As previously explored in our 1991 pre-Smackdown ruminations, the 64th Academy Awards were marked by several first in the annals of Oscar history. The Silence of the Lambs became the first horror movie to conquer Best Picture, and it was also only the third flick to win the Oscars' Big Five (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay) after It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Among the other Best Picture contenders, Disney's Beauty and the Beast also made a splash, becoming the first animated feature to be nominated for that most important category. Still, more important even than that landmark for animation, we have the case of John Singleton who, in one fell swoop, became the first Black man to be in contention for the Best Director Oscar, as well as the youngest nominee in the category's history…
The Film StageGangster Squad, with its machine gun in the movie theater moment -- already revealed in the trailer -- may be delayed or reedited now in the wake of Aurora Colorado tragedy. (I figured this was coming) i09 Lt Ellen Ripley and Child, painted. Other sci-fi women also iconized. Telegraph RIP Actor Simon Ward of The Tudors, Three Musketeers, Supergirl, and Young Winston fame. He was 70 years old. Rope of Silicon is wondering about the Oscar chances of Beasts of the Southern Wild now that it's expanded well.
My New Plaid Pants Quote of the Day via The House of Kermit Pajiba Dustin recounts his single most humiliating experience as a critic. Curse you, Taylor Lautner! The Broadway Blog celebrates musical theater's belters: Sutton, Babs, Lupone and more Hollywood Elsewhere has lunch with the Criterion Blurays of Rosemary's Baby and Sunday Bloody Sunday Vanity Fair says goodbye to The Dark Knight Trilogy with a behind the scenes slideshow Vulture looks at the dissolution of the TomKat marriage NPR this is sweet, actor Donald Faison (Clueless, Scrubs) on the movie he has seen a million times: The Empire Strikes Back The Film Doctor discusses The Dark Knight Rises with a film major at Waffle House. Cheese, eggs, raisin toast, and spoilers.
P.S. Yes, yes. I did start a review myself and I hope to have it up today but I'm moving in slo-mo this week.
Slate has an amusing piece arguing against the Consider Uggie campaign for that wondrous terrier in The Artist. Academy Awards 265 have qualified for Best Picture. Here is the complete Official list. I can't hear anything from all the LOL'ing since it's alphabetical and starts with... wait for it... ABDUCTION. Teehee
Oscarmetrics Mark Harris makes a case for Brad Pitt in The Tree of Life, which we agree is one of the year's best performances. Oscar is often about "it's time" and given that both of Pitt's performance were A grade this year, isn't it? And I swear I was linking up to this one before I even realized I was name-checked.
tomatoes - reviews worth reading... Devine Wrath a lovely review of romantic drama Weekend which is now available on Netflix Instant Watch. What are you waiting for? Capital New York Sheila O'Malley, one of my favorite critics, is wowed by Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
O, Hai...
Can I change all my BFCA and Indie Wire poll votes to this one?
top ten o' the day Ali Arikan, a friend who is always worth a read, throws his top ten at the Chicago Sun Times from far flung Turkey. The Turkish film Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, which sits stubbornly beside my TV waiting to be watched (Oh the guilt-a-thon that is December!), tops his list. But for me I was most curious to read what he thought of two films I had remarkable trouble connecting to: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and We Need To Talk About Kevin (both of which I recently said a very few words on). I definitely appreciate what he has to say about Kevin though I don't like the film any better:
would reading the book help Nathaniel understand the love?A harrowing tragedy is at the centre of Lynne Ramsay's film, one we never quite see, although its repercussions we most certainly feel. The particulars of the event are at first ambiguous, and, paradoxically, it tends to become more so, thematically at least, once we find out the nature of it. Is it a mass killing at a high school? Or is there something deeper? Is the tragedy Kevin, a precocious psycho of a boy whose mother, Eva (Tilda Swinton), never really wanted? Is it, in fact, Eva's selfishness? Or is it, in fact, the apotheosis of motherhood that is the real tragedy? The anachronistic and misogynistic view that the female of the species was launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same?
The film doesn't provide the answers, instead offering a glimpse into Eva's psyche, both before and after the events that sent Kevin to prison. Eva's emotional self-immolation doesn't betray just an "oy vey iz mir" pity-party of one, but also a sort of solipsism: a misappropriation and transmogrification, perhaps, of Henley's "Invictus," with Eva not just as the master of her fate, but also the executioner of her soul.
Finally... IndieWire has year end critics consensus polling. I participated this year though as usual I'm still screening before I publish my own lists (I have about three more things I'm trying to see and two that need rewatching). The results are interesting but ...odd. Especially the supporting categories. Here's the 25 most well regarded films... the big surprises for me being A Dangerous Method (I guess those who love it, really love it) and Midnight in Paris which I expected critics to have turned against by now in the grand tradition of "if it's too popular, it's no longer cool to like it." Critics have a much higher tolerance for slow contemplative cinema as you can see. It'd be interesting to do a study of the average running time of this batch of films... or perhaps more revealing would be a study of the ratio of cuts per minute of film. After all it's hardly unusual these days for the top grossing mainstream blockbusters to have bloated running times as well. Only one of the top ten grossers of the year is shorter than an hour and 45 (that'd be The Hangover Part II) but do all of them really have 2+ hours worth of story to tell? I'd guess not.
Are you with consensus or far from it this year??? I tend to vary greatly by year though this year I'm definitely toward the middle of consensus rather than full in or way afield. I've found 2011 to be ridiculously enjoyable on the big screen.
Earlier today I got booted from an Oscar contender screening (Mexico's Miss Bala) that was over capacity. There was once this great thing called a "book store" (sound it out. I know it's unfamiliar) where it was easy to kill a couple of hours when you didn't have a laptop with you and something went wrong schedule wise. I've yet to find a suitable alternative so I went to the multiplex. The only movie starting at the right time to fill my schedule gap? ABDUCTION. I feel terrible about contributing to its box office gross but I will make it up to the cinema gods somehow (my first born child?). Don't judge me too harshly. I'm sure you've done something terribly terribly wrong in your life!
I'm opting to stay positive by listing... The Ten Best Things About Abduction
Best Trailer Screen Cap: Sigourney Weaver and Taylor Lautner with a huge black title card celebrating Sigourney Weaver covering his face. YES!!!
01 Sigourney Weaver has a fun entrance in one scene carrying a huge bouquet of balloons.
02 At one point the villain threatens to kill all of Taylor Lautner's fans* on Facebook. (*okay he says "friends" but some people deserve to die.)
03 The star's girlfriend's eyebrows are more masculine than his.
04 In the movie's best stunt Lautner hurts his ankle and he remembers to limp for most of the rest of the scene. ACTING!
05 The movie hides the face of one key character the whole time but the lips were enough to give him away. Hi, Dermot Mulroney! Also: I will now fantasize that Dermot Mulroney did this for the money and was smart enough to put it in his contract that his whole face not be shown and thus associated with this movie. If Maria Bello, Jason Isaac, and Sigourney Weaver had all done the same this movie would have been very avant garde what with the entire adult supporting cast only shown through extreme closeups of lips and eyes.
07 Maria Bello has this really emotional scene opposite a block of wood that questions its provenance "Are you my mother?" And she totally sells her love for the block of wood! "I'm not your mother but you are my son." That's what a damn fine actor she is!
Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 9:00AM 
