Breakfast With... Molina

I think it's some form of baked beans.

_________But for breakfast and every day?


Wherever you're reading from, I hope your cell is comfy and your cell mate is willing to listen to all of your crazy movie stories.

For Your Consideration Corner

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

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


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

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

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

For Your Consideration ad of the Week

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

Kiss of the Spider Woman Contest Winners

Monologue Monday (Interrupted)

This is where the important part begins. The part about the lovers...

William Hurt was named Best Actor @ Cannes and by Oscar, NBR, LAFCA & BAFTA voters

Lovers of actresses & cinema for our purposes today.

For the entire first reel (and then some) of Kiss of the Spider Woman, William Hurt's "Molina" tries to monologue his way through memories of a favorite film. He loves to perform but his cell mate "Valentin" (Raul Julia) never lets him get lost in his speechifying the way he plans to, continually interrupting him with requests, jokes, corrections and commentary. And so begins an odd couple film that wraps political idealogy, cinematic obsessions, and sexual identity into a memorable actor's duet with as much theatricality as Molina himself wraps his head while daydreaming of his favorite screen diva (Sonia Braga).

The Kiss of the Spider Woman was a best picture nominee for 1985. The other shortlisters were more traditional fare: a beloved novel adaptation The Color Purple, the romantic epic Out of Africa, the mafia black comedy Prizzi's Honor, and the contemporary hit drama Witness. Kiss... has since been the hardest film for younger Oscar completists to see but a 2 disc collectors edition is now out and I have four copies to give away, one for each of its nominations. But before I announce the winners (drawn randomly) I wanted to share some really fun contest entries. I asked contestants to throw a headwrap on and make like Molina, obsessing over a favorite actress/performance in their imaginary prison cell. Some of them even sent photos --can I just say that TFE readers are so awesome to play along!

Originally I was going to post my favorite entries but there were so many that I decided I had to limit the 'extra' sharing to the entries that came in with photos ;) The following contestants did not win the random drawing but but they are so awesome for playing along...

<--- Jonathan from NY

Meryl Streep. Sophie's Choice. Cliched? Perhaps. But can the others recite word for word, facial tic and intonation down pat, the scene where she struggles to tell Stingo about being sent to Auschwitz? Or what about that accent? And she's never been more sexually charged in a film. Best performance by any actor (that I've seen but no, I'm just going to say it, EVER) in history. Streep at her streepiest, and I've loved every 20+ viewings of it. Whoever's in that jail cell better know what I'm talking about when I reference the famous silent scream in the climactic scene, or else they'll be getting an earful.....

Brian in New Mexico --->

I would likely develop, and discuss at length, whose marvelous powers I most wished to possess on any given prison day. Would I want to channel Sissy Spacek's Carrie White and her telekinetic grudge match powers? Or would it Rita Moreno's Anita and her ability to deliver a scathing insult as though it was a love pat? Or would it be Meryl Streep's dexterity in self-transformation that I would covet? (Of course, on really bad days, I would likely pretend to be Hope Emerson and leave it at that...)

<--- JS in the Philippines

Anyone in prison would have to learn and emulate the virtues of Glenn Close's performance in Dangerous Liaisons because like her, you'd be in a similar environment where you would have to practice detachment, learn how to listen and deceive all in service of devising means of escape no one had ever thought of before. It's "win or die." :)

Mark in Manchester --->

I could have gone the easy route and picked Sigourney in Aliens but if I shared a cell i'd obsess over Brooke Smith as Sonya in Vanya on 42nd Street. I only saw this performance recently and was so moved we could act out her final monologue scene with the cellmate as Wallace Shawn.

<--- Cenzig in Florida

Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles. She oozes that Fosse sexuality that we all know and love. She captures our attention with "Divine decadence darling!" and holds it, even through the tears during "Cabaret" You root for her. You know the mess that is about to be WWII and you want her out, to live with Brian in delicious sin. She's Fun. She's Fabulous. She's Fucking Sally Bowles!!!

You know who is fun and fabulous? Everyone who entered this contest!
For those that didn't win or haven't seen the film, catch up on a little 80s Oscar lore by seeking it out now that it's available again for home viewing.

