Familiar Faces. The David Fincher Hierarchy

By now you've undoubtedly confirmed for yourself that Brad Pitt is not in David Fincher's The Social Network... Unless you count that "Tyler Durden" Facebook profile on a computer screen in Jesse Eisenberg's room (blink and you'll miss it but I did catch it the second time through).

A Fincher sandwich. Brangelina brung the bread.

If you foolishly expected Brad to pop up for a cameo, you're forgiven on account of your totally understandable great love of David Fincher movies, in which Brad often stars (Se7en, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). They're friends in real life and only one year apart in age. But for now, no new movie collaborations are on the docket. 

<--- Fincher winning an MTV Award for Se7en (1995). It wasn't the first time MTV honored him but more on that later.

Beyond the obvious and uncurious case of Brad Pitt, does the popular director even favor repeat actors?  He's not visibly a creature of habit like Woody Allen, previously featured in this new series, but he does reuse actors, like favorite daubs of paint on his auteurial palette. Let's investigate!

The David Fincher Acting Hierarchy
(Quantitatively Speaking)

4 Films.
There's a three way tie for the top honor, each beating Brad Pitt by one film, albeit with much smaller roles than Brad's movie star status would allow.

• Richmond Arquette. Yes, that's the least famous member of the Arquette clan (brother to Alexis, David, Rosanna & Patricia). Fincher always gives him tiny roles but some are key: he makes the dread box delivery at the end of Se7en, makes the first two kills in Zodiac and also appears in Fight Club and Benjamin Button.
• Bob Stephenson, who you might reconize as a series regular from TV's Jericho or The Forgotten, is part of the SWAT team in Se7en, a security officer in Fight Club and a killer in both The Game and Zodiac.
• Christopher John Fields stretches the furthest back with the director, all the way to Fincher's debut feature Alien³ (1992) where he played "Rains" one of the first victims of the acid-blooded beastie. Poor guy. He also appears in The Game as Detective Boyle, Fight Club's dry cleaning man and he's a copy editor in Zodiac.

3 Films.
A man that needs no introduction.

• Brad Pitt delivered his two best performances,  Se7en (1995) and Fight Club (1999), under the director's guidance. Their third union for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), though a substantial hit, didn't deliver in the same way. It's one of Pitt's duller performances, Oscar nomination be damned, and entire scenes are stolen from him by the make up f/x and the supporting actors.

2 Films.
The Fincher filmography is, we hope, just barely starting its second act. He's currently making his 9th feature (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and several people have now appeared in two. It's possible some of the smaller character actors will show up in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but we won't know they're there till the credits confirm their existence. We'll take the two-fers in semi-random order...

• Holt McCallany is the tattooed prisoner who tries to rape Ripley in Alien³ (clearly he had never seen Alien or Aliens) and he's also one of Tyler Durden's disciples/bruisers in Fight Club.
• Jared Leto Remember that Fight Club line "I felt like destroying something beautiful?" used in connection with the destruction of Jared Leto's dreamy face? Leto and Fincher both obviously took that to heart in subsequent projects, too like Panic Room. (What a strange career Leto has had since the teen heartthrob days.) And think of the visual beating Brad Pitt takes in every Fincher film! Fincher definitely wants to destroy his beauty.
  
• Elias Koteas is one of dozens of cops caught up in the Zodiac case and he's also in Button.
• Rooney Mara is onscreen now in The Social Network and so good in it, too. Like "Mark Zuckerberg" we'll be refreshing our screens until she returns in Fincher's version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

• Paul Schulze, is probably best known as Nurse Jackie's pharmacist / lover. He appears in both Panic Room and Zodiac (with hair!)
• Charles S Dutton is the prison colony's spiritual leader in Alien³ and a cop in Se7en
• Andrew Kevin Walker is the screenwriter of Se7en but he also acts in the film (he plays "Sloth" ... shudder one of the dead bodies). He's also in Panic Room as "Sleepy Neighbor". Hee.
• Michael Massee who'd you recognize as a regular on one season of television's 24 or FlashForward appears in The Game as an EMT and in the massage parlor in Se7en. I think he's also in Madonna's "Bad Girl" video, directed by Fincher but I'm not positive on this. (But that'd make him a 2+)
• John Getz is Zuckerberg's lawyer in The Social Network and Templeton Peck in Zodiac. Poor man is always shot sitting behind a desk. Does he have legs?
• John Casini is one of the cops in Se7en and a "man in airport" in The Game.

