The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
I didn't think we'd be getting this trailer so soon but I guess the year is getting on. Wowee - 2011 is half over tomorrow... should we do a "best of"? Herewith, the first trailer for Steven Spielberg's Christmas-time presumed Oscar frontrunner spectacle War Horse. We'll decide how excited we are with our yes, no, maybe so treatment.
Can you imagine flying over a war, and you know you can never look down? You have to look forward or you'll never get home. I ask you: What could be braver than that?
YES If there's any director who excels at capturing the spirit of (boy) wonder, it's Spielberg. The first shot of the lead (Jeremy Irvine as Albert) brings to mind both E.T. and Empire of the Sun in particular as a boy is amazed at the wonderment he beholds ...in this case, a horse rather than an alien or an airplane. The trailer also reminded me of something totally off-topic but that warmed my heart. Do you remember those old ads about indie movie making starring Jesse Eisenberg's little sister Hailee. Remember those? I forget what they were for. She played the world's youngest movie director or something?
My movie is called Horses Are Pretty because horses are pretty.
That they are. Don't think Spielberg won't know how to exploit their innate majesty.
NO "RUN FORREST ALBERT RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN" [trailer and Oscar commentary after the jump]
Striiiiike. I forgot to sound off on the trailer for Moneyball. And then there's Footloose what shuffled by us, too. It's been a long week. TGIF and all that... only it's already Saturday. What? Okay, here we go. You know how we do here. We manage expectations with the patented Yes, No, Maybe So breakdown. How excited are we/should we be for each new movie?
First up... Brad Pitt in the baseball stats dramedy Moneyball.
YES Brad Pitt. And there's something mellow but casually exciting about the presentation overall... which is rather like the sport of baseball come to think of it, wherein nothing much happens until it does. NO All behind-the-sport dramas made after 2006 are always going to come up short on account of Friday Night Lights (2006-2011). That's just the way it is. It's like trying to envision what the future will look like after Blade Runner or trying to do a porn drama after Boogie Nights or somesuch. Several of the shots of Brad Pitt here instantly recall Coach Taylor for example even though they're probably not trying to. Plus the topic just seems so dry, right? True stories also have the disadvantage of inevitable and therefore (sometimes) anti-climactic finales.
MAYBE SO The trailer doesn't get all obsessed about Philip Seymour Hoffman being in it which is a considerable relief. If the trailer is true it looks like Jonah Hill is the one to watch IF (and I still think it's a big IF) the film gets any sort of Oscar traction. I liked Hill in Cyrus and though heseems a bit limited in the range department, choosing the right projects can really help to shift perceptions about that or at least maximize what can happen within the confines of any actor's range. The script is by Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, both strong writers, and though that's not an automatic yes (must we invoke the name of Charlie Wilson's War? for example), it's a good sign that it'll be lively and smart.
Me, I'm a maybe so and I'll lean whichever way the Oscar buzz does. But then it does star Brad Pitt so chances are very good that I'll see it.
The other night while I was out at a party and my friend Kenneth totally got in my face about how Brad Pitt is a terrible actor and I'm like no-no-no. Brad Pitt is... well he's Brad Pitt! ♥. He's been continually underrated his whole career despite being a huge star with the exception of that highly unnecessary Oscar nomination for his Benjamin Button turn, the equivalent of Depp's Neverland nomination surely ("Yes, you're totally boring in this but WE JUST LOVE YOU ANYWAY!"). So maybe whether or not you're a yes, no or maybe will come down to Brad?
UGH. FOLLOWING IN KEVIN BACON'S FOOTSTEPS IS HAAARD.
YES Miles Teller in the Chris Penn role?That could be fun. And though it pains me to say it... when an original isn't sacred -- and Footloose is only sacred in the nostalgic sense not in the "movie" sense -- it's sometimes fun to watch how they reinterpret key moments. Like, when Kenny Wormald crazydances in that empty warehouse, they won't have to go all silhouette body double right?
NO The most annoying bit in the trailer is surely the "It's OUR time" town hall righteous speechifying since the movie looks as generic as can be and anything but generation-defying... unless today's generation prides themselves on being super lame Frankenstein's monsters stitched together by their parent's nostalgic parts. Also in its insistence on looking like both a hip-hop movie AND a remake of "Dirty Dancing" AND the original "pop" film AND a country and western joint, it's clearly trying to be all things for all people and will subsequently have no identity of its own.