[drum roll please]

And the winners are...

Nick in Connecticut

I would talk with my cellie about Salma Hayek in Desperado, because, while the film isn't a masterpiece, she was INCREDIBLY sexy in that film. The way Rodriguez lit her, and her willingness to take part in that steamy love scene with Antonio, set my pulse racing as a 15 year old action-movie junkie. She's still one of the hottest women ever to grace the silver screen, and the way she looks in Desperado is the sort of thing that dreams are made of. Those sun-dresses, that long, wavy hair, her accent, her curves… man-o-man what a stunning creature she is.

Ben in Los Angeles

Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr, hands down. You get two characters to talk about individually, and then you get to talk about the two together. Plus, you can obsess over how overlooked she was in terms of bling for the mantle - no Oscar? Psh!

Dennis in Wisconsin

If I had to go with one performance, it would be Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind. That movie had such an impact on me when I first saw it at 12 years old. She rocked my world! I could talk about Scarlett/Vivien for days.

Chuck in Kentucky

Maria Falconetti. Perhaps it is unfair to choose an actress who appeared only in one film. Yet I believe that Falconetti's performance in Dreyer's seminal The Passion of Joan of Arc goes beyond a mere cineast obsession, and can be viewed instead as a sort of religious longing, a desire for emancipation, a devotion to something intangible and ethereal. Falconetti's struggle would be my own, and the haunting memory of her performance would move me more than any other celluloid creation. My memory of those tortured eyes would no doubt provide the sort of spiritual solace only found in prayer; she would be the single slash of light that cuts through the coagulating and ever-present darkness.

I hope you enjoyed reading about these personal cinematic obsessions as much as I did. And while we're on the subject of Kiss of the Spider Woman... you can check out my vague recollection of my favorites in 1985 If you have any thoughts to share on that 1985 Best Picture race, do so in the comments. Out of Africa, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Prizzi's Honor, The Color Purple or Witness? How many have you seen and what's your choice for "Best" ?

DVD Contest: Kiss of the Spider Woman Unearthed

Whenever a landmark film resurfaces for home viewing, it's cause for rejoicing. Kiss of the Spider Woman, a surprise Best Picture contender way back in 1985 long before indies dominated the Oscar race, is finally getting the deluxe treatment. A 2 Disc Collector's Edition comes out next Tuesday and I have 4 copies to give away, one for each of its historic Oscar nominations.

Kiss of the Spider Woman, 4 time Oscar nominee

For those of you who haven't seen it: Trust me, you want to. The film, set in a prison in an unspecified Latin American country, throws a homosexual film buff into a cell with a political prisoner and the polar opposites engage in an odd, compelling and terrific acting duet. The movie raised Brazilian auteur Hector Babenco's profile, won William Hurt the Best Actor Oscar at the peak of his winning 80s streak, gifted Sonia Braga (all kinds of memorable as the actress that Hurt's character obsessively swoons over) with international fame and gave Raul Julia his best screen role.

To enter --please note: you must be 17 to enter this contest --e-mail me by Sunday October 19th with the following 4 pieces of information:

1. SPIDER WOMAN in the title line.
2. Your full name (and nickname if you want to go by something else if you win)
   
3. Your address (in case you win)
4. And a sentence or two on which actress and performance you would repeatedly obsess over / talk about with your cellmate if you were ever thrown into prison with no contact to the outside world and no more new movies to enjoy. Don't pretend you don't know which actress that would be.
   

Extra points if you doll yourself up with a towel and robe like Hurt here whilst typing #4. Quadruple bonus points if you send a photo of same for publication. I kid (or do I?). Winners will be drawn randomly and announced next week.
*

The Pitiable Hulk

This post is brought to you by Nathaniel's jumbled chronologies. He refuses to adhere to the insanely disposable whims of mainstream movie culture. It's an unwritten rule but look around: you're really supposed to only talk about the movies that come out that week (i.e. Hancock) or next month and year instead of whatever comes to your mind (The Incredible Hulk).

