Distant Relatives: The Spirit of the Beehive and Pan's Labyrinth

Robert here, with my new series Distant Relatives, where we look at two films, (one classic, one modern) related through a common theme and ask what their similarities and differences can tell us about the evolution of cinema.

Érase una vez...

There was a young girl in the civil war-torn Spainish country, very alone in the world, her mother hung up with a new lover, all she had was the flights of often frightening fantasy brought on by amazing tales.  It is surprising the similarities between Victor Erice's 1973 Spirit of the Beehive and Guillermo Del Toro's 2006 Pan's Labyrinth.  Both have young raven-haired girls as protagonists.  Both take place in the same decade in the same country and ask how their protagonists can comprehend and cope with the danger and unrest of their very similar situations.  And in that, they are not surprising.  Artists have been musing at the inner lives of children in trouble since, well, forever.

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Please Don't Eat The Eye Candy

And thus concludes the eye candy weekend.
Eye candy is pretty to look at...


but one should think twice before eating it.

Breakfast With of Pan's Labyrinth

a reworked experience from February 2007

A basic rule of life: If someone is cooking pancakes and asks you "funny shapes or rounds?" you always go for funny shapes. It keeps you young. And what's funnier shaped than the creatures of Guillermo Del Toro's filmography? Surprise your genre loving boyfriend /girlfriend/ spouse / family with a delicious breakfast of Panscakes!


It's going to be a looooong wait before The Hobbit arrives so you'll have to watch Pan's Labyrinth frequently for your Del Toro fix. Or eat Panscakes

Here's how you make them. Get some pancake batter (that's easy -- I'm not typing up any recipe). Keep your griddle on medium --if it's too low your batter will just spread and you won't get good shapes. If it's too hot it'll cook too quickly as you're trying to make shapes. Pour the base face first like you're making a normal pancake ...only smaller. Then pour the horns quickly and carefully. It requires some pretty expert wrist action so practice... (whip up extra batter)

For the tuft of hair and the beard I used coconut. You could also stick a knife in peanut butter and draw them on. If you find a way to make those spirally things above the raisin eyes, it'd be a pretty unmistakable Pan on your Panscake. That detail was too much for me.


The hand with the eye (courtesy of that grotesque Pale Man) is easier to make but harder to flip.

Start again with a tiny base pancake for the palm. Pour very tiny amounts of batter lengthwise so that the fingers will be all spindly. It looks freakier if you allow for mistakes. With Panscakes, the freakier the better. If you can find something bigger or more appropriate for the eye than the raisins I'm using here, more power to you. I had limited supplies in the kitchen.

Your breakfast recipient will think you are the coolest most creative person ever. Either that or they'll run screaming at your complete transformation into über film nerd. [The Film Experience™ is not responsible for any breakups or carbs that may occur. -editor]

previously on Breakfast With...

The Monsters of the Aughts

JA from MNPP here. Happy All Hallows everybody! Today is my favorite holiday of the year, so I've gotta spread some extra horror-flavor over this way when I can get away with it. I hope Nat doesn't mind me reposting something that I posted awhile back at my own blog, but it seemed an appropriate counterpart to his question yesterday and in the spirit of this unholiest of days.

Back when Stan Winston passed away I briefly pondered the state of the Modern Movie Monster and what monsters from our current decade have scared me the worst (so far). Now, when I say "monster" I mean to conjure up an inhuman, ghastly, monster-riffic appearance, not a monstrous human being like Patrick Bateman or Mick Taylor. Anyway, I made a list of my five favorites. Here they are.

The Pale Man, Pan's Labyrinth - Undisputed; the champ. Give credit to Del Toro (not to mention the genius beneath the make-up, Doug Jones) for a long future ahead of sleepless nights for ourselves and our children and our children's children with this fine fella. I expect loads more creature-y goodness from Del Toro with Hellboy II as well.


The Crawlers, The Descent - Director Neil Marshall gives these mole-people monsters just enough of an evolutionary bullshit back-story to make them seem credible enough, and then let's them run amok with a kinetic shit-storm of gore-hued horror. The make-up work is damned fine - the opaque skin and eyes, ruddy and slick, is shudder-inducing. And then there's the lady one...


The Mouth of Sauron, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - This creep only shows up in the extended DVD version of this flick, but I'll be gosh-darned if he isn't scarier than every single orc, Ringwraith, Fell beast and Sauron himself all thrown in a blender and set to "Terrify". That... that mouth. Ugh!


