So there's this meme going around that Paolo tagged me with. So why not? The idea is that you list 15 directors, mainly off of the top of your head, that contributed to the way you experience and think about the movies. This is not a list of my all time favorites though half of the list would probably overlap. This is the list I come up with when I think briefly on the formative masterminds and/or the ones that have or had some sort of claim on my soul if you will. Three of them I could definitely live without at this point but I'm trying to be honest about the exercize.
Wise with Wood ~ West Side Story
So here goes in no particular order...
ROBERT WISE(1914-2005)
When I was a kid West Side Story and The Sound of Music were the most Epically ! Epic !!! movies to me. At the time I didn't quite grasp the auteur theory but at some point I became aware that this guy had made both so therefore "He must be the best director of all time!" Later I discovered that he wasn't but I still think he's a stronger talent than he gets credit for being nowadays. first encounters:The Sound of Music and West Side Story (on television)
ALFRED HITCHCOCK(1899-1980)
As I said in my Rope retro, he's training wheels for any young budding film buff who is curious about The Man Behind the Curtain (Hitch or otherwise). first encounter:North By Northwest (I think I saw it here, the place I saw many old movies for the first time. My parents didn't know what a monster they were creating by taking me there regularly.)
WOODY ALLEN(1935-)
For the same reason as Hitchcock really; it's impossible to think you're watching anyone else's film. Woody was the first director I "followed", eagerly anticipating and attending each movie as soon as I could. As a result, he'll always have a place in my heart. first encounters:Broadway Danny Rose (in theaters... my older brother's idea), The Purple Rose of Cairo (in theaters, my idea)
Wyler meeting Charlton Heston's son.
WILLIAM WYLER (1902-1981)
The auteur theory isn't everything. This man understood dramatic storytelling and didn't dumb it down but made accessible all the nuances and fine points. Plus he could wring top notch work from all kinds of actors. His resume is deservedly overstuffed-with-classics. Just last month while watching The Best Years of Our Lives I even dreamed of watching all of his movies chronologically in a row for a blog project. I bet it would be an awesome journey. first encounters:Ben Hur (revival house) and Wuthering Heights (VHS)
STEVEN SPIELBERG(1946-) Because everyone loves him and therefore he was ubiquitous when I was growing up and still is to a degree. There was no question that he was shaping Hollywood and more than one moviegoing generation. I never felt personally attached but he was always present in the movie menu. first encounters:Raiders of the Lost Arc & E.T. (in theaters)... the latter is the only movie I can ever remember seeing with my Grandma *sniffle*
tuesday top ten returns! It's for the list-maker in me and the list-lover in you
The Cannes film festival wrapped this weekend (previous posts) and the most recent Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, The Secret in Their Eyes is still in the midst of a successful US run. That Oscar winning Argentinian film came to us from director Juan Jose Campanella. It's his second film to be honored by the Academy (Son of the Bride was nominated ten years back). The Academy voters obviously like Campanella and in some ways he's a Hollywood guy. When he's not directing Argentinian Oscar hopefuls he spends time making US television with episodes of Law & Order, House and 30 Rock under his belt.
So let's talk foreign-language auteurs. Who does Oscar love most?
[The film titles discussed in this article will link to Netflix pages -- if available -- should you be curious to see the films]
Best Director winners Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) and Milos Forman (Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
Please Note: Filmmakers like Ang Lee (Taiwan), Milos Forman (Czech) and Louis Malle (France) have won multiple notices for their foreign language work with the Academy but I'm restricting this list to those directors who worked primarily in their native tongue throughout their careers. The three aforementioned men all had their biggest Oscar successes from English language films.
OSCAR'S TEN FAVORITE FOREIGN AUTEURS
The ranking that follows are somewhat arbitrary since we're dealing with different kinds of attention paid.