I've become weirdly impatient waiting for The Incredible Hulk's box office to catch up with the far more polarizing Hulk's box office. Maybe it'll happen today? tomorrow? It didn't happen yesterday (day 18 results pictured left) but it's almost there. It's like I've started feeling sorry for the united front (studio / media / fanboys) who huffed and puffed in unison trying to boost it up whilst tearing Ang Lee's drama down yet again. It's not that I am a huge champion of the earlier thinkier (feelier?) film or a huge opponent of this one, but I've found the whole thing blandly hypnotic... like something you forget you're paying attention to but you are, despite yourself (like wondering when ER will ever be cancelled even though nobody ever talks about it anymore. Will it run as long as Gunsmoke?)

Things I liked about this version...

• Liv Tyler's impossibly breathy voice -- seriously is something wrong with her larynx? Yet I love it. Maybe I'm still holding the torch for Arwen?
  
• Watching Ed Norton's physique fluctuate from scene to scene --not in the CGI gamma ray way but in the "hey, didn't he have bigger muscles in the last scene?!?" kind of filmed out-of-sequence way.
  
• The almost subliminal way the thunderous sound mix worked in the green giant's dialogue (at least the first "leave me alone" time)
• Watching Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) run super fast past his fellow soldiers. I love no trick visuals that sometimes feel more special than f/x that you know cost millions. There's something awesomely David & Goliath about that.

Things I didn't like

• William Hurt. He was probably my favorite actor when I was falling in love with the movies in the mid 80s but he's so inconsistent.
• Hoping "Mr. Blue" was going to turn out to be Hank McCoy (aka 'The Beast' --hey, it was a decent assumption given that Marvel Studios wants to make their movie universe cohesive) and then seeing Tim Blake Nelson instead. It's the only time I've ever wished to see Kelsey Grammar in my life, god help me!
  
• That it was actually a sequel (no shame in that) pretending it was a reboot (false advertising is so annoying)
• That it was so easy to shake off after I left the theater. Hulk as a character borrows a lot from classic Internal Drama Queen concepts like Beauty & The Beast, King Kong, Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde etcetera, but he never has similar staying power. He doesn't haunt and Bruce Banner's dilemma really should.
  

I now return you to the right here and now, July 2nd 2008. Definitely 2005 LA & 1930 Germany next. Maybe summer 1955? Hollywood 1980s. Jamaica in 1962. France in 2000. I can never decided when or where we are. Throw out your calendars!

Hump Day Hottie: Kathleen Turner

A movie cliché I've never understood: people tearing off each other's clothing in a moment of passion. Don't waste perfectly good clothing, people. Wouldn't you rather unbutton swiftly when the mood strikes? Than you can use the garment again. Conserve.

A movie absurdity I totally understand...


William Hurt smashing his way through a plate glass window to get into Kathleen Turner's skirt in Body Heat (1981). Damn straight.

Kathleen Turner is on my brain...

and not just for the usual 80s nostalgia reasons (she remains my favorite actress from the 80s whose initials aren't MS or MP). She's on my brain because of a freelance article I am working on for another site --I'll link up when it goes live but I think you'll love --and because I am desperate to get my hands around a copy of Send Yourself Roses, her autobiography in which she disses all sorts of people who have no business still being famous. If I have to smash through the windows of Barnes & Noble tomorrow to get one, I will. I could be sensible and order it online but in moments of passion, who can think straight?

previous 'Hump Day Hotties'
Russell "H.W." Harvard , Carice Van Houten is a star and Beautiful Decay of Helena Bonham-Carter
*

The Good. The Bad. The Ugly (Even More Thoughts on the Oscar Noms)

The Good
1. Lots of first-timers. Good to have the Academy getting new blood in there. They obviously need it.

2. As far as former winners go: Really happy to see William Hurt return to Oscar's former warm embrace after a 18 year dry spell. I saw it coming... but chickened out but two days before nominations in predicting it.

3. Pride & Prejudice did reasonably well. Yay.

4. Ubiquitous and pushy campaigns paid off for some of the deserving people (Amy Adams!) but not for all of the undeserving (Cinderella Man)

5. Best Animated Feature actually ignored the big studio CG and went for the actual three best animated films. Imagine it!

