47 elite critics have selected their five best films of ’07 for the latest edition of Sight & Sound, and of these Cristian Mungiu‘s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is the top of the heap. Among the runners-up: David Lynch‘s Inland Empire, David Fincher‘s Zodiac, Todd Haynes‘ I’m Not There, Carlos Reygadas‘ Silent Light, Andrew Dominik‘s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country for Old Men and David Cronenberg‘s Eastern Promises.
“The biggest argument against No Country is that it’s peaking too soon. Second, there’s a group of people [who] take serious contention with its ending. Combined with it’s violent content following a year when The Departed won, it seems more sensible to begin purchasing stock in Atonement or The Kite Runner” — N.Y. Times reader Nick Butler, responding to a David Carr/”Bagger” post.
HE comment: Behind the curve, Nick! The “problem with the ending” began evaporating two, three weeks ago. Glenn Kenny‘s Premiere piece killed it off. Now the NCFOM ending is a badge of esoteric-artistic honor. If you say you don’t get it you lack depth…you can’t think too well…you’re slow on the pickup. Atonement might pop through, but right now it’s on the ropes. The Kite Runner? Maybe, but it’s a bit soft. It’s a compromise choice — a movie that stands for healing and cultural bridge-building.
“The filmmaking is so good and so well-polished that it crowds out the humanity….there’s no air…and the Vanessa Redgrave thing at the end is the writer-giving you a kind of [‘this is what it all meant’ wrap-up] thing that you feel you ought to have as a moviegoer. ..it’s kind of condescending, in a way, and I didn’t like that at all.” — Boston Globe critic Wesley Morris on Joe Wright‘s Atonement.
There’s no getting around the fact that a certain “hmmm” factor is clouding Atonement‘s Best Picture prospects. The British romantic period drama is one of my definite ’07 favorites and a very likely Best Picture nominee, but four times today I’ve read or listened to naysaying opinion — a pan from A.O. Scott‘s pan in today’s N.Y. Times, another one from New Yorker critic Anthony Lane, a mezzo-mezzo video report from the Boston Globe‘s Morris and Ty Burr, and a report from a friend who attended last night’s L.A. Atonement premiere and says some viewers felt it didn’t quite nail it or ring the bell that it should have.
“Really?” I replied when I heard the post-screening report this morning. “That was a fairly consistent view, you’d say?” Yeah, that’s what I was hearing from some people, my friend said.
This has brought me to the brink of concluding that Atonement (which looked like a Best Picture front-runner after Toronto but began to do a fade in early November and then came inching back a week or two ago) is starting to look like a limping thoroughbred. Maybe. It’s not Charlie Wilson’s War by a long shot, but at best it’s now even-steven with No Country for Old Men, and it may start to sink even further if at least one critics group doesn’t stand up and give it a Best Picture prize within the next three days.
Atonement getting dinged by this and that critic doesn’t mean that much, but No Country hasn’t gotten dinged at all — the respect is growing and growing among all interest and age groups — and I think that means something. There’s always a vague corollary between critics and Academy/industry opinion when it comes to high-pedigree year-end films. I don’t want be an alarmist, but if Atonement doesn’t get a Best Picture trophy from the L.A. or Boston critics on Sunday or from the New York Film Critics Circle the following day — and particularly if No Country sweeps these three — it’ll be in real trouble.
In other words, the Best Picture race may well be decided by Monday afternoon. Did I just write that? Yes, I did. It may be in that the dye will be cast on a certain level. (Note: I’ve always preferred the metaphor of a spoonful of dye being dropped into a well or a bucket of water than a pair of dice being flung across a craps table.) I’m not saying that the Atonement shortfall (if and when it happens on Sunday and Monday) will decide things absolutely — obviously it won’t — but it will nonetheless cast a certain light and define the situation in a way that will make the pro-Atonement argument a little harder to sell.
The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil talks to Red Carpet District‘s Kris Tapley at last night’s Sweeney Todd premiere.