1(+) Film

• James Rebhorn appears in The Game but he's also in the Madonna video "Bad Girl". Just think. If his date with Madonna had gone well, maybe she wouldn't have gone home with that serial killer!? Fincher sure loves the serial killer trope. And "Bad Girl" sure is an interesting piece in understanding David Fincher; the "angel of death" is visualized as a film director.
• Trevor Wright appears in The Social Network but when he was a little kid he appeared in the Fincher directed Paula Abdul video "Forever Your Girl".

1 Film. Hundreds of people share this distinction but the two actresses we'd really like to see David Fincher reteam with are Helena Bonham-Carter who was so against-type revelatory in Fight Club and Nicole Kidman who was supposed to get locked up in that Panic Room but ended up just being a disembodied voice on a phone in the same film.

To come full circle from his music video days, wouldn't it be fun to see three actors Fincher used there in one of his feature films? Why not cast Christopher Walken (Madonna's "Bad Girl"), Elijah Wood (Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" when he was only 8!) or the egregiously underused Lesley Ann Warren (Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun") in a future movie?

Finally... 
We must dedicate this list to the woman who introduced us to one of our favorite directors. David Fincher famously built his visual rep on a series of gargantuan Madonna music videos (Fincher won an MTV Video Award for "Express Yourself" though the big M did not) before escaping to feature films.

 Most people went to see Alien³ because it was the third in a franchise. I went to see it because I wanted to see if the man behind the frankly incredible images in Express Yourself, Oh Father, Vogue and Bad Girl had a feature career in him. He clearly did though most critics and audiences were not impressed. That movie needs a critical reevaluation because it was plain as day even then that he was already a cinematic wizard. My suspicion is that the shockingly nasty and merciless tone threw people off and he lost them in the opening shots by killing off Newt. It was always going to be roughly received, no matter how well made, coming after James Cameron's untoppable Aliens (only among the greatest action films ever made) but the tonal shift further chilled that inevitably cool response.

The second woman we reluctantly must dedicate this to is Paula Abdul since she's also a 4 time Fincher graduate. His videos for her aren't as good but he didn't have as much to work with, you know?

This series is about director's actor preferences but we'd like to note that Fincher, like most great auteurs reuses behind the scenes personell as well. Frequent collaborators include composer Howard Shore (3 films), editors James Haygood (3 films) and Angus Wall (4 films), cinematographer Jeff Cronenwerth (4 films), and production designer Donald Graham Burt (the past 4 films).

If you enjoyed this article, pass it on to your [ahem] Social Networks. Wink! Nudge!
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further reading? SEE THE NEW BLOG
also... "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" on Se7en
and Oscar discussions regarding The Social Network

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How I Feel / How I Wish I Felt

 

As articulated by Cate Blanchett in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  (Ugh, I'm seriously sick today. Someone read to me from happier-days diaries before I croak.)

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Slumdog Beats Button Again

Useless trivia alert
At some showing in some multiplex in some mall somewhere round about right now Slumdog Millionaire will beat Benjamin Button's box office tally, which makes it the top grossing Best Picture nominee from 2008 (as well as the winner). This will put Slumdog at #19 for biggest box office of 2008, just behind Hathaway and Carrel's Get Smart antics and Jolie and McAvoy's Wanted moves, and #2 for most successful drama behind Gran Torino. The other eighteen films, as per usual, are special effects driven, franchise entries, animated or comedic... the four things the public likes best. If you adjust for profitability Slumdog is much higher up, given a production budget that's miniscule in comparison to most top 20 finishers (it's but a 10th the size of Button's). Though perhaps they burned the extra profits away on that relentless Oscar campaign.

Statistically the Best Picture winner is usually the second highest grosser in its pack of nominees when all the pennies are counted. If it's not the runner up, it's #1. Only twice in the past 25 years has this pattern not held: The Last Emperor was very nearly the least successful of the '87 nominees and '99's American Beauty finished behind both the blockbuster The Sixth Sense and the Tom Hanks hit The Green Mile.

