the illusionist Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It became as clear as day to me after watching American History X that Edward Norton was a real actor that I needed to pay attention to. I wasn't the only one who felt that way. It's not that The People vs. Larry Flynt or Rounders weren't on the top of my cinematic appreciation list, but his portrayal as a reforming skinhead -- the pure humanity that he exposed through the character -- remains unforgotten. His careful consideration of the roles he plays leaves him with a resume flowing with fulfilling roles both for himself and for his audiences. In a recent interview with the Guardian Unlimited the actor talked about everything from the digital revolution in filmmaking, to working with David Fincher, to the freedom that acting gives a person to experience their full range of emotional expression. Norton appears to be fearless ... he is not afraid that the accessibility of filmmaking materials will kill the art of creating cinema.

He's certainly not afraid of vulnerable roles that show the ugliness inside a person. Acting to him is "in some ways, a free pass to exorcise all kinds of emotional stuff without the consequences." In preparing for a role, Norton has no go-to method. In fact, he relies on no methodology but instead approaches each role with a new way of creating. "So in the beginning, I always feel like I'm fumbling for an entry point." It should be a relief to any actor that someone of Norton's stature still feels like a fraud the minute a new project comes to fruition.

He is also not afraid of choosing films because they are poignant to him at the time. In fact, that is the number one reason he has chosen to work on Fight Club, 25th Hour and The Illusionist. "Most of the films that I've ever really responded to are ones that I feel were really involved in their times. They were documents of a moment, or an exploration of what was dysfunctional, fucked up or painful about that moment in time." Those films spoke to him directly as reflections on what was happening around him. They also happened to be great scripts made by talented artists. This is what is responsible for the variety and range of the roles that he chooses. "I like a lot of things, I just like them well done."

Upon surfing over to Variety this morning, I noticed an article titled "U Orders up Burger Pitch." Right away, I was under the assumption that Universal had snatched up a comedy pitch that revolved around burgers (like, the kind you eat), but immediately realized (after reading the first few lines) that they were talking about The Illusionist director Neil Burger. Still, those brief thoughts lingered around, thus prompting me to pick up a tasty burger for lunch. Thanks Variety! Perhaps I shall sue you for inadvertently making me gain weight. But anyway ...

Universal Pictures has picked up an untitled pitch, not for a comedy, but a contemporary drama to be co-written (along with Dirk Wittenborn) and directed by Neil Burger. Oh, but there will be no magicians in this tale -- we're looking at a film about bad guys fighting bad guys for the chance to do bad things without law enforcement getting in the way. Sounds good, eh? Set in New York, concerns over an imminent terror threat (what else is new?) have the cops on high alert, which has subsequently shut down crime and forced the regular old friendly criminals out of work. Hell-bent on being able to still make money off their illegal activities, the criminals band together to track down the terrorists ... and, well, the whole thing sounds a bit cheesy on paper. It's supposed to be a drama, but for some reason I can't get snapshots from My Blue Heaven out of my mind. Why is that?

For whatever reason, all the orgs and major awards shows are staying far away from Children of Men, even though the film has shown up on quite a few top ten lists (our own James Rocchi easily picked it as this year's best film). Since I have not seen Children of Men yet (I know, don't kill me, I'm going Sunday), I can't sit here and cycle through what those reasons might be, but I can tell you that the film has finally won an award.

Remember that USC Scripter award I was telling you about recently? For those that don't recall, the Scripter award is handed out each year (by the USC Libraries) to the writers involved in an outstanding film adaptation. Not only do the screenwriters who adapted the (book, short story or novella) get recognized, but also the original author. This year, five films (and their writing teams) were nominated, including Children of Men, Notes on a Scandal, The Devil Wears Prada, The Last King of Scotland and The Illusionist. As I previously noted, Little Children was strangely absent from the finalists, which probably helped Children of Men (and its five screenwriters, as well as original author P.D. James) ultimately win this year's USC Scripter award. Previous winners include Capote and Million Dollar Baby, among others.

If you're a huge Children of Men fan, then might I suggest you cherish this moment folks, as the film will most likely not win anything else this year. The official awards ceremony will be held on February 18 at USC's Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library in Los Angeles.

• Emmanuel Lubezki got a nod for Children of Men. This is only his second nomination with ASC. I say 'only' because he has an incredible body of work. Children of Men was a gorgeous film in many aspects and the rest of his work can be summed up in that same statement -- Y Tu Mamá También, The New World as well as even more extravagant films such as The Cat in the Hat and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

• Dick Pope is receiving his first ASC nomination for The Illusionist. Pope is also responsible for Vera Drake -- an exceptional film.

• Robert Richardson is in the running for The Good Shepherd. This is his eighth ASC nomination. Dare I say it again? Eighth nomination. Rightfully earned though, he's responsible for so many great films since the 80s: Platoon, JFK,Casino and Kill Bill.

• Vilmos Zsigmond has received his third nom for The Black Dahlia. Zsigmond is the veteran in comparison to the rest. His body of work began in the 50s and includes The Deer Hunter and Melinda and Melinda.

• Finally, Dean Semler for Apocalypto. This is nomination number two and makes me curious to actually see this film.

