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Doc Talk: Documenting Disasters
Filed under: Documentary, Independent, Michael Moore, George Clooney, Columns, Cinematical Indie
In Spike Lee's documentary miniseries/film When the Levees Broke, musician Wynton Marsalis states that this is a great time in history because it's a time for us to notice what we're doing wrong and then fix things. I would argue that this doesn't separate our time from any other in the millennia since man started documenting his history. We have so rarely, or so slowly learned from the mistakes of our past, but it is at least a hopeful statement at the end of an otherwise morose four hours.
I think this is a great time in history because non-fiction cinema allows for much easier and more accessible ways of communicating these wrongs of humanity through its documentation of historical events. And the proof is in the multitude of films released over the past decade dealing with disasters, many of which, such as the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, were at least partially preventable.
But do documentaries really work for this purpose? And if not, what's the point of disaster docs? To entertain the destructoporn fetishists who love fictional disaster movies? I hope not. To serve racist moviegoers ridden by white guilt who align themselves with the films' rescuer figures in the same way they relate to white saviors in fiction films like Avatar and Dances with Wolves? I've read a paper that suggests the latter, at least in docs about Katrina, and I almost believe it when I consider the potential films we'll see about last week's earthquake in Haiti.
And you know there will be plenty of films about that enormous disaster. It was certainly no surprise for me to learn after only a few days, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, that at least one documentary crew is already busy filming the relief effort down there.
Classic Cameos: Brad Pitt, Matt Damon in 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind'
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom, Brad Pitt, George Clooney
Sometimes the briefest cameos from instantly recognizable celebrities provide the funniest punchlines. Take for example the scene that takes place on the set of The Dating Game in George Clooney's directorial debut from 2002, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. The camera pans to Bachelor #1, shaggy-haired and wearing appropriately groovy clothes, and ... wait, wasn't that Brad Pitt! That had to be Brad Pitt. Just as your brain is processing this, here's Bachelor #2 ... okay, this has to be Matt Damon, so that really must have been Brad Pitt back there. And then Bachelor #3 ... well, watch the clip below to get the full effect.An IFC article about Matt Damon's cameos in various films gives us a little more information about J. Todd Anderson, aka Bachelor #3. He's a storyboard artist who had worked on O Brother Where Art Thou, which Clooney co-starred in -- in fact he seems to be the Coen brothers go-to storyboard artist on films from Raising Arizona to Burn After Reading. He worked on storyboards for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but apparently Clooney decided he would also be a perfect fit for the small role up against Pitt and Damon. The two better-known actors had co-starred with Clooney the previous year in Ocean's Eleven. The clip below is less than 40 seconds long, but a very funny use of cameos, without going over the top.
P.S. I hadn't realized that the boyhood Chuck Barris in this 2002 film is played by Michael Cera. I may have to watch the whole movie again -- Sam Rockwell is wonderful as the grown-up Barris, and Clooney gave himself a fun supporting role, too.
P.P.S. This post was in honor of the news that Pitt and Damon will be re-teaming to lend their voices to Happy Feet 2.
Todd's Top 10 of 2009
Filed under: Fandom, Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, Best/Worst
It's absolutely true that 2009 was a great year for movies, but I'm not altogether sure that 2009 was a year for great movies. The difference, some might argue, is negligible, since there probably shouldn't be any sort of division between smarter and more substantive fare and populist entertainment. In a year like, say, 2008, that might have been true, at least where its biggest blockbuster, The Dark Knight, was concerned. But in '09, it seemed like about five people saw the "serious" movies, while everyone else was watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
That said, the value of being entertained isn't necessarily less than that of being enlightened or inspired, and box office success isn't automatically antithetical to quality. (I actually kind of liked Revenge of the Fallen, after all.) Ultimately, however, making a Top Ten list for 2009 has seemed like a more ambiguously-defined process than in previous years, because I realize that many of the movies I enjoyed were not the most meaningful or deep, and ones I admired or respected were not always the ones that readily thrilled or excited. As such, here's a list of my top ten favorite films of the year, arranged in deliberate but basically arbitrary order. By all means discuss, debate, and disagree, but I'd love it if I could get folks to see even one or two of these that they haven't already, even if it's to fortify their arguments why I'm wrong.
Are These The Sexiest Movies of All Time?
