The term “kitchen sink cinema” refers to grittily realistic black-and-white British films made in the late ’50s to early ’60s about working-class characters afflicted by despair, banality and a sense of entrapment. I don’t know how many of them were made exactly, but my favorites are John Schlesinger‘s A Kind of Loving, Tony Richardson‘s Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey, The Entertainer and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, Karl Reisz‘s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Lindsay Anderson‘s This Sporting Life. What is that, seven?

I’ve always thought the term “kitchen sink” had something to do with one of these films having depicted a scene in which one of the protagonists (Alan Bates in A Kind of Loving or Albert Finney in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) coming home drunk late Saturday night and literally throwing up in the kitchen sink. It may have come from a line Pauline Kael wrote about the genre, but I know I’ve had this image in my head for years. But it just hit me with a start that I can’t remember which actor in which film did the actual vomiting…if in fact it happened in one of these films.

Or is the term “kitchen sink” is in fact “derived from an expressionist painting by John Bratby which contained an image of a kitchen sink”?, as it says on the kitchen-sink Wikipedia page? “The critic David Sylvester wrote an article in 1954 about trends in recent English art, calling his article ‘The Kitchen Sink’ in reference to Bratby’s picture. Sylvester argued that there was a new interest among young painters in domestic scenes, with stress on the banality of life.”

“Is Gen. Colin Powell getting ready to endorse Sen. Barack Obama on Meet the Press this Sunday? Two sources close to Powell, speaking on the condition of anonymity, predict that he will. On the record, a third, Ken Duberstein, a Washington lobbyist and former White House chief of staff, didn’t flatly deny it. ‘You can say what you want,’ he told me, ‘but I didn’t tell you that and neither did Powell.'” – from Howard Fineman‘s Newsweek column, posted last night.
Talk about an essential viewing experience. Meet The Press airs on Sunday mornings at…what is it, 8 am?
The other thing to watch this weekend, obviously, is Saturday Night Live, which will feature guests appearances by Sarah Palin and Josh Brolin. Obviously Palin and Tina Fey will appear side-by-side. The cool thing would be to have them sing a duet. “The Shoop-Shoop Song,” I’m thinking. But really, how can anyone laugh at — with — Palin, given what she is and the rancid game she’s playing? It’s revolting to think of her getting a boost in her personal ratings because Lorne Michaels wants a boost for SNL.

Max Payne, a complete piece of video-game merde, is the weekend’s #1 film with a projected $19.2 million by Sunday night. The Secret Life of Bees will come in second with $11.8 million with Beverly Hills Chihuahua, a movie that’s already infamous for what it implies about semi-arrogant xenophobic attitudes among materialistic middle-class Americans, coming in third with $11.6 million.
W. — easily the best new film out there — is, according to my source, looking at a fourth-place finish with $11.5 million. (Nikki Finke, however, has been told it’ll come in second with about $12 million.) Eagle Eye, another piece of shit, will come in fifth with 7.4 million.
The sixth-place Body of Lies will be down 44% from last weekend’s attendance, down to $2600 a print. It’ll be a push for this $80 or $90 million spy thriller to make $40 million domestic. It’s a disaster, is what it is.
Quarantine, $6.1 million. Nick and Nora, $3.8 million. Sex Drive, $3.6 millon. Fireproof, $2.7 million.

