Month: December 2009

Somebody forgot to explain the drill to the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. It’s Inglourious Basterds‘ milk-drinking Nazi Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor, dummies, and not Christian McKay for his bellowing genius performance in Me and Orson Welles. Scores of obsequious critics in cities across the country have voted for Waltz over the last three or four days, so how could there have been a misunderstanding?

And what’s with the SFFCC giving Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach their Best Adapted Screemplay award for Fantastic Mr. Fox?

Otherwise the SFFCC fell into the ranks. Hurt Locker for Best Picture, Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director, Colin Firth‘s Single Man performance for Best Actor, Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglourious Basterds for Best Original Screenplay, Meryl Streep‘s Julie & Julia performance for Best Actress, etc.

I’m sickened by the coast-to-coast toadying shown to Streep over a lightweight “bit” performance. I enjoyed her as well but this is Carey Mulligan‘s year…obviously!

“You’ve been promoting Mulligan since Labor Day,” a critic friend wrote this morning, “but speaking as someone who voted in two critics groups this week (NYFCC and NYFCO), I can tell you that she barely registered. The big showdown in best actress in each group was between Streep and Tilda Swinton (Julia), with Streep squeaking out the win by only a vote or two in both cases.

“And Swinton, who gives one of the ballsiest performances of the year, isn’t even a Golden Globe nominee — and probably won’t register w/the Academy either because each, in their own way, are the province of the lame, the halt and the feebleminded.”

My first reaction to the news about Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe‘s Robin Hood movie was “again?” This new trailer doesn’t change anything. I feel as if I’ve seen it already. What could it bring to the table that’s significantly different from the Kevin Costner version? Apart from the grittier cinematography and production design and Crowe’s machismo, I mean? It’s the same old recipe.

Here‘s a neat little video taken last summer on the outdoor Robin Hood set, which uses the same clearing (located in Bourne Wood, Tilford — south of Farnham, Surrey) seen in the opening battle scene at the beginning of Gladiator.

I have to get a rental car and drive all the way the hell up to frigid Syracuse this afternoon to pick up Jett and take him back down for the holidays. I’ll be staying there this evening and thereby missing the Nine premiere and after-party in Manhattan.

The Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning. (Here‘s the Indiewire link.) Up In The Air accumlated six nominations, and Nine did fairly well with a Best Picture Comedy/Music nomination plus ones for Daniel Day Lewis and the very deserving Marion Cotillard.

The only surprise I’m seeing thus far is their decision to place Meryl Streep‘s Julie & Julia performance into the Best Actress Comedy or Musical category, thus leaving the Best Actress competish open to Carey Mulligan (who’s been strangely losing to Streep in the critics awards so far). Categorizing Streep’s performance as Julia Child under comedy is, of course, ludicrous, but that’s standard HFPA thinking.

They also nominated Streep in the Comedy/Musical category for her It’s Complicated performance, so they’re obviously planning to give her the award.

The only other standout is Tobey Maguire getting Best Actor-nominated for his madman performance in Brothers. Also well deserved.

I can’t be bothered to paste and reformat all the nominees so here‘s the Variety story.

I was told yesterday by producer Ed Pressman that the Hollywood Foreign Press recently rejected the submission of Nicolas Cage‘s performance in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical — a not very perceptive call, not to mention unfair and unhip. They also blew off This Is It! as a submission in the Best Musical/Comedy genre.

Esteemed critic Jack Mathews, a guy who’s been around the block and acquired a little perspective, said the following about Precious in a 12.10 discussion with Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson:

“If the Academy hadn’t just doubled the number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10 this year, we wouldn’t be talking about Precious as an Oscar contender now. In fact, if director Lee Daniels had cleaned up the language a bit and eliminated an unnecessary rape clip, Precious might have found its natural home [on the tube] and we’d be talking about its rightful fate of an Emmy winner.

“I am not convinced that Precious will make the Best Picture ballot. Most of the 6,000-plus Academy voters watch the contenders — selected for them by critics, guild nominations and box office results — at home. And as a person who saw this movie in a theater with six people, watching it alone is not easy.

“I don’t think Lee Daniels will receive a Directors Guild nomination; directors aren’t easily swayed by emotion and the ugly truth is that Precious is an awkwardly-directed film. The fantasy sequences are almost embarrassingly inept.

“I do believe Mo’Nique is a slam dunk supporting actress nominee — what she does in speaking her dialogue is more humiliating than what Halle Berry did going-for-broke in Monster’s Ball — but those who vote the novice Sidibe are voting for her character more than her performance.”

I flinched when I read Michael Fleming‘s 12.13 story about Mel Gibson‘s forthcoming Viking movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and a script by William Monahan. We know what this will be. What big-league director is more drawn to gougings, disembowelments and beheadings than Gibson? The man is insane.

Fleming says the story “will be as unsparing as Gibson’s Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto.” And we’re all going to pay $12 each to sit through more throat-slicings, testicle-crushings, skull-splittings and so on. Terrific.

This makes me sound unadventurous and reclusive, I realize, but I’d much rather spend $20 or $25 on a special-edition Bluray of Richard Fleischer‘s The Vikings (1958) than sit through Gibson’s gore-fest. The 51 year-old Kirk Douglas-Tony Curtis version is unabashedly broad and cheesy and sometimes ridiculous. But there are undercurrents in that film that really work. Here’s how I put in in the wake of Fleischer’s death in ’06:

“Fleischer’s peak was The Vikings — the 1958 historical action epic that was mostly dominated by producer-star Kirk Douglas, but was (and still is) notable for two dramatic elements that still work today.