Meanwhile The Reader continues to disprove the notion that only a Best Picture win means anything at the box office. Winslet's win and its misleading ad campaign (they're also calling it a "thriller". Oy) seem to be powering The Reader's take. It will likely move past Milk (now on DVD) soon to become the third most successful BP nominee. Strangely, Slumdog seems to be cutting its box office off at the knees. It's still playing strong in the top ten nationwide and yet they're releasing it to DVD in three weeks. I guess everyone has finally accepted the sad notion that theatrical is only a commercial for DVD. Commercials get fast forwarded. The Reader comes to DVD in April. Benjamin Button or maybe Frost/Nixon (the least popular nominee) will hold out the longest before making the leap for home viewing.

Who Links the Linkmen?

Multiple Men
<--- Jezebel has words for Vanity Fair on their self spoofing
Erik Lundegaard on the NYT box office coverage and love of Paul Blart. "Dudes: Cover the industry. Don’t cover for the industry." Well played Erik, well played.
Mighty God King "If Batman Did Rap Battles" (What's the equivalent of 8 Mile in Gotham City?) Rude but funny.
IZ Reloaded How Benjamin Button got his face
my internet is where i... has an opinion, yes she does, on Stanley Kubrick
Gawker on the controversies surrounding The Kindly Ones. How soon till this latest sexual SS Officer book becomes a movie a la The Reader?
Indie Wire wonders what happened to the release of I Love You Philip Morris

Watchmen
The Bad and Ugly Matthew Goode to fanboys. Apparently they piss him off. As you may know I lust me some Goode and somehow I had not realized he was Ozymandias in Watchmen. It was the blonde hair, Batman and Robin era costume (nipples!) and presence of people I love even more (Crudup, Wilson and Gugino) that threw me off that trail. I am apparently in the lonely 1.4% of the public who is only somewhat interested in this movie. In other words I want to see it but I'm not salivating after that 15 minutes I saw.
NY Post wonders if Zach Snyder is the new Stanley Kubrick. This is why I'm not salivating. Mass preemptive hyperbole just kills my will to live. Especially when it comes to the superhero genre (a genre I enjoy a lot but don't feel the need to say it's masterful unless it actually is).
Queerty has a piece on the GLBT elements of Watchmen creator Alan Moore's work. Apparently the gay characters did make the cut in the movie but how will Zach Snyder treat them? On the evidence of 300 I worry...

Milkmen
And here's Dustin Lance Black chatting with Oprah last week. His publicist has mad skills. How many screenwriters get invited to do that?



Milk is out next week on DVD... and I urge you again to rent the 1984 Oscar winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk -- make it a marathon double feature. Finally, Sean Penn continues to be more awesome than usual. Popnography lets us know that he's campaigning for a statewide Harvey Milk "day of significance" in California. Go Sean!

Oscar Symposium Lift Off. (But AMPAS Won't Fly)

Nathaniel R: First things first, please welcome this year's Symposium guests (in alpha order just like Oscar do): Timothy Brayton, Antagonie & Ecstasy, Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine, Karina Longworth, Spout, Erik Lundegaard, Eriklundegaard.com and Kris Tapley, In Contention. They were chosen through an elaborate and painstaking ranked balloting system. Only Price Waterhouse employees know who was snubbed for the 4th annual Film Experience event. Pundits suggest that they were invited on the basis of their mad skills with dramaturgy and accents. I'm happy to have these five in my virtual house to discuss the 81st annual Oscars.

But where to begin in a year when the Academy is feeling so passive aggressive? It's almost as if they took a look at the semi daring and pleasingly rangey shortlist of 2007 and thought: 'we simply can't have that again!', beating a hastry retreat back into their bios, Holocausts pictures, and vaguely ambitious epics a good portion of which will be forgotten about in five years time. I'm still unsure, given the ranked balloting system of the Academy, how at least 60% of them managed to get a sufficient number of #1 votes to compete. Who is passionate about them?

The menu was varied but AMPAS would only order the usual. Why's that?

AMC Theaters is hosting a marathon of the Best Picture nominees in several cities the day before the Oscars. I've considered going for the blog fodder but who wants to sit through these five particular films back to back to back to back to back and again for that matter? That's someone's idea of hell surely, or at least one circle of it. There's not even a comedy to break up the 12 hour day. Could you do it? Or would you like to propose a separate marathon. Is there an entire category you could sit through all at once?