As I didn’t say yesterday, one reasons Paramount decided to takeThe Soloist out of the year-end awards game (i.e., shifting its release date from 11.21.08 to 3.13.09) was to open thngs up Oscar-potential-wise for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road. Another reason, many suspect, was that Viacom’s Sumner Redstone wanted to pass along a little “up yours” message to Soloist producer DreamWorks in the wake of their rancorous split.
On top of which the Joe Wright drama, which I did mention yesterday, is thought in some quarters to be a little schmaltzy and therefore perhaps lacking the stellar chops that a strong year-end Best Picture contender should have. Which isn’t to say it’s a problem film. I’ve heard from two sources that it’s somewhere between very good, good and not bad.
The Shine-like story of Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez‘s relationship with a homeless musician, The Soloist was looking at the very least like a possible uptick opportunity for costars Robert Downey, Jr. and Jamie Foxx regarding possible year-end acting honors and distinctions. No more!
Here’s Patrick Goldstein‘s take in his Big Picture bloggy-blog, which is still difficult to find and a huge pain in the ass for that.
“Paramount apparently told its partners, as well as top CAA brass, who represent most of the talent on the picture, that the studio was under pressure from Viacom superiors to cut costs, having recently acknowledged that it was thinning out its future release schedule. With even Sumner Redstone being forced to sell stock to keep his investments afloat, the studio was forced to take drastic measures. With four potential Oscar movies slated for year-end release, something had to give.
“It certainly wasn’t going to be The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, an expensive and much-anticipated Brad Pitt and David Fincher collaboration that studio chief Brad Grey has already publicly embraced as his ticket to a front-row seat Feb. 22nd at the Kodak Theater. And it certainly wasn’t going to be Revolutionary Road, a Scott Rudin-produced literary drama with a star too big to offend (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the kind of rarified subject matter that desperately needs Oscar buzz to sell tickets.
“That left the studio’s Ed Zwick-directed drama, Defiance, which is a long-shot for Oscars, but still enough of a contender that while it’s being pushed back to late December, is still getting an Oscar qualifying run before going wide in January.
“That made The Soloist the low man on the totem pole, since it conceivably has enough commercial potential to make a dent at the box office in the spring without the benefit of any Oscar coattails. Since the film was produced by Dreamworks, which just concluded an ugly divorce with Paramount, the inside chatter has focused on the idea that Paramount is somehow punishing Dreamworks by robbing the departing Spielberg team of any Oscar glory.”

Hats off and a smart salute to Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel for her blunt condemnation of Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota and her attempt to paint Barack Obama and other liberal legislators as somehow un-American. The debate happened earlier today on Chris Matthews‘ “Hardball” on MSNBC. Pat Buchanan also weighed in, didn’t agree with the anti-American statements, etc. But Vanden Huevel was beautiful.

Vanden Heuvel’s remarks: “Chris, I fear for my country. I think what we just heard is a congresswoman channeling Joe McCarthy, channeling a politics of fear and loathing and demonization and division and distraction. Not a single issue mentioned. This is a politics at a moment of extreme economic pain in this country that is incendiary, that is so debased, that I’m almost having a hard time breathing, because I think it’s very scary.
“Because this is a country I love, and this woman had no sense of the history of this nation, which is one of struggle, of trying to fulfill the great ideals of this nation, of movements that have brought about the civilizing advances of this country, and she doesn’t even know who Saul Alinsky is — a community organizer who channeled the views of the people from below.
“I think Barack Obama is going to win, and he’s going to have a lot of work because there is an extremism unleashed in this nation which you just heard on this program, which could lead to violence, and hatred, and toxicity. And against the backdrop of the Great Depression we’re living through, it could lead — and I don’t use this word lightly — to a kind of American fascism, which is against the great values of this nation, and which people like that are fermenting.”
A website gathering signatures to urge a Congressional censure of Bachman has been up since yesterday — 10,028 signatures as of Saturday morning.

Thanks to Jack Morrissey for a good laugh. It doesn’t look staged to me, even if it was.

“It’s interesting to see how each of the actors exhibit their own distinct variation of portraying gay men,” says a Playlist review of Gus Van Sant‘s Milk (Focus Features, 12.5). “Diego Luna is the most flamboyant, James Franco is understated, and Emile Hirsch is the most precocious. And playing the father figure to these Lost Boys is Sean Penn, who has Milk’s exaggerated podium gestures and Long Island accent down perfectly.

“Penn does a magnificent job of dividing himself in two, as Milk had to also manage, splitting his time and attention between his personal life and his career as a political figure; and on top of that even his career was divided. He was a sidewalk activist who worked for the government and preferred it this way.
“Delivering perhaps the most unexpected performance is Josh Brolin as city supervisor Dan White who murdered both Milk and Mayor Moscone (played by Victor Garber). It is hinted that maybe Dan White was a closet case and jealous of Milk’s freedom. Brolin gives just enough evidence that this might be true before covering it up quickly, hiding it almost too well.
“Brolin’s turn makes you really feel empathy for White and understand the pressure he underwent. He watched Milk succeed in making sure Proposition 6 was not passed, and yet he couldn’t get a simple pay raise.”

