The ascendance of the stuttering king and Oscar's perceived instantaneous regression into the mottled pastures of White Elephant Cinema (how quickly we forget The Reader) has rendered some of our most reliable barometers speechless. Suddenly, the movie no one wanted to pay attention to became the movie all your friends and relatives who see two movies a year have seen and just know is the best picture of the year. What can one say in the face of that? Even dependable crank Armond White, who had been working himself up a pretty good head of anti-Social Network steam leading up to an Ingracious Basterd-worthy final snit as MC of the New York Film Critics Circle awards, has been more or less reticent in the wake of The King's Speech's dozen proofs in support of the theory that dusty linens, not bloody tourniquets and certainly not hackers' grease-stained pizza boxes, are the fabric that holds Oscar together. And why shouldn't he remain mum? There's no one this year to disabuse of the notion that Oscars actually matter. Continue Reading »
For Annette Bening, it seemed as if the stars in the Oscar sky had finally aligned into a shape that wasn't that of Hilary Swank's face. For her fine performance in Lisa Chodolenko's Showtime-y The Kids Are All Right, the actress was a frontrunner for this award since Sundance last year, and nothing seemed capable of pussyblocking her on the way to the Oscar podium. Then came the pitter patter of Black Swan's balletic feet. Darren Aronofsky's casually, if cluelessly, homophobic and misogynistic melodrama, after receiving mixed notices at Venice and Toronto, struck a chord with American critics and audiences, and the rest was not only box office history, but a repeat of the same old Oscar story. For being young, having a nice ass, showing us every frayed nerve in her character's body, but little else, and indulging in the sort of gay sex that only a gay person could have a problem with, Natalie Portman so perfectly embodies the spirit of this award that few are entertaining the possibility of an upset at this point. I won't either, because I'm not sure Bening, for all of her class and industry cred, can complete with the sort of effusive passion chronic masturbators fans of Black Swan have for all of the blood, sweat, and tears Portman poured into the project, though if truth be told, does it really matter who gets it? Whichever way it goes, the category's best performance still gets the shaft.
I see no reason why this entry need be any longer than Ed's post yesterday, the one about how his post predicting Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor needn't be any longer than his curt prediction for Heath Ledger in the same category for 2008. Though it doesn't hurt that this is the only category the once (and probably not future) Best Picture frontrunner doesn't face off against The King's Speech, Aaron Sorkin's screenplay for The Social Network would've been a pretty sure bet even if it was the movie's only nomination, because his dialogue consistently makes everyone in the cast hyperventilate.
Not sure there's much more to say here than I did two years back ago when I called this for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight except that this is probably one of two categories where The King's Speech most deserves to win. Christian Bale, for eating, regurgitating, then shooting up The Fighter's scenery, has lapped up nearly every supporting actor accolade since the start of the awards season. Oscar loves a showboater, and unlike his co-star Melissa Leo, Bale seems to have kept the drama on screen. I'm not sure the momentum he's mustered can be toppled, even by some slightly unhinged awards speeches that suggest playing Dicky Eklund wasn't exactly a stretch for the actor—though we knew that already from the way Bale talks to his mother. I know, it's been less than a month since industry awards revealed that The Social Network was probably never our Best Picture frontrunner, but even then the only honor Geoffrey Rush has wrestled from an unkempt Bale's twitchy fingers, not counting SAG's ensemble award, was a prize from the Central Ohio Film Critics Association. Oscar loves a saint, but in the supporting categories at least, they love losers even more.