Erik Lundegaard: Is the Academy feeling passive-aggressive? Does the Academy feel? All I know is I'm feeling passive and Harvey Weinstein is feeling aggressive. A friend of mine said that 2008 was a bad year for movies but it was really only a bad year for Oscar movies. The blockbusters were great: The Dark Knight, Iron Man, WALL•E, even Hancock which I think is underrated. The Oscars have Milk, which I think should win, and Slumdog Millionaire, which I wouldn't mind winning, but nothing to stir the passions like No Country or Brokeback or The Pianist. At least for me. Anyone else?

As for Nathaniel's question: I could sit through all the foreign language films, since it's probably the only way to see them all. I'm in Seattle, not a bad city for movies, but only Waltz With Bashir has shown up. The Class is scheduled soon. The others? Lotsa luck.

Karina Longworth: I agree that 2008 was not a bad year for movies. I don't think it was even necessarily a bad year for nominated movies...

Click for Day One of the Symposium

Find out how Sean Penn gave Kris a black eye, who loves Rachel Getting Married, why Slumdog didn't set off Ed's bullshit detector, how France pissed Karina off and which Muppet Frank Langella reminds Timothy of. Return and comment if you'd like to join the convo.
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Drooling On Brad. Or Why Benjamin Button Might Win the Cinematography Oscar

The Oscars are but one week and a day away. My final predictions will be up tomorrow... and then the Oscar Symposium begins. Remember that? But until then let's talk Cinematography. The nominees are Slumdog Millionaire, Changeling, The Dark Knight, The Reader and Benjamin Button. In January it looked like the legendary Roger Deakins might pull two nods for Revolutionary Road and The Reader, but no Kate Winslet double feature emerged in the nominations. And Deakins is at a disadvantage yet again in terms of securing his first win. The frontrunner for this category, the frontrunner for most categories [sigh], is Slumdog Millionaire. But if there's a place outside of makeup and visual effects for Button to improve its trophy haul, it's right here.

Silly trivia alert!

You see... Button's DP Claudio Miranda was filming Brad Pitt. It's time you knew: Lighting golden god Brad to perfection trumps nearly all in this category, including the lighting of our English Rose (Kate). Consider...

Pitt & the Cinematography Oscar:
Adrian Biddle for Thelma & Louise (91)
Phillipe Rousselot for A River Runs Through It (92)
John Toll for Legends of the Fall (94)
Roger Deakins for The Assassination of Jesse James... (07)

Most of the technical branches within the Oscars (with the exception of rogue creatives in the MakeUp and Costume Design fields) tend to limit their selections to Best Picture candidates so it says something when a film can get nominated in a category without being in play for the big prize. No cinematographer who has ever caressed Brad's cheekbones with a golden filter or outlined his musculature with a back light needed Best Picture momentum to be nominated (Benjamin Button is only Brad Pitt's second appearance in a Best Picture nominee -- Babel was the first but strangely missed a cinematography nod).

Lighting Kate Winslet will bring you more typical results. You're in the running only if your film also has best picture heat

Winslet & the Cinematography Oscar:
Michael Coulter for Sense & Sensibility (95)
Russell Carpenter for Titanic (97)
Roger Deakins and Chris Menges for The Reader (08)

The snub for Revolutionary Road and the nomination for The Reader underline this theory yet again.

Now, I'm not trying to say that the cinematographer's branch is queer for Brad Pitt in the way that, say, David Fincher is. But they definitely have a mancrush.

Do you think Slumdog's color explosions take this one with ease or does Button win on its ample sensuality?

Frontrunners
Anthony Dod Mantle for Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Claudio Miranda for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Or maybe you're throwing caution to the wind and predicting career honors for Roger Deakins (in tandem with double Oscar winner Chris Menges) for the Reader ? Where do you think this particular statue is going? And what's your choice -- you can vote on your favorite at the site.
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The Link Ness Monster

Jane Fonda's Blog!!! Why is it that it took me 29 whole days to discover that she was writing a blog? I lurve me some Fonda. Topics so far have included the inauguration, her father as Abraham Lincoln, dreams of Bob Redford, her dog, her dressing room (she's rehearsing for a play) and Danny Boyle --yes, Slumdog Millionaire has invaded ever nook and cranny of everything. I am pretty sure that Slumdog Millionaire was appearing in some way on every channel on my cable box yesterday and every website I visited, too. I think I accidentally sprinkled some Slumdog Millionaire on my pizza today. If you cut me I would bleed Slumdog Millionaire. (February 23rd can't come quickly enough!)

