“Movie directors love to show off, and one of the ways they strut their stuff is with long, single-take shots — they’re a hallmark of Brian De Palma. Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron and longtime cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki also were drawn to such lengthy shots but for a different reason: They felt they would immerse the audience in the story.
“I think they are pretty staggering, but they are not showy,” says Men star Clive Owen, who was called on to perform scenes 10 minutes and longer, many of them filled with gunfire, explosions and crashes. “They are trying to put you viscerally in the middle of things — to make you feel you are in the situation.” — from L.A. Times entertainment writer John Horn‘s piece (12.19) on Cuaron’s film (Universal, 12.25), its making and its atmospheric themes.

“The real and great questions of conscience and accountability would not loom so ominously — unanswered or evaded at such tremendous cost — without our day-to-day failure to insist on genuine accountability. Of course we’d prefer some easy ways to get there. But no easy ways exist. Not a new Congress. Not Barack Obama. And not John McCain. His courage in North Vietnamese prison makes him a heroic man. His voting record in Congress makes him a damaging public servant. We have gotta stand the fuck up and show the world how powerful are the people in a democracy. That’s how we regain our position of example, rather than pariah, to the world at large. And that is how we can begin to put up our chins and allow pride and unification to raise our own quality of life and security.” — Sean Penn on the state of things, from remarks delivered last night (12.18.06) upon his receiving the 2006 Christopher Reeve First Amendment Award from The Creative Coalition.

A reported (and undeniably brilliant, if true) career move for Tom Cruise: personally bankrolling The Thetan, a Scientology-inspired drama about a so-named alien leader and immortal spiritual being, blah, blah. Anyone would have trouble believing this Daily Telegraph story about Cruise having cast Victoria Beckham in the said-to-be-forthcoming film, but if it’s real…Battlefield Earth 2! The bizarre element is Cruise allegedly describing Beckham, wife of soccer superstar David Beckham, as a “comic genius.” This implies that The Thetan (which the Telegraph piece says was “rejected by all the major film studios”) will presumably make use of said comic gifts, which in turn suggests the film will be in some way comedic? Good God.

I’ve already pointed to Bill Nighy‘s Davy Jones performance in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest as unjustly overlooked, and we may as well acknowledge that his acting as Cate Blanchett‘s perplexed husband in Notes on a Scandal (Fox Searchlight, 12.2.7) probably won’t be received with much more than fitting respect. There’s only one way to really appreciate how good Nighy is these days, and that’s coming to Manhattan, plunking down close to $200 bucks (i.e., yourself and a friend) and catching him in David Hare‘s The Vertical Hour at the Music Box. (A tall order but worth it.)
This play “confirms [Nighy’s] exclusive brand of greatness,” John Heilpern wrote not long ago in the N.Y. Observer. “Nighy looks like one of Whistler√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s rakish, languid aristocrats lolling about the place. He√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s awesomely relaxed, an urbane presence, cultivated, ironic in the light English style, and razor-sharp. His innate, mercurial spontaneity makes it hard to imagine him giving the same performance twice. He possesses the stagecraft and dangerous edge of a Michael Gambon with tics. To watch him in The Vertical Hour nonchalantly responding to [Julianne Moore’s] misguided American earnestness is to appreciate the nature of lethally understated disdain.”

“If someone looks like he hasn’t either bathed or been outdoors in weeks, he’s probably a blogger. Yes, even humble bloggers are invited to leave their attics and basements during Shmooze Season.” — Peter Bart in his 12.17 Variety column, titled “You Schmooze or You Lose.”

Between The Dead Girl and next year’s production of The White Hotel, Brittany Murphy is clearly casting her lot these days with dark, despondent material. Ron Rothholz is producing and Simon Monjack is directing from his own adaptation of the D.M. Thomas novel, which I haven’t read in eons. I remember, however, that the heroine, a haunted opera singer who goes to Sigmund Freud to examine visions she’s been having about a white hotel, the Nazi holocaust and her (unless my memory is going) her own death.
I’ve said it before — anything that people have tried but failed to turn into a movie for a really long time (The White Hotel has been kicking around since the early ’80s) has developed a hard-luck karma that’s akin to a kind of curse. From the first idea to the first weekend in theatres a movie shouldn’t take any more than five or six years — two or three or four is better. It may sound illogical and even warped to say this, but any film that’s failed to launch for ten or twenty years is probably going to feel too precious and removed from the hurly-burly when it hits the screen.