Honorable Mention:Ettore Scola (Italy), Bo Widerberg (Sweden), Carlos Saura (Spain) and Zhang Yimou (China) each helmed 3 Foreign Film Nominees over the years... the latter two for submissions from two different countries. Denys Arcand (Canada) and Nikita Mikhalkov (Russia) have each directed 3 Nominees one of which won the prize (The Barbarian Invasions and Burnt By The Sun, respectively). Mikhalkov, who also acts in his pictures, recently completed the sequel to his Oscar winner called Burnt by the Sun 2, but reviews have been brutal so we aren't banking on seeing it in the Oscar lineup next year. Finally, Jose Luis Garci (Spain) directed 4 nominated films, winning once for Volver a Empezar.
let's make this a top dozen
12István Szabó (Hungary)1938 - still working 4 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win LikeSpain's Garci, the last of the honorable mentions, Szabó directed 4 Foreign Film Nominees, winning once. But in the case of Szabó, it's a more surprising achievement. Unlike Spain, Hungary has rarely won much favor with Oscar. In fact, after Szabó's last nomination, Hungarian films have been completely ignored by the Academy.
In a remarkable hot streak in the Eighties, Szabo had four (!) Best Foreign Film nominations: Bizalom (1980), Mephisto (1981 winner), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988). The latter three all starred Klaus Maria Brandauer who became a fixture in international cinema after the success of Mephisto. It helps to speak several languages and be brilliant -- just ask Christoph Waltz (Yes, there are earlier incarnations of all success stories). Brandauer might have even won the Supporting Actor Oscar for his sterling work in Out of Africa (1985) had voters not been feeling sentimental for that Cocoon fella. Oscar was SO sentimental in the 80s.
But where were we? Ah yes. Szabo moved over to English language cinema (directing Annette Bening to a nomination for Being Julia) but he hasn't yet equalled those early Hungarian successes.
11Mario Monicelli (Italy) 1915 - still living 2 nominations (writing) | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 6 nominations, 0 wins
He's best known for kicking off the commedia all'italiana movement in cinema and for the classic Big Deal on Madonna Street but Oscar's love for him stretches over six movies (His two screenplay nominations weren't even from his foreign film nominees). Monicelli turns 95 (!) this summer. He hasn't directed a feature film since 2006 but you may have seen him as an actor in the Diane Lane vehicle Under the Tuscan Sun (2003).
THE TOP TEN
10René Clément(France) 1913-1996 1 Foreign Film Nominee | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations and 2 honorary statues
The Academy gave out 8 special foreign language film Oscars before they decided they needed to give foreign films their own category and René Clément won the prize twice during those years. In those days Oscar only had eyes for France, Italy and Japan. The Walls of Malapaga (1949) was his first win and he won again shortly thereafter for his internationally renowned classic Forbidden Games (1952). Games even won a second Oscar nomination for story two years later once it finally hit American screens (this is before they changed the rules to prevent films from competing in more than one year). That film was in some ways the perfect embodiment of Oscar's foreign type before Oscar even knew it had one: young children as protagonists + World War II.
The Academy created the foreign language film category as we know it in 1956 and Clément's was there again as a shortlister for the Emile Zola adaptation Gervaise (1956).Though that film was his last foreign film nominee, he continued to make movies for another two decades including such well regarded films as Purple Noon (1960) and Paris Brûle-t-il? (1966) which received two Oscar nominations in other categories.
09Luis Buñuel (Spain) 1900-1983 2 nominations (writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 1 win
Oscar arrived at the Buñuel party conspicuously late. They even ignored Belle de Jour (1967) one of the best films ever, despite awards attention elsewhere. Sometimes they are well behind the curve. Notice how long it took Jacques Audiard (A Prophet) and Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon) to win attention. In some ways it's surprising that AMPAS got there at all with Buñuel given the director's penchant for sexuality and surrealism. Oscar somewhat prefers the chaste and the literal as you know.
Tristana and the years of critical acclaim preceding it, opened their hearts to his work at the dawn of the '70s. His follow up, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), was a double nominee. Its win in the Foreign Film category has to count as one of the best but most unusual choices in the category's entire history. But then Oscar was at his most adventurous in the early 70s. Oscar and Buñuel had one last fling with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). It was also Buñuel's last affair with the cinema. The father of cinematic surrealism was in his late 70s at the time and died in 1983.
