Cinematic Shame: Worst of the Year

year in review part 5 of several
COME SEE THE NEW BLOG FOR THE FINAL CELEBRATION OF 2010


I thought it would be tasteless to drop this lump of coal on Christmas so I saved it one day. It's naughty, not nice. But before we get to the unsatisfying trends, performances, and movies of the year, some caveats. I didn't see everything and am not, generally speaking, paid to attend terrible movies. Even when I'm doing freelance gigs, nobody has ever said to me "Nathaniel, we'd love for you to write a 3,000 word essay about Yogi Bear." [Editors of the world take note: I would totally do this for money.]

Most Repetitive Actor or Actress Dear Leonardo DiCaprio, you have now done three movies in a row where you're a tortured soul with an emotionally unstable dead wife. This is an even more specific brick-wall niche then when Jodie Foster kept getting trapped in small places or when Julianne Moore kept losing her children (imaginary or otherwise).

DiCaprio's new franchise!

It's time to shake things up. Throw us anything at all that's different than this. Love, a former fan who is bored of your worryface.

Unbest Actress This one was hard to choose as no one pled for the title. I didn't quite understand what Diane Lane was doing in the gold-hued Secretariat. She alternated between stiff and overemphatic playing which conjured mental images of someone trying to both be an Oscar and mime the actress winning one. While it's true that Christina Aguilera is no natural in Burlesque, she acquits herself better than some pop divas have in the past and the bulk of her role is singing (which you may have heard she does well). So if she's nominated for Razzies soon, that'll be just mean spirited. Therefore the prize must go to Katie Holmes who played a beautiful intellectual who loved nothing but poetry, philosophy and Josh Duhamel in The Romantics. Only the "beautiful" part was played convincingly.

Duhamel & Holmes: just your average poetry-quoting
post-graduate intellectuals.

Unbest Actor Aaron Johnson was mildly charismatic in Kick-Ass but in Nowhere Boy, the performance just didn't work and not only because he didn't look right for the part. He kept delivering a decent rendition of an arrogant semi-talented teen ... but where was the future John Lennon in that generic teenager? It's not easy to play a legendary charismatic performer. You've got to bring your own blazing showman's charisma along to function as a makeshift doppelganger.

Unbest Supporting Actress Early in the year I thought this might go to Ellen Page who was too listless in Inception as if she hadn't found any notes to add to an underwritten part but watching the film again, she was better than I remembered. Perhaps I expected a Juno or a Whip It level performance every time out? Still, this character was too much like the one she plays in the Cisco commercials. In both "Ellen Page" enters a room, exhibits curious disbelief about some new technological marvel and says something like  "neato. explain that to me again."

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FYC: Leonardo Island

One of the smartest FYC moves I've seen in terms of a screener making full use of its identity as an Oscar campaign is for Shutter Island. The disc didn't come with the typical eyebrow raising desperation of "please nominate us for every category that exists!", but narrowed its focus. The cover only suggests Picture, Director & Actor.

In fact, one might say that the packaging squints so hard to focus that it grows a the great crease of a worry line right before your eyes. All the better to remind you of its identical twin that Leonardo DiCaprio has grown between his eyes over the years. That worry line serves him so well in this anguished performance.

But, there's more. As you open it up -- remember this is a Shutter Island ad -- it becomes an orgy of Leos. Brilliant move, that. By charting his growth as an acclaimed child actor to massive adult star, all the way from that critically acclaimed leading debut This Boy's Life (1993) to 2010's Inception (sneakily swallowing up the vote splitting competition, in order to better serve Shutter Island) it basically uses the visual language of FYC: Career Tribute Nomination.

Given that Shutter Island came out very early in the year and that the Best Actor category still looks to be in flux, this could actually work. Unlikely sure but not out of the realm of possibility.

And hasn't 2010 actually been quite a year for him. Isn't he having a year comparable to Sandra Bullock's in 2009? The comparison doesn't spring up naturally, exactly. Leo's big year didn't feel like a breakthrough year since he had no career valley to bounce back from. Nor did he really have something to prove in terms of acting prowess. But consider the strange popularity correlations between Sandy's 2009 and Leo's 2010. For this exercize we have to forget all about All About Steve (2009)  but who would object to doing so?

1. Big Beloved Headliner Star
2. First movie of year  that's right in star's wheelhouse (romantic comedy The Proposal | Scorsese drama Shutter Island) opens and becomes big domestic hit in the 100+ range.
3. Riskier followup opens just five months later (Sandra's The Blind Side | Leo's Inception) and becomes a massive blockbuster in the $250+ range.

Isn't that... odd? Box office and timing between releases is pure coincidence you could say as devil's advocate. But how's this for an eery detail: If you compare Sandra's twin blockbuster 2009 grosses with Leo's 2010 double your difference of (domestic) bank is a miniscule $182,000. Isn't that crazy?