Plus (by which I mean minus): exploding trucks.
And a lead female star so bratty you want Dennis Quaid to give her a good spanking and ground her. Where is Lori Singer's weirdly comatose sensuality... the believable byproduct of a stifling home environment (with or without the cello)
MAYBE SO Craig Brewer wrote and directed it and though I can't for even one frame spot the brave provocateur behind Hustle & Flow or Black Snake Moan, maybe you can? Or maybe the trailer is just a bad lie and the film will be interesting?
"No" unless reviews by nearly every trustworthy critic surprise.
Last night I had a lovely Scandinavian dinner with friends as we discussed our book club title "The Ice Princess" the latest best seller capitalizing on the super hot Scandinavian crime genre (oh what The Girl With/Who... has wrought!). I didn't like the book at all and the translation seemed clunky (or maybe that was the fault of the original prose?) but I find the whole trend vaguely hilarious since Scandinavian countries, to their vast collective credit, are not exactly known as hotbeds of crime! Returning home, what do I have in my inbox?, but the nominations for Norway's annual "Amanda" Awards. Don't you love unexpected theme days?
Norway had a record breaking year with 34 original films eligible for their own prizes. To give you a very general sense of the amount of films various countries make each year here's a handy graphic AMPAS provided for the films of 2007. Would that all the regularly Oscar submitting countries had been listed!
It's no surprise that Bollywood is the biggest deal with over a thousand films made a year.
BUT BACK TO NORWAY.
They basically have two "Best Picture" categories since Scandinavia has a rich history of children's films. So the six lucky movies are as follows.
Nokas was released in Norway the day after last year's foreign film eligibility cutoff!Best Children's Film
Elias og jakten på havets gull (Lise I. Osvoll) -ANIMATED
Jørgen + Anne = sant [a.k.a. Totally True Love] (Anne Sewitsky)
Keeper’n til Liverpool (Arild Andresen) -a comedy about a 13 year old soccer goalie.
Best Film
Gazas tårer [aka Tears of Gaza] (Vibeke Løkkeberg) -This is a documentary film about the consequences of war.
Kongen av Bastøy/ The King of Devil's Island (Marius Holst) -Here is the highest profile release, a true story period epic about a boy's prison in the early 20th century.
Nokas (Erik Skjoldbjærg) -Another true story, this one a crime drama about Norway's most famous robbery. This is from the director of the famous thriller Insomnia (1997) which Christopher Nolan went and remade.
Trailer to The King of Devil's Island with Stellan Skarsgård
Eligibility dates aren't exactly the same for the Amandas as they are for Oscar submissions but you shouldn't be surprised if one of these six films is Norway's submission. Two other films of note: Maria Sødahl's Limbo, a period filmwith the great Lena Endre about expat Scandinavians in Trinidad, did very well in total nominations (acting, screenplay, direction and more) but missed the Best Picture cut under the familiar awards rule of something-has-to. But it won't be the Oscar submission as it would have been eligible in 2010 and it also has a lot of dialogue in English. Trolljegeren, known abroad as Troll Hunter (it's even in release as we speak right here in the States) won multiple nominations, too.
I'm assuming that Joachim Trier's second feature Oslo 31, August missed the eligiblity cut off for these awards. And given that it was so well received at Cannes, perhaps Oscar submission is in the cards? Norway submitted the young filmmaker's debut Reprise once upon a time. (Oscar foolishly ignored it. God, what a startling debut that was. I nominated it!). Here's the trailer to Oslo 31, August.
...same lead actor as Reprise, playing a troubled soul again. I shouldn't make any uninformed guesses but my hunch is that it'll be this one or The King of Devil's Island for Oscar submission.
"I'm going to lose to the King's Speech again??? It's my turn!"Best Foreign Film One of the funnest things for awards junkies when perusing off-Oscar prizes is how often Oscar giants show up in Foreign Film prizes. Hint: They usually do.
I've recently had two brief conversations with people who have seen My Week With Marilyn and Madonna's W.E. respectively. I was happy to have the conversations so closely together because it's always fun to pair Madonna with Marilyn and one doesn't get the opportunity so much anymore. Plus, aren't we all just itchy to see some real Oscar players emerge?
