This is the thread where we discuss matters pertaining to the detrius that accompanies the "End of the Year in Cinema" -- 2007

Then there are these.

It's going to take a committed effort to wait until December to start this thread from here on out.

Apparently, I'm ready to end the year before it even started for me.

Eric - did you get the webmail i sent you?

i am a big fan of the frames, but i wouldn't have much interest in once.

i can't say that i saw any particular memorable movies this year that were made this year.

Yep, it worked. I will write you back later today.

That my top 3 most memorable "movies" of the year were each about two minutes long -- the three Grindhouse trailers -- is my movie year in a nutshell.

good stuff.

i pretty much agree w/ darraghmac. the only thing i loved from 2007 was INLAND EMPIRE even though i found swathes of it very flawed. my highlight of the year was definitely the new print of Distant Voices, Still Lives.

"Away from Her" was easily my least favourite film of the year.

xpost

2007 stands out as a year that i used to catch up on movies that i really should have seen before and didn't.

last night was serpico with a pizza. the other option was stardust. easy really.

next week- dirty harries, maybe french connections again. i'm in a hard boiled 70's cop place right now.

i'd watch stardust over serpico!

it may come to that yet, my local video store isn't all that.

There are five films that loom very large for me:

INLAND EMPIRE
Into The Wild (which I saw last night am still sort of shaking from)
The Namesake
The Science Of Sleep (wasn't released in the UK till this year)
The Heartbreak Kid (I am probably alone here, but I don't get why. So much more interesting than all those Judd Apatow gang comedies)

i am a big fan of the frames, but i wouldn't have much interest in once.

This is beserk. His awful music was the thing that spoiled Once for me. If you like The Frames, you should definitely see it.

I'll go and see Anna M. next week, which I hardly know anything about, but which for some reason I have a funny, positive feeling about making my favourites of the year. 2007 has been a really great year for me. So many films made such a deep impression on me.

2007 may end up going down as the year 1990s auteurism went down hard. I skipped theatrical showings of new movies from David Fincher, Wes Anderson, David Cronenberg, et al.

Industry crisis!

went down hard for YOU, blogger-in-exile!

I was 'chuffed,' as our Brit friends say, that I wasn't allowed to vote for Killer of Sheep, but that Inland, a 2006 work, made the Stylus list 2 years in a row.

also, I steered clear of Once even before Eric dissed it, bcz someone wrote it's "the film equivalent of a John Mayer song, but that's not a bad thing."

Hey, I blogged a couple weeks ago and might again before the end of the month.

thx; one gets out of the habit of checking!

Better, but even I'm surprised by Children Of Men at #2.

ugh, not better. Forget my disgust at Before Sunset & Y Tu Mama -- I like You Can Count on Me, but one of the decade's best???

Also, they screwed Munich in the scoring.

How so?

I guess I merely meant that Mulholland isn't a totally embarassing #1 like Once.

Dr Morbius, "chuffed" means "pleased", you know?

just the reverse of what I'd remembered in my morning coma; thx, Alba. Pissed, then (the US meaning).

jaymc did the math on the Stylus scoring, I should have put it in a LOL thread. (in brief, it was on 2 lists including a #1)

Jed has stolen my thoughts upthread re: Inland Empire and Distant Voices - by a mile my two cinematic highlights of 07.

Too many films I haven't seen and will likely catch on DVD – that's why I didn't vote in the Stylus thread. Away From Her and ....Barley are two faves, but hardly top five material.

From that Stylus thing:

take your crush to see Once. Just remember to thank me when you’re rounding third base.

Ew. What was that he was saying about cynicism?

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

"When you're rounding third base, think of me!"

THE David Holmes?

Death Proof but not Planet Terror = List Can Eat Its Own Ass

With Death Proof it’s different, because I just don’t think while it’s on.

evidently!

from the Variety article:

"2007 was an incredibly strong year for independent film," said Michelle Byrd, exec director of IFP. "Ranging from the small gems produced on micro-budgets to extraordinary films from specialty divisions, the nominees all share the type of creative vision and risk-taking that are a hallmark of independent film."

I prefer to round third base after Fight Club.

Giving my credit paydowns and Hollywood and indieland's piss-poor 21st-century track records, I am going to repertory and museum fare more than ever.

oh, those daredevil conglomerate specialty divisions

http://animatedtv.about.com/library/graphics/ralph.jpg

Yay! I'm a specialty division!

Thanks to speciality divisions, we'll NEVER miss a little sunshine.

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/MMPO/MyBigFatGreekWedding.jpg

no one wants to bet vs. Once securing that Little Sacchaine Pill That Could best picture nomination, right?

I wasn't mad about Once but I don't think it's fair to call it saccharine.

If we're talking Oscar predictions, Hal Holbrook in Into The Wild looks odds-on to win best supporting actor. He deserves it, too.

yeah, he should've won for Wild in the Streets.

i saw one of those wild on! specials, i didn't think the acting was that good in it.

Alba, looking forward to seeing "Into The Wild" - i wasn't sure if i was going to check it out but i definitely will now.

Stevie T - i'm so glad we agree!

I like You Can Count on Me, but one of the decade's best???

Yes.

I've seen practically nothing this year but am hoping to catch up soon. I think I'm gonna see Before the Devil Knows Your Dead on Friday. And Away From Her is sitting atop my DVD player, waiting for me.

[You're]

There is nothing that has even the whiff of innovative/adventurous cinematic tehnique in YCCoMe, which disqualifies it from that level of praise. It's the old "film-imitates-lit-fiction" template.

i saw before the devil... last night. god i hate ethan hawke.

I agree with everything in your post, Dr. Morbius, except "which disqualifies it from that level of praise." I found the acting marvelous.

I usu hate Hawke too, but less so when he plays rogues -- Hamlet, the guy in Tape. I'll be seeing that Lumet Monday it seems.

no one wants to bet vs. Once securing that Little Sacchaine Pill That Could best picture nomination, right?

I predicted that a couple months ago, stopped a month ago when I realized how completely, irreparably insignificant the movie is, and am now back to predicting it again.

Spielberg said he loves it.

LOL

Yeah, but ... there's crap-looking of the Little Miss Sunshine variety and crap-looking of the Once variety. The latter makes dogme movies look like Vincente Minnelli.

There is nothing that has even the whiff of innovative/adventurous cinematic tehnique in YCCoMe, which disqualifies it from that level of praise.

small-minded bullshit

WHITHER THE RACK FOCUS?!

Jed - I'm hestitant to recommend Into The Wild to anyone, because I can easily see how it might put many viewers' backs up.

sorry croupier, if something's one of the best ten FILMS of the last 8 years I expect it to be FILMIC, not a conventional narrative Rex Reed can follow while texting Lauren Bacall.

I can easily see how it might put many viewers' backs up.

These are the only films I feel like recommending.

Alba, i basically agree with Morbius. whether i like it or not i'm very interested in seeing it. i won't hold it against you if i loathe it.

it got the main review in Sight & Sound fwiw. i haven't read it yet though.

what's a detrius?

I expect it to be FILMIC, not a conventional narrative

Why are these two opposed?

Also, I thought your point was not that YCCOM is a conventional narrative as much as the fact that it doesn't take advantage of it being a film rather than a book or a play. (Books and plays can have unconventional narratives, too.)

I'm not bothered by the conventional narrative, nor by the failure to take advantage of the medium. If it were a play, I'd probably love it, too. But it's not. Am I to fault it just because Lonergan decided to put it on celluloid instead of on a stage?

I'm not BOTHERED by it either, John (and that IS what I meant by conventional). I think the Stylus list preferring it as a decade-definer to Wong kar-Wai, Tsai, Chereau, Panahi, Aoyama, Gondry, Maddin, George Washington, The Virgin Suicides, Inland Empire or Kung Fu Hustle is where the "filmic" criterion should enter the picture.

you must regurgitate the correct arthouse cliches in order to be filmic, you know.

reminds me of huston complaining about how time magazine used to have a "best shot in the movie" part of the review and it was always something like a shot of someone reflected in a door handle.

trolling begins 5 hours in.

5.5 hours too late

Main Entry:
film·ic Listen to the pronunciation of filmic
Pronunciation:
\ˈfil-mik\
Function:
adjective
Date:
circa 1930

: of, relating to, or resembling motion pictures

I guess when I think of what films can achieve that books or plays can't, it's less a matter of narrative and more of a matter of visual techniques: cinematography and editing. Although I suppose that editing may make unconventional narratives more fluid and immediate than they would be in another medium.

defining the best examples of an artform by what it can do "better" than other artforms ignores a fuckload of what an artform can do. also inspires people to use redundant adjectives in all caps to describe their criteria. this marienbad shit got debunked 40 years ago so sorry if I sound trollish about it.

what's a detrius?

You know, like a running joke.

I love this thread already. I should always start them sooner, so that they don't immediately get bogged down in Atonement and Michael Clayton purgatory.