I'm not suggesting that Leo will suddenly become the golden boy who wins a surprise Oscar in February or that his marriage will fall apart in scandal directly afterwards (he's not even married!) so the comparison is strained. Furthermore, nobody expected Sandy to become an Oscar winner (until the happening was under way) and everyone has expected that about King Leo from day one. But beloved massive careers do have unifying elements no matter who the stars are; the industry and the public root for said star to succeed ...and to eventually win the most coveted movie prize of them all.

FWIW, Leo's best performances imho.

1. What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)
2. The Aviator (2004)
3. The Departed (2006)
4. This Boy's Life (1993) 
5. Romeo + Juliet (1996)
6. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
7. Shutter Island (2010)
8. Titanic (1997)
9. Revolutionary Road (2008)
10. (Everything else blends together qualitatively for me, as something like charismatic coasting at regular best and callow confidence at irregular worst. So I eagerly await a full top ten. He's only 36. Decades of movie triumphs presumably await.)
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"I hope she'll be a fool..."

.

"... that's the best thing a girl can be in this world -
a beautiful little fool." - Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

(pic by Baz Luhrmann) JA from MNPP here. Deadline reported a little earlier today that Carey Mulligan will presumably play Daisy Buchanan for Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby, you know, if he gets around to making a Gatsby. (Who knows with Baz?) But for now as the Magic Eight Ball says signs point to yes. And perhaps the best visual I'll be given today is in their article:

"Mulligan was on the reception line for The Fashion Council Awards in New York when she got the call on her cell phone from Luhrmann, just a few minutes ago. She burst into tears on the red carpet in front of Karl Lagerfield and Anna Wintour."

Thanks for that, Deadline. They forgot to mention the part where the tears of an innocent caused those two's fangs to burst forth.

Anyway I think she's a great choice. What about y'all? And will Baz really get around to making this movie for real? And what do we think about Leo DiCaprio as Jay and Tobey Maguire as Nick?
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75th: "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Other the years I've been writing for The Film Experience I've realized I'm quite obsessed with chronologies and time. Stars that have been part of our rear view mirror of film history our whole lives were once fresh faces. It's a simple concept but intermittently hard to absorb. I mean, Olivia de Havilland and Mickey Rooney, two of the oldest living film stars, were once newbies! In fact, seventy-five years ago on this very weekend in 1935 the Shakespearean adaptation A Midsummer Night's Dream opened, introducing the world to Olivia, than billed as de Haviland for some reason. She picked up an extra "l" shortly thereafter.

Mickey Rooney playing "Puck" at 14 years of age.

Have any of you seen it? It still looks beautiful in 2010, all black and white and shimmering; the fairy motif helps with the sparkliness.

Rooney, who'd been acting since he was 6, was already famous and his "Andy Hardy" franchise was just around the corner. I know this will read like an exceptionally odd non-sequitor, but if you get a chance to watch this movie soon, I swear that you'll have to wonder whether Leonardo DiCaprio watched this performance directly before playing What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993). I'm not saying that Puck is mentally disabled in this picture, only that there's a shocking similarity of early teenage exuberance and tree branch bounciness, paired with uninhibited squealing and odd vocalizations. (It struck me as entirely uncanny, but perhaps it's only that I watched Gilbert Grape just recently.)

When we first spot the lovely Olivia de Havilland as Hermia, she spots her love Lysander (Dick Powell). This is our endearing introduction to her.

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This Link Goes to 11

Live Feed Glee inspired political attack ad. Who knew an attack ad could be cute?
Kenneth in the (212) my friend Kenneth will be seen briefly in the new Mindy Cohn gay flick Violet Tendencies. When was the last time you heard "new Mindy Cohn flick"... let alone a gay one?
Pop Justice "Bad Romance" is one year old today. Kinda. Still love it.

This Leonardo TotallyLooksLike double got
saved on my computer months ago. Every time I
notice it I start giggling. So I must finally share.

Vulture worries that Thor's Frost Giants will battle for the home tree in Avatar. Please. Thor should be so lucky to be (favorably) compared to Avatar. I'm guessing. I am just sensing a terrible terrible movie coming our way.
IndieWire assures us that the Spirit Awards are returning to their Saturday afternoon by the beach tradition.
ArtsBeat Broadway cools down its celebrity lust... for the current moment at least.
Popbytes Speaking of... can you believe that The King's Speech is already planning its Broadway bow? It hasn't even opened in movie theaters yet!
MTV Ang Lee's Life of Pi gets one step closer to production by casting its lead actor 17 year-old Suraj Sharma
Just Jared Tom Hardy for Snow White and the Hunstman? I'm in. Just please let some of these new fairy tale movies NOT view Tim Burton's hideous Alice as something to emulate.

...and some artwork for you
Y'all don't comment on the art related posts but you're going to keep getting them because Nathaniel likes to draw and he loves the artists out there making the internet a more beautiful / whimsical / imaginative place. Deal!
Becky Cloonan "Sluts of Dracula" omg love these sketches. And the title is to undie for.
Austin Translation "Bitter Moments with Count Chocula" a wee Twilight dig.

