Gran Torino, which goes wide this weekend, is running at 71, 49 and 18. It seems likely to beat the debuting Bride Wars, which is tracking at 68, 34 and 10. Not Easily Broken is 60, 28 and 1 and The Unborn is 56, 30 and 7.
Andrew Breitbart is starting his own conservative-minded Hollywood-oriented site — Big Hollywood — tomorrow, and he’s got Steve Mason as his box-office analyst,” a D.C.-based reader asked this morning. “Will you still quote Mason from time to time, or does this put him on your shit list?”
“Of course not,” I replied. “Breitbart’s a good man and Mason knows his stuff so it’s all fine.”
It’ll be fun to debate (i.e., mock, deride, joke about) the right-wing views espoused on Big Hollywood , which Breitbart says will “be a continuous politics and culture posting board for those who think something has gone drastically wrong and that Hollywood should return to its patriotic roots.
“Big Hollywood’s modest objective: to change the entertainment industry. To make Hollywood something we can believe in — again. In order to give millions of Americans hope.”
In order to create this sense of hope, one presumes, a good right-wing site will, as a sideline, need to fire off rhetorical stink bombs at Barack Obama whenever possible, right, Andrew? And do whatever it can to pave the way for a return of Sarah Palin in ’12?
When’s the last time a really good patriotic right-wing film came along? I love good conservative-minded films (Man on Fire, Gran Torino, etc.) but they’re few and far between. There seems to be something in the genes of right-thinking, God-fearing, flag-saluting types that seems to get in the way of good film art, for the most part. Obviously being a staunch right-winger didn’t hurt the films of John Ford (to use but one example), but the experience of An American Carol is more typical than not.
Right-wingers can grouse all they want about Godless cynical films made my left-wing pinkos, but their own attempts to make stirring films have been for the most part pathetic.
It’ll also be good to read the rants of all the right-wing machines who used to be HE commenters — i.e., the one I got rid of during last summer’s Stalinist purge.
David Poland is calling Steven Soderbergh‘s Che his #1 film of the year. I’m afraid that makes two of us, as I said the same thing 28 days ago. (I hadn’t seen Gran Torino or Waltz With Bashir at the time, but I’ve seen added them to my list of the year’s Top 15.) Here’s Poland’s piece with a few quips and quibbles from yours truly:
“When the chips are down, Che is as Old Hollywood as it gets.
“From the overture in which we watch Cuba — and then South America — laid out, to the epic length that creates a relationship with virtually every character in a way you rarely see in modern films, to the calm central ‘hero’ who is more real than Gary Cooper would have been, but just as movie star weighty, Che is the great movie experience of 2008. It is a movie that washes over you and seeps into you, as only a film that takes this kind of time can. Yet, I was never bored…not during the first, second, or third viewing.”
I’ve seen ’em both four times and have the exact same attitude.
“The notion that this is two films is silly. They are their own experiences, but they are inescapably two halves comprising a whole. And there is enough room for many different takes on the material. I, for one, do not see it as terribly political. I see it as the story of a man who believes deeply and seeks to bring his belief to action. Others see it as incredibly political, even in the modern context. Others see it very much as a biopic (and they seem to have the most problem with the movie).”
The problem isn’t the people who see Che as a biopic — it’s the people who come to it looking for a “biopic” experience.
“Soderbergh’s work here, first in narrowing the focus with hands-on producers Laura Bickford and Benicio del Toro and screenwriters Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. van der Veen, then in choosing to shoot an epic, then in production itself…stunning.
“He manages to do a lot of what Terrence Malick does, but without getting distracted by the beauty of the earth. He does a lot of what Michael Mann does, in delivering the intimacy of men who do harm. He does a lot of what Ford did in shooting people anticipating trouble. And he does work that is a lot like the modern intimists like Van Sant and even Kelly Reichardt do, allowing natural quiet to the point of distraction.
“I am in awe of this work. I remain amazed by Soderbergh’s tenacity, as he continues not to do ‘one for them and one for him’ but to be a truly experimental artist, even with big budget films like The Good German, the reflection of which can be clearly seen in Che. You can see some Bubble too.”
Soderbergh’s three Oceans films weren’t made “for them,” Poland is saying? Then who were they made for? I wanted to love them (the second one is my favorite) but they didn’t quite make it. The happiest were the corporations and the popcorn-munchers.
“At 46 (in 9 days from this writing), just 20 years into his movie career, Soderbergh has already made eight indelible pieces of American cinema,” Poland writes. Something tells me he thinks that Solaris is one of the eight indelibles. I’m afraid not. Solaris is one of Sodbergh’s “slump” films along with Full Frontal. Solaris is nothing short of infuriating. You don’t get to join your dead lover by dying. All you’re doing is turning the lights out and the power off and surrendering to the infinite. Love is for the living.
I’m actually a Bubble admirer, and I had a place in my head and black-and-white-loving heart for The Good German. Soderbergh’s ’98 to ’00 golden streak (Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic) will always be held over him, or even used as a beating stick, but the Che films, for me, signify a profound comeback.