You Can Count On Me would have been a fucking banal short story, so Lonergan gets major points for finding the right medium.

So, I'm sorry, where was Munich supposed to be in the master list: above or below the Lonergan?

no mags gonna have The Ten in their top ten so fuck em

this marienbad shit got debunked 40 years ago

elaborate please

I understand the writers strike is affecting awards season screenings or something like that.

Are the writers branch (is the writers branch?) obligated to not nominate screenplays if, come Oscar time, the strike is still on?

elaborate please

Marienbad held to a higher standard than well-made American junk because it starred people speaking foreign languages and had cool cinematography.

this marienbad shit got debunked 40 years ago

elaborate please

I'm a big ol' fan of "Circles & Squares" by Pauline Kael. It's in her I Lost It At The Movies book if you haven't read it.

It basically tears Sarris and auteur theory (as it stood in the 60s, when it meant more than "directors are cool") a couple new cornholes.

Pauline Kael was a fine writer and a reverse snob. Never reviewed a Fassbinder film.

jaymc, with the same actors it would've been just as good a stage play.

xp

no Eric, way down. Cruel Winter Blues got a single #1 only and is 12th overall.

have you read 'circles & squares' morbs?

Maybe someone thought there were already too many American movies on the list?

I like a lot of the shorter reviews toward the end of I Lost It At The Movies (I think there was an appendix there, right?). Kael should've maybe considered devoting more energy to capsule reviews.

5001 Nights At the Movies condenses most of the long pieces into capsules.

nah, that's a different book. Her capsule reviews are great (I have a beaten up copy of 1001 nights at the movies) but I wish I'd see a dis that actually implies the person has actually considered her opinions rather than flinched when they saw she didn't like 8 1/2.

x-post, obv

xp Eric

or jaymc's theory, the Spielberg Quota of One.

I have no idea, croupier. I read a bunch of the collected book stuff in the '70s and '80s. Is that the "come dressed as the Sick Soul of Europe" piece?

So, of the few films I've seen so far this year, I'd say Day Night Day Night gets my "bipolar ambivalence of the year" award, where I can't seem to decide whether I like it a lot more or a lot less than I suspect. Previous winners of this award are Anatomy of Hell and The Notebook.

kiss kiss bang bang is the book with the appendix.

nah, sick soul deals with marienbad itself, but i was talking about her essay about people who say movies should be more filmic.

jaymc, with the same actors it would've been just as good a stage play.

Are you talking to me or Alfred? Because I mostly agree, but I also don't fault it for that. As I said before, just because it's on film doesn't make the script or the performances any less appealing.

(Although one thing that it would lose as a play is the spontaneity of Mark Ruffalo swatting a bug away from his face on the back porch. Or Laura Linney silently, happily waving at him from behind the restaurant window: on a stage, you'd lose the sense of separation in this image.)

If it's really a one-per-director thing, I have no problem ditching Munich for A.I. ...

Yeah, KKBB, then. I wasn't really talking about the condensed long form ones but the ones, rather, it appeared she really did write to be short.

there are good movies that could be good plays and bad movies that could be good plays. being a good play doesn't mean its a bad movie.

or vice versa. Network is like a great play turned into a so-so movie

clip from a different essay, but gives you the vibe

http://keepingmybrainalive.blogspot.com/2006/09/is-there-cure-for-film-criticism-or.html

(And I didn't mean the short reviews thing to be a dis. I am, after all, the resident De Palma nut who thinks her Dressed To Kill review is among the finest pieces of single-film criticism evah.)

(so croupier, was I reading Kael before you were a gleam in yr parents' eyes?)

my "bipolar ambivalence of the year" award wd possibly go to Colossal Youth -- did that make it to Mpls?

jmc, I only saw YCCoMe once, I'll have to pass on that level of detail. I only said it's not in the top 10 of the decade, fer Godsakes. It's very good!

Hey I'M the DePalma nut, buddy!

Film aestheticians are forever telling us that when they have discovered what the motion picture can do that the other arts can't do, they have discovered the "essence," the "true nature" of motion picture art. It is like the old nonsense that man is what differentiates him from the other animals . . . And what motion picture art shares with other arts is perhaps even more important than what it may, or may not, have exclusively. . . Except for the physical presence of the actors in a theater, there is almost no "difference" between stage and screen that isn't open to question; there is almost no effect possible in one that can't be simulated, and sometimes remarkably well achieved, in the other.

Who started this divide and conquer game of aesthetics in which the different media are assigned their special domains like salesmen staking out their territories - you stick to the Midwest and I'll take Florida?

for those who haven't read it and are interested, there's also this

this recording of Pauline Kael delivering a talk at (get this) San Fernando Valley State College sometime in 1963 does closely follow her essay Circles and Squares

Yep, Colossal Youth screened ... the week I was in Philly and N.Y.

oops! btw I have a lotta work to do today, so damn you for starting this...

(x-post) Awesome! That Charlie Parker blog also had that wonderful catty symposium with Kael, MacDonald and Simon too!

I'm staying out of the film vs. theater debate. I like that Godard rattled off a list of directors who could be considered in debt (in a positive sense) to various other arts. Of course, he was doing so in service of raging auteurism and leading up to the whole "Nicholas Ray IS CINEMA!!" thing.

I won't even mention a certain melancholy Swede.

yeah, apparently in Sweden IB is considered a better theatre director.

xp

jeez, I have a lot to listen to when I go to CT for T'giving.

I like theatrical elements of film too, and wasn't trying to set up a "vs." Count just didn't get under my skin the way it should've if it was a great film, thus my brows rose when I saw it on that list.

Linklater and effing Tu Mama got under my skin badly.

cuz they were more filmic?

"You know, like a running joke."

i thought it was. thanks!

xp

cuz they showed heterosexuality at its worst.

Anyway, gentlemen, we can't fight about the decade in here! this is the '07 thread!

You'll have to explain that one.

You want embarrassing depictions of het behavior? Try The Notebook.

I will admit that the first time or two I used "detrius," I wasn't actually aware I'd misspelled it.

So you liked The Simpsons Movie that much, huh Mobrs?

I laughed a lot, but everything after #3 is just a "B" elevated by my underwhelmed filmlog.

also, the first 2 reviews at my new outlet -- average rating: 0.75 star

weirdly enough, I'm going to be helping to contribute to the year-end music feature (at least in the singles capacity) at your new outlet this year, not movies

singles. what a concept.

Seriously, I'm worried a PR firm is going to ban me from screenings. I'm going to start walking like Peter O'Toole in Ratatouille.

Dr. M's "new outlet" = Sl@nt?

Morbs' Slant review of What Would Jesus Do is a polished compendium of his remarks on the 2008 prez thread.

This audio of Kael taking down Sarris is ... not quite as enjoyably bitchy as the symposium with MacDonald/Simon. It's sort of odd to listen to, actually, since she arguably succumbed to a lot of the stuff she complained about here.

kael is an okay controversialist but not really someone worth arguing with about film form.

mind you, i have no idea how chereau gets into morb's list of cinematic innovators.

I don't know why I'm posting on this thread exactly but here are the best movies I remember seeing this year:

Assassination of Jesse James etc.
Inland Empire
Knocked Up
Ratatouille
Zodiac

xp

he doesn't have to be an innovator, just closer to one than... whoever directed You Can Count on Me.

that's alphabetically, but shift Knocked Up to the bottom and the list is conveniently in order of preference.

oh, Lonergan directed as well as wrote. I thought he might've, then didn't.

and for you extreme fans, he has his first directorial effort since then coming out next Friday:

http://imdb.com/title/tt0466893/

it could be ok. i can barely remember YCCOM and would not put it in a list, except maybe 'us quasi-indie movies after us quasi indie movies stopped being interesting.

i like YCCOM a whole lot.

Chereau's "Gabrielle" is incredible and unlike anything i've ever seen -whether or not this makes him an innovator is moot but it does make him someone whose work i'm suddenly very interested in.

but does it posess the genius of Reno 911: Miami?

and for you extreme fans, he has his first directorial effort since then coming out next Friday:

Oh wow, that's fantastic. I was just thinking yesterday, in the midst of our debate, that he should make another movie.

where it'll be released, I don't know. Don't see a NYC venue.

I like that three cast members from YCCOM are in the new one, too (Broderick, Ruffalo, and Culkin).

Yeah, Circles and Squares is much better written than the Sarris piece that prompted it, and in general Pauline is more fun to read than Andy and does a billion times better job than him at describing what it was like to be her while she was watching something- so good in fact that she never felt the desire to watch a movie twice, never ever! And yet, it just might be possible that despite years of heavy-handed writing and proselytizing people backed down a little from that original auteurist zeal without throwing the baby out with the watering hose- the same way they backed down from the idea that the novel and the stage were dead and the film was going to replace them- and actually incorporated some of Kael's criticisms and widened the circles (and squares) to include variations, exceptions, qualifications, etc. like "The Studio As Auteur" for example. Me, I am not a good enough viewer to get everything in one sitting, I need to watch again once I know what the director is going to show to be able to see how he is going to show it. Anyway my favorite critic of the two is probably Sarris's wife, Molly Haskell.

