Month: December 2008

I was reminded last night that Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah, the Italian mafia drama, won not three, not four but five of the top European Film Awards — best film, director, actor (Tony Servillo), screenwriter and photography — at last Saturday’s Copenhagen ceremony, and that no other film has done this before. IFC Films will open the pic in the U.S. on 12.19 after a current Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles this week.

Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone, Daily Beast writer Rachel Syme at last night’s Gomorrah dinner at the Plaza’s Oak Room bar/restaurant, hosted by Peggy Siegal — Sunday, 12.7.08, 7:35 pm.

Last night I told Doubt costar Viola Davis that I’m a somewhat…okay, a flaming fan of her killer one-scene performance in the film, which is almost guaranteed to result in a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Everyone agrees with this; the discussion is over; she’s a genuine supporting player (as opposed to the “slumming” supporting performance by Doubt‘s Phillip Seymour Hoffman) so forget “almost” — it’s stamped, finito, a done deal.

Doubt costars Amy Adams, Viola Davis at last night’s Doubt premiere party at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Club — Monday, 12.7.08, 9:25 pm

N.Y. Daily News gossip columnist George Rush, Doubt star Phillip Seymour Hoffman at same — Monday, 12.7.08, 9:35 pm.

12.7.08, 9:40 pm.

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Another expected, nothing-new, run-of-the-mill 2008 award roster arrived yesterday from the Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association, a group of 46 DC, Virginia and Maryland-based film critics from television, radio, print and the internet. Is any critics group going to go rogue or wildcat on us over the next two or three weeks? Is any group at all saying to say, “The prevailing winds on Best Picture are well and good, but we don’t happen subscribe to them”?

Of course not. Everyone is going to vote for Slumdog Millionaire as Best Picture, no matter what. Because doing this puts the voter into a nice, safe, warm and cuddly place. A place that will result in smiles and hugs and mistletoe and cups of egg nog. Is anyone going to stand up with me and salute the best film of the year, hands down — i.e., Che? Are any critics outside of Chicago going to stand up for The Dark Knight or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Revolutionary Road?

WAFCA went for Slumdog Millionaire as Best Film, SM‘s Danny Boyle as Best Director, The Wrestler‘s Mickey Rourke as Best Actor, Doubt‘s Meryl Streep as Best Actress,

the Doubt gang as Best Ensemble, The Dark Knight‘s Heath Ledger as Best Supporting Actor, Rachel Getting Married‘s Rosemarie DeWitt as Best Supporting Actress, Let The Right One In as Best Foreign-Language Film and Man on Wire as Best Documentary.

You can rely upon…all right, strongly consider the following in the matter of Summit’s dismissal of director Catherine Hardwicke off the next two Twilight movies, New Moon and Eclipse:

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, star Robert Pattinson

(a) Whatever actually happened, Summit’s image has gone from that of a suddenly successful and very formidable indie player with a hot franchise into a greedy, money-grubbing, mob-styled operation looking to grab those upcoming Twilight bucks as fast as possible, and in order to get their mitts on the moolah hubba-hubba were willing to do without (and this is me talking here) that angular sensitivity and teenage-girl verisimilitude that Hardwicke brought to Twilight and, now that I think of it, Thirteen.

(b) Summit wants the next installment, New Moon, out by late ’09 or early ’10, meaning it would have to shoot sometime in the spring or early summer, or three or four months from now. In her exclusive report on the Hardwicke whacking, Nikki Finke described this schedule as “ridiculously speeded-up.” You can be sure that Hardwicke, whatever her shortcomings, wanted…okay, more money, I’m sure, but also more time in order to fine-tune all the elements and bring them to a fine point. Studios always just want the money, fast and hot; directors, obviously, understand that putting out a feature that feels even a little bit slapdash will play hell with their rep and legacy.

(c) Say what you will about Hardwicke’s personality, directing chops and political skills — the honest, true-to-life teenage-girl in the throes of emotional upheaval vibe in Thirteen and Twilight felt very similar to me. They seemed, in fact, nearly one and the same. And this, for me, is what makes Twilight work as well as it does — what gives it resonance and vertisimilitude. (Credit for this aspect is also due to Melissa Rosenberg‘s screenplay. And the film itself is greatly enhanced by Elliot Davis‘s cinematography and Nancy Richardson‘s editing.)

