[CinemaRatty] category: Documentary

Central Ohio Like Wall-E, Mickey and Melissa

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:12:46 +0000

Here are the Central Ohio winners:

Best Films
1. WALL·E
2. Slumdog Millionaire
3. Frozen River
4. The Dark Knight
5. Frost/Nixon
6. Milk
7. The Wrestler
8. Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)
9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
10. In Bruges

Best Director
-Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
-Runner-up: Andrew Stanton, WALL·E

Best Actor
-Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
-Runner-up: Sean Penn, Milk

Best Actress
-Melissa Leo, Frozen River
-Runner-up: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married

Best Supporting Actor
-Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
-Runners-up (tie): Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt and Eddie Marsan, Happy-Go-Lucky

Best Supporting Actress
-Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
-Runner-up: Misty Upham, Frozen River

Best Ensemble
-The Dark Knight
-Runner-up: Slumdog Millionaire

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)
-Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man and Tropic Thunder
-Runner-up: James Franco, Milk and Pineapple Express

Breakthrough Film Artist
-Melissa Leo, Frozen River (for acting)
-Runner-up: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River (for directing and screenwriting)

Best Cinematography
-Wally Pfister, The Dark Knight
-Runner-up: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Screenplay – Adapted
-Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
-Runner-up: Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon

Best Screenplay – Original
-Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon, WALL·E
-Runner-up: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River

Best Score
-Alexandre Desplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
-Runner-up: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Documentary
-Man on Wire
-Runner-up: American Teen

Best Foreign Language Film
-4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile)
-Runner-up: Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)

Best Animated Film
-WALL·E
-Runner-up: Kung Fu Panda

Best Overlooked Film
-Ghost Town
-Runner-up: RocknRolla

COFCA offers its congratulations to the winners.

Previous Best Film winners:

2002: Punch-Drunk Love
2003:   Lost in Translation
2004:   Million Dollar Baby
2005:   A History of Violence
2006:   Children of Men
2007: No Country for Old Men

The TCM Ten 1/10-1/16

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:07:07 +0000

A quick note on TCM’s venture into DVD production with the Lost and Found RKO Collection. These are films that premiered on TCM in April of 2007, mostly unseen for half a century, and now can be had exclusively through the channel’s site in conjunction with Movies Unlimited. The set being offered is a bit pricey, all things considered, and the discs are actually DVD-R’s. I have the box and everything looks classy enough, but it’s a bit underhanded to not make mention anywhere that the copies are burned. The quality, based on the little I’ve seen, appears to be fine (for now). Moving on. Pretty good selections this week. Note the early start for The Blue Dahlia. As always, all times are EST and program days begin at 6:00 AM.

Saturday January 10

10:00 AM The Blue Dahlia (Marshall, 1946) - BW-99 mins. - A film noir with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, written by Raymond Chandler who picked up an Oscar nomination for his troubles. It’s also the movie that inspired the postmortem nickname of Elizabeth Short. There’s a DVD from Universal in R2, but this is definitely overdue for release in R1. It may even be one of the bigger omissions given the film’s notoriety on multiple levels.

10:00 PM Bombshell (Fleming, 1933) - BW-96 mins. - Screwy MGM comedy starring Jean Harlow as some version of her screen persona. She’s a movie star pulled in every direction from family and studio obligations, intent on cleaning up her image. Lee Tracy co-stars as her agent. Presumably this will be part of Warner Bros.’ Harlow DVD set whenever that actually happens. Harlow and frequent accomplice Clark Gable star in the drama Hold Your Man at 1:30 AM.

Sunday January 11

8:00 AM The Devil and Miss Jones (Wood, 1941) - BW-92 mins. - Charles Coburn was Oscar-nominated for his performance as a tycoon who, after learning he owns a department store, goes undercover to find out who was behind the workers unionizing. The Coburn character becomes a shoe salesman and ends up making friends with his two main offenders - Jean Arthur and Robert Cummings. An excellent supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn, Spring Byington, and William Demarest. Despite a Norman Krasna screenplay that was also nominated by the Academy and production design by William Cameron Menzies, the comedy isn’t on DVD. It was originally put out by RKO so Warner Bros. should control the R1 rights.

Monday January 12

7:15 AM Big City (Borzage, 1937) - BW-80 mins. - As pointed out by one of my astute commenters, a pair of Frank Borzage-directed films not on DVD air today. The first is headlined by two consecutive Oscar winners in the midst of their individual glory. Spencer Tracy and Luise Rainer star as a married couple struggling with a taxi strike (he’s a driver) and her pending deportation after she’s accused of bombing a garage. Made for MGM, Warner Bros. should have the rights to the film now.

