Month: September 2012

In Contention‘s Kris Tapley has posted a Best Picture rankings rundown. I guess my only question is what exactly has Tapley seen, read, heard or been told that led him to include Promised Land among his top five “Good Bets” alongside Lincoln, Argo, Les Miserables and The Silver Livings Playbook?

Directed by Gus Van Sant (who stepped in when the original director, star and cowriter Matt Damon, had to back out) and cowritten by Damon and costar John Krasinski, Promised Land looks like a boilerplate, standard-issue moral awakening drama about a fracking guy (Damon) — a representative of a natural gas company that wants to exploit a small town’s resources — having second thoughts after considering the human and ecological cost, etc. It might be a lot better than this and here’s hoping, but how did Tapley calculate that it’s a top-fiver?

You want my opinions?

Les Miserables is almost certainly a top contender and…honestly? I really hate to say this but in terms of peception and expectation and hot air it’s probably the front-runner right now. But I hate the mindset that says (a) if a movie delivers pain and anguish and period costumes and angst and big emotion and stand-out performances, it’s Best Picture material but (b) if it’s fleet and sharp and touching and schizzy in a one-on-one, crazy-personal-relationship, present-tense vein like The Silver Linings Playbook, it’s a commercial diversion and a made-for-TVer. Eff that!

Lincoln is not a top-fiver any more. It’ll probably become a big acting score for Daniel Day Lewis, but at best the film itself belongs in Tapley’s “Other Possibilities” category. Why? Ask Guido Bazin.

Ben Affleck‘s Argo is a top contender because so many people consider it a top contender. I happen to think it’s an engaging, well-made caper film that lacks the gravitas and undercurrent of a Best Picture contender. And I say that with respect because I liked it and gave it a thumbs up as far as it went.

Tapley’s Other Possibilities include The Master (should be a nominee in my book, but a lot of older people are going to say “what was that thing actually about?” and not vote for it), Life of Pi (opinions will begin to circulate tomorrow night), Amour (superb, penetrating, very brave film but a very tough sit if you’ve watched a parent die and arguably sadistic in a certain sense — it’s safer to call it a Best Foreign Language winner), Beasts of the Southern Wild (deserves to be nominated), Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino doesn’t make Oscar movies because he puts quote marks around everything he writes and shoots — if you want an Oscar you have to man up, plant your feet, look the audience in the eye and tell the truth).

Tapley’s “Dark Horses” include The Impossible (admirable in many respects but doesn’t deliver where it counts), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (never saw it), Flight (look out for this puppy, certainly in terms of a Best Actor nomination for Denzel Washginton), Anna Karenina (one of the most brilliant and exhilarating period dramas I’ve seen in years…top of the mountain) and Hitchcock (likely to be middling, so-so, good-enough film — if anything the stand-out awards attention will be for Anthony Hopkins‘ lead performance).

Tapley’s “Rest Of The Field” titles are Zero Dark Thirty (this is in my top five in terms of faith in Biggy-Boal and general expecations), Moonrise Kingdom (good film, first-rate director but not distinctive or scopey enough to be a Best Picture contender), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (possibly nominatable if WB hadn’t turned tail on the 48 fps format — now it’s chiefly known as the 48 fps turn-tail movie), Skyfall (a Bond movie for Best Picture?), Not Fade Away (not likely but we’ll see), Cloud Atlas (forget it), The Dark Knight Rises (a brilliant, rousing, balls-to-the-wall knockout — first-rate, deserves a nomination, “just say no to Colorado massacre” vote), Trouble with the Curve (nice film but not a chance), The Perks of Being a Wallflower (haven’t seen it), Quartet (haven’t seen it), The Sessions (Hawkes and Hunt acting noms only), Rust & Bone (Marion Cottilard for Best Actress and that’s all), The Avengers (what is that, a sick joke?), Killing Them Softly (interesting, well-acted film but not good enough to be a Best Picture contender…sorry) and Arbitrage (likely Richard Gere nomination for Best Actor),

Andy Williams, the mild-mannered, hugely popular crooner who sang “Moon River” and toplined “The Andy Williams Show” from 1962 to ’71, has died of bladder cancer at age 84. Williams was a nice guy with an easy smile and a smooth voice that was a stylistic cousin of Steve Lawrence, Vic Damone and Perry Como‘s. He was friendly with Bobby Kennedy in the ’60s and supported George McGovern in ’72. But he later turned into a rightie who claimed Barack Obama was “following Marxist theory.”