Grendel, Beowulf - While I haven't revisited the film since it plucked my eyes outta my head in IMAX-3D, the bit that lingers most favorably is Crispin Glover's alternately heart-breakingly sad and back-smashingly scary performance as the monster Grendel. (Grendel also benefits the most from his character not having to look fully human, and therefore not being as dead-eyed as the rest of the cast.)


The Medeiros Girl, [REC] - That is not The Medeiros Girl pictured above, but rather a character reacting to The Medeiros Girl; not enough people have seen [REC] yet for me to go spoiling the film's creepiest surprise. But let me just tell you, I am not shitting you that this girl deserves her spot here. Holy effin' shit! Ahhh!!! [edited to add that I have since seen the American remake Quarantine and the scary-quotient of this character remains fully intact therein - eep]

.

NYFF Thwarted by Evil MTA

Those of you who live in big cities will understand: sometimes public transport conspires against you. You're like a flea on an unruly animal. You need the beast but it might just kick you off and be done with you.

This morning before squeezing in some hours for my abandoned day job I planned to take in The Orphanage, a big buzz Spanish title, at the NYFF. The innocent-looking conductor of the 2 train had other plans. He nonchalantly announced that he was going local instead of express. Various types exited the train in protest and I, having just exited, got back on. I was happy to have the MTA deliver me to my cinematic destination a few minutes earlier than the walking I was about to do. (OK, I was lazy. That, too)

But...horrors! The conductor then revealed his true malevolent film-hating nature and proceeded to skip all the local stops he'd just promised. He dropped me off 10 minutes away --too late to retrace my steps to catch the one and only press screening of this film that doesn't open until late late December. [/whining]

The Orphanage has recently been announced as Spain's official Oscar submission. You must always pay close attention to Spain. They have the third best foreign Oscar record of all time, just behind France and Italy.

Guillermo Del Toro, who nearly won this category last February with Pan's Labyrinth, produced this movie and it's another supposedly vivid genre piece. Will the Oscar voters want to go there --or near there again? Can The Orphanage overcome the dozens of strong contenders already announced? This looks like a competitive Oscar year for the Foreign Film Category (click here for lots of updates)
*

DVD: Berry, Browncoats, Betty

TV
Ugly Betty I don't usually mention TV DVD releases but this series collects delectable B list movie actresses like Gina Gershon, Lucy Liu and Rebecca Romijn who all ought to get better movie roles than they do, don'cha think? I bet executive producer Salma Hayek (left... and how pregnant is she!?) ups the star ante in the second season.

The Cult of Personality
Broken English I am Nathaniel's guilt for abandoning Parker Posey. I haven't seen so many of her recent efforts. What's wrong with me? Must correct that.
Serenity (Collectors Edition) Joss Whedon fans have another DVD to snatch up as the movie version of Firefly gets an extras-loaded edition. Now if only we could get the Buffyverse revived for television or movies.

She Owes Us
Perfect Stranger "Halle Berry, [shakes head disapprovingly] have you seen your filmography lately?"

Oscar Completists
The Lives of Others won the foreign film Oscar this past February. I still haven't seen it but I'll tell you this. After Pan's Labyrinth stole Children of Men's cinematography Oscar I wanted it to lose the big one. Payback is a bitch.

Panscakes For Breakfast

Surprise your Oscar loving boyfriend /girlfriend / spouse / trick on Oscar morning with a delicious breakfast of Panscakes!


You're allowed to eat carbs on holidays.

Here's how you make them. Get some pancake batter (that's easy -- I'm not typing up any recipe). Keep your griddle on medium --if it's too low your batter will just spread and you won't get good shapes. If it's too hot it'll cook too quickly as you're trying to make shapes. Pour the base face first like you're making a normal pancake ...only smaller. Then pour the horns quickly and carefully. It requires some pretty expert wrist action so practice... (whip up extra batter)

For the tuft of hair and the beard I used coconut. You could also stick a knife in peanut butter and draw them on. If you find a way to make those spirally things above the raisin eyes, it'd be a pretty unmistakable Pan on your Panscake. That detail was too much for me.


The hand with the eye (courtesy of that grotesque Pale Man) is easier to make but harder to flip.

Start again with a tiny base pancake for the palm. Pour very tiny amounts of batter lengthwise so that the fingers will be all spindly. It looks freakier if you allow for mistakes. With Panscakes, the freakier the better. If you can find something bigger or more appropriate for the eye than the raisins I'm using here, more power to you. I had limited supplies in the kitchen.