08 Andrzej Wajda (Poland) 1926 - still working 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Nominees all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 4 nominations, 0 wins and 1 honorary statue
Poland's most influential filmmaker was most revered by awards bodies in the latter half of the 70s and early 80s. He won 3 Foreign Film Oscar nominations in that period: Promised Land (1975), The Maids of Wilko (1979... retitled The Young Girls of Wilko) and Man of Iron (1981). To prove that it wasn't a temporary love, Oscar handed him an honorary statue for "five decades of extraordinary film direction" in March of 2000. He won a fourth foreign film nomination recently for Katyn (2007). His lauded filmography also includes Ashes and Diamond (1958) and the French biopic Danton (1983) starring Gerard Depardieu which received awards attention elsewhere but strangely no Oscar heat.
07Jan Troell (Sweden) 1931- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 7 nominations, 0 wins
He's often forgotten in discussions of Scandinavian cinema (at least here in the US) since Ingmar Bergman casts such a long shadow. But Oscar was quite fond of him up until recently. His high water mark with the Academy was Utvandrarna (The Emigrants) -- strangely not on DVD --one of only five pictures to ever achieve both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture nominations. Given Oscar history it's a bit odd that the Academy didn't jump on his latest picture Everlasting Moments (2008) and even with Max von Sydow in the lead role, Hamsun (1996) didn't win attention either.
06Pedro Almodovar (Spain) 1949- still working 2 nominations (directing, writing) | 1 Oscar (writing) | 2 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 5 nominations, 2 wins
Spain's most famous living filmmaker has a fascinating Oscar history. The Academy embraced his international breakthrough Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) but then ignored the next ten years of his career. His Oscar comeback was the mature and wondrous All About My Mother (1999) which took the top prize, despite content that would normally scare them away. Given his global fame and AMPAS's familiarity with his mad melodramedic skill, you'd think he'd have more nominated films to his credit. Part of the problem is that the Spanish Academy, which makes Spain's choice about Foreign Film representation, hasn't always been gaga for Pedro's work. Famously they passed over Talk to Her (2002) in its year so Oscar handed that recent masterpiece a screenplay Oscar and a directing nomination instead. It's no small stretch of the imagination to say that it would've beat the German winner Nowhere in Africa that year to become Pedro's second winner in the category. Volver (2006) was weirdly snubbed in the Foreign category but managed the even more high profile Best Actress nomination and became Pedro's biggest stateside hit if you don't adjust for inflation.
05Francois Truffaut (France) 1932-1984 3 nominations (writing, directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 8 nominations, 1 win
This icon started his career as an obsessive cinephile and provoactive critic at the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. His feature debut, The 400 Blows (1959) kicked off the French New Wave and proved to be one of the most influential and acclaimed films ever made. That film won him the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival at only 27 years of age. It also netted him his first Oscar nomination and more would follow. His classics include seminal features likeJules et Jim (1962) as well as Oscar-recognized favorites like Stolen Kisses (1968), Day for Night (1973 -winner), The Story of Adele H (1975) and The Last Metro (1980).
Film buffs will note that he also acted, even receiving a BAFTA nomination for appearing in his admirer Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Here's Spielberg talking about working with him.
04Akira Kurosawa (Japan) 1910-1998 1 Honorary Oscar | 1 nomination (directing) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (1 win) | 1 Honorary Foreign Film Win (before category existed) all Oscar categories: His films have earned 12 nominations, 2 wins and 2 honorary statues
Japan's most famous filmmaker spent over sixty years working in the cinema and his legacy is enormous. The Oscars don't paint a full enough portrait of his cinematic impact. Only two of his films won the Foreign Oscar: the game changing Rashomon (1951) which people have been riffing on ever since, making it one of the true must-sees for cultural literacy, and Dersu Uzala (1975) which actually won the prize for Russia rather than Japan. His other nominated films were Dodes'ka-Den (1970) and Kagemusha (1980). I can't recall the circumstances which led his King Lear style epic Ran (1985) to ineligibility in the foreign film category but the Academy compensated with a well deserved Best Director nomination for that classic.
Still, despite what would be more than plentiful Oscar attention for most filmmakers, this portrait feels incomplete. Major classics like The Hidden Fortress (1958), Yojimbo (1961) or The Seven Samurai(1954) had to make due with technical nods or none at all. They sure did owe him that honorary Oscar they gave him in 1990 "For cinematic accomplishments that have inspired, delighted, enriched and entertained worldwide audiences and influenced filmmakers throughout the world."