Filed under: Fandom, Newsstand, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Lists
There is no shortage of sex in the movies, but sometimes it does feel like there is a shortage of sexy. Over at Entertainment Weekly they have compiled the list of what they claim are the 25 sexiest movies of All-Time, and while I agree with most of their picks, I do think in a few cases they have managed to confuse love with sex (but haven't we all?). The list covers everything from full on sex flicks like 9 1/2 Weeks to more subtle fare like Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence. So first let's take a look at the films that earned a spot on EW's hall of fame, and then we'll get to five movies that get my pulse racing.
The top five is pretty much what you would expect: you've got the baseball comedy Bull Durham in the number five spot, followed by the 80's noir classic Body Heat, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Hawk's screwball masterpiece His Girl Friday, and in the number one spot is Soderbergh's Out of Sight. It's a pretty comprehensive list overall, and even a few foreign language selections made the cut, but I know better than anybody else that sometimes there isn't room for all the movies you would like on a list, so that's why I decided to add a few suggestions of my own.
After the jump: five suggestions for the sexiest movies of all time...
Interview: Jason Reitman, 'Up in the Air'
Filed under: Comedy, Austin, Interviews, George Clooney
My interview with Up in the Air director Jason Reitman in October was one of the most meta interviews I've ever done. Before the interview started, Reitman took my photo with his iPhone. He told me only "I'm not sure if that's going to work, what I'm doing with that, but if it does, you'll be thrilled with the results." I'm still in suspense.
In addition, my interview took place right after a Film School Rejects interview (check it out, Reitman name-checks Cinematical) in which Cole Abaius spent 10 minutes discussing the pie charts the Juno and Thank You for Smoking director had been posting to Twitter. Reitman kept track of which questions interviewers asked him most -- I caught him tallying things in a little notebook during our interview -- and posted the stats online frequently. Roger Ebert has also written about the pie charts. Cole and I had been reading Reitman's Twitter feed before our interviews, and not only knew about the pie chart but found out that he had just been enjoying lunch at the Salt Lick, one of the best known BBQ joints in Central Texas.
So that may explain why Twitter, pie charts and barbecue keep creeping into the following Cinematical interview with Jason Reitman. I hope it's as fun to read as it was to be there in person. The above photo is from the red carpet the evening after the interview, when Up in the Air was the closing-night film for Austin Film Festival.
'Nine', 'Up in the Air' Lead Satellite Award Nominations
Filed under: Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Foreign Language, Music & Musicals, Awards, Quentin Tarantino, Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Oscar Watch
There are a few good reasons to hate on the Satellite Awards. First of all, we really don't need any more end of the year movie and television honors. Second of all, the Satellites seem to be little more than a knock-off of the Golden Globes, which are already pretty unnecessary. Third, they happen way too early, missing out on seeing and thereby qualifying perhaps the biggest film of the year (Avatar). But over the years I've come to appreciate the Satellites and their bestowing organization, the International Press Academy, for their constant surprises when it comes to nominating and awarding unlikely films and talent. Just look at some of last year's acting winners: Richard Jenkins; Rosemarie DeWitt; Ricky Gervais; Michael Shannon.
Now check out this year's nominees, which continue to prove that IPA voters like to go at least slightly against the grain. Okay, so there are a lot of predictable titles in the lot, including Up in the Air and Nine, which leads with 11 nominations. Yet there are some films I don't expect to be recognized by the Golden Globes, let alone the Oscars, such as The Maid and The Stoning of Soraya M., both of which feature in the Best Actress (Drama) category.
Jason Reitman's Interview Pie Chart
Filed under: Comedy, Drama, New Releases, Paramount, Fandom, Movie Marketing, George Clooney, Images
Jason Reitman, whose next film Up in the Air comes out on December 4th, posted a very funny image on Twitter recently – a pie chart detailing the different things that people have asked him in recent interviews. The top three were about George Clooney (111 people), the economy (96 people), and his next project (78 people). The fourth is a little more confusing, as it just reads "Real People," so apparently 77 people asked him about real people. Maybe they wanted to know if the people being laid off in the movie were real people? Who's to say what goes through the murky depths of the mind of a journalist?
I humbly ask Jason Reitman to make a pie chart of his answers. Here's what I picture it to look like.
111 people: "Clooney is such a prankster! But he's also a great serious actor. He's the Cary Grant of our times. Sometimes we have moustache contests."
96 people: "The economy sucks. Seriously though, I've never been laid off, but if I had to be laid off, I'd hope George Clooney would do it."