Even though AMPAS's decision last year to widen the Best Picture field to 10 nominees was an obvious publicity stunt, a means of boosting the Oscar telecast's ratings share by ensuring that more than one box office cash cow would compete for Oscar's top prize, we were optimistic that a few legitimately off-the-beaten-path treasures would somehow manage to enter the race. But we know how that turned out, and though we doubt things will pan out differently in this more middlebrow-embracing year, at least we're going to be spared the endless chatter about how so-and-so film can't win the Oscar because of its poor box office. And to give you just one example of how much money means to the corrupt Oscar race: By Tuesday morning, the bulk of the dozen or so films with a legitimate shot at a Best Picture nomination will have made in excess of $75 million each. To give you another: The only ones among those dozen or so films that anyone is even talking about possibly not making the cut (127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, and Winter's Bone) are the ones that will never make that much money even after you've added together their domestic and foreign box office and video receipts. Continue Reading »
All season long, two prominent Oscar players have straddled the uncomfortable line between aligning with the supporting and leading categories. One appeared in approximately two-thirds of her film's running time, most of it not merely the center of attention but arguably the black hole of attention; her handlers gunned for a Best Actress nomination, no doubt confident that "female lead in Mike Leigh's newest film" translates to instant Oscar buzz. The other appeared in all but the final three or four minutes of her film (when an older actress took over the role for a "30 years later"-style coda), but admittedly spent significant chunks of that running time making room for her male costar's grizzled, drunken antics; her handlers pushed her for a Supporting Actress berth. Both won various awards and nominations in their chosen categories, but now all the buzz surrounding these two particular races is whether the latter, Hailee Steinfeld, can pull off a Keisha Castle-Hughes miracle, which we now believe she can. All the while, virtually no one even mentions the name of the former, who would've probably been a slam dunk if she'd switched category allegiance. The hard lesson for Another Year's almost certain also-ran Lesley Manville to learn from this: Don't you dare, even when both the relative centrality and overtly showy nature of your role would justify the placement, stiff up in class when you could just as easily slum. Manville will be punished for daring to do the right thing, whereas True Grit's Steinfeld will be doubtlessly rewarded—and, we think, in the correct category—for feigning modesty about her chances among the big girls. Of course, it doesn't hurt that youth helps in Oscar's distaff categories—a double-edged sword which only actually cuts those who play women who openly lust after men 10 to 15 years younger than themselves. Continue Reading »
At least three of the spots in Oscar's supporting actress category have been sewn up since the start of the awards season—one for triple-A method actress and Golden Globe-winner Melissa Leo in The Fighter, a second for her costar and possible Oscar-night spoiler Amy Adams, the around-the-way alpha to Leo's Medea-like omega, with Helena Bonham Carter happy to be riding shotgun for her piffle of a performance in The King's Speech, wondering if her winsome solicitation of Geoffrey Rush's services for her king of a husband, or her winsome intake of stammer-proofing breath, will constitute her likely nanosecond-length Oscar clip. By most accounts, True Grit's Hailee Steinfeld is also a lock, but like everyone else, we have to ask, "In which category?" Continue Reading »
Javier Bardem, Heath Ledger, Christoph Waltz. Though the template for winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar these days seems to require leaving a body count inversely proportional to the average age of a typical Best Actress winner, this year's slate of contenders indicates voters are ready to see the men behind the monsters. The prime case in point: Andrew Garfield's turn as The Social Network's spurned and spat-upon baby entrepreneur Eduardo Saverin, which has glided past Justin Timberlake's showier antics as Napster-teer Sean Parker and Armie Hammer's equally compelling double dip as the Winklevii twins to emerge as the sole boy from his film's well-tanked fraternity to contend here—especially on the strength of his Golden Globe nod. Okay, he does pull a sick, Joker-worthy stunt on a chicken, but off screen. Otherwise, David Fincher devotes most of Garfield's screen time to chopping onions under his big, brown puppy-dog eyes. (Never mind reports that the man he represents on screen is reportedly nearly as misrepresented as Mark Zuckerberg, in the precise opposite direction.) Continue Reading »
I hate hotshots. According to the movies I got out to see, 2010 was yet another parade of hotshots behind the camera, emboldened by mastery of new, completely superfluous technologies (I don't give a damn what camera you shot on—not if the mechanical, pre-determined results might as well have been captured on an old Mitchell 35mm camera) and agitated by market demands into ever more efficient, bottom-line modes of production (prediction: new Academy Award categories for Best Workflow and Fastest Turnaround). Many critics love hotshots. Hotshots appear to have their shit together. They may not tell stories in any truly memorable or honest way, but their speed, Tinkertoy complexity and relentlessness almost look like grace and agility when you're desperate for a thrill. I love slobs. Movies with their greasy shirttail sticking out. Ol' Dirty Bastard, not Kanye West. We have to stop rewarding slickness and boldness for their own sake. We have to re-learn the visual language and emotional acuity that all these hotshots are too business-adroit to be bothered with. Or else we're doomed. Okay, this rundown of 2010 flicks emphasizes what I suspect the directors were up to. It's still a director's medium, you know, despite the growing sensation that "director" now means "savvy producer type with sparkling credit and advanced software skills."
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.
A long-awaited Pentagon report on the impact of lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military was released today. In a surprise to no one except for John McCain, the study argues that gay troops could serve openly without hurting the military's ability to fight.
Starting sometime today, you can preview a track from Let England Shake, the forthcoming album from the greatest living female musician.
House contributor John Lingan on his relationship with Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, then and now.
Anne Hathaway and James Franco are cool actors. Now they're Oscar hosts. Gross.
In more tasteful awards news, Debra Granik's Winter's Boneowned the Gotham Awards last night.
Dennis Lim reviews Lisandro Alonso's Liverpool, now on DVD from Kino International, for the Los Angeles Times.
Patti Smith interviews Johnny Depp for Vanity Fair.
Saul Austerlitz on Jonathan Rosenbaum's Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephillia.
Is this a threat? Richard Kelly has written an animated prequel to Southland Tales.
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.