**
The Top Three
Oscar's most beloved trinity of foreign language film auteurs (in terms of this list's criteria) had the good golden fortune to be doing incredible work during the decades when US movie culture was most enamored of foreign fare. That is, at least since the silent film era, before sound came crashing into cinema toppling it like the tower of Babel.
03Vittorio de Sica (Italy) 1901-1974 1 nomination (acting) | 3 Foreign Film Nominees (2 wins) | 2 Honorary Foreign Film Wins (before there was a category) all Oscar categories: His (directorial) filmography has earned 10 nominations, 3 wins and 2 honorary statues
The Bicycle Thief and The Garden of the Fitzi-Continis... the titles alone sound mythic somehow, having amassed so much cultural heft over the years. Those two Oscar winning classics aren't true bookends of de Sica's acclaimed filmography but since one is from the 40s and one from the 70s they work as such. This Italian neorealist and prolific writer/actor/director was celebrated often and seemingly continuously from Shoe-Shine(1947's honorary winner) through his supporting actor nomination for A Farewell to Arms (1957) and onward until the Fitzi-Continis. His swansong The Voyage (1974) didn't win awards but it was a fitting goodbye, since it allowed him to reteam him with his frequent muse Sophia Loren.
Loren & de Sica. They made beautiful films together.
I was a bit surprised to see his name above Kurosawa's in this listing given their name recognition value these days but he's a truly giant figure from world cinema history, popularizing neorealism in the late 40s and delivering multiple classics. He was also one of the principle authors of Sophia Loren's legend having directed her in both her Oscar winning role in Two Women (1961) and in celebrated films like Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1964's foreign Oscar winner) and Marriage, Italian Style (1964). He also directed American screen giants like Montgomery Clift in Indiscretions of an American Wifeand Shirley Maclaine in Woman Times Seven (she was Golden Globe nominated for that multiple role performance). * 02Ingmar Bergman (Sweden) 1918-2007 9 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | Irving Thalberg Award | 3 Foreign Film Winners | 1 Best Picture Nominee all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 21 nominations, 7 wins and a Thalberg
This legendary Swede's body of work is so deep and impressive (not to mention deeply immersed in the human condition) that listing his numerous Oscar successes wouldn't even acknowledge what some would argue is his greatest achievement (Persona, 1966). That black and white masterwork in which a mute actress (Bergman's muse and lover Liv Ullmann) and her nurse (Bibi Andersson) become pyschologically fused has influenced much work since, including two of the greatest films from other world class auteurs (David Lynch's Mulholland Dr and Robert Altman's Three Women). Woody Allen never did his own Persona riff but he is arguably the most famous of Bergman's many auteur fans.
Bergman's filmography is essentially one treasure after another so we'll have to ignore the bulk of it for brevity's sake and point you to his Oscar films in case you haven't seen them. Program a mini festival at home. All three of his foreign film nominees won: The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Fanny And Alexander (1982). [Trivia Note: Sweden has never won the foreign prize outside of Bergman's work]
Cries and Whispers (5 nominations, 1 win for cinematography)
In addition to his foreign film winners Bergman's other gold successes include Wild Strawberries (1957) Face to Face (1976) and Autumn Sonata (1978). The Academy fell deepest into a hypnotic Bergman trance in the early 70s when they gave him the Thalberg award and then followed up that honor with multiple nominations, including Best Picture, for his great and disturbing female grief drama Cries and Whispers (1972).
01 Federico Fellini(Italy) 1920-1993 12 nominations (directing, writing, producing) | 1 Honorary Oscar | 4 Foreign Film Winners | all Oscar categories: His filmography has earned 23 nominations, 7 wins and 1 honorary statue
Last year's adaptation of Nine, itself adapted from a stage musical adapted from Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) wasn't well received enough to spark a mini-Fellini revival in the media but the media was once quite enamored of all moving parts of Fellini's cinematic circus. That press conference scene in Nine was no exaggeration or joke. In fact, the word "paparazzi" sprung to life because of one of his best loved movies La Dolce Vita (1960) in which a male photographer's name is Paparazzo. Fellini's celebrity was vast and his actors were also sensations. His male muse Marcello Mastroianni never won an Oscar but he holds the record of most nominations for non-English language performances, three in total).