Eisenberg vs. Damon? The Youngest Best Actor Nominees!

"Do I have your full attention?"

Whilst continuing my "Best in Show" column for Tribeca Film, I decided it was high time to highlight Jesse Eisenberg from The Social Network and this is why. Here at The Film Experience though, it's time for Oscar trivia! Though I would love to see Eisenberg win traction for Best Actor, he has something else working against him besides the subdued performance: his age.

Youngest Best Actor Nominees

And where Eisenberg would fit in, were he to be nominated.
Disclaimer/Bragging: You won't find info this extensive elsewhere! The Official Oscar site / Wikipedia only offer top tens. However the following info is approximate. Though the Academy's top ten is down to the day of the actual nominations, they don't provide official nomination dates only ceremony dates. Inside Oscar and Wikipedia also only list the ceremony dates so we're just using February 1st, ∞ as a general calculation date for when nominations happened for given years.

1. Jackie Cooper, Skippy (1931) was 9 years old.
   Nine, Guido, Nine! Kind of strange that he was nominated, wasn't it, since back then they were giving people "junior" Oscars. Why wasn't he handed one of those instead? Or perhaps they started those in the wake of this nomination.
2. Mickey Rooney, Babes in Arms (1939) was 19 years old.
3. Mickey Rooney, again, The Human Comedy (1943). He was 23.
   Bonus Trivia Note: Rooney is not the youngest actor to receive two Oscar nominations. If you include supporting work, the record holder is Sal Mineo who by the age of 22 had been nominated twice: Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Exodus (1960). If you include actors, male or female, Angela Lansbury holds the record of fastest to "two-time nominee" status: she had two nominations for Supporting Actress by the time she was 20 (The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gaslight).
   
   
   
   Mickey & Sal: fast-start careers, quick industry respect.
   
   
4. John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever (1977) was 24.
5. James Dean, East of Eden (1955) was 24 years old when he died. This nomination came posthumously when he would have just turned 25.
6. James Dean again for Giant (1956). He would have just turned 26.
7. Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson (2006) was 26 years old.
8. Orson Welles, Citizen Kane (1941) was also 26.
9. Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain (2005) was 26 going on 27.
   ****If Jesse Eisenberg is nominated for The Social Network he will boot Matt Damon out of the top ten by a hair (it's a matter of approximately 14 days).
10. Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting (1997) was 27 years and 125 days old.
    
11. Tom Cruise, Born on the 4th of July (1989) was 27½
12. Albert Finney, Tom Jones was also 27 going on 28.
13. Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire was 27 but rapidly approaching 28.
14. Montgomery Clift, my favorite actor, for The Search (1948) when he was 28.
15. Marlon Brando again for Viva Zapata! (1952) when he was almost 29.
16. Chester Morris, Alibi (1929) was turning 29 probably within a week or two of the nominations.  But I can't find the date that the Academy announced the nomination in 1930 for the films of 1928/1929.  
17. Kenneth Branagh, Henry V (1989) was newly 29 as well.
18. Anthony Franciosa, A Hatful of Rain (1957) was 29.
19. Edward Norton, American History X (1998) was 29½.
    From here on out it gets dubious/tricky. I can't vouch for the following order without official nomination dates since all of these men were born in the month of April and the nominations usually arrive in February but dates vary quite a lot.
20. Adrien Brody, The Pianist (2002) was almost 30.
    
21. Marlon Brando again for Julius Caesar (1953) when he was almost 30.
22. Ryan O'Neal, Love Story (1970) was almost 30.

Once actors have hit 30 the leading roles start coming. Though Rooney and Dean are near the top of "youngest ever" charts I think it would be best to consider Brando the patron saint of all the future young guns given his instant impact and fascinating longevity, despite many career twists and turns.

 Brando from '51 to '54: Four consecutive nods by the time he was 30 for
A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata!, Julius Caesar and On the Waterfront.

He was nominated in four consecutive years starting at the age of 27 with his history-altering performance as Stanley Kowalski (Streetcar Named Desire, 1951) and ended that insane run with a golden boy win (On the Waterfront, 1954) just 4 days shy of his 31st birthday ...which is about the time most people just start being considered for good roles let alone prizes.  

Excessive Trivia Alert! Brando snatched that youngest winner title from James Stewart (who was 32 when he won for The Philadelphia Story besting Clark Gable's win for It Happened One Night at age 34). The Godfather held onto the title for two decades until Richard Dreyfuss won at 30 (The Goodbye Girl, 1977). Dreyfuss was dethroned a quarter century later by Adrien Brody (The Pianist, 2002) who won three weeks shy of his 30th birthday. Are you loving this trivia or are you begging for it to stop? I can't stop once I get started. But I must. I must!

The only other nominees at the age of 30? That'd be Warren Beatty -Bonnie & Clyde, Richard Todd -The Hasty Heart, Franchot Tone - Mutiny on the Bounty, Dustin Hoffman -The Graduate, Sylvester Stallone -Rocky, and Leonardo DiCaprio - The Aviator.

