of the latter, and that includes his recent and very juicy turn on The Shield, but isn’t there some rule that clearly stipulates if you were in Battlefield Earth you may never be nominated for an Oscar ever again? The real face-off will be due to Whitaker’s going up against one of the last of the living legends. Lawrence of Arabia. Mr. Chips. King Henry II. Twice. So, come on, how great would it be to see our own Lord Jim ascend those steps at the Kodak and claim Best Actor a few years after getting his honorary “we better give you this before you die” Oscar? Great, indeed.

OK, enough for now. To be continued. However, if you can't get enough of the frenzy leading up to this year's quest for the little golden man, then head on over to Oscarwatch. It's the best of all the Oscar sites and will link you to everyone and everything having to do with this merry madness. As for me, I'm turning in. I need to finish watching one of Ingmar's more lighthearted romps. Shame, anyone?