Though their sensibilities are vastly different, Fellini shares with Bergman, his only real rival for Oscar's foreigner crown, a prolific career and one with consistent inspiration and awards pull. Even before he won notices for his directing he was winning screenplay nominations for films he didn't helm.
How familiar are you with the films mentioned? I have a decent grasp of the Fellinis, Bunuels and Kurosawas. I'm nearly a completist with the Almodóvars (duh). But I need to get down to serious business on the Bergman's (small percentage despite my love. What's that about?) and I'm almost completely ignorant on the de Sicas and the Troells. So many I haven't seen.
<-- Boy Culture Madonna in Interview, interviewed by auteur Gus Van Sant. They even discuss movies and Milk? Can't wait to read the whole thing Vanity Fair Oscar winning moms and their offspring. Photo Gallery /Film Does Disney have eyes on stage musicals based on Romy & Michelle, Coyote Ugly, Shakespeare in Love and more? MNPP even horror buffs are hating this Human Centipede movie Deadline Hollywood Roman Polanski breaks his silence. This is the whole statement. I find this whole tawdry decades old story so sad but the public reaction even more disturbing. Whether or not one thinks Polanski should come to the US and be sentenced it is very clear reading the comments on virtually any site/blog discussing this that for a huge swath of people nothing short of a death sentence would ever satiate them NY Post Johnny Depp heroics. "straighten up your life" 30 Ninjas meaty interview with Jake Gyllenhaal on both Prince of Persia and Duncan Jones's Source Code Movie InsiderGreen Lantern production imagery? E.T. Steven Spielberg has chosen War Horse as his next film. That means he'll have two pictures coming out for 2011 (TinTin is also on the way). Isn't it strange how Spielberg always seems to be either completely absent or doubling up? Other two picture years: 1989, 1993 (what a year that was!), 1997 and 2002
Many of you have been asking (publicly and privately) about the trifurcated Best Picture Oscar series that united Nick's Flick Picks, Goatdog's Blog and The Film Experience. Mike, Nick and I created the series together but the ball dropping was all me. I take full responsible for the unfortunate hiatus. Thanks for your patience.
Mrs. Miniver & Mr Schindler. World War II will change them both.
IF YOU'RE A NEW READER the series works like so: We started in early 2008 grabbing the earliest best picture winner (Wings) and comparing it to the most recent (at the time) No Country For Old Men. Then we started working inwards from both directions of Oscar's timeline. Eventually the series will conclude in the late 60s, the halfway point of Oscar's chronology. Here's a complete index of all 15 episodes (thus far) which cover the years 1928-1942 and 1993-2007. Nick is also maintaining a tournament poll of your favorites and ours so, vote.
If you want to really dive into the discussion with us and enrich your knowledge of Hollywood's grand back catalogue, consider renting the match-ups that are on the way. In a couple of weeks we'll be pairing two of Hollywood's most iconic men, Bogie & Clint for a discussion of Casablanca (1943) and Unforgiven (1992). Then it's on to Going My Way (1944) and Silence of the Lambs (1991).
NICK: Having watched my conspirators in pleasure show such effort and ingenuity in our lasttwo installments to put our disparate films in dialogue with each other, I get to enjoy a ready-made Oscar juxtaposition of World War II dramas: Mrs. Miniver, the first entrant from this AMPAS-beloved genre to swipe the top prize, and Schindler's List, frequently hailed as a highpoint in the Best Picture heritage. Neither film is a battlefield picture; instead, they each focalize the magnitude of the war through the expanding consciousness of the titular character, and the subversion of her or his habits of thought and action. Both were the first movies by their pedigreed, Oscar-friendly auteurs to cop the Best Picture and Best Director trophies after multiple winless nods.
Of course there are also clear markers of dissimilarity between these films and the stories they tell. Mrs. Miniver confronts the war as a crucible of combat, thrift, and social disruption at a time of siege; Schindler's List reconstructs and scrutinizes the supremacist and genocidal ethics and terrible, sometimes enforced complicities that both inspired and drew force from the Nazi war machine. Kay Miniver is a radiant paragon of noble citizenship and domestic steadfastness; Oskar Schindler is a rake and a profiteer whose unlikely emergence as an objector and protector arrives with all kinds of vagaries and caveats attached. Mrs. Miniver was not in every respect a picture that Wyler cherished; Schindler's List was self-consciously conceived, produced, and received as the technical, cultural, and moral apotheosis of Spielberg's career...
