Month: November 2011

FBI agent Gregg Schwarz‘s belief that former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was utterly straight “is based on the notion that Hoover condemned extra-marital affairs and anyone who was homosexual was considered a “security risk,” writes Time‘s Melissa Locker.

Neither Clint Eastwood nor Dustin Lance Black “were told there was no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Hoover was homosexual,” Schwarz says in the video. “They took the historical facts, twisted them to their own personal agenda, which is purely profit and sensationalism, and now it ls out there…for you to evaluate. It’s a smear campaign.”

Schwarz to Eastwood: “You’re no Jerry Bruckheimer.” Insult?

“For Schwarz, there is no way a man who condemns homosexuality could possibly be gay,” Locker writes. “Apparently he has chosen to ignore the many former Congressmen and religious leaders who put the lie to that belief, and is also completely unaware of the human capacity to protest too much.”

I’m as good as the next guy at spotting the likely hot tickets at an upcoming Sundance festival, but I’m effing brilliant at missing at least one or two of these films when I actually hit the festival and try to cover it. Old story. Let’s just focus for now on the Sundance 2012 competition films that have that certain “yeah, this might be something” factor. Here’s the whole kit ‘n’ kaboodle so far.

U.S. Dramatic Competition (6 picks):

The First Time (Director/screenwriter: Jonathan Kasdan) — Two high schoolers meet at a party, discover what it’s like to fall in love for the first time, etc. Original! If Jon (son of Lawrence) is anything like his brother Jake Kasdan (Bad Teacher), this might be hellish. But a little voice is telling me he’s different…maybe. Cast: Brittany Robertson, Dylan O’Brien, Craig Roberts, James Frecheville, Victoria Justice.

For Ellen (Director/ screenwriter: So Yong Kim) — Beware of any child-custody-battle drama…unless Paul Dano is starring. Then it’s probably okay. Cast: Dano, Jon Heder, Jena Malone, Margarita Levieva, Shay Mandigo.

Hello I Must Be Going (Director: Todd Louiso / Screenwriter: Sarah Koskoff) — Divorced, childless, demoralized and condemned to move back in with her parents at the age of 35, Amy Minsky’s prospects look bleak…until the unexpected attention of a teenage boy changes everything. Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Blythe Danner, Christopher Abbott, John Rubinstein, Julie White.

Nobody Walks (Director: Ry Russo-Young / Screenwriters: Lena Dunham, Ry Russo-Young) — Martine, a young artist from New York, is invited into the home of a hip, liberal LA family for a week. Her presence unravels the family’s carefully maintained status quo, and a mess of sexual and emotional entanglements ensues. Cast: John Krasinski, Olivia Thirlby, Rosemarie DeWitt, India Ennenga, Justin Kirk.

Save the Date (Director: Michael Mohan / Screenwriters: Jeffrey Brown, Egan Reich, Michael Mohan) — As her sister Beth prepares to get married, Sarah finds herself caught up in an intense post-breakup rebound. The two fumble through the redefined emotional landscape of modern day relationships, forced to relearn how to love and be loved. Cast: Lizzy Caplan, Alison Brie, Martin Starr, Geoffrey Arend, Mark Webber.

Simon Killer (Director/screenwriter: Antonio Campos) — A recent college graduate goes to Paris after breaking up with his girlfriend of 5 years. Once there, he falls in love with a young prostitute and their fateful journey begins. Cast: Brady Corbet, Mati Diop, Constance Rousseau, Michael Abiteboul, Solo.

U.S. Documentary Competition (3 picks):

The House I Live In (Director: Eugene Jarecki) — For over 40 years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world’s largest jailer and damaged poor communities at home and abroad. Yet, drugs are cheaper, purer and more available today than ever. Where did we go wrong and what is the path toward healing?

The Invisible War (Director: Kirby Dick) — An investigative and powerfully emotional examination of the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the U.S. military, the institutions that cover up its existence and the profound personal and social consequences that arise from it.

ME at the ZOO (Directors: Chris Moukarbel, Valerie Veatch) — With 270 million hits to date, Chris Crocker, an uncanny young video blogger from small town Tennessee, is considered the Internet’s first rebel folk hero and at the same time one of its most controversial personalities.

World Cinema Dramatic Competition (5 picks):

L (Director: Babis Makridis / Screenwriters: Efthymis Filippou, Babis Makridis) — A man who lives in his car gets caught up in the undeclared war between motorcycle riders and car drivers. Cast: Aris Servetalis, Makis Papadimitriou, Lefteris Mathaios, Nota Tserniafski, Stavros Raptis.