Anyway, now that I've gone all blountastic on your a$$es, I'm gonna go check on my tcm thread and Akim Tamiroff thread and think about going home tonight to curl up with my Criterions and dream of Hollywood Babylon.

ken, will you ever use Demarest's exclamation "DAUGHTERS!" on your girls?

Haha, Morbius, I can see it coming.

This facial expression comes pretty naturally to me.
http://www.nndb.com/people/975/000078741/demarest03.jpg

Alba seems to have good taste in movies

it depends whether she finds Julianne Moore annoying.

(only in Safe)

B-b-but Alba is a man, Doctor!

OK. I don't keep track of that stuff.

anyway, did Julie Christie's perf come too early for hardware?

Are you referring to The Demon Seed?

'Cause that came out in '77.

lol. I just noticed last night that Maltin gave Demon Seed 3-1/2 stars.

my rough top 25 or so thus far:

(*not commercially released)

(Killer of Sheep, if it counts)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
*Passio
I'm Not There
Away from Her
The Simpsons Movie
Offside
Ratatouille (US, Brad Bird)
12:08 East of Bucharest
Bamako
Brand Upon the Brain! (US, Guy Maddin)Summer '04
*The Unforeseen
*Glue
Lady Chatterley
No End in Sight
Sunshine
In Between Days
*Euphoria
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone
Manufactured Landscapes
Zodiac
*Silent Light
Syndromes and a Century
Sicko
The Decomposition of the Soul
The Host

Forget I started this thread.

xp: uh that's kinda fuctup, but you get the idea.

(Summer '04 is a title)

no Eric, otherwise the video clerks win.

I want none of you people to win.

Vive la guerre.

I Love Film No More Forever.

Personne n'a vécu dans le passé. Personne ne vivra dans le futur. Le présent est la forme de toute vie.

i like everything i've seen on morbius' list (admittedly only like four movies) except "the simpsons movie"!?!?!?! so terrible!

Anyone hear sumpin?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/11/07/images/west_side_story_screengrab_1.jpg

How many bullets are left in this gun?

http://www.chucksconnection.com/westside/westside3.jpg
Keep cooly cool, boy!

Dang
http://www.chucksconnection.com/westside/westside3.jpg
Keep cooly cool, boy!

you don't need to write your own scripts to be an auteur.

the original definition was used for, like, alfred hitchcock.

who didn't write his own scripts.

the simpsons movie sucked shit

you crazy

I agree that THIS is the thread to debate what an auteur is, though I still think its basically a meaningless term (really another redundancy like "filmic"), though it might actually mean something if it described directors who brought their own ideas to life from the blank page to the editing room rather than filmmakers who are "filmic."

x-post re: simpsons movie, yeah a "stop seeing mall movies" dis doesn't really sting from somebody repping that.

hitch didn't write his own scripts, but he spent lots of time with the screenwriters acting out the scripts he wanted. like lubitsch.

i'm sure fincher did that with his xbox ad

You made yr 'populist' retard thread bed, nrq, now stew in it. Don't bring the shit here.

Redd OTM Hitchcock commonly co/re-wrote his scripts without screen credit, as many directors have always done.

ON TOPIC, Oscar Foreign Film submissions:

http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2007/07.10.17a.html

mad overrated: Zodiac (more like zzzzzodiac, amirite), Ratatouille (Incredibles much better!)

Create a Super-ILXer!

lol populist retard thread bed

that's pretty good.

ratatouille was pretty meh too

hitch didn't write his own scripts, but he spent lots of time with the screenwriters acting out the scripts he wanted. like lubitsch.

-- James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, November 16, 2007 3:34 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah but so does fincher. and hitchcock seldom wrote dialogue.

itchcock commonly co/re-wrote his scripts without screen credit,

maybe -- even more famously hitchcock never credited his collaborators.

so BAFTA didn't submit the Gaelic language film SEACHD after all. that's a shame.

xpost to Morbius.

The Simpsons Movie (somewhat less so Ratatouille) got me emotionally involved, unlike nearly all of Zodiac.

I think you need to see more mall movies

Though I'm definitely in the "what's the big deal about Zodiac" camp.

you liked 'spider-man 3'

Damn straight!

more of a populist retard thread discussion point i guess.

I dunno, Spider-Man 3 was pretty filmic.

maybe -- even more famously hitchcock never credited his collaborators.
That's right, his poor, long-suffering wife did all the work on film after film and never received a screen credit.

no, she did get screen credits.

under her maiden name, i think...

writing credits in general are never a good reflection of who did what. but in any case, i was saying you don't need to write or originate material to be an auteur.

Aha, so you actually know some factual information after all! My ruse was a a success!

I believe I might actually know her name too, access to which information makes my opinion more valid than someone who doesn't have it.

OR NOT!

um ok

Sometimes auteurs are actors (Marx Bros w/out McCarey), composers (Herrmann), set designers (W C Menzies), choreographers (Berkeley) or DPs (Alton).

B-b-but even Alton couldn't save Elmer Gantry, Morbius!

haven't seen it in forever -- I remember liking it cuz Shirley Jones sez "he RAMMED the love of God into me!"

I won't even mention Howard Hawks – he never got credit because pre-Sturges and Huston producers didn't want directors writing.

It's "FEAR of God."

She's the best thing in that movie, but she's not even in it for the first hour and a half.

love, fear, same thing w/ God! -- pretty close for 30-year recall. anyway, Burt's the auteur there.

the best thing in the movie is Jean Simmons, and she's sexy as hell.

Um, Albert, I think I'll have to be the judge of that.

Alfred.

It's hard for me to think of Shirley Jones as sexx goddess when I grew up with:

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/partridgefam/partridgefamIMAGE/partridgefam.jpg

David C was sexiest gal on that show

so more 2007 content -- isn't the Tsai I was lukewarm on just out on disc? Better than his porn musical, tho.

I'd probably stick No End in Sight on my list.

it did the job, but all I could do was nod along.

I agree that THIS is the thread to debate what an auteur is, though I still think its basically a meaningless term (really another redundancy like "filmic"), though it might actually mean something if it described directors who brought their own ideas to life from the blank page to the editing room rather than filmmakers who are "filmic."
Anthony, can't you buy your old pal t. herbert herbert fogelmeister a beer and get hime to give you a tutorial on this stuff?

David C was sexiest gal on that show
If I was enrique, I might start a permameme about how you George Cukor types were not really qualified to comment on these issues.

but that was my Partridge stance when I was hot for girls! when I was 8!

Anthony, can't you buy your old pal t. herbert herbert fogelmeister a beer and get hime to give you a tutorial on this stuff?

he's got a beer coming this xmas, but i think herb knows better than to try.

Animated Feature Oscar eligibles (3 to be nom'd):

"Alvin and the Chipmunks"

"Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters"

"Bee Movie"

"Beowulf"

"Meet the Robinsons"

"Persepolis"

"Ratatouille"

"Shrek the Third"

"The Simpsons Movie"

"Surf's Up"

"Tekkonkinkreet"

"TMNT"

Can foreign films get nominated in animation and FF category? I thought France chose Persepolis as it's official FF selection.

there have bn foreign anim nominees (Triplets of Belleville)

Yeah but no rule against nom in animation and foreign? Seems like academy would protect from crossover in best film categories.

Amy Taubin's nice takedown of a movement I still don't know anything about.

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/nd07/mumblecore.htm

i have only seen funny ha ha out of that scene, which i liked a lot. but everything i read seems to cite bujalski as the best of the bunch, so my interest in the non-bujalski stuff is kinda muted.

Old Joy wasn't mumblecore, was it?

no. too "polished."

If films can be nom'd for both Best Pic and Foreign Lang, or Best Anim Feature and Best Pic, I don't see why not Anim & Foreign.

You know one of the main reasons I love doing this thread? It gives me an opportunity for escape when I'm at the relatives house during holidays. Sometimes, neat stuff like the VV poll is released while I'm there and I can get distracted from the fawning and such for as much as a half hour.

So hopefully something happens on Thanksgiving or the day after.

mmmm, seems early, unless Artforum...

Yeah, I'm not holding my breath or fighting the tryptophan over it.

Movies now playing in the Twin Cities or opening over the next few weeks I really should get out and see? (Yeah, that's more a question than a promise.)

No Country for Old Men
Redacted
I'm Not There
Southland Tales
The Mist
The Darjeeling Ltd.
Lust, Caution
Into the Wind
Terror's Advocate
Gone Baby Gone
Margot at the Wedding
Michael Clayton
Kurt Cobain: About A Son
midnight showing of Black Christmas
retrospective showings of The Earings of Madame de... and Let's Get Lost

I already missed We Own the Night and Eastern Promises, but they're set to show up at the Riverview, I hope.