(l.) the late Andy Williams; (r.) Lauren Bacall.

I always found “Moon River” to be a little too smooth and dreamy and older-person schmaltzy. My favorite Williams tune by far is “Can’t Get Used To Losing You.” I don’t know what the precise term is for the syncopation of that tune (violins and guitars going “bluhk” and then “bluhk-bluhk”) but that’s what made that song — the spare, plucky, off-rhythm of it.

Most online authorities and showbiz biographers (including “Bogart” author Ann Sperber) have claimed that the urban legend about a 17-year-old Williams having dubbed Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (’44) is untrue. I misheard that rumor and always thought Williams had dubbed Bacall for the performing of “And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine” in The Big Sleep. But here’s an mp3 of Williams himself explaining that yes, it’s true…at least as far as To Have and Have Not was concerned. The song he dubbed was called “How Little We Know.”

Here’s a passage from Williams’ Wiki bio:

“Williams was close friends with Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, campaigning for Kennedy ’68 for President. Williams was among the celebrities who were present at the Ambassador Hotel on the night Sirhan Sirhan shot and mortally wounded RFK in June 1968. Williams solemnly sang ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ at RFK’s funeral, by request of widow Ethel. By August 1969, over a year after Bobby Kennedy’s death, Andy and wife Claudine Longet named their newborn son ‘Bobby’ Williams. The Williams’ friendship with Ethel Kennedy endured, with Williams even serving as escort to Ethel, during events in the 1970s. He also raised funds for George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, performing at benefit concerts.

“While close friends with the Democratic Kennedys, Williams was a lifelong Republican. On September 29, 2009, he was quoted by the Daily Telegraph as accusing President Barack Obama of “following Marxist theory” and “wanting the country to fail“. He gave Rush Limbaugh permission to use his recording of the song ‘Born Free’ for the theme to the ‘Animal Rights Update’ on Limbaugh’s radio show — in which a portion of the song is then followed by gunfire — saying “Hey, it’s fine with me. I love what you’re doing with it.” The record company later blocked Limbaugh’s use of the recording.”

I knew that too many garlands and rose petals had been thrown at The Silver Linings Playbook in Toronto, and that the second wave of viewers would be less enthused. I just saw Silver Linings again this evening to see if this would happen, and it did. A couple of friends sat near me, and one sat there like a piece of granite and the other chuckled from time to time but as the lights came up said “it’s a really good film but no way it wins Best Picture.” “Who said that?” I snapped. “Nobody in Toronto said it would win. Everybody said it’s a likely nominee.”

These guys were so fucking snide and dismissive that I began to get angry. We were arguing in an underground parking lot. I started raising my voice and using expletives. They didn’t have to agree with me, of course, but they suggested that another contender (I won’t name it but it wasn’t Les Miserables) is a more likely Best Picture winner, and I began to lose it when I heard this. One actually described Silver Linings as a “made for TV movie.” Another compared it to Herbert Ross‘s The Goodbye Girl. I became doubly enraged at that. I mean, that’s a seriously thick thing to say.

On the other hand they’re both convinced that Jennifer Lawrence will not only be nominated for Best Actress but will probably win, and they also both feel that Robert DeNiro‘s performance is a likley Best Supporting Actor nominee. But their attitude really pissed me off. They were smirking and chuckling and being snide, and saying it got too formulaic at the end. (After all the hyper introspection and the jazzy anxiety, I welcomed true, settled-down feelings and a happy ending at the end of Act Three.) One actually said, “Jesus Christ, why didn’t they just cast Valerie Bertinelli and Tony Danza in this flick and put it on Lifetime?”

Unfuckingbelievable. But it’s my fault, I guess. Me and everyone else who creamed over this film in Toronto, I mean.

A parent and a grown son get to know each other on a road trip and come to some kind of fulfillment or climax or finality for one or both. Is it okay if I state an upfront preference for Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska, a black-and-white road film (Montana to Nebraska) with Bruce Dern as a cranky dad and Will Forte as his son with Stacey Keach and Bob Odenkirk costarring?