The Bad
1. Munich survived the ho-hum screening reactions indicating that that pre-ordained status will --more often than not (see also Gangs of New York) get you past a lot of troubling reactions. People often do vote "how they're supposed to." Not that Munich is a bad film or anything. But definitely not one of the 5 most well regarded or one of the five most beloved or one of the five most successful. So what exactly is it doing here?

2. Neither of my two favorite female performances made it. Joan Allen's snub you can blame on the Globes. They killed off her momentum to honor, Charlizzzzzzzzz. What --oh. Sorry. Excuse me for slobbering on the pillow. I nodded off. Maria Bello's is harder to explain. It's the second very visible cold-shouldering from the AMPAS voters.

The Ugly
1. I don't know any other way to put this so sorry for the vulgarity
[ahem] --when will the composing branch ever get tired of sucking John Williams dick? You'd think the slavish and excessive generosity/worship would get embarrassing for them once in awhile. NOBODY and I do mean nobody (not Brando. not Streep. not Almodovar. not Sandy Powell. not Edith Head. not anyone --no matter how brilliant) deserves an Oscar nomination every year of their career. And nobody else gets one every year of their career. It's an impossibility that you can be the best for your entire life on every assignment that you take. Blech. And he's hogging 40% of the Score category. AGAIN. I feel sick. If he had any decency he would personally remove his genitals from their insatiable mouths and ask to be ineligible from here on out (a la Bill Cosby back in the Emmy days for The Cosby Show) because they clearly are out of control in their wild-eared lust for him. (If you're not sick of this rant yet by some strange happenstance--there's even MORE over at the site --because sometimes I can't shut up. It's less vulgar though.)

2. No David Cronenberg. This has to be their most egregious error this year. And he even campaigned! Some people are just too talented for middlebrow Oscar recognition. Ah, well. His films are their own rewards.

Now, YOU play along:
Name ONE thing in each category: GOOD, BAD, UGLY in the comments section.

Body Heat (1981)

Though I know it impolite or even near-heretical to bag on LA Confidential, as a noir it always struck me as too soft-hearted. For all of its technical merits --and, my but that picture is intoxicating to look at-- the demands of the genre seem to require a bleaker worldview than its happy-ending and femme nonfatale could provide. My preferred modern color noir revival (post-Chinatown) is not this 1997 Best Picture nominee. I'll take the jet black heart of Lawrence Kasdan's Double Indemnity riff, Body Heat (1981) instead.

For uninitiated younger viewers who know Kathleen Turner only from her thicker days on Broadway and supporting roles in films like The Virgin Suicides or William Hurt from tiny supporting bits in The Village or A History of Violence, Kasdan's unrepentantly dark thriller will be a complete jaw-dropper. Both stars were major sex symbols of the 80s and that's largely due to their erotic potency in this fine film. It's not even a hyperbolic stretch to call their mashup one of the hottest pairings the cinema ever witnessed.

But even if their sexual chemistry weren't as legendary as it is the film is strong. The dialogue snaps and crackles. It even alarms with its blunt near-pornographic invitation. The screenplay too is well calibrated to deliver twists and turns aplenty. The tech contributions help you feel the heat with air-conditioners on the fritz and temperatures / libidos blazing. Finally, the actors really sell it. You'll see famous faces from Ted Danson to Mickey Rourke in the background. But it is Kathleen Turner, in one of the most confident film debuts of all time, who steals the movie. This is a performer to reckon with. It's easy while watching Body Heat to be transported back to a time, not so long ago, when Ms. Turner was known as "the definitive female box office commodity" and compared (flatteringly!) to Stanwyck and Garbo.

Previous Editions of Classic Movie of the Week : (for those just joining us) Coming Home (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), The Women (1939), and They Shoot Horses Don't They? (1969). Previous Turner-Enthusiastic Post: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway.