Your breakfast recipient will think you are the coolest person they ever woke up with on Oscar morning. Either that or they'll run screaming at your complete and total transformation into über film nerd. [The Film Experience™ is not responsible for any loss of romance that may occur as a result. -editor]

Oscar's Labyrinth

How many statues can Pan's Labyrinth take home on Sunday night? That is the question.

When it comes to foreign language films you often see a correlation between Oscar success and domestic box office. The awards correlation is much stronger than it is with English language pictures. Those don't need to be regarded as hits to have a big awards profile (think Little Children, Letters From Iwo Jima, and Babel this year alone) though it obviously doesn't hurt.

For a foreign film anything between $3 - 9 million at the US box office is definitely in the 'big hit' category since at least 80% of the subtitled films never reach the $1 million mark. Films from this decade in that range include Amores Perros, Atanarjuat the Fast Runner, Bad Education, The Barbarian Invasions, Caché (Hidden), City of God, Downfall, Goodbye Lenin!, Maria Full of Grace, Talk to Her and Nowhere in Africa -- several of which were Oscar nominated.

The 'smash hits' are the ones that end up cracking the 8 figure barrier. Recent films that've lept that big hurdle for subtitled pictures are House of Flying Daggers, The Motorcycle Diaries, Volver and Y Tu Mama Tambien. Films that get this big despite requiring literacy in American moviegoers are almost always rewarded with Oscar nominations unless they're action flicks (Kung Fu Hustle or Brotherhood of the Wolf) ineligible (Hero) or named Monsoon Wedding ($13 million but still ignored by AMPAS).

Once a foreign flick nabs multiple Oscar nominations they can usually get even bigger. These are the ones that end up in the multiplexes: Il Postino ($10 million before nominations. $21 by the end of its run) Life is Beautiful ($18 before nominations, $57 in total) Pan's Labyrinth this year had just broken the 8 figure mark before its nominations were announced. Now it's as big as an Amélie (in the $30+ range) but still not the behemoth that the champ Crouching Tiger was ($60 million before nominations. $128 by the end of its run)

blah blah blah box office blah blah...

Point being: the big obstacle for Pan's Labyrinth is not subtitles (once you reach a certain saturation point you're not "foreign" anymore --just a regular old hit movie) but its genre. Lord of the Rings aside, Oscar voters are often immune to the charms of the fantastical outside of say, special effects and makeup. But Pan's is a crowdpleaser. Could it be a powerhouse on Sunday night? Could it actually win the most Oscars? It's more probable than it sounds.

Let's look at the six categories:

Original Screenplay
This would be a major get but it's the only statue that seems truly out of reach. It's hard to imagine Best Picture nominees like Babel, Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen letting a fantasy film overtake them.
Verdict: Very unlikely

Art Direction
In this category Pan's major competitor is Dreamgirls but my guess (and hope) is that enough voters will feel that John Myhre was already rewarded for the stage & curtains razzle dazzle when he won for Chicago and will be too wowed by Pan's memorable set construction to pass it up in this category.
Verdict: Pan's is the frontrunner. But vulnerable.

Cinematography
If any film in this category can defeat Emmanuel Lubezki's virtuoso work on Children of Men, it's this doubled fantasy world. But let's hope Lubezki, a world class DP, holds on to his momentum after his recent cinematography guild win and is finally Oscared on his fourth nomination. Lubezki is a true rarity. He can get nominated even if the film housing his work isn't anywhere near the Best Picture race. In fact, none of his nominations have come from Best Pictures. This award should and probably will land in his talented hands.
Verdict: Pan's is a possible spoiler.

Original Score
Scoring is often a difficult category to predict. Babel seems to empty of original material to deserve the statue (will voters notice that the music they're responding too is not the original score itself). Notes' music is probably too divisive (as Phillip Glass scores often are)
Verdict: It's a squeaker. Will Pan's memorable haunted lullaby carry it past The Queen or the umpteenth chance to honor Thomas Newman (for The Good German this time)?

Foreign Film
It's high profile and those multiple nominations in other categories ensure that they'll take it very seriously. But Amélie also had that advantage and lost to a more sober film No Man's Land. Germany's entry The Lives of Others could go the distance but I'm guessing Pan's holds on because it's not "light". It doesn't have the comedy working against them taking it seriously.
Verdict: Pan's is the frontrunner

Make-Up
The makeup creations of Pan, the Pale Man (pictured) and that Black Dahlia-esque injury on the evil Captain (Sergi Lopez) ought to fend off Pan's only real challenger, the prosthetic gore and theatrical face and body paint of Apocalypto.
Verdict: Pan's is the frontrunner

I may regret this but as of this writing I'm predicting that Pan's Labyrinth will nab the most (or tied for the most) statues of the night with a minimum of three and a maximum of four wins.