31 Up and the men become too numerous to list. But in the past decade the men who achieved a lead nomination by 31 were Javier Bardem in Before Night Falls (2000), Jude Law in Cold Mountain (2003) and Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line... though few noticed the latter's youth at the time since Heath Ledger was making more noticeable history at 26 years of age. Together they made 2005's lineup one of the youngest skewing ever.

Here's the ten youngest best actor nominees of the past decade from youngest to oldest. (DiCaprio is the biggie here having rung up his 3rd Oscar nomination before he was 33. Still hasn't won yet, though.)

Youngest Lead Nominees of the Aughts

I promise I'll stop now!!!
What do you make of all this and do you think Jesse Eisenberg has a shot at all, given the super early frontrunner status of The Social Network minus their resistance to subdued performances and young men?

If you are over 30 reading this list I apologize. It makes me feel unaccomplished, too. If you are under 30 and an actor, take note. There's still plenty of time for you; nail your next audition!

Companion Articles / Related Reading
Best in Show: Jesse Eisenberg
Familiar Faces: Actors David Fincher Uses Frequently 
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Dream a Little Massive Dream with Nolan

Summer isn't generally the season of auteur flicks and INCEPTION is the exception that proves the rule. It stands out. If it's not the best mainstream movie of the summer (Toy Story 3 already won the title), it wins the prize for most ambitious. Christopher Nolan first won critical adulation with Memento (2000) and he's proven remarkably consistent ever since. His bulky busy movies are always about men with personal demons in conflict with other men with personal demons (female characters are mere window dressing) who have to navigate an often mind-bending narrative while wearing what amounts to a pop psychology exoskeleton. (See also: The Prestige, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Insomnia.)

Inception is a tough film to describe and occasionally to follow. The multi-layered plot involves a team of dream infiltrators who are hired by corporations to steal ideas, the theory being that once you know something, it can always be found in your mind. The sci-fi premise is complicated as is the business of dream theft. Whole teams with specific roles and skill sets are required. You have to have "The Point Man" (Joseph Gordon Levitt) for logistics, "The Extractor" (Leonardo DiCaprio) to steal the idea, "The Architect"(Ellen Page) to design the dream world in maze like fashion (for reasons best left to discover in the movie), "The Forger" (Tom Hardy) who can shape shift within the dream for strategic purposes and still more players, too. A lot of explanation is required to understand the complex set of rules governing this artificial dream world but thankfully it's fascinating enough to mitigate the annoyance of the near constant intrusion of expository dialogue. One would immediately welcome a sequel that could dispense with all the explanations to get straight to the big visuals and suspense...

Tom Hardy has a big gun as Inception's MVP

Read the rest of my review @ Towleroad.

We'll surely talk more about the movie as more of you see it over the weekend.

And we'll also have to delve into Oscar dreams and critical nightmares. But see the movie first. In its corner: it's totally worthy of discussion which is why the discussion-killing 'my opinion is awesome and all others are wrong' rhetoric around the web is so extra sad. This type of coverage, which is ironically attempting to raise the film up, is actually doing it a great disservice since Nolan offers plenty to discuss and argue about.
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We Can't Wait #5: INCEPTION

Robert here with JA and Dave, continuing the We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond discussion. Now we come to something of a mystery.

Inception

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine and Tom Hardy

Synopsis: An agent possesses the technology to enter people's minds, discovering their deepest secrets and using them for profit. But the mind is a dangerous place where reality is unstable. That's about all the info that the very secretive Nolan and his team are volunteering.
Brought to you by: Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros.
Expected release date: July 16, 2010

Robert: I can't imagine not being game for any new Nolan film (or DiCaprio film for that matter), but I wonder if the mystery surrounding this one is for the best? I feel like this might have been even higher on my list if I had a better grasp on what it was. All I know is that there's something to do with dreams and dream logic. This could go either way. Dream logic movies can give their directors free reign to create, unbound by reality. But they can also be a harbinger of unfettered anarchy. Still I trust Nolan. How about you guys? Any idea what we're in for?

Dave: I think the mystery is a smart move. For one, it's about the only thing Nolan - or perhaps rather Warner Bros. - could really do after The Dark Knight to even come close to generating the same kind of interest. He's become one of the biggest directors; treating it like just another film doesn't really make sense with him, at least not this soon. Of course, if it disappoints then the secrecy will look a bit stupid, but it's a risk they couldn't afford not to take.

For another, it fits with the feel I suspect the film itself has (going from Nolan's previous non-Batman films) - tricksy, illusive, misleading. I doubt very much that the little the trailer gives away will really translate to the film; it too is probably leading us up the wrong paths. The quote from Nolan about "gravitating towards the analogy of a maze" is really fitting for his general mindset. And I must say it's an approach that just makes me more excited. As long as all the pieces fit together in the end, there's really little I relish more than being played with by a labrynthine plot. You get me in that cinema, I am yours to do with as you wish, and not enough films take advantage of that.

