Month: December 2011

Here’s hoping that Paddy Considine‘s Tyrannosaur — easily the most critically respected commercial dud of 2011, at least in the U.S. — receives some love tonight at the Moet British Independent Film Awards, which happens tonight at London’s Old Billingsgate. (Chris Dalrmple says the live stream will be on lovefilm.com) At the very least Tyranny‘s Olivia Colman needs to win for Best Actress…right?

Tyrannosaur is up for Best Film, Best Director (Considine), Best Debut Director, Best Actress (Colman), Best Actor (Peter Mullan), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Marsan) and…is that it? I heard somewhere that it was nominated for seven. Whatever.

A good movie, said Howard Hawks, is one that has “three great scenes and no bad ones.” It shouldn’t be too much to ask that a Best Picture Oscar winner should live up to this, right? A day or two ago I asked the readership to answer how the current Best Picture candidates measure up to Hawks’ law. Nobody bit so I’m trying again.

(l to. r.) Bennett Miller, Howard Hawks, Alexander Payne.

Most of us know what “great scenes” are but I’ll define them anyway. Great scenes are ones that hit a solid truth note. They’re emotionally true in whatever way, or they deliver some bedrock, put-it-in-the-bank observation about life or human behavior or just the way things are. Great scenes sink in and touch bottom without any manipulation of any kind. They just deal the cards plain and straight, and when they’re over you always say to yourself, “Wow, that’s good…that’s how people are all right.”

It’s my sincere belief that they’re isn’t a single great scene in The Artist, but maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps someone can name one or two? Just don’t say the opening movie-premiere scene with Jean Dujardin‘s bowing and prancing around and grinning at the audience because that’s just amusing set-up and exposition. Okay, the dancing finale at the end is pretty good — it’s happy, sparkling — but it doesn’t exactly push a truth button.

The Descendants, on the other hand, has several great or near-great scenes. Shailene Woodley‘s Alexandra diving underwater to let her grief out. Sid the doofus (Nick Krause) telling Clooney’s Matt King about his good points and then mentioning what happened to a family member the previous November, and Clooney silently absorbing that without talking about it. Clooney and Woodley visiting the Kaua’i vacation home of Matthew Lillard and Judy Greer (i.e., Brian and Julie Speer). Robert Forster‘s cranky granddad chewing out Clooney for not providing better for his “loyal” wife. Clooney looking at the photos of his late relatives on the wall of a family compound. Julie visiting the hospital room and letting Clooney know that she knows. Clooney and the girls watching TV at the end. That’s seven — four more than necessary.

Moneyball has a few also. I’m not saying the ones I’ve listed are great-great but they’re at least half-great and some are better than that. Brad Pitt‘s Billy Bean having his “who are you?” chat with Jonah Hill‘s Peter Brand. The Billy-introduces-Peter-to-the-scouts scene in the conference room. All of the firing-of-players scenes, but especially Brand’s firing of first-baseman Carlos Pena. All confrontation scenes between Billy and Phillip Seymour Hoffman‘s Art Howe, but especially the one when Billy explains that he can’t start Pena. Billy’s daughter (Kerris Dorsey) asking him if he’s going to get fired, and his telling her “don’t go on the internet or read newspapers or talk to people.” The bitter argument scene between Billy and Grady Fuson (Ken Medlock). The “whaddaya havin’ fun for?” scene in the locker room. The phone-trading scene with Billy and Peter and the offscreen A’s owner. The Boston conversation between Billy and Red Sox owner John Henry (Arliss Howard). That’s nine. Subtract one or two and you’ve still got a surplus.

It’s too early to get into War Horse but I’ll admit that the middle section has two very good scenes — the attack-on-Aquaba horseback charge and the Paths of Glory infantry attack followed by Joey running through the chaos of battle scene. But these are spectacle and choreography scenes, for the most part. They don’t deliver any “bedrock truths” except that war sure is threatening with all the bullets and shrapnel flying through the air and war sure is scary and upsetting to an innocent horse.

“I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction and hurt upon me and my family….the impact upon family, the impact upon you, my supporters…and the impact upon the ability to continue to raise the necessary funds to be competitive.”