My Brother the Devil (Director/screenwriter: Sally El Hosaini) — A pair of British Arab brothers trying to get by in gangland London learn the extraordinary courage it takes to be yourself. Cast: James Floyd, Sa√Ød Taghmaoui, Fady Elsayed.

Wish You Were Here (Director: Kieran Darcy-Smith / Screenwriters: Felicity Price, Kieran Darcy-Smith) — Four friends embark on a carefree holiday, but only three return home. Who knows what happened on that fateful night? Cast: Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, Felicity Price, Antony Starr.

Wrong (Directo/screenwriter: Quentin Dupieux) — Dolph searches for his lost dog, but through encounters with a nympho pizza-delivery girl, a jogging neighbor seeking the absolute, and a mysterious righter of wrongs, he may eventually lose his mind… and his identity. Cast: Jack Plotnick, Eric Judor, Alexis Dziena, Steve Little, William Fichtner.

Young & Wild (Director: Marialy Rivas / Screenwriters: Marialy Rivas, Camila Guti√©rrez, Pedro Peirano) — 17-year-old Daniela, raised in the bosom of a strict Evangelical family and recently unmasked as a fornicator by her shocked parents, struggles to find her own path to spiritual harmony. Cast: Alicia Rodr√≠guez, Aline Kuppenheim, Mar√≠a Gracia Omegna, Felipe Pinto.

Best HE Comment So Far: “You know, I like all sorts of cinema, but it feels more and more with every passing year there’s increasingly become a ‘Sundance template’ for the kind of movies Redford and Co. choose to showcase at this festival.

“Long gone are the days of an El Mariachi, Reservoir Dogs, or especially a sex, lies, and videotape — of which only the VHS aspect feels dated in this incredibly fresh-feeling flick that’s now over 20 (!) years old — debuting at Park City.

“I’ve never been, so it’s probably bullshit of me to assume this, but doesn’t every Sundance film kinda feel like Tiny Furniture?”

A Richmond-residing government guy named Michael Phillips took this snap of Daniel Day Lewis at the Arcadia restaurant, and Richmond.com posted it earlier today. On 11.28 Variety‘s Jeff Sneider tweeted a report that he “hasn’t broken his Lincoln accent since March” and his “real name doesn’t even appear on the call sheet.” (First glimpse via Movieline.)

Lewis will take the 2012 Best Actor Oscar, Meryl Streep (who might well lose out this year Michelle Williams or Viola Davis) will take Best Actress for August: Osage County, but Steven Spielberg will probably over-lather Lincoln in some way, shape or form, and therefore jeopardize its Best Picture chances. Unless he manages to find within himself another surge of Schinder’s List-type discipline and austerity. Yeah, that could happen.

What’s with the attention given to all these friggin’ animals in this year’s awards race? What does it say about us, the audience, that so many sharp, accomplished people are saying “I like The Artist a lot but I really love that dog” and “boy, that horse sure can act up a storm in War Horse!” and “whadja think of that goose in War Horse…whuck-whuck!” What would the late Michael O’Donoghue say?

(l.) Uggie the wonder-dog, costar…let’s just call him the star of The Artist; (r.) One of the biggest-selling National Lampoon covers ever, or so I’ve read.

We’re only talking about two movies so it’s hardly a trend, but I guess I’m a little thrown by Stu Van Airsdale‘s Movieline campaign to get some awards recognition for Uggie, the 8 year-old Jack Russell terrier who costars in (and pretty much flat-out steals) The Artist. I’m especially amazed by the enthusiastic support for Stu’s campaign by N.Y. Times “Carpetbagger” Melena Ryzik.

This is what some of us are talking about as the year draws to a close and the best films are being examined and debated?

Melting down and making a fuss over a cute dog or an emotionally constant horse is the most basic emotional default in the human behavior book. And to me dog and horse talk during award season just feels low and common and…I don’t know, trailer-parky. And it indicates that there’s not a lot of passion out there about the November-December films, let’s face it.

What else could it mean when Van Airsdale writes that Uggie “delivers as nuanced a performance as either leading man Jean Dujardin or leading lady Berenice Bejo“? Van Airsdale isn’t writing for The Onion so he’s being at least half-serious. He’s surely aware that Dujardin placed second (right behind Brad Pitt) in yesterday’s NYFCC balloting for Best Actor and so he’s basically saying if Uggie had been in the running, Dujardin might have been…what, out-pointed?