8:00 PM No Greater Glory (Borzage, 1934) - BW-74 mins. - Gangs and war among youths, starring Frankie Darro. Jo Swerling adapted an autobiographical novel by playwright Ferenc Molnár, who also wrote Liliom, and Borzage produced and directed the picture for Columbia. Expect typical Borzage tenderness. Probably don’t expect a DVD, though, as the movie’s in Sony’s money-grubbing hands.

Tuesday January 13

3:45 AM Woody Allen: A Life in Film (Schickel, 2002) - C-88 mins. - Fans of Woody, either rabid or moderate, would do well to catch or record this showing of Richard Schickel’s documentary/interview. It features the writer and director talking about his films up to, I believe, Hollywood Ending. Since Allen isn’t big on interviews, absent entirely from his DVDs which also lack supplements, this remains a rare peek inside the neurosis. And it’s not on DVD, with a release seemingly doubtful since it hasn’t happened yet.

6:00 AM Maisie (Marin, 1939) - BW-75 mins. - First in the series starring Ann Sothern as Brooklyn showgirl Maisie. In this entry she finds herself in Wyoming, low on funds, and playing a significant part in the lives of a rancher (Robert Young) and an adulteress (Ruth Hussey). Seven films featuring Sothern as the Maisie character immediately follow this airing. They were made for MGM. Warner Bros. now has the rights, but none of the films are on DVD.

Wednesday January 14

12:15 PM Right Cross (Sturges, 1950) - BW-90 mins. - Usually a John Sturges film is worth watching and often it’s quite good. Thus, we have Right Cross, which stars Ricardo Montalban, who also worked with Sturges the same year on the interesting and noirish Mystery Street, as a boxer with a thing for his promoter’s daughter, played by June Allyson. Complicating matters is Dick Powell’s character, who is Montalban’s best friend and who shares affection for Allyson. If that’s not enough, Marilyn Monroe apparently appears very briefly in a nightclub scene. Released by MGM, Warner Bros. should now control the rights but it’s not yet on DVD.

Friday January 16

1:00 PM Wagon Master (Ford, 1950) - BW-86 mins. - Highly regarded John Ford western that I’ve not seen. Second tier perhaps. Notable, though, for featuring members of Ford’s stock company as the leads - Ben Johnson, Ward Bond, and Harry Carey, Jr. - instead of a bigger name. Joanne Dru also appears, as does legendary athlete Jim Thorpe, who’s billed simply as “Navajo” in his final screen appearance. RKO originally distributed the picture so Warner Bros. should have the R1 rights, though it’s unreleased. It is on DVD in R2 from Universal.

3:30 AM The Unholy Three (Conway, 1930) - BW-72 mins. - Maybe check out TCM Underground tonight, first for The Terror of Tiny Town, with a cast full of little people, and then this remake of a Tod Browning film from 1925. Both versions star Lon Chaney, though this would be his last role before an untimely death, but the remake has sound. (It was Chaney’s only non-silent film.) TCM’s description describes the plot so succinctly and intriguingly that I’ll just borrow it: “A ventriloquist, a strong man and a midget form a criminal alliance.” Yes, your Friday late night is probably now set. It was made for MGM, indicating Warner Bros. should now control, and neither the original or the remake are on DVD.

2009 Critics Choice Awards Winners List

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:09:52 +0000

Tonight, January 8, VH1 broadcast the 2009 Critics’ Choice Awards. One big winner for the night was Slumdog Millionaire, picking up 5 awards, including Best Picture.

Check out the 2009 Critics’ Choice Awards winners list:

BEST PICTURE
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ACTOR
Sean Penn - Milk

BEST ACTRESS - TIE
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Meryl Streep - Doubt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Kate Winslet - The Reader

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
Milk

BEST COMEDY
Tropic Thunder

BEST PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
John Adams

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire

BEST WRITER (Original or Adapted Screenplay)
Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Wall-E

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS (Under 21)
Dev Petal - Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ACTION MOVIE
The Dark Knight

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Waltz With Bashir

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Man On Wire

BEST SONG
“The Wrestler” - Bruce Springsteen/Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

BEST COMPOSER
A.R. Rahman - Slumdog Millionaire

Critics Choice Awards

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:08:36 +0000

Best Comedy Movie: Tropic Thunder
Best Acting Ensemble: Milk
Best Young Actor/Actress: Dev Patel
Best Writer: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Action Film: The Dark Knight
Best Composer: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Song: Bruce Springsteen, The Wrestler
Best Documentary: Man On Wire
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Best Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir
Best Animated Feature: WALL·E
Best Movie Made for TV: John Adams
Best Actress: tie!!
Meryl Streep, Doubt; Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk
Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