Hardwicke, original Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, star Kristen Stewart

The Hardwicke shit-canning just seems…I don’t know, Sopranos-y. Like some kind of coarse James Gandolfini clip job. And that doesn’t seem at all fitting or appropriate for a very feminine property and franchise like this one. Twilight is a young woman’s story, written by a young woman, made for young women. It obviously needed and benefitted from the hand of a sharp and, as far it goes, sensitive female director. And it just feels wrong and brutish for Summit to have clipped Hardwicke, given the vibe and the imprint that she brought to Twilight . Somebody needs to find out what really really happened.

(d) This comment from “realworldperson,” a Finke reader says it correctly: “To quote Robert Evans, ‘There are three sides to every story: my side, your side, and the truth.’ I’m sure [that Hardwicke’s [temperamental nature had something to do] with letting her go. But how many male directors are assholes or crazy? And how many are dragged through the press like this after a huge hit? When men are crazy or abrasive they are celebrated, and a woman is shrill [and called unstable and gotten rid of]. She should fire CAA for this, especially if Summit goes with a CAA client.”

(e) And this one: “Try and read Twilight. It’s crap. Hardwicke had no budget, a silly script adapted from a silly book, two wooden actors, and she turned it into a hit. Is it a great film? No, but it’s fine, It’s serviceable. And they owed her more than to fire her now. (They should have paid her off after the European p.r. tour wrapped.)”

Hardwicke, Stewart

(f) That said, a more negative Finke reader comment adds context: (a) “She was a nightmare on Nativity — unprofessional, prone to crying outbursts, and seemingly lacking even the most basic understanding of filmmaking. This has nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with her lack of talent.” — written by “ex-New Liner.

(g) And especially this one, posted by “the sad truth“: “Hardwicke has had it coming for years. I have heard from producers who have worked with her that she is quite possibly the worst human being they’ve ever had the displeasure of working with. That’s why Wyck Godfrey was brought on to the movie — he somehow was able to tame the beast while she directed their Bible loser movie, so Summit paid him to babysit. Why she continues to work amazes me. Julie Taymor is the same but at least she has talent. The sad truth is that there are few working women directors and these two do nothing to make producers want to hire the fairer sex and put them behind the camera. But I hear Darnell Marin, who directed the awesome Cadillac Records, is very talented and that talent loves working with her. Then of course there’s the obvious double standard. Michael Bay‘s an asshole too but you don’t see him on the unemployment line, do you? Hollywood creeps me out sometimes.”

Here, also, is HE’s Moises Chiullan on the Hardwicke dismissal.

MTV.com’s Josh Horowitz has assembled all the bizarre movie-linked interviews he and his crew have posted over the last 11 months or so. Caption-described by JH as “Kurt Loder kicks my ass, Val Kilmer talks dwarf sex, Brendan Fraser goes bananas, Charlize Theron swears like a pirate, Steven Seagal hawks his energy drinks,” etc. I would post the video screen, but MTV’s embed code doesn’t adapt to my 475 pixel wide column space — it overlaps. I hate that.

Taschen’s Godfather Family Album is selling on Amazon for $686 bucks and change. That’s a lot of money for a book. Selections from photographer Steve Schapiro’s archives of the Godfather shoot, an insider’s view of the making of the legendary trilogy, limited to 1,000 copies, all signed by Schapiro, etc. I’ll go $200, $250 — no higher.

Heading into town to catch a private screening of Gran Torino (finally! last one to see it in my realm!), and then attend a swanky dinner party for Matteo Garrone‘s Gamorrah followed by a big soiree for John Patrick Shanley ‘s Doubt at the Metropolitan Club.

Nothing But The Truth‘s “most striking performance comes from Vera Farmiga, who plays [a] C.I.A. operative called Erica Van Doren,” according to a 12.7 article by N.Y. Times contributor Adam Liptak.

