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Gallery: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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Some critics' groups rush to hand out awards weeks before the year of eligility is over. Other groups, like the Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror Films, prefer to take their time. The 35th annual Saturn Awards were presented last night in beautiful downtown Burbank, California, honoring the best in genre films for the 2008 calendar year. The top awards, as listed by FearNet, went to Iron Man (Science Fiction), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Fantasy), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Horror), and The Dark Knight (Action / Adventure / Thriller).

The Academy also found room to honor Angelina Jolie as Best Actress for Changeling, which makes me wonder how that film could possibly qualify as a genre flick. Horror, perhaps? More major awards went to Robert Downey, Jr. as Best Actor and Jon Favreau as Best Director for Iron Man, Heath Ledger as Best Supporting Actor, and Tilda Swinton as Best Supporting Actress. Wall-E took home Best Animated Film and Let the Right One In was presented with the Best International Film award. And here are the awards that make the Saturns stand out for genre fans: Lance Henriksen received the Life Career Award, and Leonard Nimoy nabbed the Lifetime Achievement Award.

I was following the awards show via Twitter, and the most entertaining account was the one by loquaciousmuse; she made it sound like a blast. If you're out of state, $40 buys an Academy membership with award voting privileges. The least expensive in-state membership is $150, which also grants access to more than 100 special screenings.

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Continue reading AFI Gives Michael Douglas an Lifetime Achievement Award. No, Really.

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The Cannes Film Festival drew to a close on Sunday evening with the presentation of the Palme d'Or to Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. Filmed in black and white, it's "a two-and-a-half hour parable of political and social ideas set entirely in a north German village in 1913 and 1914," says Dave Calhoun at Time Out London. Haneke "solidly resists answering the 'what's it all about?' question and makes you work hard to make sense of what you're seeing." David Hudson at IFC's The Daily has gathered the reviews, some of which endeavor to answer the "What's it all about?" question.

As is often the case, the nine-member jury passed out awards to as many films as possible. The Grand Prix (or runner-up) went to Jacques Audiard's A Prophet; Special Jury Prize to Alain Resnais for Wild Grass; and Best Director to Brillante Mendoza for Kinatay. Christoph Walz won Best Actor for his performance in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Charlotte Gainsbourg won Best Actress for Lars von Trier's controversial Antichrist. The complete list of winners can be easily viewed at indieWIRE. The festival's official site has a great set of award ceremony photos.

Here's a roundup of Cannes films we can expect to see in coming months. Corrections and updates will be appreciated.

CANNES TITLES WITH U.S. DISTRIBUTION

• Antichrist (IFC)
• A Prophet (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Bright Star (Bob Berney and Bill Polhad)
• Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Drag Me to Hell (Universal)
• Humpday (Magnolia Pictures)
• I Love You Phillip Morris (Consolidated Pictures Group)
• Inglourious Basterds (Weinstein Co.)
• Looking For Eric (IFC)
• Precious (Lionsgate)
• Taking Woodstock (Focus Features)
• Tales From the Golden Age (IFC)
• Thirst (Focus Features)
• Up (Disney Pixar)
• The White Ribbon (Sony Pictures Classics)

You can access all our Cannes coverage via this handy link.

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It's all over but the shouting. The last two titles in Competition for the Palme d'Or, which will be awarded on Sunday, screened on Saturday to general disinterest as industry attendees continued to flock home. But some were still happy just to be able to see a movie -- any movie -- at Cannes; Roger Ebert tells of a young man who followed the example of Ebert's granddaughter and "begged" for a ticket. He was happy and proud to get in. Ebert shares some photographs; he says: "I have no idea why they are all of beautiful women."

Key Screenings. Competition: Tsai Ming-Liang's Face (Taiwanese filmmaker makes a movie in France), Isabel Coixet's Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (Tokyo fish market employee also works as a hit woman).

Awards. Some observers felt the Un Certain Regard section featured higher-quality selection than the main Competition, so it's of note that Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth won the top prize, according to indieWIRE. The Greek film received warm praise from the few reviewers who have seen it. Karina Longworth of Spout says it's the only narrative she's seen in Cannes "that really feels like it represents the work an emerging new talent." The film revolves around an odd family, in which the three 20-something children have never even left their house, while their parents "have created a complex mythology ... to keep the family together." She called it a "dark comedy," though she also noted that "its depiction of forced incest, two explicitly not-fake images of sex acts, liberation via very bloody self-harm and the on-screen disemboweling of a housecat."