BFCA Winners

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:30:00 +0000

<-- Brad & Angelina worked old school Hollywood glamour for the BFCA show though neither emerged as a winner. (They got the most camera time, too, with Marisa Tomei and Anne Hathaway trailing just behind)

I might say a few words about the show tomorrow but for now the wins:

Picture, Director, Score, Screenplay, Young Actor: Slumdog Millionaire
Animated: WALL•E
Documentary: Man on Wire
Foreign Film: Waltz With Bashir
Comedy: Tropic Thunder
TV Movie: John Adams
Action: The Dark Knight
Song: "The Wrestler" Bruce Springsteen
Actor & Acting Ensemble: Sean Penn and the cast of Milk
Actress: (tie) Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married and Meryl Streep for Doubt... an attempt at a Devil Wears Prada reunion. Good instincts there, BFCA, except Meryl didn't show. Nevertheless, it was surely the highlight. Viola Davis accepted for Streep and was wonderful.
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight
Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet for The Reader

The BFCA prides themselves on being strong Oscar predictors, so these are obviously the films and performances they think will take gold. Do you think these will repeat? Or more pointedly... which won't?
*

Crumb

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:48:00 +0000

There is no artist in comics more confounding and fascinating than Robert Crumb. He is a central figure to the artform as it has developed in the last fifty years; arguably, he is the central figure without whom comics would not have developed in quite the same way that they have. His work is inescapable for those interested in all sorts of strains within modern comics: he popularized autobiographical storytelling, particularly of the nakedly confessional kind; he was a driving force behind the development of underground, independently published books; he influenced several entire generations of cartoonists with his combination of pristine draftsmanship and an untethered id, fearlessly exploring sexuality and perversions of all kinds alongside pointed political and social satires. And yet his work is simultaneously a challenge to the very concept of good taste; Crumb could always be counted on to draw and write about the things that no one else would even think, or if they did, that they would never dare to let out in public. His work is a catalog of his often grotesque and horrifying obsessions, his fetishized sexuality, his broad misanthropic tendencies, his ranting intolerance for most of his fellow humans, his rage and depression and ugly emotions. There are few artists in comics who draw as well as Crumb — as realistically or as expressively — and there are few whose subject matter is so frequently off-putting and offensive. His work is both thought-provoking and queasiness-inducing.

It might be expected, with such an unrepressed and confessional artist, that there would be nothing left to document. Why make a film about a man who has essentially poured his deepest, darkest thoughts and most potentially incriminating ideas out onto the page, then published it all for anyone to see? And yet Terry Zwigoff's remarkable documentary Crumb manages to be startling and revelatory even for those intimately familiar with its subject's body of work. Zwigoff is a sympathetic but relatively objective biographer, clearly fascinated by Crumb's art and yet also in some sense grappling with it, trying to understand it and the man behind it, with all of his contradictions and openly unpleasant characteristics. Zwigoff never flinches away from Crumb or his disturbing, complicated art. He seems to be circling around his subject, trying to see him from as many angles as possible. There are interviews with art critics and fellow cartoonists who have various wildly contradictory perspectives on what Crumb is doing with his art. There is, of course, a great deal of time spent in the company of Crumb himself, watching him draw, walk the streets and people-watch, or interact with his wife (and sometimes collaborator) Aline Kominsky-Crumb and their daughter Sophie (who has since grown up to be a cartoonist herself). There are interviews with several of the artist's ex-girlfriends, usually while Crumb himself is awkwardly, uncomfortably sitting nearby, and candid conversations with his first wife Dana and their son Jesse. Most importantly, though, and most revealingly, there are the scenes that take up the bulk of the film, dealing with Crumb's complex and tortured relationship with his mother and his two brothers, Charles and Maxon.

To see Robert, Charles and Maxon Crumb speaking about their childhood is to understand, in a sudden, unavoidable flash of insight, exactly the forces that conspired to create the artist that Crumb has become. The three of them grew up almost unnaturally close together in rotten, abusive household. All three slept in the same bed until they were sixteen, and they were virtually inseparable, playing imaginative games (mostly concocted by the domineering Charles) and even drawing comics together, creating an elaborate fantasy world centered around the Disney movie Treasure Island. They grew up with a depressive, perpetually scowling and occasionally abusive father and an amphetamine addict mother, prone to wild mood swings and violent, manic behavior. In this atmosphere, the three brothers seem to have retreated into art for as long as their childhoods lasted. What is striking, though, is the different paths they took once they grew up.