That list, by the way, also doubles as my annual predictions of the Indiewire critics poll. ... OK, just most of it.

Go see The Earrings Of Madame De....

And No Country, I'm Not There, Darjeeling maybe. Haven't seen Margot yet, but will soon enough.

Into the Wind

is that a Spinal Tap movie?

Haha ... now I'm definitely seeing it.

Horrible number one? What about the fact that Deathproof made the list? That's just sad.

Madame de... and Let's Get Lost, fo sho

why has world cinema vanished from the fall film calendar? (Indiewire asks.)

http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2007/11/world_cinema_go.html

WAAAAAAAAIT. Iraq In Fragments was released this year, right? I'm pretty sure that wins.

wins what? No, it got US release in fall '06, was nom'd for an Oscar and lost to Al Gore.

Re the Indiewire story, if critics groups are going to start counting foreign films that are screened for them in '07 that aren't released in the US til '08, that's just elitist whoring for distributors.

or maybe it's ppl saying what their favourite movies were that they saw in any given year.

bullshit. Critics serve the public. If the public can't see the film ANYWHERE, it shouldn't count.

http://blog.columbusalive.com/RiotAct/rules.jpg

What was your favorite Romanian film that didn't open in Philly this year, then?

The one about the two guys from the country that went to the big city.

I woulda thought Knoczed Opp

dude they rode TINY COWS. You didn't see that pic?

from the Indiewire link:

IFC Films' Cannes winner "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" doesn't open until January 25, for example, but according to Werner, the film will be eligible for honors from most critics' groups across the country, because many of them don't rely on release dates for qualification, but press screenings (with the exception of the New York Film Critics Circle).

See, I guess it's just New Yorkers who know what "this year" means.

This will cease to be an issue when movies just live on the Internet instead of in theaters.

The Doc Feature Oscar shortlist, w/ links:

http://tigerbeat.vox.com/library/post/documentary-oscar-shortlist.html

WAAAAAAAAIT. Iraq In Fragments was released this year, right? I'm pretty sure that wins.

Wasn't it nominated last year?

What a terrible year so far, although I've got a lot left to see (esp. Paranoid Park, Bug and Southland Tales) . Stuff I've liked:

Zoo
Still Life
Alpha Dog
Zodiac
Rehearsals for Retirement
I'm Not There
Go-Go Tales

Gosh, only two of those have even been released in the UK, and Rehearsals for Retirement doesn't even exist on imdb.

Rehearsals for Retirement.

(Not so sure about that article, but it's the most descriptive thing I could find)

What a terrible year so far

Thanks, now I don't feel so solitary, Colin. Prepare to be accused of not liking movies very much.

Thanks for making me feel good about not being able to get to the movies very often.

great year

Thanks, now I don't feel so solitary, Colin. Prepare to be accused of not liking seeing movies very much.

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 4:30 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

We will all fax you our 250+ filmlog at year end, mark.

thank you.

Haha, please don't drag me into this. I haven't seen nearly as much as I would like to, but I do think that the drop in non-American film distribution has been more palpable this year than the past few and that the NYC festivals desperately need better programming.

I would agree. None of the foreign films I've managed to see have blown me away, a very unusual state of affairs.

These are my favorite subtitled films of the year to date:

Offside
12:08 East of Bucharest
Bamako
Summer '04
Glue (this is being distributed, sometime -- fun pansexual teen hijinks)
Lady Chatterley
In Between Days
Euphoria
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone
Silent Light
Syndromes and a Century
The Decomposition of the Soul

i'm so eager to see Silent Light.

Is that the one about the monks? I meant to see that one several times, but never made it.

Into Great Silence

Yeah, no detrius really happened during Thanksgiving. But even if it had, I was so sick this turkey day I wouldn't have ever logged on to find out.

<a href="http://cansesclasseled.com/wordpress/2007/11/24/knocked-up-judd-apatow-2007/";>This one's for you, Morbs.</a>

Damn!

Homos "dig" chick flicks?

They make them.

Thanks homie, I'm sure I'll agree when my appointment with KU can no longer be delayed. Sorry you were sick.

Winsteins to place Cate's INT performance in lead actress Oscar race!

http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2007/11/a_little_less_s.html

If she wins, it'll be the second time she's won for a performance as someone who has one an Oscar. Meta.

I'd prefer for her to stay in supporting, to improve her odds and so Marisa Tomei doesn't get nominated for that wheezy Lumet film.

"Three-time Oscar nominee Marisa Tomei" would make me perversely happy.

marisa tomei can make me perversely happy any day

would this be her third topless nomination?

Meanwhile, we fags got to see all of Phil S Hoffman. thx, Sidney.

hahaha

Cate Blanchett = wowin'em like Linda Hunt.

cate will get nominated because hollywood thinks dylan is cool, and because she's cool and the movie has an aura of coolness. but she won't win because most academy members will not actually watch the movie.

Blanchett not necessarily lead, sez LA Times blog.

yeah, I saw that too. also the argument that she will win supp'g awards from critic groups.

what IS the Best Actress race looking like?

From what little I've read, it hinges on whether Keira Knightley is regarded as a creampuff. Then, French gal who played Piaf vs Julie Christie?

No front-runners yet. Something like this?

Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Keira Knightley, Atonement
Laura Linney, The Savages
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Ellen Page, Juno

or, filling the AILF slot, A Jolie as Danny Pearl's widow, unless Academy ain't touching terrorism with a 10-foot pole.

(and plus, movie bombed)

I forgot I saw that. She was good. I think the Academy would love to nominate Jolie, but it was a small film that no one saw. Don't think terrorism is an issue.

I saw it yesterday. It made terrorism boring.

sometimes they need to go to small films that no one saw. Wasn't that the complaint 2 years ago, when Jon Stewart hosted? and who the hell saw the Piaf movie?

Must ... find... non-goddamn-Oscar... content...

in L.A. every season is Oscar Time.

Replace Jolie in the AILF category with Amy Adams, perhaps.

Must ... find... non-goddamn-Oscar... content...

Artforum's lists are only about a week away or so. Not a moment too soon.

now placing bets that i'll actually watch the 20 or so movies from this year that i missed before year's end so i'll actually have an informed opinion on 2007 as a whole come january. i say 5000 to 1.

syndromes and a century doesn't come out on dvd until next year anyway so it's already a pipe dream

by 20 i mean = those i extrapolated from jumping-the-gun best-of-year lists, obv

How many have you watched already?

Based on the trailer, I'm amazed that Enchanted is consider award fodder for anything, but then I remember Depp in the first Pirates (and hitting Eject after 30 minutes).

Some years, filling Best Actress out is sort of like filling out Best Make-up. It allows the Enchanteds and the Clicks entry.

Marge Simpson for Best Actress

Indie Spirit Awards slap Cate Blanchett back into supporting...

http://filmindependent.org/spiritawards/interactive_nominee_guide.php

Is Paranoid Park really a 2007 film?

It's opening in NY/LA in a week or 2, methinks.

Dr. M, you're right that the Best Actress race frequently turns to small films that no one saw. Jessica Lange even won for a small film that no one saw in 1994. I guess I just meant that Jolie with a French accent in a serious film isn't as much of a lock as it might be if the film had done better business.

Eric and I have some of our bete noires contending for Indie Spirits... me, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead for Best First Screenplay; he, Once (Foreign Film) and Year of the Dog (Orig Scr).

A friend recommends the Julie Delpy film; swapping Hawke for Adam Goldberg can't hurt.

at this point in time i have not seen the following:

zodiac
the wind that shakes the barley
eastern promises
brand upon the brain
away from her
hot fuzz
exiled
the host
rescue dawn
syndromes
gone baby gone
into the wild
live free or die hard
control
bourne ultimatum
american gangster

...to name a few

there's more but i want to see those the most

I haven't even seen Year of the Dog.

Michael Atkinson, in eviscerating Southland Tales, talks a little bit about film criticism:

Thanks partly to the proliferation of movie-crit blogs, and partly to the steamrolling irrelevancy of professional film criticism (or, one could say, the perpetuation of movie review irrelevancy, a view in which the Agees, Farbers, Sarrises and Hobermans have been the freakish exceptions in a century-long sludge-glacier of bad writing and cinematic illiteracy), a film like Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales can actually get released to theaters, in an age when a smaller number of films get screen time than ever before, and, thanks to stunned reviewers, get seen.

http://zeroforconduct.com/2007/11/19/f-is-for-fake.aspx

haha well i don't think atkinson has to worry much about southland tales as a bellwether or harbinger or anything else. but he's maybe overlooking there that hoberman was one of the movie's champions at cannes.

(also i'm not sure what has happened to southland tales to date counts as "getting seen".)

So wait -- film blogs are responsible for the release of Southland Tales?

i was just gonna say, re-reading that sentence, i'm not sure what he's trying to say about film criticism. is it irrelevant in its failure to stop richard kelly, or irrelevant in its embrace of richard kelly, or irrelevant because nobody really cares about cinematic literacy, which is what enables richard kelly?