“When I see that kid, I’m going to crack that big fucking nose of his. Then I’m going to tell him, ‘say hi to your mother for me’…I’m going to go down to 30 Rock…and I’m going to slap him in the big nose…I guaran-fucking-tee you.”

Culture Pulp‘s Mike Russell has written the following about Fox Searchlight”s The Secret Life of Bees, which opens today: It “falls into a loose, annoying subgenre of movies I’m going to call ‘Ya-Ya Sisterhood Bullshit,'” he says. “These movies tend to be based on the sorts of books Oprah likes to endorse, and they contain some or all of the following:

* A precious, self-consciously offbeat title (Fried Green Tomatoes, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood).
* A condescending Hollywood interpretation of life in the South, in which people are either abusive racists full of hate or quirky saints full of hospitality.
* Hollywood stars putting on Southern accents like they’re doing dinner-theater Tennessee Williams.
* A fetishy relationship with lovingly photographed food.
* A magazine-spread approach to agrarian labor, which is much nastier and more tedious in real life than the movie makes it out to be.
* At least one moment in which a character lays out a really obvious metaphor about Real Life while describing a cooking or farming technique or the behavior of a plant, animal, or insect.
* Tragic deaths or marriages that Teach Us Something About Ourselves.
* And, most importantly, a hug-filled affirmation of the power of sisterhood.
I could smell all this from the trailer, which is why I didn’t bother to see Bees in Toronto or attend screenings here in town. No offense.

True story: a conversation among three or four guys with film-industry ties happened a couple of days ago in a major southern-region city. Included was a sound mixer who’s been around a couple of decades. The subject was upcoming movies, and the sound mixer interjected at one point, “Guys, guys, I’ve seen the Best Picture Oscar winner, okay? And it’s Benjamin Button.” You’ve seen the whole thing? he was asked. “Most of it but that’s enough,” he answered. “Forget it, it’s over. It’s an eight-hankie movie and it’s going to win.”

Hurricane Season (Weinstein/MGM, 12.25) , a Lousiana-based sports saga with Forrest Whitaker as real-life basketball coach Al Collins who assembled a winning team composed of players who’d been displaced by Hurricane Katrina, has gotten the hook and been re-scheduled to open in early ’09.
Whitaker told a friend a day or so ago that the 12.25 release date has been scuttled due to the film being “not ready,” and that a tentative March 2009 release has been decided upon. The film was previously called Patriots.
The film costars Isaiah Washington, Bow Wow, Khleo Thomas, Courtney B. Vance, Lil’ Wayne and Taraji P. Henson.

As I’ve said before, Clint Eastwood‘s Gran Torino has the stuffings of a Best Picture contender because it appears to be a story about change and redemption, which is what most Best Picture nominees are about. But it also seems to have a little built-in momentum because it deals with racism, which has been been a bigger hot-button issue this year than any time since the Civil Rights era of ’64 and ’65.
Barack Obama‘s presidential campaign has obviously brought the issue to the fore. Everyone has been talking about it, particularly with those YouTube videos showing the ignorance and ugliness of rural Americans and people wondering about the Bradley Effect at the polls, etc.
And now a month and a half after the election will come a movie, directed by America’s most esteemed, long-running filmmaker, that will address this subject (if I know Eastwood) in plain, regular-guy, no-bunk terms. In short, Gran Torino may luck out. Just as The Road may not fit the cultural-political mood at the end of the year, it could be that Eastwood’s film will. Maybe. I obviously don’t know anything, but I’m feeling a certain current.
Eastwood was quoted about the plot particulars last week. Nick Schenk‘s screenplay is the story of snarly blue-collar racist, a Korean War bet named Kowalski (Eastwood), gradually working through dark and dismissive feelings about his neighbor, a Hmong teenager who early on tries to steal Kowalski’s ’72 Gran Torino.
As I wrote earlier, a drama of this sort is “right out of the change-redemption playbook.” The only thing that might work against Gran Torino are Academy members scratching their heads about Eastwood’s alleged admiration for Sarah Palin.
In Contention‘s Kris Tapley recently reviewed the Gran Torino script. He’s also posted a couple of Eastwood pieces about the film’s ensemble cast — article #1 and article #2.
The script “has some silly stuff in it,” he writes, “but according to those two pieces, Eastwood improvised on the set somewhat. That’s helpful.”