And what about his saying that “from his connection to his master to his lingering close-ups and beyond, Uggie is director Michel Hazanavicius‘s purest model of physical expression”? Shorter Van Airsdale: “The Artist is pandering to the lowest emotional common denominator.” Doesn’t that “purest model” quote more or less imply that the popularity of The Artist is simplifying and thereby lowering the typically crackling award-season atmosphere? Uggie is making people go dippy, and this kind of thing hasn’t colored an end-of-the-year discussion since…E.T.?

Newsflash: Dogs have always been cute/endearing/lovable (they can’t help it) and have been giving cute performances in movies for many, many years. In the mid to late 30s Hollywood had Skippy, a wire-haired Fox terrier who starred as “Asta” in the first two Thin Man films, “Mr. Smith” in The Awful Truth and “George” in Bringing Up Baby.

With The Artist having taken yesterday’s New York Film Critics Circle Best Picture prize, there will be a natural tendency for critics groups around the country to regard this Weinstein Co. release as a safe and likable default choice for Best Picture in their own balloting. Plus any critic voting for an entertaining black-and-white silent film is sending a message to colleagues, editors and especially readers that he/she is willing to embrace the novel or unusual, which indicates a certain integrity.

Most Joe Schmoe readers are going to say “what?” at first. And the critic will be able to say, “Yes, a black-and-white film without dialogue….which you should really see! It’s fun! Trust me!” And they should. The Artist is a special film and a very nice ride. But the critics need to take two steps back and think things over. Please. I’m begging them.

The Movie Godz are just as concerned and nervous as I am, trust me, that over the next two or three weeks other critics groups are going to tumble for The Artist like dominoes. Please tell me this won’t happen and that we’ll be seeing some kind of mixed awards salad out there — a little love for Moneyball (which produced, remember, yesterday’s Best Screenplay and Best Actor winners), a sprinkling of Artist bits, a few Descendants olives, a little Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close vinaigrette, etc. Spread it around, be brave.

I understand how celebrating a film that mimics how movies looked and felt in the 1920s is a way of saying that you respect classic cinema and Hollywood’s history, blah blah. And by doing so critics will get to lead at least some of their readers into the past, and seem wise and gracious in the bargain, and all the while supporting a film that’s mainly about glisten and glitter and decades-old cliches.

Have The Artist supporters within the NYFCC given any thought to what it actually meant to choose this film as the best of the year? It presumably meant that they feel it amounts to more than just a sum of delightful silver-screen parts. It means that in their estimation The Artist delivers something in the way of mood or narrative or meaning or style that really got them, Kinks-style. In a truly profound, bone-marrow, deep-soul way, I mean. More than Hugo or The Descendants or Moneyball or whatever…right?

The NYFCC obviously rejected this notion in choosing The Artist. They said “look, whatever…there’s nothing really lifting us up this year so let’s choose something we really like, at least.” Terrific, guys. It must have taken a lot of character and conviction to hand out your prestigious Best Picture award to the shiniest bauble. The Artist is basically a 2011 version of That’s Entertainment! in a silent, black-and-white mode with a narrative assist from A Star Is Born and Sunset Boulevard.

Yesterday afternoon NY Post film critic/blogger Lou Lumenick explained how the New York Film Critics Circle balloting (and its “arcane weighted system”) actually went down. And guess what? Melancholia was dead even with The Artist, the Best Picture winner, in the first round, and its director, Lars Von Trier, was just a notch behind Artist helmer Michel Haznavicius in the initial Best Director balloting,

“The Artist was tied with Melancholia (27 points each) for Best Picture,” Lumenick reports, “followed by Hugo with 16 points. The Artist finally won on the third ballot with 44 points.

Lumenick’s favorite film of the year, The Descendants, “never managed to amass more than 17 points in any round.” And what about Moneyball?

I would have agreed with the NYFCC if Melancholia had won — it’s a moody in-and-outer with a highly charged opening and finale — but I would have at least respected it. I was speaking last night with a few L.A. columnists/bloggers at an after-event for Valerie Donzelli‘s War Is Declared, and I didn’t hear anyone say that giving the Best Picture prize to The Artist was absolutely justified and right-on. Most seemed surprised and dismayed. I was appalled.

The Best Director balloting also required three rounds to determine a winner. The Artist‘s Haznavicius “finally won with 47 points to 39 for Hugo‘s Martin Scorsese and 35 for Von Trier. “In the first round, it was Haznavicius, 24; Von Trier, 22 and The Tree of Life‘s Terrence Malick 21,” Lumenick writes. “And in the second ballot, a single point separated Haznavicius (33), Scorsese (32) and Von Trier (31).