I have to say, however, that I’m very, very concerned about the forthcoming Cleopatra musical . if I were Soderbergh’s most trusted advisor, I’d be saying “don’t do it! This things has the earmarks of a debacle. Especially with Catherine Zeta Jones, who’s too old to play the Egyptian queen, and has an unlikable rep of being quite the acquisitive capitalist, and who doesnt sell tickets(as the failure of No Reservations proved). Do another Elmore Leonard adaptation, another Limey…something in the crime vein.”
“And thank the heavens for Che,” Poland concludes. “You haven’t seen its like in quite away. And don’t expect something like this to pass our way again anytime soon.”
The Online Film Critics Society has decided on a list of 2008 nominees. [See below.] FilmJerk.com’s Edward Havens sent them along this morning and asked for an opinion. What I think, I wrote back, is “that (a) these are fine…the same-old same-old ’08 nominees except for Che‘s Benicio del Toro and The Visitor’s Richard Jenkins nominated for Best Actor….agreed, but (b) why issue a list of nominees at this stage? The OFCS is not the Oscars. Bring on the winners already.”
THE 2008 OFCS nominees:
BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL*E
The Wrestler
BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Andrew Stanton, WALL*E
BEST ACTOR
Benicio Del Toro, Che
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy
Kate Winslet , Revolutionary Road
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Eddie Marsan, Happy-Go-Lucky
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
In Bruges, Martin McDonagh
Milk, Dustin Lance Black
Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman
WALL*E, Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon
The Wrestler, Robert D. Siegel
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Roth
The Dark Knight, Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan
Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan
Let the Right One In, John Ajvide Lindqvist
Slumdog Millionaire, Simon Beaufoy
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Dear Zachary: a letter to a son about his father
Encounters at the End of the World
I.O.U.S.A.
Man On Wire
My Winnipeg
BEST FOREIGN FILM
A Christmas Tale
The Counterfeiters
I’ve Loved You So Long
Let the Right One In
Waltz with Bashir
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Bolt
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who
Kung Fu Panda
WALL*E
Waltz with Bashir
…and so on. Why hasn’t the OFCS posted the nominees on their site?
English-language Al Jazeera is reporting that “a dozen Palestinian civilians have been killed on Monday as Israeli forces pushed deeper into the Gaza Strip” with “the latest total death count in Gaza [standing] at 531 people killed across 10 days, with more than 80 deaths since the ground offensive began last Saturday.”
But the innocents are always slaughtered in any war. 47 million civilians were killed during World War II, if you count an estimated 20 million from war-related disease and famine. It’s horrific, but it’s never stopped combatants on either side of any conflict, going back to the days of Alexander the Great. War is cruel.
Any report about the current Gaza conflict that focuses solely on civilian deaths and agony (as this Al Jazeera one does) is omitting the basic shot, which is that Israel is invading in order to stop rocket attacks launched from within Gaza by Hamas.
Is there any HE reader who would say if he/she was one of Israel’s top leaders, “Well, I guess we have to live with those rocket attacks. Maybe it’s part of our karma or something. Israel, after all, has been fairly brutal in its treatment of Palestinians over the years, so maybe it’s a case of just desserts.” If you were an Israeli citizen, would you be saying “comme ci comme ca” about the rockets? Be honest.
The recently departed Pat Hingle had 84 good years, most of them on stage and in films. He excelled at playing small-town pit bulls — snarlers, bigots, cops, mayors, disapproving dads who barked and brayed, brutes, vulgarians — who caused much torment and unhappiness to various leading men and women (like Splendor in the Grass‘s Warren Beatty and The Falcon and the Snowman ‘s Tim Hutton). The rule of thumb was that if you saw Hingle approaching in a movie or TV show, things were about to get ugly on some level.
He was a steady and dependable actor whom I always found believable, but whom I never found particularly charming. He had nothing on Burgess Meredith or Lloyd Nolan or even Lee J. Cobb in the ways of slyness and insinuation. Hingle was straight and solid and lumbering. He always came right at a role through the front door. “I’m Pat Hingle,” he always seemed to say through clenched teeth, “and I’m about to get into your face. And you’ll damn well know it because sweat beads will form on my forehead!”
I’m sure Hingle was a good guy in real life. He always sounded like one in interviews. He had kids, a wife, an ex-wife, a life. He was a workaholic. I hear that.
The only time I can remember in which Hingle seemed light and likable and unthreatening was his walk-on as a waiter in that scene with Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint in On The Waterfront.
I genuinely disliked his vaguely cloddish presence as Commissioner Gordon in Tim Burton‘s Batman, and in the succeeding Batman films he appeared in. Whenever I think of Hingle, I mostly see him pointing at the Bat-silhouette-in-the-sky and shouting,”He sent us a signal!”
The poor man fell 50-something feet down an elevator shaft in ’59 or thereabouts…good God. He reportedly lost the lead role in Richard Brooks‘ Elmer Gantry as a result. (Thus paving the way for Burt Lancaster ‘s winning the 1960 Best Actor Oscar.) I can’t believe that Brooks truly intended to cast Hingle as Gantry for the simple reason that no one would have believed Hingle capable of seducing Jean Simmons‘ Sister Sharon Falconer. I don’t believe audiences would have stood for it. He wasn’t Uriah Heep….well, actually, he sort of was.