Are you one of those sick fucks who likes to make a spectacle of your offspring every Halloween? Check out Best Week Ever's Creepiest Baby Halloween Costumes for 50 new ways to do so. (Our favorite: Lobster Baby, followed closely by Baby Lady Gaga.)
Thomas Harlan passed away over the weekend. The filmmaker, novelist, and playwright was 81.
Links for the Day: A collection of links to items that we hope will spark discussion. We encourage our readers to submit candidates for consideration to ed@slantmagazine.com and to converse in the comments section.
I spent a few years in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I love Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek, so I was eager to see Get Low in spite of a trailer that looked sappy and sanctimonious. Duvall plays Felix, an old coot who's been holed up in a log cabin in East Tennessee for decades. He's nursing a secret that half the people in the county, including his old girlfriend (Spacek), would love to hear. The twist is that Felix is planning his own funeral, which he wants to host while he's alive so he can hear the stories people have been making up about him. That's something I'd pay to see, though I didn't have to thanks to a press screening last night (it opens in two weeks).
Get Low wanders off and gets temporarily lost in a couple dead ends (is Felix really near death or not? What are his plans for that casket full of cash that he makes the funeral director keep for him?), but the story I just laid out, which you get from the trailer, is basically the whole movie. And it would have been plenty, if only I could have believed that these people would have behaved in that way. Continue Reading »
Coming up in this column:I Am Love; Winter's Bone; Video Slut: How I Shoved Madonna off an Olympic High Dive, Got Prince into a Pair of Tiny Purple Woolen Underpants, Ran Away from Michael Jackson's Dad, and Got a Waterfall to Flow Backwards so I Could Bring Rock Videos to the Masses (book); This is Korea!; The Desert Rats; Hot in Cleveland; Some Summer 2010 Television, but first…
Fan mail: If you read #48 right after its posting, you may have missed an interesting comment on it from Ed Sikov. He's the author of On Sunset Boulevard, the great Billy Wilder biography I mentioned in the item on Stalag 17. I said in the column that Sikov had not told us what Wilder thought of the TV series Hogan's Heroes, which bore a more than passing resemblance to Wilder's film. Sikov commented that he did not include that because he never got to interview Wilder for the book. His description in his comments of meeting Wilder later is worth going back and looking at.
I suppose I picked up while reading his book that he had not interviewed Wilder (he mentions it in the Preface), but I had forgotten it in the twelve years since his book came out. His book is so good and so thoroughly researched that it does not make any difference. This goes to a point I have made about this column before: there are a lot of ways to understand screenwriting. You will notice sometimes I have quotes from the writers. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I discuss producers' contributions, both good and bad, to screenplays. Sometimes I will discuss studios and networks and their part in the collaborative process. What I try to do in the column, and what Sikov does brilliantly in his book, is gather as great a variety of information as we can and organize it in ways that will educate and entertain readers. If you have any interest in Wilder, you probably have already read Sikov's book. If you haven't read it, it really is required reading. Continue Reading »
MacGruber (Jorma Taccone). You might think a full-length feature about MacGruber, Will Forte's bumbling '80s action hero, would feel at least an hour too long. Even Steven Carrell couldn't lift his lumbering feature about Maxwell Smart, the '60s version of MacGruber, off the ground—but maybe he needed Jorma Taccone at the controls.
Saturday Night Life actor/writer/director Taccone, one of the three guys who does those funny videos with Andy Samberg (he also shot a lot of the MacGruber shorts for SNL and is the man behind a Pepsi ad for the Super Bowl), has great sense of comic timing and a deep and gleeful knowledge of comedy conventions and pop-culture icons. In the Q&A after the film, he revealed that he loves late-'80s/early-'90s action movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon and Rambo 3 ("not one or two or four—though four is pretty great too"), and that he and his cast intended their movie to be more of a comic tribute than a spoof.
You probably have to love those movies to embrace this one fully, but for those of us who do, it makes for a wildly entertaining night at the movies. Action movie clichés, like the way people keep telling MacGruber, "I thought you were dead!," are given just the right emphasis. You laugh at the dick jokes and gay jokes too, partly because they're cathartic, surfacing and then blowing up all the unacknowledged homoerotic machismo that fuels those movies, but also because Forte does blustery incompetence so well and the editors always know just where to cut. And Michael Bay has taken things so far that you pretty much have to chase your bad guy off a cliff, fire two big guns at him as he goes down, and reduce him to a blackened hole in the ground at the bottom of a canyon if you're going for laughs. This movie also has the funniest sex scene since the South Park movie with the puppets. Continue Reading »
MacGruber (Jorma Taccone). You might think a full-length feature about MacGruber, Will Forte's bumbling '80s action hero, would feel at least an hour too long. Even Steven Carrell couldn't lift his lumbering feature about Maxwell Smart, the '60s version of MacGruber, off the ground—but maybe he needed Jorma Taccone at the controls.
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