I hereby and henceforth refuse to run any stills from Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah. The snakes and a single alligator photo that others are running today is ridiculous. (“Find me a thousand snakes!”) It’s clear that Aronofsky and Matty Libatique are going off in all kinds of anything-goes Hobbit-y storybook directions, and that, for me, is the stuff of instant boredom. I’m sorry but I’m off the boat (and I’m a longtime Aronofsky fan). A big “no” to Noah.

I wouldn’t watch this movie with a gun at my back and a knife at my throat. It’s allegedly half-decent or better than that, but the reason it was made is because the American landscape is swarming with tens of millions of teenage Jabbas right now, and an idea has developed among sensitive filmmakers that fat kids are a downtrodden class, unfairly mocked and pushed around, and that they need special hugs and unqualified acceptance.

There’s only one effective response to morbidly obese kids, and that’s to go all R. Lee Ermey on their ass. Don’t hug them and pat them on the back and tell them they’re okay. Tell them to start working out and eating right or prepare for a miserable life and an early death. Because that’s the truth of it.

Toy Story 3 fans will recall the climactic scene when the toys are about to fall into the incinerator. Some guy named Justin Wallin turned to Final Cut Pro, made this scene the last shot in the film and showed it to his worldly mom, who was shocked and appalled. (What are the odds she’s an undecided voter?) I would have been worshipping Toy Story 3 on my knees if John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich and Michael Arndt had gone with this ending.

People who are putting down Joe Wright‘s Anna Karenina for being stylistically outside the box and therefore not approval-worthy are pedestrian-minded philistines. They’re saying “whoa, this is different and audacious and so it sucks!” There’s no lamer response to artistic experimentation than this. These people need more than scolding, I’m afraid. They need to be taken outside, bent over the woodpile and — no offense — spanked.

At least MCN’s David Poland gets it: “I am not, generally, a Joe Wright fan,” he wrote yesterday. “I think he’s gotten some nice performances from actors in the past, but has lost me on efforts at big style. Here, it’s big style from start to finish and I bought into it. Not everyone will. But I think there are enough people who will be pleased that it could well find a Best Picture slot at year’s end.” Thank you!

Los Angeles is a great town to write this column from except for the time zone. Pacific people are the last to wake up to anything. LA at 6:30 am means the night before in Sydney, 9:30 am in New York, 2:30 pm in London and 3:30 pm in Paris/Berlin/Rome/Prague. You’re always the last to read and respond unless you bang stuff out between 11 pm and 1 am, which is somewhat easier, I’m happy to say, since I stopped drinking.

I wrote the following on 1.25.11 after catching Jacob Aron Estes‘ The Details at Sundance: “[The film] is about things going badly for a Seattle-residing doctor and family man (Tobey Maguire), in part due to his own poor decisions but also because of horrible pre-ordained luck — fate or God or some overpowering force simply being against him.

“A similar theme drove the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man — God doesn’t care, and He might even be messing with you because He’s a perverse mofo possessed of a sick sense of humor.

“Cosmic disfavor or annoyance is clearly indicated in the very first scene. Maguire is shown sitting alone in front of an office building when all of a sudden a large piano falls from above, flattening him. We all know what it means when anything falls from the sky in a movie (like the frogs in Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Magnolia) — i.e., someone up there is in a bad or perverse mood or is in some way displeased.

“So during this morning’s q & a I asked Estes if he could express what his film is saying theologically, in 25 words or less. He said that God isn’t really in his film and that we all create our fate or destiny with our choices and our character. That struck me as blatantly dishonest given his use of the falling piano, but maybe I’m being too strict about this.”

Boilerplate synopsis: After ten years of marriage, Jeff and Nealy Lang (Maguire, Elizabeth Banks) have an idyllic suburban home…and a relationship on the skids. But, when a family of hungry raccoons ransacks their perfectly manicured backyard, Jeff becomes single-mindedly obsessed with eradicating the pests by any means necessary.

“Soon the relentless rodents aren’t merely uprooting the lawn, but also overturning the Langs’ entire bourgeois existence, as the man-versus-beast battle leads into an absurd mess of infidelity, extortion, organ donation and other assorted mayhem. Devilish throughout, The Details also stars Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert and Kerry Washington.

The Details will be available on VOD on 10.5.12 and in theaters on 11.2.12.