Left to Right: Michelle as Marilyn, Eddie Redmayne as Colin Clark (lead), Dougray Scott as Arthur Miller, and Dominic Cooper as Milton Greene
Bear in mind that these are singular tossed off opinions and the only opinions that matter in the Oscar race are the ones from the Opinion Makers within the voting ranks (the Julias, the Beattys, the Spielbergs you know the type), and any opinons marked "General Consensus" which take their time to form. The films are also far from release so they probably saw cuts that weren't final.
The friend who saw My Week With Marilyn was pretty cool on it, finding Michelle Williams difficult to adjust to as the blonde bombshell at first but eventually just fine. The film itself was judged to be lightweight. (Though one man's lightweight is another man's "frothy and charming", don'cha know? See: billions of examples through history... and Oscar history) Kenneth Branagh was singled out for praise for a showy spin as Sir Laurence Olivier. That may be worth noting since we all know that Branagh is a big ham and who better to receive that honey-glazed THESPIAN treatment than pompous Olivier?
But what of Judi Dench, I asked? "Better in Jane Eyre" was the only opinion I wrangled there.
Madonna is hands on with Andrea Riseborough's look on "W.E."The reader who saw Madonna'sW.E., which looks at the famous affair of Wallis Simpson and Prince through the eyes of a modern woman in an unhappy marriage, really liked the film but she hopes it gets a new ending. High praise went to the costumes (which we'd already suspected would happen since Arianne Phillips is involved), William Orbit's score (interesting! You'll remember that the composer worked on Madonna's greatest CD "Ray of Light"), and Andrea Riseborough as Wallis Simpson who was deemed 'award-worthy' without any qualifiers.
To my surprise she referred to Riseborough as "supporting". I think I had assumed that like Julie & Julia, the obvious recent predecessor in 'two time frames at once, joined by the modern woman's obsession' that it would essentially be a two-hander with Abbie Cornish (in the present) and Riseborough (in the past) both having lead roles. Maybe it is. Everyone seems to have very different ideas these days about what "lead" and "supporting" means.
It's not much. Just some whispering but it's fun to fantasize about future Oscar players while we wait... and wait... and wait. Only 215 days until nominations! Hee.
In the series Yes No Maybe So we parse out movie trailers to determine just how excited we are about an upcoming movie. Today... David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method in which two very infamous doctors of psychiatry (Freud and Jung) find a perfect guinea pig in unstable Russian woman Sabina Spielrein; Psychoanalysis is born, though it hasn't quite worked out its doctor/patient boundaries just yet.
YES Viggo Mortensen, David Cronenberg's chief muse these days, plays Sigmund Freud and their second reunion after the masterpiece A History of Violence (followed by the compelling Eastern Promises) would be enough for a sober grunted "yes" on its own. Stir the Crazy of Freud/Jung into the mix with justifiably Most-Wanted Michael Fassbender in the lead role of Carl Jung and the yes becomes as hysteric as Jung's patient Sabina played by Keira Knightley (who is obviously out to raise her game as an actress lately).
NO On the other hand, sexual repression and experimental psychiatry aren't the easiest topics to portray without the possibility of unintentional laughs or hindsight ridicule in these arguably more enlightened times. The trailer does have a weird fallback mode in which someone says something we're to register as Shocking or Telling and... cut to: Fassbender immediately shifting his intense glance to the side.
MAYBE SO.. Though Cronenberg is one of the world's most fascinating auteurs and Viggo and Fassy two of its most genius actors, the trailer gives off the distinct aroma of Keira...
As in... this will all live or die or, rather, doze off with boredom or leap off the psychiatrists couch with abandon if she's up to her central role. I worry that they refer to her as Russian and Keira doesn't sound Russian at all in the trailer? And given that her role is extreme with the theatrics, will she be Oscar beloved or sliced up with the critics knives?
Keira The MadwomanKeira Oscar-Clipping It.Keira the Masochist "PUNISH ME!"
Will this feel like a stage play with the all the talking and observing in offices and bedrooms? Will the trio of famous faces invest the heady mind games with heart, body and soul? Will Cronenberg finally have an Oscar hit on his hands what with the true story, biographical figures and period detailing?
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 12:00PM 