Which Mexican Director Will Wow DGA?

The wonderful Sasha Stone over at OscarWatch is thinking about the rapidly approaching DGA announcement. She asked me for my predictions so why not share them with you as well? I went with the following men:

• Alfonso Cuarón Children of Men
• Clint Eastwood Letters From Iwo Jima
• Stephen Frears The Queen
• Alejandro González Iñárritu Babel
• Martin Scorsese The Departed

Of course now that I've sent them I'm having doubts. It's kind of backwards logic but I'm more hopeful that Cuarón can slip into the eventual Oscar directing shortlist than the guild shortlist for his exceptional work on Children of Men. It's strange but the DGA shortlist is usually more indicative of where Oscar's Best Picture list will be than it's Director's list. So I probably should've replaced Cuarón with Dreamgirls' Bill Condon. I'm still angry at Universal for sitting on Children of Men rather than releasing it early enough for it to properly build. Movies that improve with age and second viewings warrant earlier releasing. This is not a complicated concept. Movies that blow their wad right away like oh, say, Dreamgirls need the safety of December.


One has to wonder how much mileage Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth in particular can get when they're essentially competing with each other for last second "oh this is cool" attention. In many cases they're even sharing media stories with Babel which is already firmly established as a big Oscar contender. The 'Three Amigos' story of this friendly trio of acclaimed Mexican filmmakers makes for a great press angle but won't it divvy up the votes too much for a true impact?

I hope that the movie studios have noticed that the movies doing particularly well this year in precursors: The Departed, The Queen, Babel and Little Miss Sunshine all opened by October. It'd be nice if December was free of this mad rush of last minute Oscar releases and we could all just enjoy the holidays and maybe see favorite movies again without the pressure to see a million new ones. It'd be nice if awards bodies really had time to think their choices through. It'd be nice if money grew on trees, I had an unending supply of chocolate and Clive Owen was my personal loveslave

As for my own awards


Don't look so worried, Clive. There'll be some action for Children of Men --it improves so markedly on second viewing I'm ready for a third. The 7th annual FiLM BiTCH Awards start in force tomorrow.

previous related posts:
The Three Amigos -Cuarón, Iñárritu, Del Toro
Catblogging: Children of Men -Clive Owen loves the putty tats.
Oh Guillermo JA reveals the masturbatory weirdness of the Pan's Labyrinth auteur

TTT: Three Amigos

Tuesday Top Ten! ~a new weekly feature. For the listmaker in me and the list lover in you. Today's top ten should in no way be confused with the year in review: top ten of 2006 which is coming in the next couple of days (or something -shut up)

Top Ten Films by the 'Three Amigos', Mexico's trio of celebrated filmmakers: Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo Del Toro who, awards watchers take not, all seem to be vying for this year's "lone director" spot on the Oscar shortlist.

It seems obvious that Scorsese (The Departed), Eastwood (Letters From Iwo Jima), Condon (Dreamgirls), and Frears (The Queen) will place in the directors nominations. But the fifth slot is, as ever, up for grabs. It's between any of these three Mexican auteurs, Pedro Almodovar (Volver), Paul Greengrass (United 93) or *sigh* a double dip for Eastwood (Flags of...). Who do you think will nab the coveted spot? Or do you think two of them will, leaving Condon without a song for Dreamgirls?

Anyway... the list:

1. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001, Cuarón)
2. Children of Men (2006, Cuarón)
3. Pan's Labyrinth (2006, Del Toro)
4. Powder Keg (2001 *short The Hire, Iñárritu)
5. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004, Cuarón)
6. Amores Perros (2001, Iñárritu)
7. Cronos (1993, Del Toro)
8. Babel (2006, Iñárritu)
9. Mimic (1997, Del Toro)
10. Hellboy (2004, Del Toro)

I have not seen The Little Princess but given my affection for Cuarón, easily my favorite of the three, it would knock some of these down a peg. You'll notice that Iñárritu's highest rank comes from a short film. I still don't think his miserabilism works particularly well in the two hour format. It's too aggressive and forcefed. But in short form: wowie. I'm not a fan of Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone. Now, consensus opinion tells me I should rethink that but consensus also says that Pan's Labyrinth is a masterpiece (ignoring the movies considerable difficulty in fusing its two halves and its able but unrevelatory central performance) so: consensus be damned. Pan's sure is a beaut' to look at, though.

p.s. Speaking of beauty...here's hoping that the talented Fernando Eimbcke can raise his profile soon and become a fourth amigos --at least in regards to international media attention.