Directed and Writtten by: Jacob Aaron Estes

Starring: Tobey Maquire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert and Kerry Washington

This goal of this post is to marginally discredit the aspect-ratio theology of Bob Furmanek, who is (a) one of the leading advocates for the 1.85-ing of films shot and/or released starting in April or May of 1953 and (b) is perhaps chiefly responsible for persuading the powers-that-be to present the forthcoming Blurays of Warner Bros. Dial M for Murder and Sony’s On The Waterfront with a 1.85 aspect ratio.

The 185-ing of Dial M and Waterfront is an interesting variation if you want to be comme ci comme ca about it, but a major aesthetic tragedy in the view of light, air and space advocates like myself.

Notice the 1.37 compositions in the above mini-summary of Them! (Warner Bros., 6.19.54). They are clearly meant for projection at 1.37, or at the very least 1.66 if you’re insisting on a widescreen simulation. But definitely not 1.85. The Warner Bros. film was shot in the fall of 1953, or a good four or five months after most of the big studios had decided to abandon 1.37 aspect ratios in favor of 1.85. But Warner Bros., which opened Dial M for Murder on 5.29.54 in first-run ttheatres in 1.85., didn’t open Them! with 1.85 but in 1.37. Just as anyone with a mind to could have.

Here’s an excerpt from Them!‘s Wiki page:

“When Them! began production in the fall of 1953, it was originally conceived to be in 3-D and WarnerColor. During pre-production, tests were to be shot in color and 3-D. A few color tests were shot of the large-scale ant models, but when it was time to shoot the 3-D test, WB’s ‘All Media’ 3-D camera rig malfunctioned and no footage could be filmed.

“The next day, a memo was sent out that the color and 3-D aspects of the film were to be scrapped, and that black and white and wide-screen would be the preferred format, trying to emulate the ‘effective shock treatment’ of Warners’ The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.

“Ultimately the film was not shot in widescreen. Because of the preparation of certain shots, however, many of the camera set-ups for 3-D still remain, such as the opening titles and flame-throwers that are shot at the camera.

“Although WB was dissatisfied with the color results, the opening titles were printed in color against a black and white background to give the opening of the film a ‘punch’. This effect was achieved by an EastmanColor section spliced into each print.”

L.A. Times reporter Ben Fritz reported earlier today that with Ron Burkle and Avenue Capital out of the running, Jay Penske, the owner of Deadline, is the “leading bidder” for Variety and is likely to buy the longstanding trade paper for about $30 million within the next three weeks.

Penske, 33, “plans to keep the Variety and Deadline brands distinct, according to a person familiar with his thinking,” Fritz wrote, “but it’s otherwise unclear how the outlets would be integrated.”

Let me explain something. Rationality, sensibleness and practicality usually prevail to some extent when a takeover happens, but they’re always mixed in with basic law-of-the-jungle rules and impulses. Never trust anyone who ignores the jungle element or says it doesn’t exist.

Variety is staffed with a lot of smart, crafty professionals — Steven Gaydos, Jeff Sneider, Justin Chang, Peter Debruges — but it’s an older, weaker lion in this equation, and Deadline is the younger, stronger, hungrier lion.

We all know what’s likely to happen. The first thing the younger lion does when he takes over is kill the older, weaker lion, and then he goes around and kills all the cubs, and then he goes to the lionesses and mates and produces cubs of his own. I’m not saying all the Variety cubs are goners, but it would be Pollyanic to presume that everything will stay intact and hunky-dory once Penske takes over. Forget it. One way or another there will be a lot of roaring and growling and bared fangs and more roaring and blood on the grass. It’s going to be traumatic. Just watch any documentary about lions.

The clarity of mind that comes to a man standing on the gallows is wonderful.

“Should the deal with Penske go through, it would mark a shift in power in the world of showbiz insider news,” Fritz wrote. “Founded in 2006 as a blog spinoff of editor in chief Nikki Finke’s industry column for L.A. Weekly, Deadline is a direct rival to Variety and its longtime rival the Hollywood Reporter and has become a dominant force in breaking and delivering online entertainment news.”

“If the deal goes through, it could be a little bit awkward for Variety and Deadline to work under the same roof,” wrote The Atlantic Wire‘s Adam Clark Estes. “The six-year-old Deadline is likely somewhat responsible with the 107-year-old Variety’s downfall. Not only did Deadline offer up industry scoops for free after Variety went behind a paywall, but [Deadline‘s Nikki] Finke also made a habit of hiring away Variety‘s reporters to work for her site.”