“Meryl Streep wired the field on the first and only Best Actress ballot with 38 points to 24 for Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) and 23 for Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia).

On the initial Best Actor ballot Moneyball‘s Brad Pitt had 24 points, The Artist‘s Jean Dujardin 23 and Shame/Dangerous Method‘s Michael Fassbender 18. But

Pitt surged in the second ballot (42 points), handily dispatching Fassbender (27) and Dujardin (26).

Drive‘s Albert Brooks “won on the second ballot with 43 points to 36 for Beginners‘ Christopher Plummer and 18 for A Dangerous Method‘s Viggo Mortensen….what? Mortensen was fine as Sigmund Freud but he mainly just sat there with a lit cigar and a stern expression and went “hmmm…I see.”

Take Shelter/Tree of Life/The Help‘s Jessica Chastain “had to go three rounds before her 33 points topped the 27 for Shame‘s Carey Mulligan and 26 for Coriolanus‘s Vanessa Redgrave.”

From novelist Bret Easton Ellis: (a) “Steve McQueen‘s Shame would have been so much more disturbing if Brandon (Michael Fassbender) had actually enjoyed the sex”; (b) “Watching Shame I just kept thinking about the Woody Allen joke in Annie Hall: the experience of empty sex being better than no sex at all.” That line about “my worst orgasm was right on the money”? That’s from Manhattan.

Sometime yesterday Nerve‘s Jett Wells explained why Drive won’t be nominated or awarded, and then got a decent-sized shout-out from Movieline‘s Jen Yamato.

I thought I’d write you regarding Tyrannosaur since you’re such a supporter of the film,” a publicist friend just wrote. “I’ve learned that this Thursday is the last day it’ll play in NY and LA. In NY it moved over from the Angelika to Village East after the first week where it is now playing only one screening a day, at 11am. And it has two daily matinee showtimes at the Sunset 5 thru Thursday. I’m told that the film won’t be playing at all in NY/LA after Thursday.

“I found this surprising/disappointing and wanted to share the news in case you want to encourage folks to try to catch the final two days in NY/LA.”

When people don’t wanna see something, you can’t stop them. I’ll be remembering this film and those astonishing performances by Olivia Colman and Peter Mullan for the rest of my life, but the amount of coin Tyrannosaur has made since it opened on 11.18 has been almost laughable. Nobody wants to see it. People can smell a tough one a mile away. No juice, no sex, no mad humor, no violent payoff, no wow moments, no thrills.

Director Paddy Considine didn’t have the slightest interest in reaching Joe Popcorn when he wrote and directed Tyrannosaur. His attitude was “Joe, I can help you expand your filmgoing vistas and maybe open you up a bit as a person if you’re willing to sit through my film, which is a bit hard at times but rewarding.” Joe Popcorn has spoken.

A special pleasure often results when high-aspiration filmmakers sink into the commonality of genre. Those who’ve made their bones doing ambitious, high-reaching dramas or super-cool high-style pieces…whose natural inclination is to crank out critical favorites or award-winners or arty-farties for their own sake…when the elites sink below their station, it’s always a huge kick.

The upshot is that the best kind of popcorn genre films are usually those made by those who don’t live in the neighborhood, so to speak, and are demanding high achievers.

“Meh” reactions ricochet when Jason Statham, say, makes an action film with some journeyman director, but the crowd always salutes when Michael Mann directs Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx in an actioner like Collateral.

The artfully inclined, Oscar-winning Steven Soderbergh directing Haywire, a kick-boxing martial arts film that’s basically about a tough girl kicking male butt, resulted in a beautiful, lean-and-mean high. But more or less the same thing was attempted in Columbiana, a female-hero actioner with Zoe Saldana and directed by Olivier Megaton, and it was crap.

One of the best futuristic apocalypse dramas with three of the best action sequences seen in many years, Children of Men, was made by Alfonso Cuaron, a guy who doesn’t exactly rub shoulders with Michael Bay and Tony Scott and James Cameron, and whose best film before Men was Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Francis Coppola was always a hired gun, but in the late ’60s he had it in him and was apparently inclined to favor sensitive meditative dramas like The Rain People, and then five years later The Conversation. But when he was hired to direct The Godfather in ’71, he was obliged to shoot a pulp novel about primal forces and primitive plot twists, and it became his best film ever.

For me, the most satisfying movie from Germany’s meditative, solemn-mannered Wim Wenders was when he stepped down into a genre piece about corruption and contract killings and noirish ennui called The American Friend.