“L’audace, encore de l’audace, tourjours de l’audace!” Did this become an oft-quoted French proverb because Georges Danton said it, or because Field Marshal Archibald Percival Wavell and General George Patton repeated it? I don’t know the origin of “Who dares, wins…who sweats, wins…who plans, wins” either. Nor do I have any idea who coined the phase “he who hesitates, masturbates.” But they’re all phrases to live by.

Who was the first to use the phrase “four o’clock in the morning courage”? The first time I read it was in Paul Theroux‘s The Mosquito Coast.

I guess there’s something to be said for Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo having only dropped 56% from last Friday compared to Arthur Christmas plummeting 64% and The Muppets nose-diving 77%. The lesser Hugo drop is related, I guess, to its playing in 1840 theatres compared to 3376 Arthur houses and 3440 Muppet situations. And is due to the fact, I suppose, that it’s a good 3D storybook film with a great ending.

Boxoffice.com‘s Phil Contrino says he’s thinking Hugo will make “around $50 million” at the end of the day, “but it could be less if Sherlock Holmes 2 and Alvin and the Chipmunks 3 take a much bigger chunk out of its audience. Unfortunately, opening during the holidays does not allow a film the luxury of finding its audience. There’s too much competition.”

In a certain sense this is how certain favored films in the current award season (you can guess which ones) make me feel. Not that I see myself in any sense as agitated or starved or crawling on the ground with exhaustion.

The recently arrived-upon view of several critics and columnists — including Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan, CNN’s J.D. Cargill, Coming Soon‘s Ed Douglas, Movieline‘s Stu Van Airsdale, EW‘s Dave Karger, Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, In Contention‘s Guy Lodge, The Wrap‘s Steve Pond and Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson — is that The Artist is a more likely Best Picture winner than The Descendants.

On one level I understand. They’re saying that the Motion Picture Academy is very easily impressed and a cinch to win over with “entertainment.” They’re saying that a generally pleasing silver-screen bauble and a really cute yappy dog are a hard-to-beat combination. On another level I’m appalled. Even if I believed that The Artist is the strongest Best Picture candidate I wouldn’t predict it on the Gold Derby chart. I couldn’t and wouldn’t.

So many don’t seem to understand the basic prediction equation. Several “experts” saying that they think others will support film X is a way of saying that others should support film X because others are supporting it. The Gold Derby team is aware, surely, that most people are Zeligs at heart.

Comicbookmovie.com has run a quote from legendary comic-book writer Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, From Hell, Watchmen) about Frank Miller‘s notorious quotes about the Occupy movement.

“Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years,” Moore begins. “I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time. Since I don’t have anything to do with the comics industry, I don’t have anything to do with the people in it.

“I heard about the latest outpourings regarding the Occupy movement. It’s about what I’d expect from him. It’s always seemed to me that the majority of the comics field, if you had to place them politically, you’d have to say center-right. That would be as far towards the liberal end of the spectrum as they would go. I’ve never been in any way, I don’t even know if I’m centre-left. I’ve been outspoken about that since the beginning of my career. So yes I think it would be fair to say that me and Frank Miller have diametrically opposing views upon all sorts of things, but certainly upon the Occupy movement.

“As far as I can see, the Occupy movement is just ordinary people reclaiming rights which should always have been theirs. I can’t think of any reason why as a population we should be expected to stand by and see a gross reduction in the living standards of ourselves and our kids, possibly for generations, when the people who have got us into this have been rewarded for it. They’ve certainly not been punished in any way because they’re too big to fail.

“I think that the Occupy movement is, in one sense, the public saying that they should be the ones to decide who’s too big to fail. It’s a completely justified howl of moral outrage and it seems to be handled in a very intelligent, non-violent way, which is probably another reason why Frank Miller would be less than pleased with it. I’m sure if it had been a bunch of young, sociopathic vigilantes with Batman make-up on their faces, he’d be more in favor of it. We would definitely have to agree to differ on that one.”

