Cinematical

To All Of Our Loyal Readers:

After a long and fruitful partnership, we are very pleased to announce that The Independent Film and Documentary Film Weblogs have finally decided to marry and produce and offspring!

Announcing: Cinematical.com. The new home for film coverage on the Weblogs Inc. Network. Karina and I are looking forward to covering not just independent films but anything that really strikes our  fancy! Podcasts, too!

20th Century Fox staked a claim to join the "top toon" ranks, currently held by Dreamworks SKG and the Disney/Pixar teaming, with the bow of CGI pic Robots which cleaned up with an estimated $36.5 million on just under 3,800 screens with an average of $9, 666 according to Box Office Mojo. The film is receiving generally positive reviews, achieving a Metacritic.com rating of 63 out of 100 tops among major releases. On Robots, Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman remarks: " Robots is a high-tech marvel of low-tech love. The fluky charm of its chop-shop aesthetic is the embodiment of its theme, which is that individuality in robots is a good thing..."

À tout de suite (Right Away)
Benoît Jacquot, 2004; 96m

In part an homage to the French New Wave as well as "gangster and girl on the run" pictures like Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, Benoit Jacquot's À tout de suite (Right Now) is a period piece that, despite the fact that it's based on a true story "lived" by Elisabeth Fanger in 1975, could really take place in almost any era. Strongly acted, directed and shot, À tout de suite is sure to be one of the highlights of this year's Rendez-Vous With French Cinema which kicks off Today in New York (more info at the end of this review).

The nameless 19 year-old heroine (referred to as Lili in press notes, but not in the film), winsomely played by French ingénue Isild Le Besco, maintains a bourgeois lifestyle, going to art school and living with her father and older sister. Her main act of rebellion is in sneaking her friend into her apartment each night and out again each morning.

À tout de suite (Right Away)
Benoît Jacquot, 2004; 96m

In part an homage to the French New Wave as well as "gangster and girl on the run" pictures like Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, Benoit Jacquot's A tout de suite (Right Now) is a period piece that, despite the fact that it's based on a true story "lived" by Elisabeth Fanger in 1975, could really take place in almost any era. Strongly acted, directed and shot, À tout de suite is sure to be one of the highlights of this year's Rendez-Vous With French Cinema which kicks off Today in New York (more info below).

The nameless 19 year-old heroine (referred to as Lili in press notes, but not in the film), winsomely played by French ingénue Isild Le Besco, maintains a bourgeois lifestyle, going to art school and living with her father and older sister. Her main act of rebellion is in sneaking her friend into her apartment each night and out again each morning.

She indulges in all the typical teenage rebellious behavior, including skipping class, accepting drinks from strangers and doing things she knows will piss off her father and (of course) much more serious older sister. It is during one of these episodes that Lili meets Bada, a handsome young French-Maroccan (Rape Me's Ouassini Embarek) with whom she begins a relationship. The two seem equally lost and melancholy in the world that is Paris following the national unrest of the summer of 1968, and in this milieu it seems a perfectly normal state of affairs in which a middle-class student and a young man with a nebulous "occupation" and tendency to pay for things only in cash might live. When Bada suddenly calls Lili one night and announces that he and some friends have just robbed a bank which resulted in the death of a clerk and one of the robbers, she doesn't bat an eye before caching him and his fellow bandit in her apartment for a night and then joining them on the lam the next morning.

I am 12-8. My worst showing in years.

That will teach me to bet against an actress who looks like Matt Damon and, well, I have no problems with Morgan F. He's all the way class! Hilary might be a great actress (might, I said) but her acceptance speeches bite big giant monkey ass.

My apologies for a personal note….my mother, Joanne Grant, passed away on January 9th and yesterday was her memorial meeting. She was a journalist, author and an award-winning filmmaker and she was a proud black woman. She gave me my love of the movies and for writing. In normal years, this spot on the Oscars always makes me tear up, so this year's a little tough. Each year, it seems, I think there will be two or three filmmakers or actors who have some sort of special meaning to me and each year I am surprised at the number of legends that have passed. For example, I had no idea that Paul Winfield had died.

But really…Tony Randall, Jerry Orbach, Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando, Mercedes McCambridge, Janet Lee and many other.

And Joanne Grant.

A mainstay of the Civil Rights Movement, the Southern Poverty Law Center got a shout out on the Oscars!!!

Robert Hudson and Bobby Houston, in their acceptance speech for this award, thanked the usual suspects and then payed this largely unsung group a very special compliment.

Seriously. Look, see?

The Aviator

continues to clean up with this award for cinematography. Richardson won Oscar® gold previously for JFK and was nominated for Snow Falling on Cedars, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.

And how COOL does this guy look? I mean really.

My friend and wonderfully creative and fearless animator Bill Plympton...did NOT win this award. It was his second nomination and his date looked fabulous, though!

Instead, the ward went to Chris Landreth for his film, Ryan.