Month: January 2010

I don’t actually believe that A Serious Man‘s Michael Stuhlbarg will win the Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical Performance, as stated two days ago. I recognize there are problems in playing a whiner. It’s just that the idea of The Informant‘s Matt Damon, Nine‘s Daniel Day-Lewis or Sherlock Holmes‘ Robert Downey Jr. winning seems ludicrous. And that there doesn’t seem any chance for (500) Days of Summer‘s Joseph Gordon-Levitt to win (although I’d be cool with that).

Either you recognize this frame-capture right away or you’ll never know unless someone tells you. There’s no middle path.

Two hours before the Golden Globes and I’m listening to Movie Geeks United!. A general discussion about the last ten years, the best films, trends, the Avatar phenomenon, the irrelevance of fanboys, etc. On 1.20 the Movie Geeks will speak with author/journalist Peter Biskind about “Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America.”

Saturday morning’s estimate saw Avatar beating The Book of Eli by $41,750,000 to $32 million. Today’s Reuters’ estimate projects $41.3 million for Avatar vs. $31.6 million for Eli — a very decent showing for the Hughes Brothers and Denzel Washington although they still got whipped. James Cameron‘s 3D epic now has a domestic tally of $491.8 million and a worldwide total of $1.6 billion — just $237 million short of Titanic‘s $1.8 billion all-time record.

New York‘s “Daily Intel” is reporting that “sometime this spring” the New York Times will start charging for content. They’ll be using a metered system “in which readers can sample a certain number of free articles before being asked to subscribe.” Meaning you can read…what, ten articles before you have to fork over? Just tell me what the unlimited-read monthly access will be — that’s all I want to know. I’ll go $30 monthly, a buck a day.

The Letterman giggling thing is awful, but otherwise this worked. Sort of. Here’s an ’04 Leno clip, posted this morning by Gawker: “You know, this show is like a dynasty — you hold it and then you hand it off to the next person and I don’t want to see all the fighting and all the who’s better and nasty things back and forth in the press so right now, here it is…Conan, it’s yours. See you in five years, buddy.”

Anything that George W. Bush has lent his name to naturally seems suspect. Of course, he needs to do Haiti to make up for Katrina. But it’s still odd — a queasy-funny feeling — to see him back in the White House and standing before a mike.

The term “moodle” — a man poodle — is the only decent bit in the trailer for Jim Field Smith‘s She’s Not In My League (Paramount/DreamWorks, 3.12). I see guys who look like Jay Baruchel (i.e., intelligent nerdy) walking around Manhattan all the time with fetching women of a certain avant-gothy persuasion. But the late ’60s/early ’70s Woody Allen conundrum (moodle lacks confidence, doesn’t think he deserves the hot girl) continues to rule in films like this. Because comfort and familiarity tends to sell.

Another problem is that women like Alice Eve are rarely interested in a Baruchle. Even if they’re interested they know how things go and don’t want the grief. It’s much easier to pair up with guys. Baruchle-type guys tend to find Baruchel-type women, who are much cooler and sexier in their way than Alice Eve types.

The other problem is that coarse animal-jocks who try to keep their supposed Baruchel-like friends in their place (in part by deriding women that Baruchel-like guys are with) would never befriend a Baruchel-type guy to begin with in the real working world, nor would Baruchel-type guys want their company, much less their “friendship.”

And yet most people, lamentably, tend to enjoy the kind of film that She’s Not In My League seems to be. They enjoy the familiar cliches and clownish wallowing, etc. What’s the line that Woody Allen always hated hearing from his fans? “I really love your films…especially your earlier funnier ones.”

We should all have the generosity of Sandra Bullock, who announced earlier today that she’s donated a million bucks to Doctors Without Borders, which is currently trying to do what it can to alleviate the suffering in Haiti.

“I wanted to ensure that my donation would be used immediately to meet the needs of the Haitian people affected by this catastrophic event,” Bullock said in a statement.

How do I begin to broach my next thought without sounding all wrong? Naah, forget it. Blame it on Oscar season myopia.

“Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one,” says Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel to New York‘s “Vulture” guys. “I think I’ve seen about 145 of them. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.”

I have to jump on the L line so I’m recommending the assessment about last night’s Broadcast Film Critics Awards by In Contention‘s Guy Lodge. The BFCA has a history of reflecting mainstream Academy tastes and prejudices. To my surprise Up In The Air seems to be falling more and more to the wayside. It really is down to Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker on the Best Picture front now. The gathering suspicion is that Kathryn Bigelow‘s film might actually win.

Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock tied last night for the BFCA’s Best Actress award.

AJ Schnack invited me to last night’s 2010 Cinema Eye Honors at the Times Center on West 41st Street, and not only that — I went! Louie Psihoyos‘ The Cove won the best feature doc award. Women who’ve refused to see The Cove so far should not let this get in the way. If they don’t want to support a film that’s trying to wake people up about some ghastly goings-on in Taiji, Japan, that’s their right. Box-office democracy!

(l.) Cove producer Paula DuPre Pressman accepting the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking award; (r.) Robinson, Schnack.

Cinema Eye director Schnack and co-host Esther Robinson (really great smile, founder/honcho of ArtHome) were the hosts.

Schnack charmed the audience (more or less) with a game of MadLibs that went on for eight or nine minutes. Schnack later tried a visual joke about fried chicken that totally bombed. I need to add that I respect Schnack’s ballsiness in trying to get a laugh out of feigned indifference to the torturing of Purdue chickens. This was the kind of error that only a confident and slightly mad host would have even attempted. Good on that.

The Cinema Eye show was projected to last 90 minutes. It went on for two hours and 20 minutes.

The technical name for the big whoa-ho award that The Cove won is “Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking.” Louie didn’t show, and neither did Fisher Stevens. The award was accepted (I think) by Paula DuPre Pressman.

The Cove also won the Outstanding Achievement in Production award. And Cove dp Brooke Aitken won for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.

October Country, directed by Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, won Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film. I’m embarassed to admit that I’d never heard of this doc until last night.

The winner of the Outstanding Achievement in Direction award went to Agnes Varda for The Beaches of Agnes. Varda didn’t show but this didn’t feel like a big issue. Varda’s substitute was very gracious. The vibe was “we be fine, everything is fine.” And there was a noisy disco-inferno party afterwards.

A.J. Schnack, Esther Robinson