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A still from Invisible City.

Continue reading Hot Docs Announces 2009 Documentary Award Winners

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The eighth edition of the Tribeca Film Festival drew to a close very late Sunday night after a full day of screenings. The slimmed-down fest was evidently somewhat easier for the press and public to navigate, and the good films still bobbed to the surface on their own merits.

Awards. The competition categories were decided upon by all-star juries, but the paying customers got their say as well. Raymond De Felitta's comedy City Island won the Audience Award, edging out Marshall Curry's doc Racing Dreams and Ron Carlson's historical epic Mascots vs. Midgets. (Just kidding on that last description, of course; see "Our Coverage" below.) Racing Dreams previously won the jury award for Best Documentary Feature. The top 10 audience favorites are listed at the fest site.

Deals. Magnolia Pictures picked up Conor McPherson's drama The Eclipse over the weekend. We'll have a separate story on this distribution deal.

Our Coverage. Erik Davis said that Stay Cool "leaps into your lap with its perky, original concept, but then slowly but surely fails to deliver ... well, pretty much everything." Eric D. Snider advises that Ti West's The House of the Devil "prefers slow-building tension over frequent bloodletting and mayhem," but when it does deliver on its promises, "Holy crap." (?!) Another title that seemingly sells itself, Midgets vs. Mascots turns out to be "an occasionally very funny but often very sloppy mockumentary that is far too eager to show us how taboo it is," according to The Snide.

You can review, bookmark, recommend, link to, chew over, and comment upon all of our coverage right here.

Twitter Talk. Just one concluding thought: "Tribeca winds down as the dividers at the AMC slowly get put away. The rain is God shedding a tear."

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Continue reading Fan Rant: Critical Thinking

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In a ceremony held last night, the Tribeca Film Festival announced this year's winners of its competition categories. The top prizes went to Iranian drama About Elly for Best Narrative Feature and audience fave Racing Dreams for Best Documentary Feature.

About Elly, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, revolves around a group of "old college pals" who reunite for a weekend by the sea, a friendly outing that turns serious when one of the women disappears. The jury (Bradley Cooper, Richard Fischoff, Todd Haynes, Meg Ryan, and Uma Thurman) called the Iranian movie "a seamless piece of ensemble filmmaking." Racing Dreams, directed by Marshall Curry, follows three go-kart racers, ranging in age from 11 to 13, who are competing for a national champiomship that's considered "a huge stepping stone to auto racing's big show-NASCAR." The jury (Liz Garbus, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Morgan Spurlock, and Brian Williams) declared it to be "a completely compelling, entertaining film of incredible quality."

For his Norwegian comedy North, director Rune Denstad Langlo was recognized as Best New Narrative Filmmaker, while Ciarán Hinds (The Eclipse) and Zoe Kazan (The Exploding Girl) were honored as Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively. In the documentary arena, Ian Olds won the award as Best New Documentary Filmmaker for Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi, which tells the story of an Afghan "fixer" (defined as "someone hired by foreign journalists to facilitate the gathering of news stories") and the "dangerous and unseen world of wartime news gathering." The recently-acquired Defamation received a Special Jury Mention.

The complete list of award winners is available at the official site. The festival continues through May 3. Check out all of our coverage right here.

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This week's Asian Cinema Scene travels to Hong Kong and Los Angeles, showcasing recent and upcoming films.

Hong Kong Film Awards. Wilson Yip's galvanizing martial arts biopic Ip Man won the Best Film award at the annual ceremony held on Sunday, according to China Daily. Donnie Yen stars as a respected Wing Chun master who ultimately is forced to use his martial arts skills to defend his country's honor against the invading Japanese in the late 1930s. Sammo Hung and Tony Leung Siu-Hung deservedly won the Best Action Design award for their work on the film. (My capsule review and the trailer.)

The other big winner doesn't feature any martial arts or big battle scenes. Low-budget drama The Way We Are won for Best Director (Ann Hui), Best Actress (Bau Hei-Jing), Supporting Actress (Chan Lai-Wun), and Best Screenplay (Lui Yau-Wah). Edmund Lee in Time Out Hong Kong sniffed that it's a "crowd-pleasing film that, lamentably, is a contrived attempt at social commentary," while Lunapark6 was more impressed: "Ann Hui ... creates a quietly moving arthouse film ... to show life as it is for at least some of the Hong Kong regular folks." The trailer is embedded below.