Charles, who says he was possessed by constant homicidal urges — he describes suppressing the desire to stab Robert in the head with a butcher knife, as Robert laughs uncomfortably — essentially withdraws from the world after a brief period of wildness. He sits alone in his room at home, still living with his mother, self-medicating with tranquilizers and compulsively re-reading the same books that he had once read as a child. His art, so expressive and vital even in the childhood comic books that Robert has saved, was confined to his pre-pubescent years, tapering off and then ceasing altogether as he grew older. In one of the film's most poignant scenes, Robert flips through one of Charles' old books, admiring the dark beauty of the drawings in these bastardized Treasure Island tales, the weird textures that Charles layered over everything he drew. Towards the end of the book, as Charles became less and less interested in drawing, more isolated in his own hermetic world, the drawings become smaller and the word balloons larger, until finally there are just pages of cramped, tiny text that verges on unreadability; Robert sadly closes the comic.

Maxon is an equally interesting case. He speaks with casual honesty about the "phase" in his life when he liked to molest women in the streets, though he insists that he stopped short of rape. When Zwigoff and Robert speak to him, he has become involved in a strange quasi-spiritualism that involves sitting on a bed of nails and ingesting a long rope of cloth intended to clean out his insides. Unlike Charles, he still makes art, creating warped, Cubist paintings that bear some obvious relationship to the styles of his two brothers, but are nevertheless inflected with his own frightening sensibility. It is like the odd, unsettling savant work of a mental patient, and the interviews with Maxon — who is inexplicably missing one eyebrow and has an unbalanced appearance as a result — do little to dispel the sensation of barely modulated insanity. Zwigoff's primary accomplishment in this film is to put the most famous Crumb into the context of his familial life, making it clear that Robert, however deviant and unfettered his art can often seem, is the sane one in his family, the only one of the three equally troubled brothers who has managed to successfully sublimate his sexual hang-ups and instability into art while maintaining a hold on the real world.

The film is equally interesting for the way it grapples with Crumb's sexual perversity and what the artist himself has described, in a famous story, as his "troubles with women." Crumb has often been labeled a misogynist, someone with a great deal of aggression and negative feelings towards women, and it's difficult to completely deny the charge. The film goes into great depth in documenting one of his most offensive and hateful stories, in which the manipulative guru character Mr. Natural decapitates a woman and walks her body around to be used as a sexual toy; it could not be any more blatant in its depiction of women as sex objects and its disregard for female intellect if it was an illustrative example in a feminist textbook. Not all of Crumb's work is so nakedly aggressive and creepy, but he returns again and again to his fetishized depictions of female bodies, his repetitive fantasies about powerfully built, muscular, Amazonian women. The weedy, nerdy, buck-toothed Crumb is a Freudian's dream patient, a bundle of psychosexual neuroses with obvious mommy issues: he wants to be simultaneously dominated by a powerful female archetype, and to dominate her in return.

Crumb makes no excuses for the blatantly sexual and exploitative nature of his art, and neither does Zwigoff. The film is not an apologia for the misogynistic elements of Crumb's work, and Zwigoff does an excellent job of situating these comics in multiple critical perspectives. These range from the gushingly admiring to the cautiously conflicted to feminist distrust and disgust. At times, the film even seems to be poking fun at those who attempt to intellectualize and rationalize Crumb's profoundly irrational art. When Time magazine art critic Robert Hughes, the most consistent Crumb admirer in the film, is told that Crumb masturbates while looking at his own work, he launches into a lengthy and somewhat tortured monologue trying to find an artistic justification for this behavior, grasping at explanations for the artist's treatment of his own work like pornography. Once he finally runs out of steam, he laughs nervously and then looks into the camera, earnestly asking, as though he doesn't really believe it, "does he really do that?" Well, yes, he does, at least if you believe the perpetually over-honest Crumb, and in any event it's obvious that on some level these stories are sexual fantasies translated onto paper. They're already a form of masturbation. Zwigoff also gives ample time to two women critics who have more conflicted views of Crumb's work, for obvious reasons. While cartoonist and critic Trina Robbins is openly disappointed that Crumb abandoned his earlier lighthearted, jokey work and dedicated his tremendous artistic talent to what she sees as disgusting material, Deirdre English seems more torn between the aesthetic qualities of the work and its status as satire, and its less defensible components. Zwigoff never lets the film come down too hard on the side of any of these critical interpretations, instead letting the disagreements stand as evidence of the severely divisive nature of Crumb's idiosyncratic genius.