Tapley: “Charlie Wilson’s War has fallen out…Juno has gained some ground. It’s got even more heart than Little Miss Sunshine. Is Atonement the [current] front runner? I don’t know…is it? The reviews say it’s No Country. I don’t believe in the Michael Clayton [thing]…it was no home run. I think it’s about star power. What fits the classic Oscar profile? Ten years ago The Great Debaters would have been a classic Academy picture. Today…who knows?”
O’Neil: “Covering the Oscars is the Super Bowl of showbiz. We have seen some real best Picture love for No Country for Old Men…it’s at least part of the top five. It’s not, it’s not [the front runner]. I think The Kite Runner is opening way too late…a lot of movies have come out in front of it.”
I’m just hoping that the National Board of Review having given its ’07 Best Picture award to No Country for Old Men (as well as one for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Ensemble Cast) doesn’t…you know, taint things in some way. Let’s not go there. The bad-news group gave their Best Director award to Sweeney Todd‘s Tim Burton, so there was either a big Best Picture scrap between these two or…you know, they wanted Burton bad at the awards ceremony.
Michael Clayton‘s George Clooney was named Best Actor…I give up. Away From Her‘s Julie Christie named Best Actress…fine. Best Supporting Actor award went to Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford…fine…and the Best Supporting Actress awatrd went to Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone Best Documentary: Body of War. Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille.
What’s The Bucket List doing on their roster of ’07’s Ten Best films? I don’t think that’s going to result in Jack Nichiolson showing up for the awards ceremony so why’d they do it? Nobody but nobody is over the moon about this thing.
Wells to “Aguirre,” the ghost of Klaus Kinski — what was all that blah-blah about The Kite Runner being an NBR favorite to win Best Picture?
I wouldn’t normally predict the National Board of Review‘s picks, which will be revealed sometime around 2 or 3 pm this afternoon, but since I’ll be in a Sweeney Todd screening that will start at 2 pm I may as well take a shot. I’m doing so knowing that the NBR has become an even worse joke than before due to the reported ouster of Annette Insdorf from the executive photoplay committee. The NBR picks will be old news by tonight and all-but-forgotten by tomorrow so I don’t know why anything bothers.
I’m not disputing the ghost-of-Klaus Kinski‘s prediction that The Kite Runner will take Best Picture, but a voice is telling me that it’s a 50-5O teeter-totter between this and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. (They may go even further and give their Best Director award to Julian Schnabel.) It would be right and fitting to start the ball rolling for No Country for Old Men with a Best Picture win…
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I really can’t do this. Whatever they choose, they choose. The groups that matter are the L.A. Film Critics (who will vote, I think, this coming Saturday), the Boston Film Critics (who’ll vote Sunday) and the New York Film Critics Circle (who will powwow early next week).
The latest Envelope Buzzmeter is out and Juno, a smart and likable comfort-blanket movie, is now in the top five. The problem (and I don’t dislike it — it’s a thoroughly decent domestic dramedy) is that it’s a 7.5 or an 8, at best, and just not in the class of last year’s Fox Searchlight contender, Little Miss Sunshine.
Otherwise, Atonement still leads with No Country for Old Men, American Gangster and The Kite Runner in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th position.
No Country‘s Joel and Ethan Coen are still the leading Best Director contenders with Atonement‘s Joe Wright, American Gangster‘s Ridley Scott and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead helmer Sidney Lumet running 2nd through 5th.
There Will Be Blood‘s Daniel Day-Lewis is still top dog in the Best Actor category, followed by Gangster‘s Denzel Washington, Sweeney Todd‘s Johnny Depp (a new arrival), Michael Clayton‘s George Clooney — what? — and Atonement‘s James McAvoy.
Stop right there. The 25 Buzzmeter contributors (myself excluded) are telling me that Clooney’s performance, which was perfectly solid and convincing, was stronger and more penetrating than Benicio del Toro‘s in Things We Lost in the Fire? I need to say this politely but are they out of their minds? Del Toro has the spirit, the craft and the under-the-skin honesty of Marlon Brando. Wake up, grow a pair, say what’s really true and stop playing political suck-up games, and I’m saying this with the greatest respect for the smarts and wisdom of everyone concerned.