Mighty God King defines "nerdy". It needed to be done
TMZ assaults Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins with questions at the airport. I don't think he's used to this treatment, god bless.
Slant insightful piece on Oscar's best score category
Erik Lundegaard gives out "Lundys", a fun award for the best review of each Best Picture nominee
Pop Elegantarium Harold and Maude finger puppets? I'm dying here


popbytes Scarjo is blonde no more!
The Bad and the Ugly brings together all the Dollhouse promos. Eliza Dushku makes me drool. Drooling is not good for keyboards
Ephemerist on the preparations for the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack
The Carpetbagger amused by Jon Stewart's take on Benjamin Button. Have you seen it? So funny.
Pets Who Want to Kill Themselves Poor Puppy Bale. Daddy is a mean one

..and a couple of Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue photoshoots for Australia and The Wrestler




Here are some photos if that vid is not enough... and how could it be since there's no ... COVER. Argh.

Podcast 9: Post SAG Oscar Race & First Oscar Memories

Ask and ye shall receive. Katey, Joe, Nick and Nathaniel (c'est moi) got together again for a Post SAG discussion after your many subtle hints of 'when y'all doing that again?'. We ask too many questions and we love a good tangent. Topics include but are not limited to...

• Did SAG wins change anything?
• Ageism and Oscar
  
• Slumdog mania and backlash
  
• Braveheart and Titanic...
  
• 'Sean does what Sean needs to do!'
  
• The Curious Case of Fast Fading Button
• The Lord of the Oscars: The Return of The Weinstein
• Why doesn't Streep ever work with real auteurs?
  
• James Franco and the mysteries of the "uncredited" performance
• Penélope Cruz vs. Viola Davis vs. Marisa Tomei vs. Amy Adams vs. Taraji P Henson... but maybe not in that order? Is this actually a five-way race again?
  
• The Prime of Miss Emma Thompson
• Our very first Oscar broadcasts and what they did to our young psyches

The best option is the iTunes version i.e. the enhanced podcast but you can listen to the simplified mp3 if you don't have an enhanced player.

Enjoy, discuss and please do share tales of your first Oscar broadcast. How did the Academy warp your fragile little mind?
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The Links of Eastwick

Popnography Jamie Bell in the TinTin movie. Yes
Getty Images best and worst of SAG red carpet
Best Week Ever on Evan Rachel Wood. 'Her lips are busy!'
My Stuff & Cr*p listen to tracks from all the nominated Oscar scores


Just Jared interviews Alan Cumming. He's started directing again
Yuppie Punk mp3s to coincide with this year's Oscar nominees
Empire Driver and Swank co-starring in a legal drama that hopes to be all Erin Brockovichy
Movie City Indie Dustin Lance Black's on the abundant Milk nominations
Charlie Rose Great conversation about Benjamin Button with AO Scott and David Denby. Watch it

The Daily says goodbye to celebrated author John Updike who died earlier today. As you may know, Updike's last novel, published just about a year ago now, was a sequel to The Witches of Eastwick called The Widows of Eastwick. He didn't like the 1980s film version of the earlier novel (though he was a fan of Michelle Pfeiffer's "Sukie") and many stories from the set at the time indicated that the stars weren't that happy either. Nevertheless, I'm hoping that his estate, the actresses and the movie studios think hard about mounting a film adaptation. How grand could a reunion of Susan Sarandon, Cher and La Pfeiffer be? Their characters are 15 or so years older in Widows than their counterpart celebrities are now so there's plenty of time to get this project cracking (Start now. Movies take forever... especially when expensive/skittish/retired actors are involved) and we definitely need more films about elderly women. When was the last time someone made a movie primarily about them?