No overt disagreement with retrocrush’s Robert Berry — Paul McCartney‘s “Wonderful Christmas Time” (released in ’79) may well be “the worst Christmas song of all time [as well as] one of the most awful songs ever recorded” period. It’s relentlessly lame, icky…pink cotton candy set to music.

That said, I have a shameful confession. I was roaming the aisles of Stew Leonard’s supermarket in Norwalk, Connecticut, around this time last year, and the p.a. system was playing the McCartney tune, and God help me but when I heard the main chorus I felt soothed in a hokey, mortified way. Give McCartney his due: he knows how to write those insipid-but-catchy little hooks. (Just the chorus, mind…the rest of the song makes you want to spit.)
I guess you have to be a white middle-class guy who grew up in sedate, vaguely druggy surroundings to sympathize with this. I feel as if I’ve just totally surrendered any claim to being a marginally hip person.

If you ask me, the Las Vegas Film Critics called it straight and true by awarding their Best Cinematography award to Children of Men dp Emmanuel Lubezki (a.k.a. “Chivo”). They also decided somewhat originally by naming Djimon Honsou as Best Supporting Actor for his work in Blood Diamond, and by toasting Thank You For Smoking‘s Jason Reitman for having written the Best Screenplay (original or adapted) award. Otherwise, it was the same old litany — The Last King of Scotland‘s Forest Whitaker for Best Actor, The Queen‘s Helen Mirren for Best Actress, Dreamgirls‘ Jennifer Hudson for Best Supporting Actress, The Departed‘s Martin Scorsese for Best Director. The Best Film Editing prize went to The Departed‘s Thelma Schoonmaker, and good for that.

Another Best Picture prize has been snared by United 93, not that this will change the minds of Academy members who’ve refused to see it all along. (Hang tough, guys — don’t let the critics guilt-trip you!) The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics have declared Paul Greengrass‘s 9/11 drama the best of ’06 while also honoring The Departed‘s Martin Scorsese as Best Director. The Last King of Scotland‘s Forest Whitaker and The Queen‘s Helen Mirren won again for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. And Jackie Earl Haley took the Best Supporting Actor prize for his work in Little Children. (Again, following his win earlier today among the Southeastern Film Critics.) There was a surprise, at least, with Cate Blanchett winning the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance as an obsessively-inclined art teacher in Notes on a Scandal. The org also named Clint Eastwood‘s Letters For Iwo Jima as the Best Foreign-Language Film, with Pan’s Labyrinth named as first runner-up in that category.

“Not long ago, the Bagger was at an event with a major film writer and director and ended up in a booth with him for several hours. He admired the man tremendously, [but] did not like his last project. Finally, the subject came up and the Bagger told the truth, after which there was suddenly very little to say. Later, he asked a colleague with more experience if he had been wise to speak his mind. ‘No, that was profoundly stupid,’ he was told. ‘They really don’t want to know the truth.'” — from David Carr‘s latest Oscar-related posting, “Ten Things I Don’t Hate About You, or At Least Your Movie.”
Carr’s friend was right, but I’ll never forget the shame I felt eight years ago when I lied by saying something encouraging and enthusiastic about Armageddon to its producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, at an early-bird industry screening. That Michael Bay film felt way too forced and agitated. As Variety‘s Todd McCarthy famously said at the time, the pace felt to me like that of “a machine gun locked in the firing position.” A guy in the know told me a week or so later that Armageddon was “frame-fucked…the length of every last shot was cut down to the absolute bare minimum to keep it moving as fast as possible.”
Anyway, I saw Bruckheimer in the lobby right after the show and told him, coward that I was, that Armageddon “seriously rocks.” Jerry knew right away I was full of it; he gave me a look that said, “Huh, that”s funny…you’re lying to me and you’re doing a bad job of it.” He didn’t look at me for the rest of the evening. Nice feeling, that.

The Southeastern Film Critics Association has given its Best Original Screenplay award to Michael Arndt‘s Little Miss Sunshine, on top of Sunshine being named among the org’s top ten 2006 films. And three big awards went to The Departed — Best Film, Martin Scorsesefor Best Director , and Best Adapted Screenplay (i.e., William Monahan). And Guillermo del Toro‘s Pan’s Labyrinth won for Best Foreign Film. The rest followed what’s become the standard form: The Last King of Scotland‘s Forest Whitaker for Best Actor, The Queen‘s Helen Mirren for Best Actress, Little Children‘s Jackie Earle Haley for Best Supporting Actor, Dreamgirls‘ Jennifer Hudson for Best Supporting Actress, and An Inconvenient Truth for Best Documentary.