78 people: "My next project will be with George Clooney. Actually, it will be catching up on all the sleep I lost talking to you people and answering the same damn questions over and over again."
In one jpeg, Reitman manages to sum up the exhausting paces that filmmakers, actors, musicians, et al are put through to get their names and faces and projects out there, the laziness of some journalists, and the terror that faces every journalist that wants to be good at what they do and engender an interesting discussion that is hopefully pleasant and/or illuminating (but at the very least not boring) for everyone involved, including the reader.
If you could ask Jason Reitman anything, what would it be?
Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats
Filed under: New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, George Clooney
We're told at the beginning of The Men Who Stare at Goats that "more of this is true than you would believe." But the story of the U.S. Army's attempts to harness psychic powers to create super-soldiers is so bizarre it almost HAS to be true, in accordance with the "how could anyone make this up?" principle. In fact, I believe more of this admittedly fictionalized story than I do of The Fourth Kind, which claims to be 100 percent true. Surely there's a lesson in there.
Based on Jon Ronson's nonfiction book, The Men Who Stare at Goats stars Ewan McGregor as Bob Wilton, a journalist covering the Iraq War in 2003. Bob meets a man named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a private contractor with an unusual past: He claims to have worked for the government as a psychic spy. Bob once met a man, back home in Michigan (played by Stephen Root), who made the same claims, and who named Lyn Cassady as one of his colleagues.
You can see why the military would be interested in psychic spying. Surveillance is a lot less dangerous when you can do it entirely with your mind, rather than having to actually sneak up and eavesdrop on people. And if we could harness things like telekinesis, well, forget about it! We'd beat the Russkies for sure!
A Peek at George Clooney Voicing 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'
Filed under: Action, Animation, Comedy, Fox Searchlight, Family Films, George Clooney, Trailers and Clips
Yahoo! has posted an incredibly cool video of George Clooney acting out his role as Mr. Fox in the freakin' adorable Fantastic Mr. Fox. The video shows cool side-by-side comparisons of Clooney acting out different scenes on a farm with costar Wallace Wolodarsky, who voices loopy sidekick Kylie, as well as just running around pretending to be Mr. Fox, down to rolling around on the ground and doing his super cool whistle. This behind-the-scenes peek at Mr. Fox also offers mini-interviews with director Wes Anderson, producer Allison Abbate, and Bill Murray (Badger) about working with Clooney on the film. The funniest part shows an argument between Mr. Fox and Badger, which involves growling and swiping, split-screened against the actors themselves doing the voices in an office.
As Abbate notes, "There couldn't be a more perfect Mr. Fox, because he has the Cary Grant suave, debonair sparkle where he can talk his way out of any situation, which is so our Mr. Fox character. He's just got a great voice."
Clooney's got a rather full docket this season, with The Men Who Stare at Goats coming out this week, Fantastic Mr. Fox coming out at the end of November, and Up in the Air out on Christmas day.
Click through to see the video itself, then let us know which Clooney feature you're going to be lining up for at the theaters this season, by cuss!
Discuss: Which Trailers Are You Sick Of?
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Mystery & Suspense, Paramount, Focus Features, George Clooney, Trailers and Clips
I'm grateful for this Friday, because that's the day that The Men Who Stare at Goats comes out and I can stop seeing its trailer relentlessly attached to anything and everything I see (and given that I try to see most anything and everything out there, it's really only a 'me' problem, I suppose). One night, I had myself a triple feature and saw the preview not one, not two, but three times; as a pal put it, he had "more than a feeling" that I was getting sick of it.Before that, it was a summer of Taking Woodstock time and time again, and it would already seem that Shutter Island's move to February will insure that I'll be sitting there, trying to piece the thing together for the next three months when not perfecting my New England Leo impersonation.
So, whether currently or in your own formative years, what trailers have you been just absolutely burnt out on? Did you and your friends quote along with them as they played? Were you actually ever turned off from seeing a film because you had it advertised to you too much? Come on, let it all out...
Tom Cruise and J.J. Abrams Reunite for 'Mission Impossible 4'
'Big Top Pee-Wee': The Original Benicio Del Toro Wolfman
Spin-ematical: New on DVD and Blu-ray for 2/9
Watch This: Brilliant Oscar-Nominated Short 'Logorama'
Chris Nolan to Lead 'Superman' Reboot!?
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