Linking at Windmills

Deep Focus I love this review of Benjamin Button
Burbanked Comparative Celebrities: Paul Walker & Chris Evans
The Bad and Ugly Emily Blunt as The Black Widow in Iron Man 2? I love this idea
Reverse Shot 11 movie offenses of 2008. Your favorites will be skewered. Super bitchy but there are some really choice one liners.
Welcome to LA on Wyeth's passing --what, no opening scene from In the Bedroom :(
MNPP 'do dump or marry?' the Defiance kin edition


The Big Picture shameless. Hollywood, swimming in money, is shutting down the Motion Picture Home
Cinematical on the Coco Chanel biopic with Audrey Tatou
Just Jared new Grey Gardens still
Underwire the women of Galactica
/Film Terry Gilliam back to work on Don Quixote (the disastrous production chronicled in that Lost in La Mancha documentary)? My gods but that project will be the death of him

My Golden Globe Predictions

I will not be live-blogging the Golden Globes on Sunday -- I really missed this ceremony last year so I have to throw a party to celebrate its return. I'm betting it's a slightly mixed split sort of night for Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And I changed my prediction last second to Gomorrah for Foreign Film. The Comedy/Musical categories are where the real suspense is since there are no precedents set in precursor season. Here's my predictions...

And yours?
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"My name is ___ and I was linked under unusual circumstances"

Gold Derby what to make of the Eastwood Best Actor buzz w/out SAG & Globe nods
Awards Daily Sasha has an interesting list up for best written female roles. But the Benjamin Button women? Come on now. Even if you love the movie, the writing of those women is not among its chief strengths. What is going on with Awards Daily and that movie?
Antagony & Ecstasy Tim Brayton is rapidly becoming one of my very favorite film critics. Here's his take on Benjamin Button (Sasha won't be pleased)
LA Times The "Hate Storm" around "critic" Ben Lyons


Low Resolution "New York, They Hate You"
The Daily Beast on Mickey Rourke's txt diss of Sean Penn. Told y'all he might screw this up with bad behavior months ago, didn't I? I didn't want to be right
Slate a really insightful piece on Tom Cruise's unique place in Hollywood and Reaganism. Good stuff
TFE more interesting top tens. If you've read a 'year in review' you're particularly wowed by, please point to it in the comments
...by Ken Levine here's another convert to the cult of Paul Rudd
Fabulon "for no particular reason..." oh, planet fab'. You make me LOL so...

All Horses Outta the Gate!

Glenn here. I thought I'd take a quick moment out of my busy schedule (hah! I have discovered I have chicken pox, which puts a serious crimp in my movie-going plans!) to ask y'all what you think of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or anything else that the studios have finally found us mere mortals worthy enough to set our eyes on. My thoughts on Benjamin can be found here, but I (and I'm sure Nat too) would love to know what YOU think.

Cold and distant or touching and poetic?

Speak up in the comments!

Another topic of discussion - Tilda Swinton: immortal goddess or alien from Jupiter? hmmm...

For Your Consideration Corner

Glenn here again for another installment of For Your Consideration Corner. What movies are tapping my brain this week? All images sourced from Awards Daily unless otherwise noted.

Just earlier this week I discussed movies that come out of nowhere at this time of the year with misplaced hopes and dreams of Oscar. So, for this week's look at the For Your Consideration campaigns I thought I would take another trip towards this territory. Ads for these movies generally focus on specialty categories - your Best Animation Feature and acting categories mostly - because they know they're not getting anywhere near Best Picture.


One film that got my attention was The Yellow Handkerchief, which stars William Hurt and Maria Bello - a History of Violence reunion of sorts - that I had literally never heard of before. Not in festival lineups or anything, a rare thing indeed. I actually quite like the ads, resembling National Geographic magazine covers and featuring really nice images. I may never actually see The Yellow Handkerchief, but these FYC ads captured my attention. What happened to Maria Bello's career though? Time for a new agent one must think.

Some obscure animated films, too, have had ads released on their behalf. The Australian/Israeli stop-motion title $9.99 continues it's bright and colourful marketing campaign. The images being used to advertise this little movie - based on the short stories of Etgar Keret - are smart because they make it stand out from the pack of CGI titles that bombard the animation department every year. There have only ever been two claymation films submitted to the Academy and both ended up with Oscar nominations (quick, name them!) I don't necessarily expect the same for $9.99, but it's nice to imagine. Oscar winner Adam Elliot's clay feature Mary & Max is due in 2009 too, which is bound to be a major player in the Best Animated Feature category.

Another animated title is something by the name of Dragon Hunters - "With the voice of Forest Whitaker", apparently. Unfortunately the images used for this French/German co-production make it look like a Spyro the Dragon rip-off with cheap slave labor CGI and overt quirkiness. Clearly I am not - nor, I would imagine, anybody in the Academy - the target audience for this children's tale, and I suppose they're at least giving their film a fighting chance, even if they haven't got a hope. Although for all I know, Dragon Hunters is another Tekkonkinkreet, a film I saw merely because it was on last year's shortlist and ended up being quite excellent. Go figure!