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 longtime. 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 HollywoodThe 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
I don't know what to say... two pop culture icons lost in one day. I was leaving for the movies when I first heard the news (then but a rumor) so I'm just catching up now. Like many pop stars Michael Jackson wanted to be in movies and the Peter Pan obsession in particular was one he never shied away from expressing. His Steven Spielberg / Peter Pan project never happened -- well it did but without songs and without Michael Jackson and in a different form altogether -- and neither did the movies. But, like Madonna, he was a mammoth small screen star by way of the music video.
And a mammoth star in general.
I can't say that I was ever a big fan and the sordid tabloid problems turned me off as much as anyone but it was hard to live through the 70s or 80s without having some connection to his work. Here are four of my favorites from his oeuvre. I'm not claiming they're necessarily his best but they're four that mean something to me personally or bring back vivid good memories.
And finally Liberian Girl and Leave Me Alone. I include these not because they have special significance to me but because they perfectly illustrate Michael Jackson's obsession with celebrity in general and the family he found in other celebrities. There are tons of stars in the first video (including Olivia Newton John & John Travolta "acting" together!) and it's dedicated to Elizabeth Taylor, the lone Jackson obsession to which I can fully relate. She's one of the true immortals. La Liz also factors heavily into the second video.
If all the shit that he went through couldn't knock Thriller, Off the Wall, Bad and, to whatever degree, Dangerous and HIStory out of our hearts, minds and asses, a little thing like death isn't going to, either.
Scanners investigates the mask and the problems with adult stardom IFC Daily collects the web obits Gawker collects the headlines. God, the NY Post is an embarrasment A Socialite's Life collects the celebrity reactions
Today marks the 80th birthday (80th!) of cinema legend Max von Sydow. This year, a fan site points out, retrospective celebrations of his work seem highly probable. I bring this birthday up because my interview with him a year and half ago is still one of my favorite events from my Film Experience journey. He was so interesting to talk to. Consider the diversity of his resume: The Exorcist, The Seventh Seal, Awakenings, The Virgin Spring, Flash Gordon, Three Days of the Condor, Judge Dredd, Hannah and Her Sisters. He's worked with everyone from Ingmar Bergman to Steven Spielberg. If I could have tied him up for hours with more questions, I would have, believe me. His next film is Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (previously discussed) and then we might see him in the WW II resistance fighter drama, Truth & Treason. He's not in the trailer so we assume he plays one of the characters as an older man in an epilogue.
On the other end of the age spectrum is von Sydow's upcoming co-star in that picture, Haley Joel Osment. He turns 21 today. He was once everyone's favorite tiny medium (The Sixth Sense) and little android (A.I. Artificial Intelligence) but we haven't seen him for years. Growing up is always difficult for child stars. Their faces change or don't change enough. There's that brief awkward phase or whole long stretches of it. We haven't seen Osment much recently but he does have two films in the works, the aforementioned Truth & Treason and an indie comedy called Montana Amazon in which he co-stars with Olympia Dukakis.
Maybe he isn't ambitious about having a big film career as an adult but if he is I figure both M. Night Shyamalan and Steven Spielberg ought to offer him something good to help him with the transitioning. They way I see it they both owe him --think of how much weaker both of those films immediately become with anything less than a preternaturally gifted child actor in their demanding roles. *
JA from MNPP here, gently tapping on the screen door to Film Experience headquarters, politely requesting some eggs for your neighbors. Nevermind the white gloves, can I just have the eggs? Please? Thank you. Oh your cat jumped up on me, Nat, and I dropped the eggs. Can I have the other ones? I see them right there. You can go to the store tomorrow. No I am not being rude. No, I will not leave without the eggs.
Hey everybody, sorry about that, but... Nat's not gonna be here today! He's... preoccupied. Much like Susanne Lothar (sidenote: who else adores Susanne Lothar?) and Naomi Watts before him, he's... preoccupied.
