Year: 2006

16 Blocks (Warner Bros., 3.3) is a predictably gritty urban thriller that doesn’t screw up too badly. It’s Richard Donner‘s finest film in a long time, but that’s not saying a whole lot considering his direction of Timeline, Lethal Weapon 4, Conspiracy Theory, the piss-dreadful Assassins, the revoltingly glossy Maverick (which an attorney friend of mine called “a 75 million dollar Elvis Presley film”), the over-boiled Lethal Weapon 3, the manipulative Radio Flyer, and so on. Call it Donner’s best “street” film since Lethal Weapon, even though 16 Blocks walks and talks like a hack job from start to finish. It uses an idea that felt half-fresh 33 years ago in Sidney Lumet‘s Serpico — corrupt cops ready to kill in order to keep themselves from being prosecuted for taking bribes. Richard Wenk‘s script is pure formulaic horseshit about an aging, alcoholic, seen-better-days cop (Bruce Willis) reclaiming his honor by refusing to let a prisoner (Mos Def) be killed by his corrupt pals (led by former partner David Morse). Willis’s older-guy makeup and gut-first waddle-walk seem show-offy, Def’s mincing voice starts to really bother you after a while, the editing cheats all over the place (in the manner of the knocking-on-two-doors sequence at the end of The Silence of the Lambs), Glen MacPherson‘s photography is all long lenses and whip pans, and the whole thing is basically a wank. But it’s not hateful because it has a few half-decent jolts. If it shows up on a flight you’re on six months from now, you could do worse things with your time.

Another good David Carr/”Carpetpagger” rant in the N.Y. Times about some especially irksome social ticks and tendencies in the Oscar game. I’ll just address the complaint about industry journo-bloggers flogging the “Pet Cause” (David Poland on Munich, Roger Ebert on Crash ). I’ve jumped into this swimming pool from time to time (my anti-Peter Jackson and Chicago rants), and I see Carr’s point that “if you harp relentlessly on an agenda, many people will soon wish that you and your pet cause would go for a long walk.” But I’m not at all sorry for pushing The Fog of War two years ago and running that “Message to the Academy” statement in early ’01 that pleaded with voters to hand Steven Soderbergh the Best Director Oscar for Traffic and not for Erin Brockovich, which might have helped avoid a split vote in some small way. And if I’m really honest I have to confess to a twinge of pride over having been one of those voices who helped keep Munich from being serious considered as a Best Picture winner…for being one of those who stood up and fired back against that pompous and preemptive Best Picture campaign that began with a slightly smug-looking Spielberg on the cover of Time alongside the words “secret genius.” Nothing has given me more journalistic satisfaction all year than to be one of the guys who helped throw a cable around the legs of that film and see it teeter and fall and crash into the ground like one of those big “walkers” in The Empire Strikes Back.

Stop for a sec and click on this Cannes website…it has a really great crickets-and-birds soundtrack and if you throw in the rising sun visual it’s kind of perfect. It really and truly captures the way that town feels…at times. I’m feeling jaunty about Cannes because I just scored a good flat share at the right price.

A little over three weeks ago, or on February 4th, former N.Y. Times critic Elvis Mitchell returned to National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Saturday” for the first time since…well, it gets complicated from here on. In February ’05 an announcement came down about an acqusitions gig Mitchell had supposedly landed with Columbia Pictures in Manhattan…which he apparently never performed. Maynard Institute columnnist Richard Prince referenced a 2.1.5.05 Daily News story about the Columbia gig, and also a column written last year by the New York Observer‘s 2.27 piece that Jake Brooks saying that Mitchell had “been assigned the welcome task…of trolling film festivals for potential acquisitions and evaluating the Columbia library for potential remakes.” Mitchell has a reputation of being a bit erratic when it comes to fulfilling gigs and assignments. (“In the early ’90s, it wasn’t hard to find an editor who had assigned Mitchell a piece — and it wasn’t hard to find an editor who wished he hadn’t,” Sean Elder wrote in Salon seven years ago. “Deadlines were often missed.”) And here we have Prince running a statement from an NPR spokesperson saying that Mitchell “never actually took the job with Columbia so there is no conflict of interest” with being an NPR commentator. Mitchell began on NPR as host of “The Treatment” on Santa Monica’s KCRW.

A very cool Volkswagen ad starring Peter Stormare, okay, but let’s not go overboard. It’s about the GTI Mark V, which starts at $21 thousand and change.