Even considering the film's depth and breadth of inquiry into Crumb's life and art, Zwigoff still can't manage to encompass the full extent of Crumb's prodigious range as an artist. The perverse sexuality of his comics naturally makes for the best, most vibrant material — like former girlfriend Dian Hanson's hilariously deadpan insistence that Crumb "is endowed with one of the biggest penises in the world" — but it means that the other aspects of Crumb's work often get short shrift. It would be easy for someone unfamiliar with the full range of Crumb's gifts to conclude that he's simply a dirty-minded pornographer, as there's little discussion of his propensity towards social satire, his work illustrating the restrained autobiographical writing of Harvey Pekar, or his more serious-minded, non-sexual material. Zwigoff does provide a nod in this direction towards the end of the film when he animates, panel by panel, Crumb's famous strip "A Short History of America," which documents the progression of a single plot of land from an empty field to a modern street corner. It's also disappointing that Zwigoff doesn't engage more fully with the nature and roots of Crumb's use of racist caricatures and stereotypes. There are some passing references to this aspect of his work, including a walkthrough of a segment from the always shocking "Angelfood McSpade" strip, but the film never really deals in-depth with Crumb's racial views the way it does with his sexuality and treatment of women.

Still, these are minor complaints in the context of a film that deals intelligently and fairly with one of the 20th Century's most controversial and divisive artists. Crumb not only delves into the nature of its subject's art and life, but explores the crucial questions of the ways in which experiences and obsessions can be channeled into art.

Critics Choice Awards Tonight

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:55:20 +0000

Around 5pm the Critics Choice will announce their winners, a few days before the Golden Globes announce theirs. The Monday following, Oscar ballots are due. This is the first time many of these contenders will be going to head to head for the first time. The five most likely films up for Best Picture all continue to gain momentum in their own way, but probably right now Slumdog Millionaire is going to start winning.

Let’s go down BFCA road, shall we?

For the past two years, the Critics Choice have matched Best Picture, Best Director. You have to go back to 2003 to find a year when their Best Actor and Best Actress picks did not match Oscar. So it will be interesting to see whom they choose, particularly since there is some disconnect between the BFCA and the Globes in those categories.

Here are this year’s nominees:

BEST PICTURE

Nominees:
• Changeling
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• Doubt
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Wall-E
• The Wrestler

It’s probably safe to go with Slumdog Millionaire, which has a 92 BFCA rating. But if it isn’t Slumdog, it might be The Dark Knight with a rating of 96, or Benjamin Button (91), Milk (92), or Frost/Nixon (94). It’s doubtful that the winner won’t be among these five and is expected to be Slumdog.

BEST ACTOR

Nominees:
• Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino
• Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
• Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
• Sean Penn - Milk
• Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

This is either going to be Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke. A sentimental vote could go to Clint Eastwood, everyone’s favorite everything. I would probably predict Rourke for this. And something to note - Mickey Rourke’s moment at the podium is crucial to how his awards run plays out because there are two winners whose win would bring down the house: Mickey Rourke and Heath Ledger.

BEST ACTRESS

Nominees:
• Kate Beckinsale - Nothing But the Truth
• Cate Blanchett - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
• Angelina Jolie - Changeling
• Melissa Leo - Frozen River
• Meryl Streep - Doubt

I have absolutely no clue how this is going to go. I don’t even really know whom the favorite is. Any of them could win. Meryl Streep is probably going to win but any of them might. This category is mostly wide open. Kate Winslet looms large but she isn’t nominated here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Nominees:
• Josh Brolin - Milk
• Robert Downey, Jr. - Tropic Thunder
• Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
• Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
• James Franco - Milk

If Heath Ledger doesn’t win this I’ll eat my hat. And it will be the first public win for the dearly departed actor. And I pity the actor who beats him but if there is going to be one, I’d say Josh Brolin has it.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Nominees:
• Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
• Viola Davis - Doubt
• Vera Farmiga - Nothing But the Truth
• Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler
• Kate Winslet - The Reader

Penelope Cruz should win this. Viola Davis could win and Marisa Tomei is the dark horse.

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE

Nominees:
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• Doubt
• Milk
• Rachel Getting Married

I’m thinking either Milk or Doubt.

BEST DIRECTOR

Nominees:
• Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
• David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
• Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight
• Gus Van Sant - Milk

It’s probably going to be Danny Boyle but Christopher Nolan could sneak in.

BEST WRITER (Original or Adapted Screenplay)

Nominees:
• Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
• Dustin Lance Black - Milk
• Peter Morgan - Frost/Nixon
• Eric Roth - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• John Patrick Shanley - Doubt

Again, any of them could win — for some reason I have a feeling Frost/Nixon will win this but if it doesn’t, it would be Slumdog Millionaire, going for a sweep.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Nominees:
• Bolt
• Kung Fu Panda
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
• Wall-E
• Waltz With Bashir

Oh, do we really even need to go there?
BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS (Under 21)

Nominees:
• Dakota Fanning - The Secret Life of Bees
• David Kross - The Reader
• Dev Patel - Slumdog Millionaire
• Brandon Walters - Australia

Dev Patel in a walk. Brandon Walters is a threat.

