Scenes We Love: To Live and Die in L.A.
Filed under: Scenes We Love
William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) debuts on Blu-Ray this week, and I hope more people start give it a chance. It really deserves to be ranked as an American classic, alongside Friedkin's The French Connection and The Exorcist. Friedkin is one of my favorite directors, though a deeper appreciation of his work comes when you hear him speak, either in person or on his DVD commentary tracks. He's deeply intelligent and an incredible storyteller. He's also a survivor of early success in a time of great creative output in Hollywood. He has lived life and knows a little something about it. He began as a documentary filmmaker and on television, and he's a meticulous researcher. The main attribute to all his films is the abundance of rich details. But one thing Friedkin knows -- and it's perhaps the main reason he switched from non-fiction to feature films -- is that, no matter how much research one does, nothing is ever known for sure.
And so it follows, perhaps ironically, that he has directed three of the finest car chase sequences in the history of film. He understands that the muscle of a car chase is in the details, in establishing the place and time, and elements like space and atmosphere. But he also understands that the heart of a chase is in the unknowable factors; how on earth is something this screwy going to turn out? In The French Connection (1971), the bad guy tries to escape in an elevated train, while the cops chase him in their car below. In Jade (1995), the hero goes on a car chase that unfortunately detours into San Francisco's Chinatown, which is a crowded street on any normal day, but on this day there is also a parade.
400 Screens, 400 Blows - Cruz Control
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm thrilled about Penelope Cruz's Oscar nomination for Nine (220 screens). I guess everyone hates this movie, and I know in my heart of hearts that it's not very good. It's frankly kind of a bad idea, although I haven't seen the stage play and I'm of the firm conviction that it is possible to make a good movie out of a bad idea. But that's not why the movie works. It works because it's so completely nutty, as only an all-star Hollywood extravaganza can be. (Plus, how many recent all-star extravaganzas can you name?) It's cheerfully clueless, and moves forward with pride and confidence. And Penelope is the best thing in it.
Penelope is the only one in the cast who seems aware that she's not making Great Art. Her "spitfire" character operates just left of the rest of the proceedings, and she's ready to go off if things get too sludgy or stiff. She draws your eye right to her: she's dangerous and sexy, but also funny and touchingly vulnerable. It's almost the same character that won her the Oscar last year, in Woody Allen's great Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and perhaps even similar to the role that earned her first nomination, in Volver (2006).
Discuss: Do You Like the "Ten Best Picture Nominees" Idea?
Filed under: Awards, Oscar Watch
When the Academy announced last June that it would be expanding the Best Picture category from five to ten films, my first thought was: maybe The Hurt Locker has a shot to be nominated now. At the time, I was pretty sure I was in for a fight to help promote my favorite film of 2009, but a good buzz took hold and hasn't yet let up. But that first hope was also a good first impulse. Maybe the list of ten nominees would include some of the offbeat films that don't usually get considered. It might be a good chance to nominate the kinds of things that were snubbed in the past: some comedies like Tropic Thunder or Hot Fuzz, or some exceptional summer action movies like The Dark Knight or The Bourne Ultimatum. Or perhaps some odd indie movies like Che or Wendy and Lucy.
But then the reality set in. This would require the Academy to adopt an entirely new way of thinking, not just the simple changing of a number. Indeed, everything that is nominated this year fits a certain criteria; they're not actually picking the best films of the year. They're picking the best of a certain kind of film. It has to be prestigious in some way. It has to be somewhat important, either with a message or in tackling a certain kind of serious problem. If it's a comedy, it has to be a bittersweet comedy and not a flat-out funny comedy. It can't be a genre film unless it's a very long one or a hugely popular one, and it can't be a sequel (or a reboot; hence the snub for Star Trek).
Discuss: Which January Movie Was the Worst?
