20:07 (A Real Ice Queen)

Each morning a screenshot from the 20th minute and 7th second of a movie.


Only random unsubtitled chatter at this moment. Another character offstage has just been talking about the lead "Her name is Diane. A real ice queen..."

Diane's back is turned to you in this screenshot from a confounding but haunting film. The movie is gorgeously shot but still images almost never do it justice. You have to see it move to notice the lighting and camera work and appreciate the beauty of its many shots through glass

What movie are we looking at?

Happy Syttende Mai

Ja vi elsker dette landet --A shout out to any readers from Norway today on your national holiday! Vi snakkes in the comments.

If you happen to be a Norwegian reader and in the filmmaking industry I say the following with the utmost love: please try and keep up with Denmark and Sweden. They get all the movie press what with Lars Von Trier, Connie Nielsen, Susanne Bier, Stellan Skarsgård representing and there being regular Oscar foreign film nominations for Sweden. I mean even Iceland has managed a higher profile this past decade (mostly due to a certain genius madwoman)

Despite a low film & pop culture profile Norway is still awesome. The land of the midnight sun is responsible (indirectly but still...) for Oscar winner Celeste Holm (Gentleman's Agreement) and two highly iconic movie stars Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe. I'll ignore 'she who must not be named' ...all countries make mistakes.

Anyway, because I had a sudden hankering for Norway this morning (a jaw droppingly beautiful country) here are some famous Norwegians to reflect upon...


I received Hawaii Olso, Norway's 04 Oscar submission in the mail yesterday from Film Movement. Perhaps I'll watch...

tags: Norway

Rachel, Connie, Taryn, and Miranda...

What do Rachel McAdams, Emmanuelle Béart, Connie Nielsen, Taryn Manning, Emily Watson, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Cara Seymour, Miranda Otto, Cameron Diaz, and Isabella Rossellini have in common? They're appreciated by yours truly today in the Top 100 Actresses of the Aughts Countdown (numbers #60 through #51).

Coming soon: The Top 50. How high will your favorites place?

2005... So Far

Since I am excited [understatement!] for the fall movie season to begin this Friday, I thought I'd list my favorites of the year so far (like Nick and Tim recently did) . My choices (which follow below) are the last 'reveal' as far as this sort of things goes until the end of the year. From here on out there's new movies hoping to mess with "best of" lists every week. And, most importantly, I don't like to give free samples until the whole meal is prepared! You'll lose your appetite.

But before we begin...
Pictures that I haven't seen yet (and therefore they can't figure into my choices) that I still hope to catch (dvd?) Broken Flowers, Cinderella Man, The Holy Girl, Kings and Queen, Land of the Dead, Last Days, Off the Map, Palindromes, and The Wedding Crashers Also I would like to say that Duck Season (from Mexico) and Whisky (from Uruguay) would've placed in some of these lineups if they'd ever see release.



Best Picture
2046 dir. Wong Kar-Wai (Hong Kong)
The Beat That My Heart Skipped dir. Jacques Audiard (France)
Brothers dir. Susanne Bier (Denmark)
Crash dir. Paul Haggis (USA)
Me, You, and Everyone We Know dir. Miranda July (USA)

I expect that two of those will make my top ten list come years end.

Best Director
Jacques Audiard, The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Susanne Bier, Brothers
Miranda July, Me, You, and Everyone We Know
Pawel Pawlikowski, My Summer of Love
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tropical Maladay

Best Actress
Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger and Yes
Glenn Close, Heights
Lisa Kudrow, Happy Endings
Connie Nielsen, Brothers
Natalie Press, My Summer of Love

Best Actor
Steve Carrell, The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Romain Duris, The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Ralph Fiennes, The Constant Gardener
Terrence Dashon Howard, Hustle & Flow
Tony Leung Chiu Wai, 2046

For the supporting categories I'm listing 7 people in each because it is too early in the year for me to put myself through the punishing dismissal phase of narrowing it down to 5 when these 14 people all made me smile in the movie theater. And even @ 14 there are some folks missing (sigh).