BEST ACTION MOVIE

Nominees:
• The Dark Knight
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Iron Man
• Quantum of Solace
• Wanted

Could be Iron Man or The Dark Knight.

BEST COMEDY MOVIE

Nominees:
• Burn After Reading
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall
• Role Models
• Tropic Thunder
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona

It probably will be Burn After Reading or Vicky Cristina OR even Tropic Thunder.

BEST PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Nominees:
• John Adams
• Recount
• Coco Chanel

John Adams easily wins.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Nominees:
• A Christmas Tale
• Gomorrah
• I’ve Loved You So Long
• Let the Right One In
• Mongol
• Waltz With Bashir

Let the Right One In, I’m going to guess, or Waltz with Bashir.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Nominees:
• I.O.U.S.A.
• Man On Wire
• Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
• Standard Operating Procedure
• Young At Heart

Man on Wire will probably win.

BEST SONG

Nominees:
• “Another Way to Die” (performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys, written by Jack White) - Quantum of Solace
• “Down to Earth” (performed by Peter Gabriel, written by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman) - Wall-E
• “I Thought I Lost You” (performed Miley Cyrus and John Travolta, written by Miley Cyrus and Jeffrey Steele) - Bolt
• “Jaiho” (performed by Sukhwinder Singh, written by A.R. Rahman and Gulzar) - Slumdog Millionaire
• “The Wrestler” (performed by Bruce Springsteen, written by Bruce Springsteen) - The Wrestler

Brooooooooooooooce.

BEST COMPOSER

Nominees:
• Alexandre Desplat - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Clint Eastwood - Changeling
• Danny Elfman - Milk
• Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard - The Dark Knight
• A.R. Rahman - Slumdog Millionaire

I think it’s down to Button, Dark Knight and Slumdog for the win.

The 25 Best High School Movies Of All Time

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:40:13 +0000

Love it or hate it, we all had our high school experiences – and lived to tell about it. Check out Movie Crunch’s list of the 25 Best High School Movies of All Time. Did we leave any of your favorites off the list?

25. Fame (1980)

Cast:
Irene Cara
Debbie Allen
Gene Anthony Ray
Lee Curreri
Paul McCrane

The School of the Performing Arts, where people break into song and spirited choreographed dance routines! It could happen… but probably doesn’t in real life. Coco, Bruno, Leroy and company have their fair share of real world troubles too though – it’s not all taxi top dance fun.

24. Lucas (1986)

Cast:
Corey Haim
Kerri Green
Charlie Sheen

First crushes aren’t easy when you’re a dorky, awkward teenager who gets teased endlessly at school. But you gotta give the kid credit for joining the football team to impress the girl he’s infatuated with. Plus, the nostalgia of a sweet, adorable Corey Haim versus his current washed up status lets us remember Haim in the happy 80s.

23. Carrie (1976)

Cast:
Sissy Spacek
Piper Laurie
Betty Buckley
Amy Irving

Oh shit, Carrie is all kinds of creepy, but her whack job mom doesn’t exactly help her fit in at school. And then that disgusting pig blood soaked prom scene. Kids can be so fuckin cruel, but don’t piss off a girl with telekinetic powers. Carrie exacts her revenge in the end. That’ll teach ‘em.

22. Friday Night Lights (2004)

Cast:
Billy Bob Thornton
Lucas Black
Garrett Hedlund
Derek Luke
Jay Hernandez

Friday Night Lights presents high school football as an obsession for the economically depressed town of Odessa, Texas. With little else going on in this small town, Friday night football is something to look forward to, but hopes of winning the championship is a lot of pressure for these players fighting for an escape from the same dead-end lives their parents endure.

21. Dead Poets Society (1989)

Cast:
Robin Williams
Robert Sean Leonard
Ethan Hawke
Josh Charles

Dramatic and truly inspiring, Dead Poets’ English professor John Keating (Robin Williams) teaches his students to seize the day by thinking outside the confines of their prep school. Make sure you have a box of tissues nearby for this high school tale – there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater when I saw it the first go-around.

20. Rushmore (1998)

Cast:
Jason Schwartzman
Bill Murray
Olivia Williams

From the quirky mind of Wes Anderson, we get our first look at Jason Schwartzman as the eccentric over-booked prep school student who finds a father figure and nemesis in Bill Murray - as student and rich dude vie for the affection and attention of elementary school teacher Miss Cross.

19. Donnie Darko (2001)

Cast:
Jake Gyllenhaal
Jena Malone
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Mary McDonnell

It’s a cult classic - cue “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” – well, at least as teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) knows, via a big burned bunny. All the sci fi coolness, while hitting the high school themes, Donnie Darko is an original, no doubt about it. We’re still scratching our head about a few things though.

18. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Cast:
Jon Heder
Efren Ramirez
Tina Majorino

Oh, awkward youth – Napoleon Dynamite has you rooting for this majorly uncool title character with Jon Heder’s brilliant performance. And we never see such energy from the low vibe Napoleon as when he performs his dance routine in front of the entire school. Vote for Pedro!

17. Risky Business (1983)

Cast:
Tom Cruise
Rebecca De Mornay
Curtis Armstrong

It launched Tom Cruise (for better or for worse) into the stratosphere of super stardom, gave us the memorable air guitar underwear scene – and oh, yeah… one of the hottest sex on a train scenes ever. This is one high school experience that takes Cruise’s straight-laced character, Joel, on a wild ride.

16. Say Anything (1989)

Cast:
John Cusack
Ione Skye
John Mahoney
Lili Taylor

He’s the loveable underachiever – she’s the class valedictorian. The star-crossed lovers in Say Anything are meant to be despite the odds. Check out Lloyd Dobler as he proves his love in that classic boom box scene. Sigh. A million John Cusack fans were born from this movie.

15. Sixteen Candles (1984)

Cast:
Molly Ringwald
Michael Schoeffling
Anthony Michael Hall

Sixteen Candles is when we fell in love with freckly Molly Ringwald – her family forgets her birthday, nerds want to see her panties, and her infatuation with Jake (ultimately) leads to a happy ending. Even nerdy Anthony Michael Hall finds love with the most popular girl in school. So, all’s well that ends well.

14. Hoop Dreams (1994)

Cast:
William Gates
Arthur Agee

The inspiring true story of two kids trying to make it out of the Chicago slums on a basketball dream, this documentary follows both the struggles and the joy, making it a must-watch on our high school film list. Hoop Dreams follows Arthur Agee and William Gates for five years, from high school to college recruitment.

13. Superbad (2007)

Cast:
Jonah Hill
Michael Cera
Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Raunchy and ridiculous, Superbad gave us so many things that were oh-so-wrong, yet oh-so-right. The comedy duo of Michael Cera and Jonah Hill combined with a script by Seth Rogan and his buddy struck a chord with audiences with this hilarious high school tale of two buddies. And c’mon… McLovin? It’s all good.

12. Clueless (1995)

Cast:
Alicia Silverstone
Paul Rudd
Stacey Dash
Brittany Murphy
Donald Faison

Alicia Silverstone is such a Betty in this movie! Plus Clueless put Paul Rudd on the map – so thank the heavens for that. An adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, director Amy Heckerling nailed this funny look at a rich girl who learns there’s more to her than just the superficial, shallow Cher.

11. Boyz n the Hood (1991)

Cast:
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Ice Cube
Morris Chestnut
Larry Fishburne
Angela Basset

Boyz n the Hood was a masterpiece for director John Singleton, capturing the gritty realities of high school life for three high school friends on different paths – one an athlete, one with college aspirations and one a drug dealer. Nothing is easy in this tale and Tre, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., learns hard life lessons when his friend is murdered. With guidance from his dad, he escapes the cycle of crime and violence and gets out of the hood.

10. Mean Girls (2004)

Cast:
Lindsay Lohan
Rachel McAdams
Lacey Chabert
Amanda Seyfried

Can Tina Fey do no wrong? Mean Girls was a killer script by Fey, featuring Lindsay Lohan before she had a party-girl reputation, and included turns by Rachel McAdams, Lizzy Caplan and Amanda Seyfried (Mamma Mia) before they were bigger names. Mean Girls confirmed that girls can be so bitchy – and cruel.

9. Grease (1978)

Cast:
John Travolta
Olivia Newton-John
Stockard Channing
Jeff Conaway

The original High School Musical… well, sorta. Singing and dancing was never so cool as in Grease, what with Sandy, Danny and the gang at 1950s Rydell High. Who doesn’t love the Goody Two Shoes/Bad Boy dynamic in Grease, but please answer this burning question – what the hell with Sandy and Danny flying off in the car at the end? Never got that one.

8. Hoosiers (1986)

Cast:
Gene Hackman
Barbara Hershey
Dennis Hopper

Everybody loves a story with heart – small-town Indiana high school basketball underdogs beat the odds and win the state championship in this early-50s tale of redemption. Gene Hackman gives a fantastic performance as a washed up former collegiate coach who has a lot to prove to the town – and himself.

7. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Cast:
Matthew Broderick
Alan Ruck
Mia Sara
Jeffrey Jones
Jennifer Grey

If you could have gotten away with the shit that Ferris Bueller did when he skipped school, wouldn’t you have done it? Matthew Broderick rocks this John Hughes classic, taking audiences along for one helluva ride – from Ferrari to Abe Froman (The Sausage King of Chicago), to riding atop a parade float. Ditching school has never been more fun.