I'm all for these guild awards, with their specific categories and distinct recognitions, but I'm not sure I understand the Costume Designer Guild's honor for "Distinguished Actor." If the reasoning is that the recipient of this award is someone who looks good in costumes, or makes costume designers look good, then Helen Mirren makes sense as this year's winner. But this reason doesn't explain why the guild is also giving Sandra Bullock an award. Suddenly, the logic falls apart -- especially for anyone who has seen Miss Congeniality 2.

The costume designers don't need to give actors any more praise. And Mirren certainly doesn't need any more trophies this year. To me, the guild's recognition of the different genres of costume design is interesting and appealing enough without some unnecessary star-kissing.

The categories for the Costume Designer Guild Awards separately acknowledge achievements for modern costume, period costume and fantasy costume. The lumping of these genres together into the Best Costume Design Oscar doesn't give credit to the differences between them, and it often ignores the difficulty of modern costuming, which many people assume is as easy as the everyday act of getting dressed in the morning.

I've been steeped in year-end "for your consideration" screeners and press screenings, dozens of high-profile movies, each hoping for some kind of Oscar buzz. I can't really talk about most of them yet, given that they haven't opened and also that they're not in my 400 screen realm, but I can tell you that my "worst" list is expanding faster than my "best" list.

I wanted to focus, instead, on those movies, now playing on 400 screens or less, that aren't getting any awards consideration.

Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (321 screens) had the misfortune to open a few months from a vaguely similar film about stage magicians, The Illusionist (173 films). Both films have their supporters and detractors, but both have fared well. The Prestige currently rates 73% on Rotten Tomatoes.com, while The Illusionist rates only two points higher. The Prestige has earned $51 million on a $40 million budget, while The Illusionist has earned less, but with a wider margin of profit: $40 million on a $16.5 million budget.

One of the weird things about film festivals (well, to me at least, maybe it's not to anyone else) is the concept of "hold review" films. "Hold review", as the term implies, means that we aren't supposed to publish full reviews of certain films until their actual release date. This makes sense from a distributor's standpoint, because they want reviews to go up right as the film is coming out, so that, theoretically, the plethora of reviews will drive butts into seats, and give the distribs some return on their investment. The interesting thing is, that probably half the films on the SIFF review list are films that Cine has already reviewed from earlier fests, before said films acquired distrib, and generally speaking, when we run a fest review of a film that scores distrib down the road, we almost always run another review then, with a pointer back to our fest review.

Since we prefer to stay in the good graces of our friends at both the distributor and fest end of things, though, we nonetheless rigorously comply with the "hold review" lists. We can tease you, we can tantalize ... we just can't tell you everything you want to know. Here's what we can tell you about the SIFF films I've seen so far for which I can't give you full reviews ... yet (think of it as a little cinematic foreplay) -- and links to those for which we've previoiusly run reviews.

Hey, we're not the only ones covering the Seattle International Film Festival. Lots of other folks are here too. Here's a round-up of what other sites are saying about what's happening around SIFF:

• The Stranger has reviews of Japanese drama The Hidden Blade by film critic and Police Beat scribe Charles Mudede, and Annie Wagner reviews Snow Cake, which I'll be getting to next week.
• Greg Dunlap from Cineblog has a write-up on Princess Raccoon posted over on the NW Source blog, and has a nice summary of other SIFF bloggers, including Ken Rudolph, who drove up from L.A. to spend six weeks watching an amazing 120 films! Now that's a film lover. Greg also throws some love Cinematical's direction (well, he mentioned we're there, anyhow, so thanks for the shout-out, Greg!)
• Jake Ludington at Hollywood Reviews dropped a line to let us know about all the awesome interviews with directors at SIFF he has up. Jake has interviews up with Kirby Dick (This Film is Not Yet Rated), Will Becton (aka Tommy Chong), Merl Reagle (Wordplay), and Neil Burger (The Illusionist). Jake also writes up one of my fave films from Sundance, 13 (Tzameti), and as he notes, if you haven't seen it, go. If you're hanging in Seattle, it screens on Friday at 9:30.  Jake also gets a peek at the contents of the VIP Opening Night Gala swag (which I, being very much NOT a VIP, was sadly not gifted with). The gift bag included a bottle of Bombay Sapphire (booyah!) and Starbucks Coffee for that post-Bombay hangover. Very cool stuff, Jake.
• There's a SIFF photo pool going on over at Flickr (started by SIFF-goer Roya), including the one above right, which is a shot of the sign at Atlas Clothing Co, located conveniently on Capitol Hill near two SIFF venues, The Egptian and Broadway Performance Hall. Check out the Flickr group, and if you're attending the fest and snapping pics, upload away.
• And last (but most certainly not least), one of my fave websites for all things cultural in Seattle, Three Imaginary Girls, has a SIFF preview up by imaginary boy embracey. The girls (and their boy) are witty, clever, and they have cool pink matchbooks in the Hospitality Suite.

If you're in Seattle and blogging about SIFF, drop me a line at kim.voynar@cinematical.com . I'll be doing more round-ups throughout the fest. Off to see The King (starring Gael Garcia Bernal and his cheekbones). I have some cool interviews and more film reviews coming up, so check back often!

(Ed.'s Note: Greg from Cineblog is Greg Dunlap, not Greg Nelson. Apologies, Greg.)