May Hingle rest in peace. His characters certainly dispensed little enough of it on-screen while he was alive.
Spoutblog‘s John Lichman on the rants, insights, blurtings and whatever from a certain columnist. Thanks. I guess.
Gold Derby‘s Tom O’Neil is reporting specific backstage poop on yesterday’s National Society of Film Critics voting that resulted in Ari Folman ‘s Waltz With Bashir taking the Best Picture prize. The voting also included a vote for Eva — WALL*E’s robot girlfriend — as Best Actress. (What member of this distinguished body cast this vote? Fess up!)
WALL*E led on the first ballot, O’Neil writes, but then lost to Bashir because of the huge drop-off of voters once the proxies were disqualified from voting on the second round.
Lots of other flip-flops happened between first and second ballots, he says. The Dark Knight‘s Heath Ledger led on the first Best Supporting Actor ballot but lost on the second to Happy Go Lucky‘s Eddie Marsan. Vicky Cristina Barcelona‘s Penelope Cruz led on the first ballot for Best Supporting Actress, but lost to Edge of Heaven‘s Hanna Schygulla who originally came in fourth place during the first round of voting.
In the first and final Best Actor ballot Milk‘s Sean Penn got 87 votes, The Wrestler‘s Mickey Rourke got 40 and Gran Torino‘s Clint Eastwood got 38.
Nicholas Ray‘s Bigger Than Life, a social critique of the bland and suffocating 1950s, is at the Film Forum until Thursday. It’s not on DVD in this country so I should probably set aside the time. “A superbly shot critique of the suffocating conformity, repression and materialism at the heart of middle-class life,” a DVD Beaver critic exclaims, “Bigger Than Life is the American Beauty of 50s cinema.
“Shooting in Cinemascope, Ray brilliantly uses bold colors, expressionistic shadows, and the precise framing of domestic architecture (particularly of the staircase in the family home), to convey both atmosphere and meaning. Ed’s transformation involves moments of darkly ironic humor, not least his speech at a parents’ evening, where he derides the children as “moral midgets”. ‘Childhood is a congenital disease,’ he declares, ‘the task of education is to cure it.’
“The drugs in the film serve as a catalyst for the emergence of Ed’s hitherto repressed frustrations and anxieties. Yet although Bigger Than Life can be read metaphorically as the playing out of murderous desires, it retains an emotional force because of the intensity by which James Mason conveys his character’s profound torment.”
“I heard someone on the radio once say that they were tired of the prejudice aimed at the overweight, Ricky Gervais has recently said/written. “They said something like ‘you’re not allowed to make fun of gay people, so why are you allowed to make fun of fat people? It’s the same thing.’
“But it’s not the same thing, is it? Gay people are born that way. They didn’t work at becoming gay. Fat people became fat because they would rather be that way than stop eating so much. They had to eat and eat to get fat. Then, when they were fat they had to keep up the eating to stay fat. For gayness to be the same as fatness, gay people would have to start off straight but then ween themselves onto cock. Soon they’re noshing all day getting gayer and gayer. They’ve had more than enough cock…they’re full…they’re just sucking for the sake of it. Now they’re overgay, and frowned upon by people who can have the occasional cock but not over-indulge.
“When a doctor tells me that that’s how you become gay, I’ll stop making jokes about fat people.”
I’ve had The Visitor’s Hiam Abbass in the Oscar Balloon’s Best Supporting Actress category for months, and now the New York Observer‘s Chris Rosen has gone on record in agreement. Finally…somebody! I’m also with Rosen about two of the best underrated performances of ’08 having been given by Che‘s Demian Bichir (the guy who played Fidel Castro) and Santiago Cabrera (the smiling bearded cadre who explained the ventriloquist/”vanilla piss” remark). But of course, each and every performance in the Che films is exactly right.
A filmmaker friend wrote last night that a certain production company “will have an extra bedroom available for the nights of 1.19 through 1.21 departing the 22nd for $200 per night. The condo is not in town so a car or cabs will be necessary to get around.”
I replied as follows, just to mess with him: “The hottest, most energetic Sundance days are always the first four or five — in this instance 1.15 to 1.19, Thursday to Monday. (I always arrive a day before — 1.14 in this instance — to get myself all situated and set up.) The buyers, the buzz and the pulse are a memory by Tuesday. Who’d want to arrive on the 19th? A person looking to avoid excitement?”
I didn’t mention that I kind of half-like it when all the heat dies down. It becomes more about the films at that point, although, truth be told, the films that show for the first time on Tuesday (i.e., 1.20) to the end of the festival have basically been given the bum’s rush by festival programmers, and they know it…everyone knows it. Your film not showing within the first five days at Sundance isn’t exactly a kiss of death, but the symbolism is unmistakable. Yes, yes…there have been and will be exceptions, and thank heaven for that.
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