For Your Consideration ad of the Week

What is there to say other than this is simply stunning and gorgeous. I haven't seen the film - obviously, we mere mortals haven't been deigned worthy enough until we've gorged ourselves with turkey and ham - but this image destills everything that the film is apparently all about. The tenderness and the visual forwardness in one elegant beautiful image.

BFCA Nominees

The Broadcast Film Critics Association have announced their 2008 Oscar Predictions nominees. Leading the field are Gus Van Sant's gay rights biopic Milk and David Fincher's backwards-aging curio Benjamin Button with eight nominations each.

<-- The other big story is a complete snub for Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road and its titanic stars Kate & Leo.

Best Actress is particularly alarming with two acclaimed performances Winslet's and Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) snubbed to make room for both Melissa Leo (Frozen River... that longshot Oscar bid looking less and less impossible if still not quite probable) and Kate Beckinsale (Nothing but the Truth). Otherwise it's your usual suspects: Blanchett, Hathaway, Jolie and Streep. Obviously it can't transfer to Oscar though since there are six women. Do the math.

Brad & Angie. His & Hers BFCA nominations.
Will the Globes and the Academy also court the world's most famous celebrity couple?

Best Actor -the only real surprise here: Brad Pitt underneath f/x instead of Leonardo DiCaprio's raging husband. Otherwise, the five men: Langella, Rourke, Eastwood, Penn, Jenkins are all in play for Oscar nods. Someone has to go... but who. Eastwood (I guess the media and not just the Academy wants him to have that fifth Oscar), Penn, Rourke and Langella all looking solid now but that fifth spot for Oscar. Ouch: DiCaprio, Pitt or Jenkins (who would be totally inked in by now but for the need to honor Eastwood again this year).

Best Supporting Actress - This Oscar category was always a little fuzzy and it got a shake up. Taraji P Henson (adorable in Benjamin Button) scores as does her competition Marisa Tomei and a somewhat surprise Vera Farmiga for the very buzz-less Nothing but the Truth. The major snub: No Rosemarie DeWitt for Rachel Getting Married. They also ignored that great movie for screenplay so the BFCA have dealt it kind of a painful blow today. Penélop Cruz and Viola Davis are probably battling it out for the actual Oscar. Unless of course Kate Winslet repeats her nod here for The Reader. And if she wins the Oscar for that film the famous Extras skit will become EVEN MORE BRILLIANT than it already was)

I don't think we really need another film about the Holocaust, do we? It's like. How many have there been, you know? 'We get it. It was grim. Move on.' No, I'm doing it because but I've noticed if you do a film about the Holocaust --guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times. Never won. The whole world is going "Why hasn't Kate won one?!?"

Best Supporting Actor is my Oscar prediction lineup minus Michael Shannon (remember that Rev Road shutout. It needs to have a comeback at the Globes and SAG or it could be DOA when it opens in theaters for Christmas) plus RDJ's hilarious Tropic Thunder star turn. Yay! This is the only category in which the Broadcast talking heads didn't allow themselves a hedge bet with a sixth nominee so maybe they're confident that it's the exact Oscar lineup.

oh yes and their "Best Pictures of December" nominees with the number of nominations they received.



Thank God for WALL•E & Batman proving that they do have hippocampi!


Complete nominee list here.
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Oscar Predictions? Not Again!

I've decided that updating Oscar predictions immediately prior to the week of abundant critics awards and Globe mania is foolish. So I'm not going to revise until December 13th. Normally I would do it because when it comes to awards season, I am something of a masochist. I always want it even when it hurts.

• If awards season was an empty pool, I would dive in anyway.
• If awards season was a vampire, I would eschew turtlenecks and garlic and crosses.
• If awards season was a slasher flick, I would follow trails of blood into dark rooms asking "who's there?"
• If awards season was a stack of sugary sweets and I were diabetic, I would...

Well you get the picture. I would venture to guess that most mentally balanced people are interested in the Oscars only when films or performers they love are in play. Not me. I care about the whole even when I don't care a whit about the parts... which is probably going to be the case this year. Almost every film likely to be left standing on nomination morning is a somewhat underwhelming experience (for me) -- hence so many "B"s in my grades.