I have barely seen any movies this year, but I thought I read a Hoberman review where he seemed to like Southland Tales.

And now that I read the thread more carefully, I see that gypsy mothra already noted this a few posts up.

I just took that particular snippet to be a big loud "fuck you" directed to the world in the aftermath of being fired from VV.

ah. yeah that would make sense. a critic scorned.

Since I started the thread early, I'll do my ex-VV crix poll top 10 predictions early.

Killer of Sheep
No Country For Old Men
I'm Not There
Syndromes and a Century
There Will Be Blood
Zodiac
Eastern Promises
The Wayward Cloud
The Host
Offside

Despite the big-time enthusiasm of Hoberman/Taubin/Lee, I don't think Southland Tales will be this year's Inland Empire.

Maybe swap Offside for Lady Chatterley.

What the deal? This stuff really IS starting earlier this year.

Gotham goes ‘Into the Wild’
Sean Penn's drama gets an awards-season boost with the best feature prize. Ellen Page wins breakthrough actor.
By Mark Olsen, The Envelope
November 27, 2007

"Into The Wild," written and directed by Sean Penn, took home the prize for best feature at tonight's 17th annual Gotham Awards ceremony.

The sweeping adventure film beat out four other nominees for the juried prize: "Great World of Sound," "I'm Not There," "Margot at the Wedding" and "The Namesake."

Penn's film, an adaptation of the book by Jon Krakauer, tells the true-life tale of Christopher McCandless (played by Emile Hirsch), a middle-class college graduate who traveled alone deep into the Alaskan wilderness.

The award for best documentary went to "Sicko," the most recent film from veteran provocateur Michael Moore. The film was also recently named to the shortlist for the feature documentary category at the Academy Awards, and will likely keep its director busy working the awards circuit for the next few months.

Ellen Page, star of "Juno," won the award for breakthrough actor, while Craig Zobel won breakthrough director for "Great World of Sound."

The best ensemble cast award was a tie, going to both "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and "Talk to Me."

The cast of "Devil" includes Albert Finney, Rosemary Harris, Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brian F. O'Byrne, Amy Ryan, Michael Shannon and Marisa Tomei. "Talk To Me" features Cedric the Entertainer, Don Cheadle, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mike Epps, Vondie Curtis Hall, Taraji P. Henson and Martin Sheen.

The award for best film not playing in a theater near you, given to a film that has not yet secured theatrical distribution, went to "Frownland," written and directed by Ronald Bronstein.

Held for the first time at Brooklyn's Steiner Studios, the ceremony was hosted by actress and playwright Sarah Jones. The evening included six tributes presented to Javier Bardem, Michael Bloomberg, Roger Ebert, Mark Friedberg, Jonathan Sehring and Mira Nair.

It wouldn't be a year at the Gotham Awards without some amount of confusion and controversy. Though the Gothams have no official requirements in this regard – a film need not have any ties to New York itself to win – if ever there was a nominee that seemed designed for an award named after the city's legendary nickname, it would seem to be "I'm Not There."

Directed and co-written by former New York resident Todd Haynes, the film revolves around Bob Dylan, whose legacy is intertwined with the city's famed Greenwich Village, and it was produced by longtime fixture of the New York film scene Christine Vachon and Killer Films.

Fellow nominee "Margot at the Wedding" also has strong ties to New York City itself -- the title character (Nicole Kidman) is a player on the New York literary scene and writer-director Noah Baumbach and his wife Jennifer Jason Leigh (who also stars in the movie) call it home. "Into the Wild," on the other hand, was written and directed by California-born, Oscar-anointed Penn, and takes place almost entirely in the Western United States and Alaska.

The film was perceived by some as slipping in recent weeks in its hopes for a prize come Oscar time, so the Gotham award for best feature has to be seen as a shot in the arm for its chances within the bigger awards frame.

"perceived as slipping"

i understand the horserace aspect of all this, but it's still kinda bizarre.

I understand that comment, but I can't think of a more rational way to look at Oscars (or any detrius-related awards/polls) than as a race of publicists jockeying for position.

I was reminded, the other day, that David Lynch was nominated for best director in 2002 for Mulholland Drive. Surprising!

Oscar-nominated, that is.

I understand that comment, but I can't think of a more rational way to look at Oscars (or any detrius-related awards/polls) than as a race of publicists jockeying for position.

yup. it's just funny. it's not like any of the movies can get better or worse between now and oscar-nom time. but of course the marketers have to create the perception of a surge in buzz.

I still don't understand what the Gotham Awards are.

won't Ratatouille show up in the Dennis Lim poll?

No, though The Simpsons maybe could.

I understand that comment, but I can't think of a more rational way to look at Oscars (or any detrius-related awards/polls) than as a race of publicists jockeying for position.

-- Eric H., Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:37 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

ya for sure. hard to give a fuck to be honest.

It's my way of dealing with not actually seeing any movies is the thing.

... though I actually am going to be watching a lot of the detrius candidates in the next month.

hmmm, I remember despairing that I'd have to go see Year of the Dog and you pleaded with me not to?

Is Mike White your Ap*t*w?

Brit Indie Awards' best picture to Control (yeccch)

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/004977.html

http://bringinghomeblanket.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/control.jpg

Why couldn't Todd Haynes have made his movie about Janet?

Because no one wants to hear soundtrack covers of her material, you anti-rockist. (how many re-inventions has JJ undergone?)

True, the originals are good enough.

the Oscarwatch site has a new name:

http://www.awardsdaily.com/

http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/spotlights/2007/rtuk_feature_mcavoy_01.jpg

Alright, I almost get your fetish for this guy.

I'm also refraining from posting the satellite nominations. Even detrius should maintain something like reasonable standards.

Superbad out on DVD today, just in time for the NY Film Critics. Jonah Hill = Best Actor.

Well, if they can honor Eddie Murphy in 1996 and Cameron Diaz in 1998, why not.

Let's see how long it takes Morbs to recover from my post.

I have no opinion on Superbad.

What have you seen McAvoy in, EH?

Looking at the two Artforum lists that are on their site, uhhhh, maybe it's time to stop paying so much attention to them.

My nonstarter frontrunners for Best Actor so far might be Gordon Pinsent, Cillian Murphy and Ventura.

I've seen him in Last King of Scotland and Narnia and I believe that's it.

Yeah, it's way bitchy of Artforum to make me go to B&N to read John Waters' list.

Anthony Lane really disliked Atonement.

i will make the janet jackson pomo biopic if no one else will

(i will play all her incarnations as well)

ILEer hstencil and I were in a bar a couple months ago and couldn't even identify "Nasty" as a JJ track without a prompt.

Never heard of the Satellite Awards before, but nominating Sarah Polley and Jafar Panahi is better than what I expect from the Academy.

I haven't even seen those McAvoy films, Eric; just season 1 of the UK TV series "Shameless" and his brief roles in Regeneration and Bright Young Things. I have Last King and Starter for 10 on my waitlist at the library.

ILEer hstencil and I were in a bar a couple months ago and couldn't even identify "Nasty" as a JJ track without a prompt.

Who cares.

No one has to. It's an indicator of nothing in particular.

Sounds like the scenario for a Todd Haynes movie.

I even bought Rhythm Nation 1814 back when I was still "trying." You don't have to care about that, either.

Trying to what?

Trying to force myself to listen to pop music.

Annnnnyway, will The Diving Bell and the Butterfly be this year's My Left Foot?

Forcing oneself to listen to pop music doesn't make sense; it's beside the point as it shouldn't be hard work. Forcing oneself to listen to, say, Dylan at least makes sense as there is no actual sonic pleasure to be gleaned from his "music."

Film Experience interviews Max von Sydow about Diving Bell, among other things.

xp: ohhhh, Eric, c'mon. You sound like my mother!

(not the pop/pleasure part, obv, but the quotation mks)

Forcing oneself to listen to, say, Dylan at least makes sense as there is no actual sonic pleasure to be gleaned from his "music."

Now you're just talking shit.

I <3 you, Eric.

Eric's never heard Arthur Baker's Dylan work.

I'm glad he's revealed himself as much of a blinkered grouch as ... everyone else here.

I'm guessing von Sydow didn't ask to be made up to play a 90something-y.o. in Diving Bell?

Eric's never heard Arthur Baker's Dylan work.

I only just learned about this the other day and was intrigued.

I hard u, jaymc.

My "submit response" button was bigger than my stomach on that one I think ...

Mostly what I know about Dylan is that, as the author of "Blowin in the Wind," he was behind the second worst single of Stevie Wonder's career after "I Just Called To Et Al."

Anyway, I'm trying to be positive here. I don't accuse people who don't like Janet of being fun hatahs. I accuse people who like Dylan of enjoying the act of not having fun.