6. Election (1999)

Cast:
Reese Witherspoon
Matthew Broderick
Chris Klein

Forget her Academy Award win for Walk the Line, Reese Witherspoon’s role as uber annoying overachiever Tracy Flick in Election was easily her best work. Ever. Throw in pathetic Matthew Broderick, his contempt for Tracy and his ill fortunes (that’s one mother of a bee sting reaction!), and you’ve got one darkly funny look at the politics of high school.

5. Heathers (1989)

Cast:
Winona Ryder
Christian Slater
Shannen Doherty

With lines like “Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw,” Heathers takes high school bitches to a whole new level. Smarmy Christian Slater has never been better and hot fingers Winona Ryder plays bitchy with precision in this dark high school tale. Heathers was a stark contrast to the feel good high school flicks of the 80s, for sure.

4. Dazed and Confused (1993)

Cast:
Jason London
Rory Cochrane
Wiley Wiggins
Matthew McConaughey

This is familiar territory, given that Dazed and Confused topped our Stoner Movies list. Dazed captures the life of seventies high schoolers, as the upcoming seniors ceremoniously haze the incoming freshmen on the last day of school in 1976. Sex, drugs and music of the day comes into play and Matthew McConaughey gives one of the best performances ever with his classic line: “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”

3. American Pie (1999)

Cast:
Jason Biggs
Seann William Scott
Shannon Elizabeth
Alyson Hannigan
Thomas Ian Nicholas
Tara Reid
Chris Klein

When American Pie hit theaters, no one could have guessed how an actual pie would be so affectionately regarded by a horny high schooler. Pie was like the Porky’s of the 90s, with four friends making a pact to lose their virginity by graduation. Plus, American Pie gave us classics like MILF and the ever popular “this one time?… at band camp?”

2. Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)

Cast:
Sean Penn
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Judge Reinhold
Phoebe Cates

Penned by Cameron Crowe and directed by Amy Heckerling, Fast Times introduced us to Sean Penn as ultimate stoner Spicoli and a host of other interesting characters, including Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates (which led to Judge Reinhold’s infamous bathroom scene – yikes). Fast Times was a coming-of-age story that hit all the right notes with audiences.

1. The Breakfast Club (1985)

Cast:
Judd Nelson
Molly Ringwald
Emilio Estevez
Anthony Michael Hall
Ally Sheedy

We’ve got the classic high school types (jock, princess, brain, basket case, criminal) locked together for Saturday detention in this John Hughes’ classic. They each learn that they’re not so different after all… and The Breakfast Club became the quintessential high school movie, but seriously? Saturday detention?

Anvil! The Story of Anvil Trailer

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:32:35 +0000

Most people agree that 2008 was a great year for documentaries, but the truth is, I feel like people say that almost every year — it just takes a while for a lot of these movies to get noticed. One documentary that played the festival circuit last year that many people still haven’t had a chance to see is Sacha Gervasi’s Anvil! The Story of Anvil, about the Canadian metal band who never quite managed to make it big. The movie has been compared to This is Spinal Tap, a comparison that is furthered by the odd coincidence that the band’s frontman is named Robb Reiner. Rest assured, however, these guys are for real (this, despite the fact that a cameraman reportedly pulled the director aside at one point and asked if they were all actors).

Sacha Gervasi was a surprise nominee for the Lacoste Truer Than Fiction Award at this year’s Independent Spirit Awards, and now it looks like the movie will finally be getting a proper U.S. theatrical release. To coincide with that, a trailer has finally hit the web, and not only does it look funny, but it also looks to have some rather touching moments. There’s nothing better than a good real-life underdog story. According to The Playlist, Anvil! The Story of Anvil hits select theatres on April 10th, and will expand from there. I definitely don’t want to miss out on this like I did last year at Hot Docs. Check out the trailer below and see what you think.

Vault of Horror Reviews Nightmares in Red, White and Blue

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:09:00 +0000

B-Sol over at Vault of Horror (one of my favorite bloggers...) focuses his gaze on Joseph Maddrey's new documentary on horror films in a thoughtful new post.

Here's a snippet from "Finally, the Horror Doc We've Been Hoping For:"

"Based on Maddrey's 2004 book, this as-yet-undistributed doc, produced/written by Maddrey and directed/edited by Monument, is a potent, jam-packed study of the fright flick in the context of the United States' evolution over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries..."

"...It's a fascinating watch for both passionate and casual fans, made by people who really seem to care about their subject matter."

Read the full review of Nightmares in Red, White & Blue over at Vault of Horror.

And B-Sol, thanks also for noting the fact that I'm a big, bright, shining star. We all have one special thing, I guess.