Vera Farmiga (l.), Kate Beckinsale (r.) in Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But The Truth.

“In one scene Van Doren, suspected of leaking her own identity, is given a lie detector test.” So director Rod Lurie, looking to help Farmiga get into the experience, says, ‘We brought in a real polygraphist to polygraph her. [So] he actually connects her up to the machine and asks her, ‘Is your name Erica Van Doren?’ and so on.”

“Lurie thought that would be good for verisimilitude,” Liptak writes. “But it turned out the machine had something to say about the power of Ms. Farmiga’s acting. The polygraph operator, Mr. Lurie recalled, pulled him aside afterward and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this — the machine says she’s telling the truth.'”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Tom Brokaw‘s book The Greatest Generation, that classic about our parents and their incredible sacrifices during World War II,” N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes in today’s edition. “What I’ve been thinking about actually is this: What book will our kids write about us? The Greediest Generation? The Complacent Generation? Or maybe: The Subprime Generation: How My Parents Bailed Themselves Out for Their Excesses by Charging It All on My Visa Card?

“In sum, our kids will remember the Obama stimulus as either the burden of their lifetime or the investment of their lifetime. Let’s hope it’s the latter. I like that book title much better.” — from a 12.7 column called “The Real Generation X.”

Spoiler Whiners Beware: Just to be fair about things, N.Y. Post critic Kyle Smith is calling Seven Pounds the third-best movie of ’08, or at least his choice for same. This Gabrielle Muccino-Will Smith film, he says, is “simple but perfect, so classically structured that, except for the modern technology in it, it’s like a redemption fable handed down from the ancients.”

Smith’s critical colleague Lou Lumenick, already concerned with Smith’s growing grandiosity, feels differently. He says — HERE IT COMES, SPOILER-AVERSE! — that Seven Pounds (Columbia, 12.19) “should be more accurately titled Seven Hundred Pounds of Schmaltz…it’s like Pay It Forward with organ transplants” with Smith portraying “a suicidal savior.”

Uh-oh….I can already hear and feel the reader rage. We work very hard at keeping our heads in the sand, the spoiler whiners are saying, and since we believe that story and subject matter are 90% if not 95% of the game and that how the film is made — the undercurrents, the things that are not said but felt, the tone and pace of it, the emphasis choices, the performances, the music, the editing style, etc. — is strictly an esoteric toss-up that no one can finally gauge the quality of one way or the other, we believe it is out right and our duty to hunt down Lumenick on the streets of New York and let him feel our wrath first-hand.

HE’s Absolute Best Films of 2008 sans distinctions — i.e., features, docs and animated considered equally, numbering 16 for now. Absolute Best, Richest, Most Resonant and Rib-Sticking: Steven Soderbergh‘s Che (and fair warning to anyone planning to perversely name this film as one the year’s worst — i.e., this is an aesthetically untenable viewpoint, and you will be called out on this). First-Runner-up: James Marsh ‘s Man on Wire. Second Runner-up: Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road.

Remaining Best of the Year (numbering 13, and in this order): Tom McCarthy ‘s The Visitor (Overture Films), Andrew Stanton‘s WALL*E; John Patrick Shanley‘s Doubt (Miramax); Nuri Bilge Ceylon‘s Three Monkeys (seen in Cannes), Danny Boyle‘s Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight); Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But The Truth (Yari); Chris Nolan‘s The Dark Knight, Gonzalo Arijon‘s Stranded: I’ve Come From A Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (Zeitgeist), Gus Van Sant‘s Milk (Focus Features); David Fincher‘s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount/Warner Bros.); Ron Howard‘s Frost/Nixon (Universal); Darren Aronofsky‘s The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight), and Oliver Stone‘s W. (Lionsgate).

I’ll be seeing Clint Eastwood‘s Gran Torino (Warner Bros.) later today so I may slip that one in, depending. I haven’t seen Seven Pounds, so this too is a wait-and-see thing. Nor have I seen Ari Folman‘s Waltz With Bashir…my bad. And I haven’t seen Cadillac Records, either, though not for lack of trying.