Day: October 29, 2015

Late this afternoon I scootered down to Wormsloe, a three-century-old plantation with a long straight driveway shaded by an entwined canopy of moss-covered oak trees. As beautiful as expected. The famous “run Forrest run” scene from Robert Zemeckis‘s Forrest Gump (a movie that I mostly hated from the get-go for its dismissive portrait of ’60s counter-culture types) was shot here. I was accompanied by Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg. We rode on rented 50cc put-puts — a maximum of 35 mph.

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I thought last weekend that the whole Quentin Tarantino-calls-certain-cops-“murderers” thing would subside after two or three days, but it hasn’t. So far New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles police unions and associations have called for a Tarantino boycott following strong (some would say inflammatory) remarks the director-writer made last Saturday at a New York City rally. “I’m a human being with a conscience,” Tarantino said. “And if you believe there’s murder going on, then you need to rise up and stand up against it. I’m here to say I’m on the side of the murdered.” How will the Weinstein Co. defuse this? Also: Some are presuming that an “n” word controversy will kick in once The Hateful Eight starts screening and certainly after it opens on 12.25. Were Tarantino’s remarks about an attempt to preemptively fortify his position with the African-American community?

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Morgan Spurlock‘s Call Bullshit experience (interactive, infographic, fact-supplying) is fun, educational and fast moving. 15 or so hours since last night’s Republican debate and Spurlock has already sussed and inserted all the major non-facts pushed by Rubio, Trump, Carson, Fiorina, Christie, etc. This’ll serve as a handy tool over the next twelve months and beyond, but it could also be used to measure the truthfulness of statements made during movie-industry press junkets. Filmmakers and actors lie for the gentlest and most sensitive of reasons (not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings, natural privacy instincts, political caution), but you can’t attend any junket without a sense that pigs with wings are fluttering out of buttholes.

“Despite some bumpy tonal shifts and inconsistencies of characterization, Hello, My Name Is Doris impresses as a humanely amusing and occasionally poignant dramedy about a spinsterish office drone (Sally Field) who develops a romantic fixation on a much younger co-worker (Max Greenfield). The plot could have been played as a flat-out broad comedy or an anxiety-inducing psychological drama, and there are times when it feels like helmer Michael Showalter is striving for a mash-up of both. But Field keeps the movie on an even keel, for the most part, with an adroit and disciplined lead performance that generates both laughter and sympathy, with relatively few yanks on the heartstrings.” — from Joe Leydon‘s Variety review, posted from SXSW on 3.14.15.

“Gently alerting” is one way to describe Howard Shore‘s all-piano Spotlight score. It indicates that the movie is up to something solemn and real and worth your time. You hear a few bars and right away you’re saying to yourself, “Okay, there’s something going on here…I’m gonna focus because something of substance will probably come of it….I can just tell.” And yet at the same time it doesn’t instruct you how to feel; nor does it emphasize or underline. It’s one of those scores that watches the film with you. It musically reiterates what you’re feeling or thinking from point to point. Here are samples.

Last Friday 124 feature-length documentaries were submitted for Oscar consideration. A short list of 15 will be revealed in early December (less than five weeks hence), and the final quintet will be announced when all the Oscar nominees are announced in mid January. And of course I’ve been slacking on this front so here’s a roster of my personal short-list preferences. There are more than a few I haven’t seen (including Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus‘ Hot Girls Wanted, Geeta and Ravi Patel‘s Meet The Patels, Marc Silver‘s 3 and 1/2 Minutes, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi‘s Meru, Matthew Heineman‘s Cartel Land, Benjamin Statler‘s Soaked in Bleach) but here are 11 docs that — for me, in this order — burned through in some extra, commanding, head-turning way:

1. Alex Gibney‘s Going Clear: Scientology and The Prison of Belief / HE review.
2. Colin Hanks‘ All Things Must Pass / HE review.
3. Ondi Timoner‘s Brand: A Second Coming / HE review/coverage.
4. Doug Tirola‘s Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead / HE review.
5. Stevan Riley‘s Listen To Me, Marlon / HE review.
6. Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna‘s Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans / HE review.
7. Michael Moore‘s Where To Invade Next / HE review.
8. Kent Jones‘ Hitchcock Truffaut / HE review.
9. Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon‘s Best of Enemies / HE review.
10. Amy Berg‘s Janis Little Girl Blue / HE review.
11. Asif Kapadia‘s Amy / HE review.

A surprising thought occured yesterday afternoon as I was reading the comments for “Martian Award Buzz Is Almost As Skillful As The Film Itself.” While the Best Picture Oscar will, I believe, almost certainly go to Joy, The Revenant, Spotlight or The Big Short, if (and I say “if“) they were to be elbowed aside for whatever reason and the final either-or was between The Martian and Room, it would be better if the Best Picture Oscar went to Room. As much as I felt imprisoned and almost suffocated by Lenny Abrahamson’s film, at least it’s up to something urgent and “real” as opposed to escapist. At least it’s not a Jerry Bruckheimer-styled popcorn movie. It’s creepy in some ways, but at least it’s about an unusual situation in a striking, strongly personal way. Then again this is sheer fantasy as Spotlight will not be elbowed aside. It’s bullet-proof.