The Best Actress race is still led by La Vie en Rose‘s Marion Cotilard (my choice), followed by Away From Her‘s Julie Christie, Juno‘s Ellen Page, Atonement‘s Keira Knightley and Enchanted‘s Amy Adams. Honestly, really now — would the Buzzmeter gang be voting for Adams if Enchanted had fizzled at the box-office? It’s a fine, live-wire performance, sure, but it’s pretty much a one-note thing…okay, two notes…an enchanting bit…Carol Burnett as Snow White. Get past it.
In the Best Supporting Actor category, Tommy Lee Jones — the sad-hearted soul of No Country for Old Men — has been edged out by The Assassination of Jesse James‘ Casey Affleck. Affleck was awfully good in that film so no complaints. No Country‘s Javier Bardem still leads the pack with Into The Wild‘s Hal Holbrook, Michael Clayton‘s Tom Wilkinson and Charlie Wilson’s War‘s Philip Seymour Hoffman also among the five. Fine by me.
I’m Not There‘s Cate Blanchett still leads the Best Supporting Actress category, as she should. Gone Baby Gone‘s Amy Ryan, Michael Clayton‘s Tilda Swinton, Atonement‘s Saoirse Ronan and American Gangster‘s Ruby Dee also among the top five.
The only way that the National Board of Review awards, to be decided upon and then announced on Wednesday, would have any effect on award-season thinking would be if they made some kind of radical Best Picture choice…which isn’t likely. The NBR did the right thing last year in giving Letters From Iwo Jima their Best Picture prize, but their generally conservative tendencies indicates a vote for one of the comfort-blanket films over the less-soothing darkhearts — Sweeney Todd, No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, etc. A big surprise would obviously be welcome.
NBR president Annie Schulhof, Volver star Penelope Cruz at last year’s NBR award presentation ceremony at Manhattan’s Cipriani
I was hoping that Fox 411’s Roger Friedman, who’s passed along some tough judgments about the inside doings of the NBR over the years, would have posted predictions today, but nope. He says he may have something along these lines up tomorrow, including his own calls.
Red Carpet District‘s Kris Tapley has posted a link to some In Contenton predictions by the Klaus Kinski-admiring “Aguirre” that went up yesterday. Marc Forster‘s The Kite Runner for Best Picture, he says. That sounds about right for the NBR. It’s an intelligent, well made heart-tugger about an adult looking for healing and redemption for a bad thing that happened in childhood. It’s also struck chords with over-40 audiences. But a voice is telling me that Joe Wright‘s Atonement, which has a somewhat similar story and theme, will take it.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God says the NPR’s Best Documentary will either be Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro‘s Body of War or Charles Ferguson‘s No End in Sight.
And La Vie en Rose‘s Marion Cotilliard is said to be a locked call for Best Actress.
People can’t get a fix on the ’07 Best Picture race because they can’t reconcile the two camps — i.e., those who want to nominate reassuring, light-quaalude- high, comfort-blanket movies and those pushing the high-end, full-throttle, not-as- comforting art films (which actually are comforters if you accept the notion that great or intensely stimulating art is the most profoundly serene drug of all).
The blistering tough-nut contenders are No Country for Old Men, Sweeney Todd, Zodiac, Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, There Will Be Blood, I’m Not There, Control and (if you want to be generous and and/or respectful of a very touching and well-made fathers-and-sons drama) In The Valley of Elah.
The comfort-blanket contenders are Atonement, Juno, The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Great Debaters and, in a certain way, Michael Clayton. (I’m starting to believe that Tony Gilroy‘s film may become a Best Picture nominee for its smoothly applied craft. As much as I admired and enjoyed it, Clayton is basically an upscale John Grisham film with a redemption theme and a little Howard Beale thrown in. It’s very well made and yet familiar — it’s a first-rate Sydney Pollack film from the early ’90s — and therefore a comforter.)