Critics have been saying for years that the Oscars have to loosen up and change with the times and not be so stiff and regimented. Well, here’s one very cool and classy idea: annnounce a brand-new category called the Masters Oscar, which in effect would be a retroactive Best Picture Oscar. The idea is to give a Masters Oscar each year to some richly deserving film that has steadily gained in reputation in the years and decades since it was first released, but was ignored or under-valued by Academy members at the time. An opportunity to right a past oversight by way of a second look, the Masters Oscar, if adopted, would probably be dubbed the “Second-Chance Oscar.” The idea partially came from reader Richard Swank, who put it to me this morning as follows: “All this talk of movies that were robbed in years past got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if the Academy had a veteran’s committee like the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame? It’s their job to induct those players who are deserving, but, for one reason or another didn’t make it in during the regular balloting.” My idea (thanks, Rich…now go sit down) is that each year the Academy Veterans Committee could nominate five Best Picture contenders from the past (any year, any decade) that didn’t win but deserved the honor and then some, and then of course send out DVDs of the five nominated films to the general Academy membership, and require them to vote for their favorite along with all the other categories. Think of the thrill and the major emotion that would come from films like Citizen Kane, Notorious, Psycho, A Clockwork Orange, Au hasard Balthazar, Touch of Evil, Taxi Driver, Bringing Up Baby or Out of the Past winning a Masters Oscar each year…ratified by a majority of the membership with the producers, directors and stars (or their descendants) coming up on stage to receive their Oscars to rapturous applause. It would obviously do wonders for the Oscar’s historical reputation, as well enhance the winning film’s reputation with the DVD-buying public. I don’t want to brag, but this is the best innovative idea I’ve come up with in a long time. Now watch Gil Cates and his old-school cronies blow it off.

A friend sent me a list of scripts, and I’m wondering which (if any) seem the most intriguing to readers. (1) Casino Royale by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade, second set of revisions by Paul Haggis (12.13.05); (2) Believe it or Not! by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (5/6/05); (3) The Last Kiss by Paul Haggis (10.31.03); (4) Night At The Museum by Scott Frank (2.4.5); (5) The Martian Child by Seth E. Bass & Jonathan Tolins (3.14.05); (6) The Astronaut Farmer by Mark & Michael Polish (6.16.05); (7) Steven Soderbergh and Terrence Malick’s Che; (8) Cabin Fever 2 by Adam Green (9.20.04); and (8) 300 by Snyder/Johnstad (11.22.04). If these scripts aren’t vital reading, which ones are?

Sir Carol Reed made three masterpieces in a row in the mid to late ’40s — The Fallen Idol, Odd Man Out and The Third Man And what does he win his Oscar for? Oliver (1968), a mediocre big-studio musical that seems a little less each time you reflect upon it. (Forwarded by reader Jeremy Fassler.)

“I was fortunate enough to meet Paddy Chayefsky at the Carnegie Deli very near the end of his life. I asked him if he had any idea, when he wrote Network, how life would follow art. He said that his original script had been twice as cynical but he had been forced to dilute it to get it made. When he asked why I was so interested, I told him I worked in TV news. ‘Oh wait’, he said, ‘just wait.'” — Christopher Dalrymple, Digital Verite.

The deadline for the Oscar ballots to be filled out and received happened exactly fourteen minutes ago — 5 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday, 2.28. Please, please…give us a surprise in one of the major categories.

I suggested a continuation of David Carr‘s
“Carptebagger”/Red Carpet column a few days ago, and now it looks like Carr is giving the idea some thought. “Although his ‘Carpetbagger’ movie awards season blog is supposed to go dark after the Oscars, Carr said that he might consider continuing to blog for the Times as an add-on to his regular media column. He told us that blogging has taught him spontaneity and gave him more confidence with his writing.” — Zack Barangan writing about Carr’s visit last weekend to some kind of NYU blogging class.

Toughest Job on Oscar Night Award contenders, from a piece in Time magazine: (a) Jennifer Aniston’s publicist: Has Jen seen Brangelina’s sonogram? Will she attend the shower? Red carpet chatterboxes have many rude questions for this presenter. Wells comment: Those fearless vampire killer questions asked of tabloid victims like Aniston, Brangelina and Tomkat are beyond sickening. (b) Isaac Mizrahi: the grabby E! co-host must keep his hands in his pockets, and off of starlets. Wells comment: More brash tittie feels…go for it, Isaac…make it a lifelong signature thing. (c) Dolly Parton’s stylist: O.K., we’re not sure she has one, but heck, fitting a gown on this buxom Best Song nominee for Transamerica‘s Travelin’Thru would be a real achievement. Wells comment: Zzzzzzzz. (d) Host Jon Stewart: Really, will there be any original gay cowboy jokes left by March 5? Wells comment : A Stewart bioographer will one day report that gay cowboy jokes were immediately dismissed when Stewart and his team started working on his monologue…done to death by Leno, Letterman and Nathan Lane. (e) Reese Witherspoon: Acting surprised when she wins Best Actress for Walk the Line will surely require Witherspoon to channel more of that June Carter-style class. Wells comment: There’s a belief out there that a Witherspoon upset by Transamerica‘s Felicity Huffman is possible. Not likely, but it could conceivably happen…maybe.