“I am best friends with George [Lucas] and I’m very obedient to the stories that he writes,” War Horse director Steven Spielberg says in a new Entertainment Weekly article. “I’ll fight things I don’t believe in but ultimately if George wants to bring interdimensional beings into Crystal Skull, I will do the best job I possible can to acquit George’s idea and make him proud.”

He creatively defers to a man who’s been renowned since the late ’80s as one of the worst, most hackneyed story conceptualists in movie history? The guy who created Jar-Jar Binks and built a large portion of the first Star Wars prequel around Jake Lloyd, and who later cast Hayden Christensen as Annakin Skywalker? That’s it. Game over.

Plus: Nonsensicalist Tim Queeney reports that “according to a late night phone call from a friend who is high in the Lincoln production team, Spielberg plans to ‘go with his gut’ and make some changes to the historical story of Abraham Lincoln, played in the film by Daniel Day Lewis. Most people probably won’t even notice. Here’s a quick rundown:

“Mary Todd Lincoln: Spielberg has reportedly found the Mary Todd role too ‘downbeat.’ The Todd Lincoln character was dropped and Charlize Theron has been brought in to play Swedish singer Jenny Lind, who falls in love with Lincoln in the movie. The film will show Lind and Lincoln meeting on the ramparts of Ft. Sumter as it is bombarded by Confederate forces at the start of the Civil War in 1861. Lincoln will save Lind by swinging from the fort’s flagpole onto a waiting Union Navy aircraft carrier. Tom Cruise has a uncredited cameo as a fighter pilot who covers Lincoln and Lind’s escape by napalming Rebel batteries at Ft. Moultrie.

“Siege of Petersburg: Spielberg feels a siege with ‘a lot of extras standing around in trenches’ is not cinematic so he has re-imagined the siege as a sunset railroad chase in which Gen. U.S. Grant (played by Sam Worthington) pursues Gen. Robert E. Lee (Chris Hemsworth) in an attempt to win back a magic whiskey bottle, with both generals on handcars crossing rickety trestles and transiting tunnels with lots of steam and improbable light sources.

“Ford’s Theater: Test audiences found the Ford’s Theater assassination ‘a bit dry’ and didn’t like John Wilkes Booth’s use of Latin, so Spielberg shot a new ending with a duel and a lavish musical number. First, Lincoln and Booth square off in a lengthy bare-chested sword fight across the rooftops and bridges of Washington. After Lincoln dispatches Booth, Lincoln and Lind ride chariots down Fifth Avenue in New York City during a ticker tape parade, singing Neil Young‘s ‘Southern Man’ and ending at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as Tom Cruise and a squadron of F/A-18 Super Hornets does a low-level flyover.”

Bill McKinney, who died yesterday at age 80, was a hard-working, well-liked character actor whom many remember for his supporting roles in several Clint Eastwood films of the ’70s and ’80s — Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Gauntlet, Pink Cadillac, etc. But let’s face it — McKinney’s biggest claim to fame is for playing the hilllbilly rapist in Deliverance (’72), more specifically as the guy who sodomized Ned Beatty in the woods while going “wheeeee!”

Bill McKinney (1931 – 2011)

I mean, I’m sorry to put it crudely (if that’s what I’ve done) but that is what McKinney is famous for. I would add that McKinney’s “wheeee!” probably inspired tens of thousands of straight men and women in the ’70s to mimic his “wheeeee!” during lovemaking. I know it caught on to some degree. I myself was with two women who goaded me into this and thought it was kind of kinky-funny. On separate occasions, I mean.

McKenny also had semi-distinctive roles in The Parallax View, Junior Bonner, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, The Shootist, First Blood, Against All Odds, Heart Like a Wheel and The Green Mile. His Wiki bio says he “took up singing in the late 1990s, eventually releasing an album of standards and country & western songs appropriately titled Love Songs from Antri.”

McKinney succumbed to cancer. Condolences to his family and friends.

Yesterday afternoon I saw Angelina Jolie‘s In The Land of Blood and Honey, and liked it a lot. I asked for permission to say a little something and was told nope, the embargo holds…fine. This morning I saw David Fincher‘s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I liked that too. But I can’t write about it until 12.13. And now I’m sitting in a food court and not arguing with anyone about seating. All is well. Just saying.