But I'm here! Ready, willing, full-bodied, able, to guide you through your Wednesday. And it's funny that I brought up Michael Haneke's dueling Funny Games pictures here because I actually mean to speak a bit about the "Home Invasion" movie genre here for a moment. (Funny how that I works! I brought it up, and I want to talk about it! Funny!)
Although it's a genre near and dear to my heart, I've been thinking about the genre this past week or so more than often than usual. I just finished the chapter in David Hughes' book The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made on Steven Spielberg's never-happened Close Encounterssort-of sequel, to be called Night Skies. Night Skies was going to tell the story of a family on a farm who come to be terrorized by a group of outer-space aliens who trap them inside their farmhouse and kill their cattle and are generally bad guys (and yes, if that immediately made you think of M. Night's Signs, you are not alone.) Anyway, the story goes, Spielberg wasn't liking where the story was heading, but did like the side-story in the script of the farm-family's son who befriended the only nice alien out in the group, which turned into you guessed it again E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. And then Spielberg got his home invasion ya-ya's out by "producing" "Tobe Hooper's" Poltergeist the same year (switch out the aliens for ghosties, and wha-la).
And besides that sordid tale, I also saw the remake of The Last House on the Left last week, which, befitting the current "Home Invasion" film renaissance - Ils (Them), The Strangers, and Funny Games being recent torch-bearers - feels more like your standard Home Invasion film than it's previous Bergman/Craven incarnations. The bad guys are still invited into the home like they've been since The Virgin Spring, but due to alterations in certain outcomes (trying to stay spoiler-free here), it becomes more about maintaining the safety of the home space than just straightforward vengeance. (as an aside, if you can handle the brutality of what Last House has to offer, I'd say that Dennis Iliadis' film is a mostly artful contemplation on The Horrors Men Can Do... at least until that slightly silly denouement).
I'd be remiss, in discussing Home Invasion movies, without giving a shout-out to three of the genre's most important figureheads, so here they be:
(Sam Pekinpah's still controversial Straw Dogs, Jodie "Mother Hen In A Confined Space" Foster, and Attempted-Child-Brutality-Has-Never-Been-So-Funny superstar Macauley Culkin)
Alright, so now that I've lured y'all in here and quietly clicked the lock into place, behind you, you ain't going nowhere without telling me your favorite Home Invasion movie. And why do you think these movies have been so popular specifically the past couple of years? What I'm getting at is, do you think the genre will subside a bit now that we don't feel locked in this country with a madman who seemed to have swallowed the keys to the Oval Office anymore? .
What's that line from The Age of Innocence? Something about that the audience
wants to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.
Excuse me If I've stolen it before. But isn't that the way many of us feel after the Best Picture prize has been handed out. It's like [pantomimes wiping hands] 'That's that! Done. On to next year"
Hugh's opening number. A faux shoestring charm offensive
But I do want to say a few things about what turned out to be a surprisingly fun wrap to the lengthy awards season. This particular season was at turns satisfying (mostly on the acting / awards show side) and unimaginatively monotonous (The world was Slumdogging it from Toronto onwards). I squawked earlier on these pages about the continual leaks that they were going to be messing with the Oscar format. I worried that they didn't care enough about Oscar's true fans, the millions who still tune in every year eager to see favorite annual traditions reenacted. Who wants Christmas without a tree or Thanksgiving without the turkey? If Oscar is your favorite holiday (it's mine. Duh) you want the traditions.
Read the Rest... Parts 2 (acting presentations) & 3 (fashions) coming tomorrow
Rob here, back from a little vacation of my own and noticing that while attention has moved from movie to movie from week to week this Summer (with a long layover in Gotham City), one thing has been on movie lovers' to-do lists since June:
Hate George Lucas.
And this hobby hasn't been confined to mere fanboys alone. Today Jim Emerson outlines his argument against George Lucas (which, honestly isn't that different from anyone else's). This summer it's all about how George has ruined our childhood with his less than stellar update of Indiana Jones. Personally I'm not sure why Steven Spielberg doesn't get any of the blame since his fingerprints are all over the film: the overly-happy ending, the.... well... not to ruin the surprise, but lets just say "other elements found often in Spielberg movies."