Nick Cheung was honored as Best Actor for his haunting portrayal of a murderous child stealer with his own emotionally-wrenching back story in Dante Lam's Beast Stalker. Liu Kai-Chi took Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the same film. (My capsule review.) John Woo's big budget Red Cliff received five awards in the technical categories. The complete list of winners and nominees can be found at LoveHKFilm.com.

After the jump: Highlights of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, which starts tomorrow.

Continue reading Asian Cinema Scene: 'Ip Man' Awarded, Indian Fest Opens in LA

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Even Crash's director Paul Haggis isn't sure why his movie is still top of the pops at Netflix. He told the Chicago Tribune, "I just assumed it was some sort of anomaly... I have no idea why anyone went to the movie in the first place, let alone rent it. It was a little independent film, and when people started to see it, I was amazed."

Haggis, along with many viewers, was also surprised his movie won the Oscar for best picture in 2005, beating out Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Munich. "It's certainly not a perfect movie," Haggis said. "I love the Oscars; I just think they are the best thing in the world, but if you asked me if it was the best film of the year, I'd say, 'Of course not.'" (So would a lot of people.)

It might have something to do with the Netflix recommending algorithm, which is great but definitely fallible -- it seems to think I want to see 27 Dresses and Henry Poole is Here. Or maybe people are really committed to watching all 81 best picture winners now that they're unemployed. What's your guess?

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James Faust loves movies. That's a good thing, especially since he's the Director of Programming for the AFI Dallas International Film Festival, which wrapped its third edition last week. Some film programmers will brook no negative comments about their selections, but James was quite willing to listen when I questioned his sanity for picking Oskar Roehler's Lulu & Jimi, an out-of-control, absurdist melodrama that veers from one mad scenario to the next.

He readily admitted that he and a friend were the only two people laughing when the film played at Sundance, but he defended some of the same things that I had derided. James is a pleasant, humble man, but he's not about to back down just because you don't agree with him. That same spirit is evident in some of the films in the program. Jeffrey Levy-Hinte's terrific Soul Power, in which music history comes alive, consists of footage shot in 1974 as final preparations were being made for a music festival in Zaire, intended to accompany the "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, and other notable musicians appear; it made me nostalgic for the days when Ali spoke his mind.

Judging from the crowds lining up in advance, AFI Dallas sells far more individual tickets than passes, which means that completely different audiences show up from one film to the next (as opposed to, say, SXSW, where you start to recognize fellow pass holders in line). So a late evening screening of Daniel Burman's Empty Nest drew a Spanish-speaking crowd that reacted more strongly than I did. Still, I liked the picture that Burman created of a long-married couple (Oscar Martínez and Cecilia Roth) dealing with life, and each other, after their children leave home.

Continue reading AFI Dallas Dispatch: Features, Docs, Awards, and Audiences Collide

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After time off for good behavior, Indie Roundup returns with an opinionated look at recent news.

Awards. The Cinema Eye Honors seek to recognize "the breadth of the [documentary] genre." Their second annual awards were handed out on Sunday, with James Marsh's superb Man on Wire deservedly taking home prizes for Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking, Production, and Editing. Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir received awards in the International Feature, Direction, and Graphic Design and Animation categories. Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze won the Audience Choice Award and Debut Feature Film honors, while Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World was recognized for Peter Zellner's cinematography. More information on the films is available at the official site of the Cinema Eye Honors.

Deals. IFC Films acquired Alexis Dos Santos' Unmade Beds and plans to make it available via their IFC in Theaters or IFC Festival Direct on demand offerings later this year, according to indieWIRE. Dos Santos previously made Glue, which drove me nuts with its motion-sickness handheld camera work, but his work has won critical acclaim and may, come to think of it, play better on television rather than on a big screen. Heresy, I know. Unmade Beds is described as "an exuberant, warmly romantic film about youth culture."

Adam Wingard's Pop Skull, "a sonic fury of abstracted imagery bathed in menacing splashes of light and sound," has been picked up by Halo-8 Entertainment and will received a limited theatrical release before hitting DVD in July. The description comes courtesy of my friend Collin Armstrong at Twitch. The film follows an Alabama drug addict battling personal demons and, oh yeah, murderous ghosts in his house. We've embedded the trailer below (if you dare).

After the jump: A fashion doc, a film critic, and Gen Art.

Continue reading Indie Roundup: Cinema Eyes, 'Unmade Beds,' 'Pop Skull,' AFI Fest Changes?

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