Benjamin Button -a true technical marvel but (for me) not an emotional bullseye
Slumdog Millionaire -exciting to watch but not (for me) all that interesting
Revolutionary Road -very handsome and well acted but (for me) a little too "easy" Ooh, repressed people in pristine suburbia in the 1950s. You don't say! When it comes to stories about homogenized repression I much prefer these stories told with either abundant layers and subtlety (Mad Men) or great stylization (Far From Heaven) on account of it's been done hundreds of times before. That said, Leo & Kate are smashing (and not just each other's self-esteem)
Frost/Nixon -entertaining and well acted but also lacks a certain heft... is this because I am too young to bring anything to the table that's not there in the movie? I rarely get to say that I'm "too young" anymore so I enjoyed typing that last sentence quite a lot. Mmmm, yes I did.
Doubt -a great(ish) play but definitely not a great movie... too much overkill in the telling: tilted cameras, thunderclaps, you name it... tricks! tricks! tricks! Calm down Mr. Shanley, your actors know what they're doing)

If you've been reading you'll know that I'm rooting for Milk which will make it and also a bunch of movies that probably won't even if I suspect they'll have pockets of devoted fandom within the AMPAS voting body: WALL•E, Rachel Getting Married and The Wrestler. I'm even rooting for The Dark Knight which I don't particularly love but here's the thing: If you hand me two Oscar candidates that are essentially the same ballpark of quality... say, Revolutionary Road and Dark Knight for an semi-random example: I will almost always side with the non-baity genre film to be included in the mix. It's important for the Oscars --and by extension any group involved in awards and recognition -- to not operate on auto-pilot. The award is called "Best Picture" not "Best Dramatic True Story or Period Piece". And if more voters understood that then Rachel Getting Married and WALL•E would be major players this year, now wouldn't they?

In other news: I think I'll collect interesting year in review / online top ten top ten lists again this year. On account of interesting (for me... maybe you, too?)
*

"David Fincher, Can We Talk?"

Dave, I just got back from one of those Academy screenings of Benjamin Button. Totally dug it... Especially the part where Benjamin gets younger and younger and Brad Pitt looks exactly like he did back in '92. Golden! Brad can run through my rivers whenever he wants. I love the way your brain works, Dave.

So... yeah, 1992. I'm sure that brings someone else to mind. I give you one guess you naughty man. Call me. I have an idea. I'll foot the f/x bill myself if needs be.

xoxo,

___S.S.

7 Word Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Big Fish redux. Great effects. Molasses pace.

[editor's note: another seven words so you don't get confused]

Liked it more than those words imply.

[editor's note 2: if you need more than 14 words you can always click on the labels below...]

*

The Curious Links of Nathaniel R

Today and Tomorrow check out this cool pie chart of Sofia Coppola films. I love it
ModFab thinks Benjamin Button is, well, "curious"
Awards Daily My god. I'd totally forgotten that most FYC campaigns are well under way.
Defamer horrors! Mariah Carey could be up for an Oscar this year
Boy Culture I'm with Matthew here. Director Bill Condon (talking about Prop 8) just dropped a notch in my book.
The Bad and Ugly "Old Man Notices Eliza Dushku" (hee)
Everything I Know... Broadway's money grubbing Young Frankenstein is closing soon. That won't stop the cynical movie-to-stage transferring
The Big Picture loves Benjamin Button's David Fincher even though he's cold blooded
LA Times on marketing Milk
Scanners on Altman's Nashville. I never tire of reading about this movie
The Cinematic Art, speaking of Robert Altman, looks at Rachel Getting Married through that prism

And here's the trailer to Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton follow up Duplicity which reteams Closer's vicious spouses Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.


I had no idea he'd go comic for his sophomore effort.

Happy-Go-Linky

Collider video interview with Taraji P Henson. She declares her Benjamin Button to be Best Pic material. But then she would (not that it's not. We shall see)
IMDB Joaquin Phoenix says he's quitting acting. Are you vexed?
The Playlist shouts "En Ra Ha" for Happy-Go-Lucky's Eddie Marsan. Have you seen the film yet? It's worth a look. I'll share my interview with Sally Hawkins right here soon
Banned in Hollywood Disney's new Tarzan toy is, uh, right handed
Reverse Shot remembers the classic Buffy episode "Hush" --perfect viewing for Halloween. I think I'll watch it tomorrow