It's no secret anymore than January has become a "dumping ground" for unwanted movies. These are movies that the studios have tested and are resigned to taking a loss. They often don't press screen these movies, hoping for a strong opening weekend based only on advertising and not on reviews. This January, frankly, wasn't so bad. The Book of Eli, directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, was a fairly solid genre movie, and so was the vampire movie Daybreakers. Youth in Revolt opened to mostly good reviews, though I did not see it. Andrea Arnold's very good Fish Tank also turned up in limited release this January.
But of course, there were a load of movies that ranged from duds to stinkers: Leap Year, The Spy Next Door, The Tooth Fairy, Extraordinary Measures, Legion, Edge of Darkness and When in Rome. Two dull awards-season duds opened wider in January: The Last Station and The Lovely Bones. Even some indies like Wonderful World, 44 Inch Chest and Saint John of Las Vegas looked like they were dumped. Tim Allen's directorial debut, Crazy on the Outside, captured the coveted 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. There were a lot more, many of which only opened sporadically, or in secondary markets. Maybe you saw something really awful that I didn't mention here, but I know which one is #1 on my "worst" list so far...
Fan Rant: Irritating Things About the Oscar Nominations
The first most irritating thing was James Horner's nomination for Avatar. I expected it, of course, but to actually see it in print yesterday morning set off a whole new wave of irritation. Horner has annoyed me for years. Whenever I see a movie in which the score is so loud and obvious and overwhelming that it draws you out of the movie (rather than doing its job and drawing you in), I check the credits to see who is to blame. And four times out of five, it's Horner. Not to mention that he has been associated with some of the most irritating movies of the past 30 years (although I forgive him a little for his work on The New World).
The second most irritating thing was Matt Damon's nomination for Invictus. It's not that Damon doesn't deserve a nomination; he's a terrific actor. And I like Invictus very much; it has some classically brilliant filmmaking by Clint Eastwood. But the movie was overreaching and Damon's character was underdeveloped. We only saw Francois Pienaar (Damon) in relation to Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman); we hardly come to know Francois on his own terms. Indeed, the movie could have been improved by narrowing the focus to the friendship between the two men, rather than trying to take the temperature of an entire nation. Not to mention that Damon's clever performance in The Informant! was a great deal more impressive. But the real reason I was irritated was that Damon's appearance here edged out Christian McKay for Me and Orson Welles.
Scenes We Love: A Night at the Opera
Filed under: Scenes We Love
Deep within the halls of the movie buff zone, a quiet battle has been raging for the better part of a century: which is the best Marx Brothers movie, Duck Soup (1933) or A Night at the Opera (1935)? They were made a mere two years apart, and yet the difference between them is vast. Duck Soup runs 68 minutes and looks like a low-budget B-movie. It was directed by silent-era comedy specialist, and unsung master Leo McCarey (who would go on to win two Oscars for Best Director, as well as earning several other nominations). It moves lightning fast over a seriously sketchy plot, taking all kinds of side trips and leaps of logic, and yet it manages to be a clever satire of the impulses behind war. It's so manic and frenzied and anarchic that some consider it an avant-garde film. Not even the title is ever explained onscreen. At one point, everything goes completely silent for three minutes for the famous "mirror" sequence. For these reasons and more, I am planted firmly in the Duck Soup camp.
400 Screens, 400 Blows - Busy Bridges
Filed under: Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows
Jeff Bridges has already been nominated and/or won several awards for his performance as "Bad Blake" in Crazy Heart (93 screens), including a SAG award, a Golden Globe and a Los Angeles Film Critics Award. And, of course, many people have pointed out the film's similarity to Tender Mercies (1983), the feature that finally won Robert Duvall an Oscar (after being passed over for things like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now) -- not to mention that Duvall is actually in the new film, too. These awards, and potentially an Oscar nomination, are just our way of suddenly waking up and saying, "you know who's really good? Jeff Bridges." Frankly, Crazy Heart is a "just okay" film, but he's great in it. I guess there's just something about sad country singers that captures the voters' attention (with the added bonus that Bridges' character is an alcoholic).