SOME Dylan really is truly fun, Eric, and I listen to it w/out trying to have or not have fun. "Don't Think Twice" is maybe the most exhilaratingly hateful post-love song evah.

(altho I like the version by old Ramblin Jack Elliott best)

Dylan made lots of great pop singles, wtf.

Eric's probably confusing liking Dylan with liking Dylan's fans.

Dylan's all strummy-strum-strum, I-IV-V, whatever.

BAN^

j/k, brah

i'm v pro-dylan but hey guys there's like eight million dylan threads on ILM already yeah?

I'll wait until after I've seen I'm Not There.

whoa dudes... there will be blood... is something else!

jaymc if you don't like dylan there is absolutely NO reason for you to see i'm not there

oooh looking forward to that. does it officially come out next year?

xpost to s1ocki

i've missed pt anderson!
xp2slocki

comes out in limited ny/la, wide in jan

The true End of Cinema:

http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1010/380342.1010.A.jpg

You mean PT Anderson has made his first good film since Hard Eight? (OK, I skipped the Sandler one)

I think the reason the last quarter of the film year has gone Dylan-manic is, c'mon, the guy is a great CHARACTER, especially in that '65-66 kerfuffle period. Onstage and off in that Pennebaker film(s), compulsively watchable.

jaymc if you don't like dylan there is absolutely NO reason for you to see i'm not there

What? :(

As I'm sure I said somewhere (maybe even on this thread), I want to go because I love Todd Haynes (though admittedly more for Safe and Far From Heaven than The Velvet Goldmine), I'm drawn to the conceit, and because even though I don't much like Dylan's music, I am kind of intrigued by Dylan as an American cultural icon.

I mean, it's not like it's a three-hour concert film, right?

(Although I was stoned the other night and caught some Dylan live footage on PBS and was entranced. In profile, he kind of looked like Adam Sandler, and I'm not just saying that because of that Don Cheadle 9/11 buddy movie that Sandler did where his hair resembled the cover of Blonde on Blonde.)

Although I was stoned the other night and caught some Dylan live footage on PBS and was entranced. In profile, he kind of looked like Adam Sandler, and I'm not just saying that because of that Don Cheadle 9/11 buddy movie that Sandler did where his hair resembled the cover of Blonde on Blonde.)

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude you neeed to get baaaaaaaaaaaaked and listen to live 1967!!!!!

i think a concert film would be MORE accessible to non-fans to be honest!

Oh, I see what you mean: that all of the Dylan arcana slipped into the film will sail over the heads of anyone who doesn't love Dylan enough to be familiar with the mythology? It's true that my interest in his iconography isn't as strong as it would be if I, you know, liked the music.

ya it's just reallllly inside-baseball.

if you're a big dylan skeptic it might just annoy you.

Oh, I'm not a skeptic per se. I mean, I kind of see what other people see in him. And if I cared more about lyrics or less about music, I'd probably like him, too. He's just not really my style, is all.

more about there will be blood slocki? as an averred hater of p.t. anderson should i go see this?

I dislike glam (to the point where I liked the glam pastiches in Velvet Goldmine more than the real stuff!) yet I liked VG. But I have to admit the fiercest INT detractors have been youngish Dylan nonfans, so who knows. (I certainly am not enough of a Dylan fan to get ALL the refs in the film, esp post-'68.)

btw, Alfred, I am marginally more interested in Superbad in the wake of "Too Gay, or Not Gay Enough?"

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/58/58superbad.html

Took a peek at Artforum during lunch. John Waters' best:

1. Grindhouse
2. Before I Forget "The best feel-bad gay movie ever made."
3. Away from Her
4. Zoo

Further down, that Jeff Garlin Cheese movie!! and Haynes.

Regarding There Will Be Blood: some of the music is similar to the soundtracking on Punch-Drunk Love. That's about it for similarities. This is considerably more misanthropic than his others. His Barry Lyndon.

Jonny Greenwood aping Jon Brion? Huh.

not really.

Upton Sinclair vs Thackeray

more about there will be blood slocki? as an averred hater of p.t. anderson should i go see this?

-- remy bean, Tuesday, December 4, 2007 11:51 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm still mulling it over. it's a very different, much less showy type of movie than we're used to from ol' pta. it may indeed be the pta-haters' pta movie.

it's really kind of a journey into hell

in a good way!

:)

as opposed to investigating-a-major-artist of the 20th century I'm Not There kinda way?

:/

The ending is brutal and tidy and made the audience laugh. So memorable.

sounds terrible already

you're considerably more optimistic about this picture than i figured you would be

tidy only in the sense of the last line.

the NY Times "Carpetbagger" blogger suggests Day-Lewis is somewhat rehashing his Gangs role in it.

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/

His mustache is gone.

so much better than gangs. not an entirely different role but man is he better in this.

anyway, as with most movies, this is the kind of movie that people who decide in advance whether they like things or not will probably not like.

your thoughts on the movie? I heard his accent on the trailer and trembled. Then I read the NYT Magazine profile a few weeks ago – an intelligent guy.

like i said, im still mulling it over, not really ready to offer up an opinion yet. and actually im technically under embargo!

does the movie deliver

on its title i mean

no vampires :(

sounds like sweeney todd delivers more on that score tho

there will be sputum

I think PT Anderson doing an adaptation is a potentially encouraging move, as it means perhaps he won't come up with a scenario as unhinged and mercurial as Magnolia or Boogie Nights.

i like boogie nights, but it's not really unhinged or mercurial.

The problem with both those films is their climaxes hinge on coicidence and manipulated juxtapostion. Cheap way to pay off our investment.

anyone seen Lady Chatterley? I got it at home.

The problem with both those films is their climaxes hinge on coicidence and manipulated juxtapostion. Cheap way to pay off our investment.

how is that true of boogie nights? i thought it just ended with him sort of limping back to the safe haven of burt reynolds' house after the robbery fiasco. (and i wouldn't just say magnolia hinges on coincidence, it hinges on a great amphibian cloud of deus ex machina; it's ridiculous, but at least deliberately ridiculous. as opposed to, say, the ridiculous coincidence at the center of mystic river, which we're supposed to accept as dramatically plausible.)

I'm thinking of the two separate (and WTF out of nowhere) fights that are cut together late in Boogie Nights. But yeah, that doesn't remotely compare to the sins of Mystic River. Or Crash.

I'm pretty sure I will have fun with There Will Be Blood.

re: Amy Ryan ... Hey, a big showy Oscar performance actually lives up to the hype!

Don't it, though? I think she might suffer from the surplus of Amys around.

tipsy, Dickens used coincidence a lot! It's all in the style.

Dylan made lots of great pop singles, wtf.

I think some of our thirtyish-and-under friends are using the Orwellian definition of "pop" they grew up with: NO GUITARS

Something is happening and you don't know what it is, do you, Dr. Morbius?

Guitars are smashed against amps for a reason.

http://image.listen.com/img/356x237/0/7/4/7/507470_356x237.jpg
I don't know who they think they are
Smashing a perfectly good guitar

The problem with both those films is their climaxes hinge on coicidence and manipulated juxtapostion. Cheap way to pay off our investment.

-- Cosmo Vitelli, Tuesday, December 4, 2007 10:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

syd field over here

tipsy, Dickens used coincidence a lot! It's all in the style.

i have a sort of pet theory about dickens and pta. hard eight is great expectations, obviously, and boogie nights is oliver twist. parallels break down after that, except the kid in magnolia is very tiny tim-ish (an emotional cripple -- can he be saved?!).

Saw half of Lady Chatterley last night: an interminable first quarter, then it picked up with convincing real-time sex and one of the more convincing correspondences between pastoral loveliness and sexual awakening I've seen in recent years.

yeah, that's pretty much how I felt. I think there's some kind of a conspiracy about distributing foreign films at this point -- there really isn't one foreign-produced film that has a contender in, say, the top 20 for the Best Director Oscar this year.

tipsy, that's awesome -- you should write it up if no one else has. (I've never considered it, preoccupied w/ the colossal size of PTA's Altman/Scorsese ripoffs.)

^ oh jeez -- is it in yr book?^

Once is actually my favorite movie of the year.

I hadn't thought of it getting nominations other than Best Song, but it makes sense that it would because it's an industry hit, the most profitable movie of the year (made a good return on $500,000 budget).

^ oh jeez -- is it in yr book?^

sort of. i think i mentioned the parallels in passing.

Tipsy has a book? I want to read.

Yeah, waht is this book?

Oh, this one?

That's it.

tomorrow is the Natl Bored of Review awards -- if they don't go w/ something 'safe' like Atonement, maybe Once? or Sweeney Todd?

I'm thinking Once's status as this year's Little Ms Sunshine is being threatened by Juno.

xpost

yeah. currently holding down the distant lower reaches of the amazon bestseller list. (i didn't even know they counted past a million.) give it a year or two and you can get it for a buck at a library sale.

I'm thinking Once's status as this year's Little Ms Sunshine is being threatened by Juno.