Perhaps it's because George Lucas also has the Star Wars baggage, more of which comes out this week (and don't ask about Jabba the Hutt's gay uncle... seriously). Perhaps it's because he's already talking about a possible fifth Indiana Jones movie. While I personally don't approve of this, the obsessive compulsive in me kinda does, if for no reason than to have something to support this fourth film, which now is leeched onto the rest of the trilogy, 20 years removed (it's just unsettlingly unsymmetrical).
Anyways here are some suggestions for a title for George Lucas's fifth Indy film:
Indiana Jones and the Bad Case of Osteoporosis Indiana Jones and the Attack of the Clones Indiana Jones and the CGI Critters Indiana Jones and the Small Personal Movies I'm Going to Start Making Indiana Jones and the Attack of the CGI Critter Clones Indy and Chewie Celebrate Life Day: A Family Adventure for the Whole Family Midi-Chlorians and Nuclear 'Fridge Rides: The Story of George Lucas' Genius
Sorry I've been mostly absent this weekend. The Film Experience (i.e. Nathaniel) is relocating to DC for a month starting tomorrow. This hopefully won't affect you as readers much but you never know. Between packing, shopping for trip and watching the Olympics I haven't had any time to think let alone write or see movies. The summer has been busy: I still haven't even seen Mamma Mia! and that opened weeks ago. Can you believe it? All that buildup to a new Streep Sings moment and no payoff for Natty.
But let's talk about the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics for a second.
I'm feeling eternally grateful to political activists and the inimitable Mia Farrow who succeeded in pressuring Steven Spielberg into backing out as the "artistic advisor". I know that people think Spielberg is the greatest film director on earth and [insert hyperbolic statement here] but to me Zhang Yimou, who did directing duties, is better at two things and they happen to be two things the Olympics can't do without: pageantry and spectacle. Plus, he's Chinese. Shouldn't Olympic Ceremonies always run to homegrown talent first? I doubt he needed advice from Spielberg.
Zhang Yimou's filmography includes Raise the Red Lantern, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower, and Ju Dou so when it comes to a skilled way with eye candy, well, I rest my case. Yimou was pleased with the big night and why not. It was the best opening ceremony I've personally ever seen: that absurdly precise choreography of thousands, those vibrant storytelling colors, the elaborate but still human special effects and costumes, the incongruously calm brush strokes in the midst of chaos; It was just like Hero only less violent.
I'm sure it cost more to produce than three over budget Hollywood blockbusters put together.
Just about the only thing that wasn't perfect was the absence of Chinese movie stars. Did we really need what I presume was China's Liberace? Did we really need ...Sarah Brightman? (a useful question in many situations). I know the torch finale is an athletes-only kind of gig but couldn't they have let Gong Li or Tony Leung Chiu Wai do a lap with it or something before the big scrim-running finale?
Yesterday my peeps dragged me to the Museum of Natural History. I haven't been there in years and it was a perfect thing to do before people-watching for hours in Central Park on a coat-droppingly beautiful day. They do this on occasion, my friends... [concerned voices]: "Nathaniel, step away from the computer!"
You probably won't agree with me that the Stegosaurus is the best dinosaur but it is. Their tails are so rocking. My friends did not agree: one vote for the Brontosaurus, one for T-Rex, and one "abstain" --some people are so difficult. Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park totally shafted the Stegosaurus (and the second best, the Triceratops) in favor of those made up Velociraptors and that jaw-dropping first shot of the brachiosaurus. Unfortunately Laura Dern took the "jaw dropping" part literally.
I know she was looking at a green screen or whatever they looked at at the time (blue screen?) but work with what you got Laura. That first reaction shot always made me uncomfortable in the 'can we do another take?' way. Spielberg didn't do another take, damn him. She's way better when she stares at personal demons and makes faces for David Lynch.
Right before we left for an early evening in Central Park we watched this short film on the history of the mammal which was narrated by none other than Meryl Streep. Afterwards we all agreed that she totally phoned that voice over in. When she was talking about what happened 65 million years ago, for example, there was no past tense in her voice. It wasn't lived-in. Definitely one of her least-committed performances.
Dinosaurs are awesome and so are actresses but for whatever reason, they don't mix. Naomi Watts' terror in King Kong excepted.
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