A History of Violence

The first couple of minutes in David Cronenberg's new film, A History of Violence , are deceptively slow. The camera shows two men leaving a hotel room in the middle of nowhere. The scene is so lethargic that neither the camera nor the men seem to be moving at all. Despite the stillness, a sinking feeling sets in: These men are violent. When the camera crawls forward to confirm the audience's worst suspicions a gun is sickeningly and slowly drawn. Still and quiet as the scene may be, it feels like an explosion. The movie has only just begun. The filmmaker hasn't even broken a sweat yet.

From the unsettling credit sequence we head into more serene pastures. The film introduces us to the leisurely small-town lives of the family Stall. The husband (Viggo Mortenson) runs a local coffee shop. The wife (Maria Bello) is a lawyer. They have two children and an apparently healthy marriage -- we're soon privy to one of cinema's most casually adult sex scenes. It's intimate, filled with teen-age enthusiasm, and quite passionate. That it will be inverted later to cast new revealing light on the Stall marriage is perfectly representative of the film as a whole. However simple A History of Violence may at first appear, it is constantly revealing itself, rewarding close viewing.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, it's best to go into the film knowing very little beyond this very basic setup. The only narrative certainty, telegraphed by the very first moments, is that we are not in safe territory, no matter how idyllic the following Americana may appear. Slowly and methodically Cronenberg will tighten the screws on the Stall family. Violence will erupt. And as with the aforementioned sex scene, doubled or mirrored sequences and characters will arrive. It's a terrifically plotted thriller, keeping us off balance and challenging our previously held notions about the characters and story.

Cronenberg's amazingly assured direction, never forced or unclear despite constantly shifting ground and complicated agendas is aided immeasurably by a cast operating at the top of their game. Maria Bello is electric (not to mention sensually stunning) as the strong wife whose life is turned inside out. Ed Harris and William Hurt both stun and surprise in attention-getting supporting roles. Ashton Holmes, who plays the teenage son, is believably cast and moving. And finally, there is Viggo Mortenson. If anyone has ever been more perfectly cast than he is here as Tom Stall, I haven't seen the film. His performance is the tricky switch on which this entire History flips. His star turn is a master class in minimalism and exactly what the movie needs at every juncture.

Cronenberg's usual stable of collaborators are also on hand doing fine work. Unfortunately, like Cronenberg himself, they are so confident in their craft that they often escape critical or award notice. There is no heavy breathing, for instance, in the cinematography of Peter Suschitzky (six films with Cronenberg), just terrifically composed and mood-enhancing work. Editor Ronald Sanders (thirteen films with the director) also does exemplary work here; the pacing and coherency of the complicated story structure are top-notch. And speaking of... though David Cronenberg often writes his own features, this time he is working with a new collaborator. It was a wise move: Josh Olson's screenplay is a sensational adaptation of a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke.

Though American movies are rife with violence, few filmmakers actually pause to consider what the violence they display actually means or where it leads, if it means anything at all to them -- that is, beyond its ability to enthrall audiences -- and if it leads anywhere at all -- that is, beyond the next plot point. A decade ago Oliver Stone explored our capacity to celebrate bloodlust and idolize criminals in Natural Born Killers but the movie stumbled with the hypocrisies bound in its form and content. More recently Michael Moore had a large documentary success with Bowling for Columbine which built a case about the climate of fear adding to American violence statistics, another media indictment. Rare is the filmmaker who eschews the media connection (an easy target?) altogether to go this deep or this intimately into the heart of the violence inside of us. (Though the abstract concept of "the media" does make an appearance in A History of Violence, it is mere narrative blip and of no larger concern to the film at hand.) Here every punch, gunshot, slap, indeed any act of agression carries with it repercussions, madness, psychic damage and, of course, more violence. Every hit stings.

Even if one ignores the gripping undercurrents, A History of Violence functions expertly well as a movie-movie. Many moviegoers will love it without examining its thematic beauty. That it thrills as a pure thriller while also building a subversively flexible allegory is a testament to the true artistry of the thing. Whether History is read as a statement on mankind's penchant for violence, American territorialism and agression, or the American family, it simply works. If there was any doubt as to Cronenberg's mastery of the craft, working as he often does in less respected genres, they should be all but annihilated by this stunning film event. A History of Violence is a major work -- accomplished, deceptively simple, and entirely unnerving. 
A