Except Juno isn't wholly bankrupt. Close, but not quite.

The NBoR (i.e. worst of the "major 4" crix awards) is actually today, I think.

You're right, it's today.

They are probably going to award either Atonement or Sweeney Todd, if they're true to themselves. But they are truly the most difficult to predict.

i.e. the year they awarded Quills, of all things

lol, that's even stranger than Scent of a Woman

Word is this year's L.A. Weekly poll will run in the Village Voice, but the IndieWire poll will also go forward. Let's see how close the results come to matching.

Oscar Buzzmeter:

http://theenvelope.latimes.com/buzz/buzzmeter/env-buzzmeter-iframe-index,0,7071546.htmlstory

Lines up pretty closely with Nat R.'s rankings at thefilmexperience.net excepting for that Nat is predicting Sweeney Todd NOT to go the way of Dreamgirls.

the Sweeney Todd buzz is frightening. Will the Academy only nominate Johnny Depp when he's talking in a funny accent?

I only heard of Juno a few days ago.

Nathaniel added Angelina Jolie to Best Actress!

how is juno partly bankrupt?

little miss sunshine was bullshit tho i agree. juno is miles better.

I'm gonna hope that Depp does some acting this time instead of doing a SNL skit in the middle of a themepark ride.

how is juno partly bankrupt?

Some say by having a teen girl talk like a 29-y.o. ex-stripper (hey, who's the writer)!

how is juno partly bankrupt?

Did you see the opening scene in the convenience store?

I was actually more a fan of Depp's Wonka-by-way-of-Dave-Foley than I am of his Capt. Sparrow.

yes xp

AO Scott liked Juno, but found first 15 minutes daunting (been said elsewhere too).

Have still not seen his Wonka, but Depp's Ed Wood sounded like Foley crossed w/ Jon Lovitz's Liar.

Another mitigating factor working against Juno for me: all those damned Minnesota references peppered throughout by Miss Diablo Cody.

daunting?? least daunting movie ever!

You don't find it smug even in the slightest, huh?

Another mitigating factor working against Juno for me: all those damned Minnesota references peppered throughout by Miss Diablo Cody.

-- Eric H., Wednesday, December 5, 2007 4:30 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

what kind of weird thing to hold against a movie is that?

so is Amy Adamas as good as Manohla Dargis sez?

no, not smug. totally stylized and a little goofy, ya, but i rolled with it. i even held my own through the minnesota references!

That was not meant to be taken as some sort of overriding offense. I'm not really interested in Juno enough at all to get into any discussions about it.

I think I moderately prefer Knocked Up, but they both don't really speak to me.

Michael Cera and Jason Bateman reunited?

Best one-liner in all of Juno, by a LOT, is when Juno is asked which abortion clinic she's going to go do the deed: "I think I'll go to Women Now because they ... help women now."

(That's another thing that had me resisting Juno, actually: resistance to the unassailable status of Arrested Development. Also something I'm not willing to get into beyond that.)

Each time I've seen the trailer I've LOL'd at Jason Bateman's expression after he says "Like the city in Alaska" and she says "No." Very Michael Bluth.

I'll say this much about Juno: I think I liked it more than Arrested Development. (It's just that, to me, that doesn't automatically make it the single best pop culture artifact of the 2000s.) It really does get better as it goes along and begins to drop its guard.

indie films: the new self-congratulatory sitcoms

Did that crappy ILF thread about rockism never get into indie music vs. indie film?

and by crappy, I mean "compulsively readable."

I can't revisit rockism discussion in any of its maddening forms. I live it, baby.

It's funny how the Weinsteins delayed Grace Is Gone to year-end for a Cusack award bid and so many critics are pissing all over it.

It's funny predictable how the Weinsteins delayed Grace Is Gone to year-end for a Cusack award bid and so many critics are pissing all over it.

but they used to be good at manipulating that shit! Chocolat!

(That's another thing that had me resisting Juno, actually: resistance to the unassailable status of Arrested Development. Also something I'm not willing to get into beyond that.)

-- Eric H., Wednesday, December 5, 2007 4:40 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

get over it

Chocolat!
That was on the other night. I was hoping it was going to be Merci pour le chocolat.

get over it

It will be a lot easier when Jason Bateman's career goes back to where it was six years ago.

the NBR site isn't loading for me, so the bloggers must be circling.

Bateman was the best park of Smokin' Aces.

even better than Jurassic and Gorky?

'merci pour la chocolat' is scarcely more defensible than 'chocolat'.

Any movie with any variation on the word chocolat in the title is not going to be as good as the real thing.

politer, though

(x-post) Whoa, just turned into Libby Gelman-Waxner for a second there.

Hey, Rudnick's gotta stop sometime.

I've still never seen Claire Denis' Chocolat. Did you guys ever catch up w/ her Intruder?

I couldn't get into Intruder, had to bail and try again some other time.

Denis' Chocolat is good – better than the edible kind.

I want someone to make a movie called Dark Chocolat, 80 Cacao.

'intruder' is good. i didn't completely get it.

A definite Top 10 contender (for me at least) opens in New York today, the documentary Billy The Kid. A description of what this movie about doesn't nearly do it justice, so watch the trailer.

I've been looking fwd to that.

NBR: No Country, Tim Burton, Clooney, Christie, Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan.

http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2007/12/awards_watch_no.html

hoho at "The Bucket List" and "Lars and the Real Girl" in their top 10

What did anyone like about that Assassination Of Jesse James movie, anyway? That movie was pure garbage, the faux-Malick narration was just about unbearable.

I mostly liked the acting, but am mystified by the raves.

I had never heard of The Bucket List before now. Is it like the mainstream version of Bubba Ho-Tep?

Wild Hogs meets Terms of Endearment.

That movie was pure garbage, the faux-Malick narration was just about unbearable.

real malick narration is unbearable enough. but year the faux-malickness of the whole enterprise is among the things that kept me away from that movie.

"yeah," not "year". unless i was typing with an accent.

Zancherek on Juno: she cavils about the first 20 minutes too but loves it anyway.

I don't really know how anyone could not say the first few scenes were not totally precious and annoying.

I'm afraid to see Juno.

National Board of Review picks. The George Clooney-Julie Christie plaudits begin:

Best Film
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Foreign Film
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Best Actor
GEORGE CLOONEY, Michael Clayton

Best Actress: JULIE CHRISTIE, Away From Her

Best Supporting Actor
CASEY AFFLECK, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Best Supporting Actress: AMY RYAN, Gone Baby Gone

I posted above, Lord.

Clooney will PROBABLY not win another Oscar this soon. Too young. Unless they all really have unlimited love for him.

Amy Ryan also has 3 brief scenes as Hawke's ex-wife in Before the Devil, cursing him nonstop, which makes her the most lovable character in that film.

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http://bader-gottlieb.net/020916/yay.jpg

If John Waters had any balls left, he would've included 2 Girls, 1 Cup in his top 10.

I mean ...

"2 girls 1 cup" currently gives you 3x as many google hits as "marilyn monroe."

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2118/2086073362_b9ca71a07e_o.jpg

"Not apropriate" the teacher writes.

NBR in predictably humorless non-shocker

TOP TEN films includes
INTO THE WILD, JUNO, THE KITE RUNNER, SWEENEY TODD

Best Directorial Debut
BEN AFFLECK, Gone Baby Gone

was flipping through the artforum lists today. i don't think i've even HEARD of any of the movies in james quandt's list

That's par for Quandt's course, pretty much. The man apparently doesn't do mainstream.

is there a link to the artforum lists?

His list isn't on their Web site, but here you go:

JAMES QUANDT
01. These Encounters of Theirs (Straub/Huillet)
02. Pour vos beaux yeux (Henri Storck, 1929)
03. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Mungiu)
04. Useless (Jia)
05. Tarahi V (Haris Epaminonda)
06. La Morte Rouge (Erice)
07. Fengming, A Chinese Memoir (Wang Bing)
08. Les Amours d'Astree et de Celadon (Rohmer)
09. Alexandra (Sokurov)
10. At Sea (Hutton)

i really wanted to like useless more

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is the Romanian film about abortion that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

yeah, i've only heard good things about it. should check it out.

i mean at the very least it sounds like a great date movie.

06. La Morte Rouge (Erice)

I honestly didn't know Erice had directed a new film.

i really wanted to like useless more

^^^. Zhang-ke is probably my favorite contemporary fillmmaker, but I Useless wore thin pretty quickly. I wonder if Quandt counts Still Life as '06 or if he really prefers Useless.

Well, even if so, he still wouldn't have anywhere near as many '06 movies in his top 10 as does Stephen King.

1. No Country for Old Men
2. Gone Baby Gone
3. The Lives of Others
4. Breach
5. Children of Men
6. Little Children
7. 3:10 to Yuma
8. The Lookout
9. 28 Weeks Later
10. In the Valley of Elah

the lookout was such bullshit.