If Bela Tarr was to make a cop drama and was forced by his producers to pick up the pace a bit, something exceptional might result.

Disaster films were all the rage in the early to mid ’70s, and they were all fairly cheesy and obvious and mostly a slog to sit through. And then along came the gifted Richard Lester with Juggernaut, a drama about bombs aboard a luxury liner, and suddenly there was a disaster film that was pretty damn good.

You know who needs to direct a nice sleazy genre film? The Descendants‘ Alexander Payne or Moneyball‘s Bennett Miller. With the right material the results might be astounding.

It can be a perfectly natural thing or an extremely clunky thing when a character in a film says the title…when he/she just spits it out. There’s a moment in Steven Spielberg‘s War Horse when a soldier standing next to Joey and discussing him with another soldier actually calls him a “war horse.” Right away that struck me as odd. Why did he have to actually say it? Couldn’t Spielberg have left well enough alone?

It felt the same to me as if Clint Eastwood‘s Unforgiven character had said to Morgan Freeman‘s, “You and me, we’re unforgiven…by most people, I reckon, and by the Lord, for sure.”

It felt the same to me as if Joe Pesci‘s character in Raging Bull had said to his prizefighter brother, “Jesus, Jake…you’re a real raging bull, you know that, ya fuck?” (An anonymous sports announcer saying this nickname in the film is okay because it was a very common term after Jake La Motta became famous.)

It’s always better to not have anyone say or repeat any kind of metaphorical or alliterative description of a character or situation. It would have been overkill, for example, in Arthur Penn‘s The Left-Handed Gun if someone had literally called Paul Newman‘s Billy the Kid “a left handed gun.”

A character saying a name (Spartacus, Bullitt, Dr. No, Patton, Beetlejuice) is never a problem and is pretty much unavoidable. And neither is saying a locale (or an alliterative description of a locale like Sea of Grass or The Big Country) an issue of any kind. But sometimes an explicit description of a location or its whereabouts is verboten. What if someone had said to Cary Grant during the first or second act of North by Northwest that Mount Rushmore “is in a north by northwesterly direction from here”?

It’s actually kind of neat when Some Like It Hot‘s Tony Curtis says to Marilyn Monroe, “Well, some like it hot but I prefer classical.” And it’s intriguing when Anthony Hopkins‘ Hannibal Lecter alludes to The Silence of the Lambs without actually saying those exact words. (The closest he comes is when he talks about “that awful screaming of the lambs”).

It’s fine and sufficient in in The Americanization of Emily when Julie Andrews says “don’t try to Americanize me, Charlie” to James Garner. But if James Coburn had said to Garner that “you’re doing an excellent job with your Americanization of Emily campaign,” it would have been chalk on a blackboard

If anyone in Point Blank had said to Lee Marvin‘s Walker that “you’re too rough and rude, Walker…you’re too point blank” or “if you don’t watch your step someone’s gonna nail you point blank,” audiences would have cringed.

Here’s an even more general rule — if at all possible, don’t ever have any character say the title of a film in a film. Just don’t do it. Simple.

“I would love to do a musical,” Steven Spielberg said last weekend during a War Horse q & a in Manhattan. “I would love that. I would have to find the right book, the right story, but some day I’m going to make one. I would really like to go off and direct a musical. That’s what I would really like to do when I grow up.”

Does anyone have a suggestions along these lines? What unshot musical plays or potential remakes of old movie musicals would be a good match for Spielberg?

I have one. Spielberg should make a present-day musical based on Carousel but set in suburbia. Update the milieu in the same way that Romeo and Juliet‘s Verona was transformed into the slum nabes of Manhattan’s Upper West Side in the 1950s.

Key question: Does Spielberg have the character and cojones to deal with a nihilstic, dark-souled character like Billy Bigelow? Has he ever dealt with such a fellow? There’s your answer. (And don’t bring up Leonardo DiCaprio‘s rakishly charming impersonator in Catch Me If You Can.)

Side pocket #1: “You can’t start a movie having the attitude that the script is fined,” Spielberg said on another jag. “To me a movie is fluid…a living organism. A movie script is a living, breathing organism, and it must change, as we change, daily. War Horse probably went through about 25 revisions.”

Side pocket #2: I totally understand and agree with Spielberg’s wide lens comment . “I just shot with wide lenses and that’s not something that’s shot today,” he said. “And some people who see War Horse think it looks old fashioned because I shot it the way a lot of the directors from the ’30s and ’40s shot their movies: by giving the audience the respect of being editors.”