What does worry me is the shift Nolan has been forced to make from the low-key cult status of Memento to the massive high profile he now has. The Prestige didn't really work for me as the plot seemed to become overwhelmed by the visual intricacies of the whole thing. The trailer and the newly released photos give me the same worries for Inception. The cast is very appealing - and I like that he's taking chances on young guys like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy, as well as hopefully breaking Ellen Page out of the kooky indie girl box she'd got stuck in - but the whole playing with horizontals thing makes it seem like the look of the world we're in will take precedence over the feel of existing in it. And I'm more interested in the psychological aspect of whatever dream logic plot unfolds.

Robert: Yeah, the intricate plot puzzles that the film promises are right up Nolan's ally. They're what he does best. I must say I'm not too worried about Nolan's shift from cult to high profile as I suppose it was unavoidable. I'd rather the mood of the film suffer a bit (I liked The Prestige more than Dave methinks) at the hands of the visuals, than the film be completely devoid of any visual interest like Insomnia was.

On another note, I seem to be having trouble comprehending the reality this film without needing some prior film to compare it to. Right now my mind wants to categorize it as another Matrix, or Vanilla Sky, or something Lynchian. But more than anything I think it resembles a somewhat overlooked animated film from a few years back called Paprika, in which a policeman travels through a fantastical dream-reality. I wonder if anyone else sees the connection, or in general is thinking of this film a lot in terms of previous dream films.

JA: I totally get what you're going at with mentioning Paprika as seeming to occupy a similar story-space, Robert, but seeing as how I really didn't enjoy that movie I find no room in my enthusiasms for it here!

Anyway I fear I'm coming across as a total whore for nothing but names, names, names in this countdown, but then, I am, and this round-up of names is what's the bottom-line of my interest. Thankfully in my defense, as y'all have already made clear, it can't really be the story yet since we don't know the story! But the names! Besides Chris Nolan I'm really at a place where I will see any and everything that Joseph Gordon Levitt does until he convinces me not to, and I don't see that happening any time soon. Likewise, Ellen Page - I adore her. Likewise Marion Cotillard. And Tom Hardy's moving up up up the list. Leo... well he comes and goes in my estimations - loved him in The Departed, thought he was all over the map in Shutter Island (but then so was that whole movie) - but he's certainly no demerit.

And I like the middle-ground Nolan's straddling here, very much like The Prestige (I'm a big fan too, Robert), between his low-budget big-ideas beginnings and his giant-budget current standings. He puts a lot of razzle-dazzle up on the screen (and like most geeks I drooled over that shot of the city folding in on itself in Inception's trailer) but he doesn't short-change his ideas for them. Amid all the bang for the buck he got outta The Dark Knight I really felt a real romance with anarchy brewing there under its pretty surface. Plenty of that's thanks to Heath's efforts, of course, but Nolan knows how to let his actors add a disturbing flavor to the pot and make undermine any easy answers. Which I like. A lot.

This trailer is probably the most revealing thing we'll get. So is anyone else enjoying the mystery?

"We Can't Wait: Summer and Beyond"
The "orphan" picks Nathaniel (Burlesque), JA (Love and Other Drugs), Jose (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Craig (What's Wrong With Virginia?), Robert (True Grit) and Dave (Brighton Rock); Team Film Experience Countdown #12 It's Kind of a Funny Story, #11 Sex & the City 2, #10 Scott Pilgrim vs the World, #9 Somewhere, #8 The Kids Are All Right, #7 The Illusionist, #6 Toy Story 3, #5 Inception, #4 Rabbit Hole, #3 Never Let Me Go, #2 Black Swan and #1 The Tree of Life.

J Edgar Linker

Just Jared Leonardo DiCaprio in talks to play J Edgar Hoover. Hmmm... I'm not quite sure I see it. I like Leo but I really don't need him to take as many Oscar bait roles as he does. I'm sort of anxious for them to cave and give him the Oscar because I suspect maybe he'll lighten up a bit afterwards... maybe do another Catch Me If You Can like project maybe?
Peel Slowly Great Annie Hall gag dumbed down. This post is so sad. And true!
Film School Rejects had the best of all the web's April Fools joking yesterday (that I came across at least). It infected the whole site humourously without cause any lying pain.
ioncinema We Need To Talk About Kevin gets its Kevin? That creepy boy from Afterschool (*shudder)?
L Magazine Meet Oscar's first best actress Janet Gaynor (onscreen of course)
Movies Online Netflix Instant Watch as the new Wal-Mart Bin

Shutter Island and More

Leonardo DiCaprio and master auteur Martin Scorsese have previously collaborated on depictions of brutal 19th century gang violence (Gangs of New York), 30s Hollywood glamor and psychosis (The Aviator) and contemporary Boston crime wars (The Departed). For their fourth duet, they're lighting a match to explore the dark corridors of 50s era insane asylums. Leo is strongest as an actor when he's unraveling -- you can keep the cocky default mode, which plentiful other actors do just as well -- and Scorsese seems to understand this, keeping Leo continually off balance in the creepy Shutter Island. The film opens with a closeup of DiCaprio's seasick terror (sea travel is the only way this federal marshall can get to the island) and he almost never catches a break from there. For the next two hours of his investigation of the disappearing murderess, he'll be sweating, hallucinating, crying, paranoid and beset from all sides by possible dangers as well as his own troubled past.