“One is what seems to happen inside the male Viking characters (particularly Douglas and dad Ernest Borgnine) whenever Odin, the Nordic God, is mentioned. We hear a haunting, siren-like Odin theme on the soundtrack, and these rough blustery types suddenly stop their loutish behavior and seem to almost retreat into a childlike emotional place…a place that’s all about awe and fear (of death, God, judgment). This happens maybe three or four times in this big, unsophisticated popcorn movie (which nonetheless feels far sturdier and more classically composed than a typical big-budget popcorn actioner made today), and each time it does The Vikings suddenly has a spirit.

“The other thing that still works is the film’s refusal to make much of the fact that Douglas and costar Tony Curtis, mortal enemies throughout the film, are in fact brothers, having both been half-sired by Borgnine. Costar Janet Leigh begs Douglas to consider this ten minutes from the finale, and Douglas angrily brushes her off. But when his sword is raised above a defenseless Curtis at the very end and he’s about to strike, Douglas suddenly hesitates…and we know why. And then Curtis stabs Douglas in the stomach with a shard of a broken sword, and Douglas is finished. The way he leans back, screams ‘Odin!’ and then rolls over dead is pretty hammy, but that earlier moment of hesitation is spellbinding — one of the most touching pieces of acting Douglas has ever delivered.

“Douglas wasn’t very respectful of Fleischer’s authority during the making of The Vikings, and for all I know Fleischer didn’t have that much to do with this final scene…but he probably did, and he deserves our respect for it.”

Here‘s the last chapter of The Vikings. The post-magic-hour lighting during the funeral scene with the torches and flaming arrows is very nice.

The Weinstein Co. threw an elegant lunch today for Rob Marshall‘s Nine at Per Se, the renowned gourmet restaurant on the Time Warner Center’s fourth floor. Nine stars Daniel Day Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman and Kate Hudson attended; ditto an assortment of Manhattan industry/media types (Harvey Weinstein, Ron Howard, producer Ed Pressman, screenwriter Stephen Schiff, Martha Stewart, Campbell Brown, Larry King) and hot-shot journalists.

Nine star Daniel Day Lewis, director Rob Marshall at today’s Weinstein Co. Nine luncheon at Thomas Keller’s Per Se — Monday, 12.14, 2:35 pm.

And The Winner Is columnist Scott Feinberg, Nine costar Judi Dench — Monday, 12.14.09, 2:55 pm

Nine costar Judi Dench, Harvey Weinstein (standing), unidentified guy (seated) -12.14.09, 2:20 pm

If I was flipping through Variety and came upon this ad, which doesn’t even mention Glenn Kenny or The Girlfriend Experience, I would keep flipping. You can barely make him out. I know Kenny wasn’t in any close-ups, but wasn’t he at least in a shot that was sharply focused and well-lighted? This stinks.

Apparition has picked up Floria Sigismondi‘s The Runaways for distribution, says L.A. Times/Company Town contributor Steven Zeitchik. Apparition is planning “a roll-out that lies somewhere between a platform and wide release” beginning in March 2010. In other words, it may not be as much of a problem movie as I was detecting on 12.12. The big premiere will be next month at Sundance, of course, with “a possible Joan Jett performance in Park City, Utah.”

N.Y. Post critic Lou Lumenick assessed the New York Film Critics Circle winners today as follows: “The NYFCC and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association rarely agree on their top choices. [So it’s] really fascinating is that with two major exceptions — LA went for Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart and Yolande Moreau in Seraphine — the New Yorkers almost exactly duplicated the L.A. list.”

It also “carries real weight that both groups gave their best picture award to The Hurt Locker and Best Director to Kathryn Bigelow,” he said. I agree and so does everyone else.

NYFCC winners plus HE reactions:

Best Film — The Hurt Locker. HE comment: Very cool.

Best Director — Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. HE comment: Damn right.

Best Screenplay — In the Loop. HE comment: Excellent!

Best Actress — Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia. HE comment: Goddammit….why? Is it that critics feel that Streep hasn’t won enough awards? Her Julie & Julia thing is just another “expert” Streep performance, which really isn’t much more than a bit. It doesn’t begin to compare with Carey Mulligan‘s in An Education. What the eff is going on here?

Best Actor — George Clooney for Up In The Air and Fantastic Mr. Fox. HE comment: Fine.

Best Supporting Actress — Mo’Nique for Precious. HE comment: There could have been no other choice. The word has gone out and the fix is in. This is like being at a Mussolini youth rally.

Best Supporting Actor — Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds. HE comment: I fucking give up.

Best Cinematography — Christian Berger for The White Ribbon. HE comment: Okay, but I’m more of a Barry Ackroyd for The Hurt Locker type of guy.

Best Animated Film — Fantastic Mr. Fox. HE comment: Respectable choice.

In a 12.14 interview with Jezebel’s “Irin,” N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis riffs on Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow and what she calls the hateful “bullshit” pedigree of the Oscars. I love this interview! Magnificent salty slams from a senior representative of the Gray Lady!

“Something like a woman winning best director for directing an action movie and not a romantic comedy is symbolically important,” she says. “Whether it then leads to a lot of women doing things outside of the pathetic comfort zone of romantic comedy — and I say that as someone who loves romantic comedy — we’ll see.

“We know that because women are allowed to make romantic comedies that they can make romantic comedies. That’s in everyone’s comfort zone. The idea that a woman can be a great action director is not in everyone’s comfort zone. That’s [Bigelow’s] exceptionalism.

“The only thing Hollywood is interested in money, and after that prestige. That’s why they’ll be interested in something like The Hurt Locker. She’s done so well critically that she can’t be ignored.

“But let’s acknowledge that the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them. But they are important commercially…I’ve learned to never underestimate the academy’s bad taste. Crash as best picture? What the fuck.”