Oh Guillermo

JA here. So I saw Pan's Labyrinth last night - not gonna review it here, this is Nathaniel's rightful place for reviews (though I may've posted a lil' something over at MNPP...) - but anyway, director Guillermo del Toro was there at the screening answering questions and, well, he's one colorful character, so I thought I'd share some insights into the man who made what is, without a doubt in my mind, the best film of 2006... oh right, not reviewing here. Ahem.

Anyway, be forewarned, del Toro used a lot of, let's say, colorful language and descriptions. But without further ado -

5 Things I Learned About Guillermo del Toro:

1 - He really likes to masturbate. Like, a lot.

2 - He became a lapsed Catholic at the age of 15 standing in the morgue of an insane asylum staring at a five-foot high pile of aborted fetuses.

3 - The original sound mix of Pan's Labyrinth sounded like "a dwarf orgy at rush hour." I wish someone would've asked him why dwarves would be having their orgy at rush hour (and, um, why dwarves? Are they especially noisy in their orgy-making?), but alas.

4 - I did mention the masturbate thing, right? Cuz he talked about it for, like, a long while. And it was actually, somehow, part of the same story, above-referenced, of fetus-piles. Masturbation was the counter-point of beauty to the world's ugliness of fetus-piles. Anyway, I actually saw an old woman get up and leave mid-masturbation speech. Okay, so masturbation's covered... something else... you'll be happy to know that his priest never diddled him! Just made him look for the Virgin Mary in corpse-occupied caskets.

5 - He actually blames (or, you could say, credits) his Catholic upbringing for being the basis of his fascination with horror and monsters, because of how totally, and I quote, "fucked up" it was to convince a kid he was eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus at the altar. Apparently his church's Jesus on the crucifix was old-school, with exposed bones and what-not, and he, sanely I must say, didn't want any of that.

And a Bonus! - this one's not directly about del Toro, but I am totally right - Alejandro González Iñárritu is an asshole! Apparently he and del Toro are friends, and had been hanging out talking the entire night before last night's screening, and they were discussing subjectivity versus objectivity and their current films (I know, what dorks), and everything del Toro said that Iñárritu said was, like, a definitive asshole quote, like, right outta the Asshole Handbook. God I hate him.
.

Oscar Battles: Mexico & Korea

Oscar Foreign Film Race Updates
For countries that produce only a handful of films each year the choice for an Oscar submission can be simple. But can you imagine the drama of choosing just one film if your country has a healthy prolific and famous film industry? Imagine the egos bruised in, say, France or India each year once the choice is made.

Countries with a lot of films often narrow it down to "finalists" before announcing. Here's a quick look at two interesting battles shaping up.

Mexico narrowed it down to twelve competitors (full list here) but I think this race will come down to a battle between Mezcal, which was showered with awards and nominations in Mexico's Oscars ("The Ariels") or the newer, highly buzzed Pans Labyrinth. In terms of marketing hooks, Labyrinth (trailer) is probably the way to go. It's directed by an auteur with an international following (Guillermo Toro of Cronos, The Devils Backbone, and Hellboy fame). It already has distribution, and it will likely ignite interest from genre lovers with its fantastical imagery. In terms of traditional Oscar taste though, Pan's Labyrinth, could be risky. Do Oscar voters ever go for dark fantasies with creepy said-to-be mesmerizing imagery? Have any readers seen this yet at festivals. If so, speak up.

Korea is choosing between three films: The King and the Clown, The Host, and Time. The first two films are the biggest box office hits of all time in Korea. The King... (trailer) is a controversial gay drama and The Host (trailer), a critically adored horror film playing well at international film festivals. The third film, Time, is from auteur Kim Ki-Duk who American audiences know from the excellent Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring and is about a woman undergoing plastic surgery. My guess is that Korea will bet on AMPAS's predilection for middlebrow prestige and go with the historical drama, however worthier the other choices may or may not be (I haven't seen these films).

UPDATES: The Foreign Language Oscar Pages also have new info on the official titles announced from Greece, Romania, the Philippines. More coming as we fill in the info culled from various news sources and reader contributions.

Tags: foreign films, Mexico, Korea,movies, Oscars, Academy Awards, cinema, Film...