Read the rest of my weekly column @ Towleroad

Are you seeing Shutter Island this weekend or taking in another new(ish) release. I'm most interested in The Ghost Writer on account of Polanski & Ewan McGregor but Happy Tears? The casting of Parker Posey and Demi Moore as siblings intrigues me. I can see it, looks wise but spiritually speaking, bizarre. right? If you're all anxious for that Celine Dion documentary, please don't tell me! Some things should be kept private.

The Oscars are only three weeks away (!) so soon it'll be 2010 proper, as in New Film Year! We probably haven't seen anything yet that has nominations in its future next year -- though some may hope for some Fish Tank recognition in a year -- but maybe something soon?

Yes, No, Maybe So: Inception and Knight and Day

Rather than ignore trailers in 2010, The Film Experience is joining the conversation. But we're not falling for that OMG! IT'LL BE AWESOME trap. It's all about managing expectations since any film could be great or terrible and most are somewhere inbetween.



Inception, opening July 16th, is Chris Nolan's follow up to The Dark Knight starring Leonardo DiCaprio as some sort of idea thief, Ellen Page as some sort of telep -- well, her mind or her imagination is involved somehow (it's confusing. Yay!). When I met Joseph Gordon-Levitt last month I asked him who most of his scenes were with and he wouldn't say a word. Not a word. They're hiding details. Good for them.


Yes. The city curving up on itself is an interesting image but if I have to pick the one moment in the trailer that gets to me in a charged "I want to see this!"way is that backwards seated dive into a bathtub with the incongruous overlay of all that girlie "WAKE ME UP!" shrieking. Chills.

That and Leo drowning brings back happy memories.


No. Why are 78% of all action movies filmed with minor variations on the steel blue palette. For decades now. Filters come in all colors.


Maybe So. I love my mind to be blown as much as the next person, but that's harder and harder for filmmakers to do in this age of give-the-whole-movie-away pre-release buildup. I love that this trailer doesn't over explain (or even explain) the movie. But it's only the second teaser. I suspect there'll be at least 3 more, each more expository than the last. Can they keep the mystery intact enough to blow our minds? The trailer is skillfully tipping and turning its images in the promise that the movie will be dizzying.




Knight and Day, which opens in time for the 4th of July box office party stars Tom Cruise as a dangerously glib killing machine and Cameron Diaz as a confused woman who doesn't seem to know him but is continually thrust into his comic action messes.


Yes*. Seeing Cameron Diaz screaming in a dangerously swerving car within a trailer for a Tom Cruise movie reminds me of the only thing I liked about the disastrous Vanilla Sky (2000): Cameron Diaz screaming while dangerously swerving her car right off the road... with Tom Cruise in it. I think her histrionics in that earlier movie were skillfully modulated.

*I'm stretching. This trailer. Yikes.


No. Ambidextrous gun slinging is as tired a movie cliche as "cool guys don't look at explosions" both are "this is kickass!" shortcuts. And I, for one, ain't having it no mo'. Where is the filmmaker willing to think up a new "this is kickass!" action movie trope? Loved Avatar but a thrilling leaping off a cliff onto the back of a flying dragon isn't going to transfer so well to other movies.


Maybe So. Four or five years ago if Peter Sarsgaard invited me to jump in a car, I'd totally be all "SHOTGUN!" Now, I'm hesitant since he only plays creepy guys. On the other hand, Carey Mulligan just took him up on it and look what she got: a trip to Paris and mucho Oscar buzz.

So...

...jump in the car?

What's your verdict?
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Landscape No. 2

Without millions of frequent flyer miles and a hefty spending allowance to attend multiple festivals, it can be difficult to see Oscar's Foreign Language Film submissions in a timely manner. One usually has to wait it out a year or three to catch up. By then one loses interest (at least I do) because there's a whole new crop off films tantalizingly dangled to try and reach for. The cycle begins anew. Even the annual high profile films (this year's crop includes Germany's The White Ribbon and France's Un Prophète) are purposefully withheld -- from the American public at least -- in the hopes that an Oscar nomination will sell tickets the following year. It'd be so much more fun if people could see the movies and argue the merits of Best Foreign Film vs. Best Picture lineups each year ... "five by five". (Or, rather, 'five by ten'...argh. Damn you, AMPAS! You're screwing with the beautiful symmetry)

Thankfully there's always an exception or two. The first easier-access contender this year is Landscape No. 2 (official site) from Slovenia, readily available at Netflix and Blockbuster.