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Junebug
Dakota Fanning, War of the Worlds
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Happy Endings
Taraji P Henson, Hustle & Flow
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener probably she's a lead... but i'm not ready to think about category conundrums just yet --Yeah, probably a lead [he whispers to himself.]
Celia Weston, Junebug
Ziyi Zhang, 2046

Best Supporting Actor
Tom Arnold, Happy Endings
Paddy Considine, My Summer of Love
Kevin Costner, The Upside of Anger
Matt Dillon, Crash
Terrence Dashon Howard, Crash
Michael Peña, Crash
Mickey Rourke, Sin City

Best Original Screenplay
Crash, Paul Haggis & Moresco
Happy Endings, Don Roos
Junebug, Angus Maclachlan
Me, You, and Everyone We Know, Miranda July
Melinda and Melinda, Woody Allen

Best Adapted Screenplay
Batman Begins, Nolan & Boyer
The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Jacques Audiard & Tonino Benacquista
The Constant Gardener, Jeffrey Caine
My Summer of Love, Pawel Pawlikowski & Michael Wynne
Mysterious Skin, Gregg Araki

Best Cinematography
2046, Doyle, Kwan, & Lai
The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Stéphane Fontaine
Brothers, Morten Soborg
My Summer of Love, Ryszard Lenczewski
Tropical Malady, Pengpanitch, Tanapanitch & Vialard

Best Costume Design
2046, William Chang
Batman Begins, Lindy Hemming
The Constant Gardener, Odile Dicks-Mireaux
The Kingdom of Heaven, Janty Yates
Mr & Mrs Smith, Michael Kaplan

Best Art Direction
2046
The Constant Gardener
Kingdom of Heaven
Me, You, and Everyone We Know
My Summer of Love

and if one calls this category 'production design' and maybe most people do given that the credited folk for Oscar nominations are Production Designers... than maybe Sin City But if you're referring to art & set decorations/designs etc... than no. There's no sets. Confusing.

Best Sound
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
The Constant Gardener
Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
Tropical Malady
War of the Worlds

that's all I can do for now... so very sleepy

Day Three

KINSEY (see previous post)

MY SUMMER OF LOVE
Though it’s not as much of a homerun as Pawloski’s first feature, the small but glorious gem, Last Resort this film is still an intriguing character study of a brother (Paddy Considine --who is great in the film) who has been ‘born again’ and his frustrated younger sister (Emily Blunt) who feels maddeningly alone in the world until she falls in love with a vacationing rich girl. Pleasingly naturalistic with some great scenes. But still in the end something about it is a little slight. Based on a novel but only very loosely.
B-

SHORTS COLLECTION
I chose this because I thought it would be a nice break from the heavier fare (from my experience shorts tend to be one joke films or at the least lighter in spirit.) And it was but scheduling two of them for one week was probably a mistake so I’ll skip the second on Tuesday. Highlights of this collection were in ascending order: Guy Maddin’s Sissy Boy Slap Party which is silly and wonderfully edited. The editor in fact is the one we should all bow down to. It’s no masterpiece of a short like Heart of the World but it’s still pretty damn fun. Another intriguing short was titled something like "The Sadness of Joe Jangles" --the title is longer than that but the name escapes me at this writing. A very odd but impressively singular gay/western/surreal/musical/fantasia about a man who gives birth to a donkey and his partner's fury that it's not a horse. It's even weirder than it sounds. And best and funniest was Disaster, a short about a Frenchman born to American parents. Very clever and will be especially embraced by Canadians and French. It's got enough sight gags and clever spins to keep it’s running time jumping (it was the longest short in the bunch). For Francophiles it’s just too delightful.

BROTHERS
Best of the fest so far. Susanne Bier’s brutal but compassionate drama concerns a the family of a military man (Ulrich Thomsen) whose emotional bonds are tested and all but ripped to shreds by his service in the war in Afghanistan. The film is beautifully performed (even the child actors don’t strike one false note), emotionally potent, and politically savvy enough to make the realities of war into personal tangible drama. Brothers is also gorgeously shot on DV though it often looks as rich as celluloid. Between this and demonlover I am now a firm believer in Connie Nielsen. I never thought I would say that. (Interestingly enough this is Nielsen’s first Danish feature.) I was already a believer in Ulrich Thomsen (Celebration) and Nikolaj Lie Haas (sp?) (The Idiots) who play the titular brothers.

On an Oscar side note, I must say that having now seen the picture... I am as shocked as many Danish readers of the film experience who wrote to tell me they were upset that it was not chosen to represent Denmark in this year’s Oscar race. It is artful and intelligent enough to please critics and accessible enough to have people crying in the theater ~that’s a magic Oscar combo if i’ve ever seen one. And for Michelle Pfeiffer pfans out there, pray that the early rumors are correct that Bier will be guiding Pfeiffer through her next drama Chasing Montana. Bier’s tremendous skill with actors is readily apparent in her filmography. If Bier’s talents transfer into English language intact (and without studio interference) expect that film to be a major Oscar contender whenever it’s released.
A-