There are some out there who are actually talking about Enchanted being a possible Best Picture contender. No comment necessary.
By my standards, the only two films that straddle the two categories are American Gangster — a sprawling, satisfying ’70s crime film — and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a movie not just about solitary confinement but enslavement by a debilitating affliction, and yet so beautifully made that it has persuaded thousands not to mind being confined inside the body of a man who can do nothing but blink his left eye. (I knew I was seeing something exceptional, and at the same instant that I didn’t want to watch it for two hours because of the climate of terrible confinement.)
Knowing the Academy as I do, it’ll probably work out to three comforters vs. two tough-nut, high-art entries. Or it could break down to a four-to-one ratio favoring the softies. Like the Envelope Buzzmeter chart is predicting right now, for instance — Atonement, American Gangster, No Country for Old Men, Juno and The Kite Runner. It would be a perversion of Movie God justice for this to happen, but a hard-bitten realist needs to prepare for the inevitable downers-around-the-corner.
If Once had any Best Picture heat it would be called a soother also, but it’s the kind of comfort-blanket flick that has immense integrity and deserves everyone’s allegiance.
The only favored non-comforter right now is No Country for Old Men — I know it, HE readers know it, David Carr knows it. I am respectful of Atonement and wouldn’t flinch too badly if it won. The other three contenders besides this and Atonement should be Sweeney Todd, Zodiac and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, but this won’t happen because of the softie mentality.
If I were Benito Mussolini I would round up the softies in minivans in the middle of the night and send them off to reeducation camps in the Mojave Desert, and it would honestly be for their own good. I would drill them in the morning with calisthenics, subject them to film and film-debate classes and serve them hot healthy meals. And after their release from Movie Reducation Stalag 17 they’d never again consider certain far-from-masterful films like Juno or Enchanted or Charlie Wilson’s War for Best Picture.
A Wired/Underwired blogger named John Scott Lewinski said today that two sources (a working movie producer, the other a show-runner on an upcoming sci-fi pilot) have told him that the WGA strike is set for a 12.8 settlement, which is pretty close to what I heard last weekend about the strike settlement to be announced sometime close to Pearl Harbor day (i.e., Thursday, 12.7).
The bad news, he admits, is that he might be passing along “a rapidly spreading rumor that might be, in fact, a rapidly spreading rumor. Both of my sources refused to go on the record because the date is not official and they don’t want to appear stupid if the dispute wraps before or well after that date.” Throwing caution to the wind, Lewsinki writes that “when the strike ends on Dec. 8, I reported it here first.” Nope — you actually read it here first. On Saturday, 11.24. Not that it means anything.
A 30th anniversary, 3-disc, triple-dip Close Encounters of the Third Kind DVD came out on 11.13. It’s a Blade Runner package in that it has the original ’77 version, that awful extra-footage, inside-the-mother-ship version that came out in ’80, and the director’s cut that came out in ’98 or thereabouts. Reading about it reminded me to never, ever see this film again.
I’ll always love the opening seconds of Steven Spielberg‘s once-legendary film, which I saw on opening day at Manhattan’s Zeigfeld theatre on 11.16.77. (I wasn’t a journalist or even a New Yorker at that stage — I took the train in from Connecticut that morning.) I still get chills thinking about that black-screen silence as the main credits fade in and out — plainly but ominously. And then John Williams‘ organish space-music sounding faintly, and then a bit more…slowly building, louder and louder. And then that huge orchestral CRASH! at the exact split second that the screen turns the color of warm desert sand, and we’re in the Sonoran desert looking for those pristine WW II planes without the pilots.
That was probably Spielberg’s finest creative wow-stroke. He never delivered a more thrilling moment after that, and sometimes I think it may have been all downhill from then on, even during the unfolding of Close Encounters itself.