The film begins like a mystery drama, as two thieves steal a painting (the titular landscape) from a decorated general's home. The younger thief Sergej (Marko Mandic) ignores his boss Polde (Janez Hocevar) who has warned him to stick to the art. Instead he helps himself to extras, pocketing money and paperwork from a safe. Unbeknownst to either thief, the stolen documents detail a grim war crime from World War II which would ruin the reputation of, you guessed it, the man they just stole from. It's so damning it could incite civil unrest given Slovenia's post-war psychic scars. Shit, as you may have guessed, will hit the fan.

At first, though, the film seems to be settling for slice of blue collar life dramedy as the thieves socialize with friends and caddish restless Sergej darts between his wallflower fiancee Magda (Barbara Cerar) and his randy girl-on-the-side, Jasna (Maja MartinaMerljak). When these two share a scene, the clothing is not safe. The sex scenes are graphic, hot and funny and serve as an open mouthed (with tongue) reminder that American filmmakers are totally prudish.

The athletic sex scenes and especially the character bits, are only deceptions. For as the movie progresses it becomes ever more clear that what we're dealing with is political allegory and the characters are, quite possibly, not characters but statements like Apolitical Youth of Slovenia or The Past. While it's always a bit difficult to read political commentary in films from countries outside your own, I feel safe in assuming there's a lot of one thing standing for the other in that so much of the last third of Landscape No. 2 seems too direct. The film's final lines in particular seem closer to theme statements than dialogue.

Even more shocking than the film's ample displays of flesh though was the violence, which is portrayed just as graphically. The film veers uncomfortably close to the slasher genre for this squeamish viewer as the death grip of The Past begins to reveal itself as a theme of No Future. One murder, though exceptionally well staged and absolutely gripping in the surprise of its ferocity, scared me so badly that I actually had to leave the room for a moment the next time I assumed a character was done for.

It's not for the squeamish and probably not for the Academy. Still, there's something to be said for bold and forceful filmmaking even if you sometimes wish the confident director would carry a mallet rather than a sledgehammer. B-

an actual frame from the film. No, I shan't explain it.

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Birthday Suit: You've Seen Demi's

The Birthday Boys and Girls of 11/11

1821 Fyodor Dostoevsky, legendary Russian author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov fame. So many movies inspired by his work. But he's not the legendary Russian author that'll be getting all the press this next couple of months. That'd be Leo Tolstoy, soon to be chattered about when The Last Station emerges as an Oscar contender.
1887 Roland Young, popular 30s and 40s character actor (Topper, The Philadelphia Story, Ruggles of Red Gap)
1898 René Clair, (pictured left), wonderful French writer/director. If you've never seen Le Million I urge you to rent it maintenant. His Oscar nominated films include The Gates of Paris (1957) and À nous la liberté (1931)
1899 Pat O'Brien --Ewwww, not that one people -- the actor! whose film career stretches alllllll the way from the 1931 classic The Front Page to 1981's Ragtime.
1901 Sam Spiegel, powerful producer. Boy was he on fire in the 50s bringing us On The Waterfront, Suddenly Last Summer and The Bridge on the River Kwai.
1922 Kurt Vonnegut author of Slaughterhouse Five
1944 Kemal Sunal popular Turkish actor

1960 Stanley Tucci enduring actor of stage, television and screen and current Oscar hopeful (Julie & Julia, The Lovely Bones). Looked very good in his birthday suit opposite Edie Falco in hers in the Broadway revival of Frankie & Johnny some years back, now. I love that play, don't you?
1960 Jackie Hoffman comedienne. Recently she made me howl with laughter in Broadway's Xanadu as an 'eee-eeevil woman'
1964 Calista Flockhart actress, Ally McBeal, Harrison Ford's girl, Kitty Walker McAllister. True story: I once went to The Vagina Monologues and Calista was in the middle of that horrific rape monologue and this guy two rows in front of me started to snore extremely loudly. I thought the audience was going to kill him. I wanted to. Flockhart never lost emotional focus and she was quite moving.
1972 Leslie Mann fine actress and Apatow player/wife
1974 Leonardo DiCaprio superstar

Finally, when celebrating birthdays, and especially birthday suits, you really do have to salute Demi Moore, turning 47 today, who has never ever shied away from celebrating hers. Not even in her mid-40s. Thumbs up.