I won't begrudge Bridges his hard-earned Oscar, but it's a case worth looking at. The reason Bridges generally goes unnoticed (with four Oscar nominations scattered over three decades) is because he's so good, and because he works so often. He has worked in many leading roles, but he's not exactly what you'd call a big movie star, and he has worked in many supporting roles, but he's not exactly what you'd call a character actor. He disappears into each role, but he does it without calling attention to the disappearing act, as Brando did. Some actors choose to work less often, and thereby turning each movie into an event. Chaplin was a famous case, and Daniel Day-Lewis is a good example today; he has appeared in just fifteen major movies over a 30-year career. But Bridges works a couple of times each year, and it's easy to take that quantity for granted.
Updated List of 21st Century Films
Filed under: Lists
The ultimate movie list junkie site, They Shoot Pictures Don't They? has recently updated their list of the 250 greatest films of the 21st century, based on a whole slew of critics' lists of the best films of 2009 and of the decade. Nitpickers insist that the century began in 2001 and not 2000, but this list goes back to January of 2000. The weirdest twist is that, after David Lynch's Mulholland Drive repeatedly won numerous polls and looked like a unanimous choice for the best film of the decade, it comes in at #2, behind Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love. Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, which placed at #2 on my personal list, but did not do well in polls, came in at #5.
The rest of the top ten now consists of: Yi Yi, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Spirited Away, There Will Be Blood, Talk to Her, A History of Violence and Y tu mamá también. Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker -- far and away the most acclaimed film of 2009 -- made its debut on the list at #13. The next highest-ranked 2009 film is Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, at #65. Of course, looking further down the list reveals some oddball choices, like Billy Elliot, King Kong, Kung Fu Hustle, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, and Crash.
Free Flick of the Day: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
Filed under: Mystery & Suspense
Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) is his personal Magnificent Ambersons. It was taken away and edited without his supervision or approval, and the excised footage is currently thought to be lost. He apparently hated the version that was eventually released, but it's still a very enjoyable movie, full of typically bracing Billy Wilder humor (co-written, of course, with I.A.L. Diamond). The film was originally supposed to contain four unrelated stories and now contains only two. In the first one, Holmes pretends to be in a gay relationship with Watson to avoid the unwanted attentions of a female suitor. In the second, main section, he searches for a missing husband, and the search includes a visit from his brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee, a former Sherlock himself) and an encounter with the Loch Ness Monster.
This is the movie in which Holmes falls in love and -- unlike in the earlier Basil Rathbone films -- drugs are mentioned. Stage actor Robert Stephens gives us a sly, funny Holmes, Colin Blakely is Watson, and Genevieve Page is the woman who melts Holmes' heart. Those who have seen Robert Downey Jr's badass new version of Holmes will probably find this one a bit on the slow and/or stagnant side, but it was an important step in the evolution of Holmes between Rathbone and Downey, and it's definitely an underrated Wilder gem.
The movie is afoot over at SlashControl.
Scenes We Love: Strange Days
Filed under: Scenes We Love
It appears that the Oscar race has come down to a battle between Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and James Cameron (Avatar). (Jason Reitman and Up in the Air are running a close third.) Many people have pointed out that Bigelow and Cameron were once married, for about two years, between 1989 and 1991, so it has become a battle of the sexes as well as a battle of the exes. It might be revealing, then, to revisit their one cinematic collaboration, Strange Days (1995). Cameron is credited as the writer of the original story and co-authored the screenplay with former film critic Jay Cocks, while Bigelow directed. It was an expensive film, with a budget of around $42 million, and a flop, with a U.S. gross of only about $7 million. The few people who praised the film found it to be technically and visually dazzling, though most complained that it was empty and/or conventional.
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Watch This: Brilliant Oscar-Nominated Short 'Logorama'
Chris Nolan to Lead 'Superman' Reboot!?
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