I saw it three times during the initial run, but when I saw it again on laser disc in the early ’90s I began to realize how consistently irritating and assaultive it is from beginning to end. There are so many moments that are either stylistically affected or irritating or impossible to swallow, I’m starting to conclude that there isn’t a single scene in that film that doesn’t offend in some way. I could write 100 pages on all the things that irk me about Close Encounters. I can’t watch it now without gritting my teeth. Everything about that film that seemed delightful or stunning or even breathtaking in ’77 (excepting those first few seconds and the mothership arrival at the end) now makes me want to jump out the window.
That stupid mechanical monkey with the cymbals. The way those little screws on the floor heating vent unscrew themselves. The way those Indian guys all point heavenward at the the exact same moment when they’re asked where the sounds came from. “Bahahahhahhree!” That idiotic invisible poison gas scare around Devil’s Tower. That awful actor playing that senior Army officer who denies it’s a charade. The way the electricity comes back on in Muncie, Indiana, at the same moment that those three small UFOs drones disappear in the heavens. The mule-like resistance of Teri Garr‘s character to believe even a little bit in Richard Dreyfuss‘s sightings. It’s one unlikely, implausible, baldly manipulative crap move after another.
If only Spielberg had the talent to blend his fertile imaginings with a semblance of half-believable realism…but he doesn’t. Or didn’t back then.
The worst element of all is the way Spielberg has those guys who are supposed to board the mother ship wearing the same red jumpsuits and sunglasses and acting like total robots. Why? No reason. Spielberg just liked the idea of them looking and acting that way. This is a prime example of why his considerable gifts don’t overcome the fact that he’s a hack. He knows how to get you but there’s never anything under the “get.”
The ending of No Country for Old Men is obviously irritating to some, but the thematic echoes and undercurrents from the last scene stay with you like some kind of sad back-porch symphony. Spielberg’s films have almost never accomplished anything close to this. I’m not sure they have even once. Has anyone tried watching the “little girl in red” scene in Schindler’s List lately? I love most of that 1993 film, but this scene gets a little bit worse every time.
Although he’s now allowing that No Country for Old Men will probably eke its way into one of the five Best Picture slots, The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil is reporting, based on five or so conversations, that the widely-admired Coen brothers film is eliciting respect but not a lot of great passion among Academy fudgeballs.
O’Neil speaks here to Envelope columnist Pete Hammond about No Country‘s lofty rep among critics, and how this will most likely translate into Academy-level support. Unless, that is, the softies dig in their heels and “just say no,” either directly or passive-aggressively.
O’Neil himself isn’t a great No Country admirer (he admits this), but if you know Tom you know he isn’t really speaking about quality judgment as much as the proverbial “longing for comfort” factor. We all understand, I think, why O’Neil and his Academy chums are cool to this landmark film, and it starts, oddly enough, with what N.Y. Press critic Armond White called it — “a crime movie for a world at war.”
In saying this White is rehashing an old truism, which is that all great films reflect the world in which they were made as much as the literary source material that they’re based upon. A-level artists are always responding to the electric here-and- now, and the Coen brothers were certainly in this groove when they shot and cut this film in ’06 and early ’07.
No County for Old Men is a period film set in 1980, but it’s saying four dark things about the world of 2007. One, you can’t see what’s coming. Two, you can’t stop what’s coming. Three, the decent people are starting to be outnum- bered by the indecent ones. And four, a kind of spiritual apocalypse is gathering like storm clouds and surrounding our culture.
So there is no comfort for old Academy members in this film, even though it embodies lasting art and immaculate craft. Especially with that “unsatisfying ending” that I’m sure is sticking in their craw — that kitchen-table scene with Tommy Lee Jones lamenting the loss of decency and dependability (as embodied by his father) in his own life, and again admitting to himself and to us that he’s feeling overwhelmed and outflanked by the bad guys.
It’s also interesting that neither Hammond nor O’Neil mention Sidney Lumet‘s Before The Devil Knows Your’e Dead as a Best Picture contender. They apparently feel it’s out of the running — when did that happen? Hammond feels, however that Sidney Lumetis in contention for Best Director. How do you say “yes” to a director but “no” to his/her film?
The leading feel-good comfort providers, according to these two, are The Kite Runner, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and, in O’Neil’s words, “even” Atonement.
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