Demi in the altogether in 1992, 2009 and 1996

If Demi were a musically gifted blond Scandinavian instead of a raven haired chick from New Mexico it'd be easy to imagine her as the truest reali life cinematic embodiment of Ulla ..."If You Got It, Flaunt It". I love immodest beauties and I love Demi. I only wish she hadn't made that short film Streak which was all preachy about loving your cellulite. Like she's ever had any.

poll by twiigs.com

...I have this sudden urge to watch her beat up Viggo as GI Jane.
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Books @ the Movies, Shutter Island

As you may have noticed with recent Mad Men & Project Runway posts I've become enamored of references to movies in other mediums. I thought I'd share them as they occur to me. On that note, I recently picked up Dennis Lehane's mystery thriller Shutter Island which is set in the 50s on an island for the criminally insane. Figured I had time to read it before the movie version arrives given its abrupt move to February 2010. The jacket blurb claims that it's "instantly cinematic" and for once the blurb ain't shamelessly overstating. Not only does the book read like a zippy movie-movie, it mentions movies, too. Here's one example.

page 168...
Rachel Solando (to be played by Emily Mortimer) and Teddy Daniels (to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio) meet. This is not a spoiler ~ please DO NOT post spoilers in the comments!

"Are you accusing me of being a Communist?" Her back came off the pillows and she bunched the sheet in her fists...

"A Communist, ma'am? You? What man in his right mind would think that? You're as American as Betty Grable. Only a blind man could miss that."

She unclenched one hand from the sheet, rubbed her kneecap with it. "But I don't look like Betty Grable."

"Only in your obvious patriotism. No, I'd say you look more like Teresa Wright, ma'am. What was that one she did with Joseph Cotton, ten-twelve years ago?"

That'd be Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and if Hitch' were alive, he might've wanted to adapt Shutter Island himself. I giggled at the patriotism line and hoped it made it into the screenplay. Then I thought 'Does Emily Mortimer look anything like Teresa Wright?'

You be the judge.

Emily in 2007 at 36 years of age | Teresa in 1943 at 25 years of age
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Leo, Ellen and Cillian

Is it just me or is it hard to picture these two acting together onscreen? What is it about Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page that give me that ole' oil and water feeling? They seem to be kindred spirits of drably dressed boredom in this photo so perhaps I'm wrong. Speculate with me in the comments...

via lots more photos here

The movie in question is Inception, due for a teaser trailer any second now, which is Christopher Nolan's sci-fi follow up to The Dark Knight. For all I know -- the plot is closely guarded -- they're playing brother and sister. Unlike James Cameron, who seemed spooked after Titanic, Nolan is just getting back to work. That's always the best move when you've just made a game changer. Get your follow up out of the way and bring your career back down to earth... even if you're still breathing rarefied air while touching ground.

Batman does not appear in the generically titled Inception but the cast is plum. Rising stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard (as DiCaprio's wife apparently) the enduring if never foregrounded Lukas Haas and Nolan/Batman holdovers Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe. I'm glad to see Nolan sticking by Murphy in particular who we assumed, back in 2003 when he carried 28 Days Later with such magnetism, was going to be a much bigger star by now. At the very least, he's always entirely watchable.

Linkboy

The Big Picture on idiotic soundbites this week. Michael Bay's is a real dumbass doozy
Pictures for Sad Children "a famous person has died"
StinkyLulu Supporting Actress Smackdown 1983
my internet is where... has fallen in hate with Leonardo DiCaprio
Erik Lundegaard charts out the Best Picture Box Office problem... we've been talking about this for a long time. It's a beast of a problem and quite complicated... though the simplest explanation is that the moviegoing public is no longer interested in dramas (preferring just about any other genre) and Oscar still loves dramas most of all.


/Film Steven Spielberg, Oldboy and a complicated lawsuit
Thompson on Hollywood The Hurt Locker. Could the movie and its director Kathryn Bigelow factor into the Oscar race?
In Contention "the more the merrier?" Oscar's new inclusivity. I hadn't even thought of the voting block problem. Yikes. I'm going to have nightmares

"You Haven't Taken Any Pills Have You?"

JA from MNPP here. Thank goodness Martin Scorsese finally got that damn Oscar out of the way! This is the Marty I've missed. The Marty who's having some fun. The Marty who had Robert DeNiro hold a bubbling flare in his hand.

If you have no idea what I speak of, the trailer for Shutter Island has finally arrived. If you don't know the plot from Dennis Lahane's book here tis:

"From Oscar®-winning director Martin Scorsese, “Shutter Island” is the story of two U.S. marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), who are summoned to a remote and barren island off the coast of Massachusetts to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess from the island’s fortress-like hospital for the criminally insane."

I knew as soon as Leo Dicaprio was given a couple of seconds of weighty dramatic pause before he could finish his setnence saying the hospital which he speaks of is "......... for the criminally insane!" that we were in deliciously lurid Cape Fear territory. You get glimpses of most of the film's sterling cast - Leo, Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo (yum), Emily Mortimer (yay!), Michelle Williams (yay!), Elias Koteas and Jackie Earle Haley (both being creeps, yay!), Patty Clarkson (double yay!), Max Von Sydow (woop!)... I always look forward to a new Scorsese but this one is one tailor-made for me, I swear.

You can watch the trailer in at Apple or right here:

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I took some more screen-grabs if you're interested in that; they're over at MNPP. The cinematography by Robert Richardson looks typically gorgeous. What do we think? Shutter Island is out on October 2nd.

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