"06. La Morte Rouge (Erice)

I honestly didn't know Erice had directed a new film."

i got excited when i read that on the list too, but this new thing is only 30 minutes long which means that i will probably never get to see it. i adore the quince tree sun.

I didn't know either, but were at the back end of another decade, so he was due for one.

Best Directorial Debut
BEN AFFLECK, Gone Baby Gone

What are you counterproposing, remy (you snob)?

amy ryan is great.

Gone Baby Gone was really good, I actually liked it as much as No Country (that may not hold up over time, though). It was definitely better than Mystic River, if that means anything.

All the accolades it's been getting is making me cautiously optimistic about Sweeney Todd. I haven't expected good things out of a Tim Burton movie since...ok, well, never.

It was definitely better than Mystic River, if that means anything.

No it doesn't, but it's certainly true.

I would have liked the Lookout a lot more if it was just a story about dealing with disability starring Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Jeff Daniels and Carla Gugino and they'd just left all the heist stuff in the trash.

Gone Baby Gone was pretty great until the big quarry scene and from the following narration on things got gradually more and more off key. By the time Casey Affleck is ranting at Morgan Freeman it gets into serious stfu territory.

Well, even if so, he still wouldn't have anywhere near as many '06 movies in his top 10 as does Stephen King.

Yeah god forbid he talks about Oscar-bait movies that went into limited release in late Dec '06 in 2007.

It's embarassing he wants to talk about 'Little Children' in 2007, though.

'4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days' was sight and sound's #1 film of the year. not actually released in the uk till january but what the fuck right.

oh, I forgot Sarah Polley's is her first feature too. I suppose I prefer it to Affleck's by a nose, but as they're so damn different it's all folly.

also, disgusted chuckle at NBR's best foreign film, directed by that Frenchman Julian Schnabel

like a friend said about monica lewinsky, he's very french in an american way.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49418

contains best defence of 'the kingdom' i've read.

So, should I see Gone Baby Gone or Before The Devil... this afternoon? The former has a shorter running time and no actors screaming in a Lumet-inspired frenzy.

The latter has Marisa Tomei topless.

Boston Film Critics group snubs Gone Baby Gone in favor of No Country For Old Men. That Julian Schnabel film gets Best Director and Best Foreign Film.

LA is also supposedly today.

how dare they vote for a film that isn't local.

Scorsese has been contacted to authorize the proper measures.

Before the Devil... definitely

ratatouille is actually on my list

Before the Devil... just gets worse in retrospect. God, what bilious crap.

ethan hawke was really the only thing i thought bilious.

Alfred, in addition to topless Tomei you get several gratuitous "faggot"s from P S Hoffman.

Well done Enrique. i think i agree with your number 1. my number 2 would probably be a TV thing too ("Boy A" which, despite some flaws, probably affected me more than anything else i've seen this year).

btw, whose defence of kindom were you referring to? i can't find it on the S&S full list.

ali jafaar's. the opening sequence of the film writes a cheque its ass can't cash but i don't think it's jingoistic. the characters, or jamie foxx, sort of is, but we don't ask federal agents to determine policy...

I saw neither! I went to the bookstore, graded essays, and almost bought the new Anna Karenina translation that Oprah is handing out to Obama supporters.

Here's my top 10, at least the one I'm submitting to one of the sites I write for whose deadline is before the end of the year. A lot less action/popcorn movies then my lists usually have, but those, for the most part, sucked this year. In no particular order (except for the first one, which I think was the best movie of the year thus far):

1. Gone Baby Gone
2. American Gangster
3. Waitress
4. Superbad
5. The Lookout
6. Breach
7. No Country for Old Men
8. Ratatouille
9. 3:10 to Yuma
10. Shoot 'em Up

still think before the devil is great, still think ratatouille is shit. apart from the lovely visuals, what did you ppl seriously see in that movie?

i thought it was sweet and cheery, it made me laugh and i found the story reasonably involving. the voice work was great, it looked swanky, and i thought it conveyed an admirable message without being heavy-handed or overtly didactic.

i couldn't get over how half-baked (lol) it was... the characters were so dry and dull, so going through the motions

2007 LAFCA Awards

Best Picture: "There Will Be Blood"
Runner-up: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
Runner-up: Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

Actress: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie En Rose"
Runner-up: Anamaria Marinca "4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days"
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Runner-up: Frank Langella, "Starting Out In The Evening"

Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"
Runner-up:Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood"
Supporting actress: Amy Ryan for "Gone Baby Gone" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"
Runner-up: Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
Supporting actor: Vlad Ivanov, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
Runner-up: Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"
Foreign language film: "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days"
Runner-up: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Documentary/Non-fiction film: "No End in Sight" directed by Charles Ferguson
Production design:Jack Fisk, "There Will Be Blood"
Runner-up: Dante Ferretti, "Sweeney Todd"
Animation:
Runner-up:
Music: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, "Once"
Runner-up: Jonny Greenwood, "There Will Be Blood"
Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Runner-up: Robert Elswit, "There Will Be Blood"
New generation: Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"
Douglas Edwards Indie Award: "Colossal Youth" directed by Pedro Costa
Career Achievement: Sidney Lumet

x-Post

Plus Ratatouille was anerable!

i hated the hair-pulling-dude-controlling thing too haha

i hated the fucking incredibles, was some fascist bullshit.

Alfred, where are you teaching/grading? Miami-Dade? You took over Charles Willeford's old class?

FIU! I've been working on my Miami Blues for years, though.

Just saw La Vie En Rose -- what a mess.

I haven't seen either the Coens or the PTA movies yet. I guess the moment passed for awarding old movies a la Army of Shadows. (Of course, AoS didn't actually win anything in the end, but people thought it would, which no one thinks will happen to Killer of Sheep.)

I meant to say I haven't seen the Coens/PTA movies, but can't deny I'm sort of pumped they're winning the crix awards and not, I dunno, the likes of Atonement or Ratatouille.

incredibles was superior to ratatouille in every conceivable way

including being the inferior movie

was "shoot 'em up" actually good?

If Killer of Sheep counts as 2007, does that mean Holy Mountain can make my top ten?

If you love totally ridiculous, over the top Hong Kong-style action movies, Shoot 'em Up is very awesome. Not the best movie ever, but an insane amount of fun. I'm an action movie junkie, so it's right up my alley, and I totally recommend it. I get the feeling my view is not shared by many others on here, though.

Going back to the NBoR award results for a moment... all the rest of the 2007 films that I haven't seen yet are going to have to try pretty fucking hard to be worse than The Bucket List.

I trust you were forced to see that professionally.

What I saw in Ratatouille (and I didn't adore it) was a reasonably ambitious statement about the artistic impulse.

If Killer of Sheep counts as 2007, does that mean Holy Mountain can make my top ten?

No, because Holy Mountain was commercially released in the US at the time it was made.

Hey, the LA crix named an actual foreign film instead of a US-produced ringer. Is that allowed?

Rumor is that 2, 3, 4 is not eligible for the NY critics awards.

Well, as it's not having a theatrical run here til January, it shouldn't be.

Jeff T, you're allowed to see non-US films, right?

ROFL at this Jeffrey Wells line about the DC film crix awards:

Michael Clayton's George Clooney was named Best Actor (what is this...?).

if NYFCC demurs from the No Country trend, I could see it being either Zodiac or Atonement.

NYFCC winners trickling in...

Best Foreign Film - The Lives of Others
Best Animated Film - Persepolis
Best First Film - Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Best Documentary - No End in Sight
Best Cinematographer - Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood
Best Screenplay - Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Best Supporting Actress - Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone

http://www.nyfcc.com/awards.php

Just saw Away From Her last night. Even in convalescence, Julie Christie looks great.

Ah, so the rumors were true.

And she plays a long-suffering wife!

(but that line's about Rachel Roberts, I think)

Christie just won Best Actress, with Bardem named Best Actor.

hmmm, first group to bump Bardem up to "lead." A nice reminder that this is all bullshit.

i hated the fucking incredibles, was some fascist bullshit.

aw, sometimes i wonder whether you're TOO left-wing :P

actually i must admit i was quite uncomfortable with the "some people are born better" message as well. but it was a nice film!

the rumors were true.
I spent so much time,
Thinking 'bout Eleanor Bron

so there's a catfight delaying NYFCC supporting actor? Casey Affleck v Hal Holbrook?

...no, apparently their earlier posting was wrong. Bardem wins support, Day-Lewis lead.

And Coens win Director.

Which means, perhaps...(with a screenplay nod, too)?

I'm sure there's nothing standing in Old Men's way for their top award.

Although this lag time is a strange concern.

It's weird, tho, that the love for Country and, to a much lesser extent, Blood feels like a true consensus, not compromises as per usual. Maybe it's the fact that I haven't seen most of the movies shaping up to be major players (i.e. both of them), but it really does feel like there really aren't too many other viable candidates out there, at least as far as the critics' awards are concerned.

what about a little movie called THE WATER HORSE

Yeah, and another one called Tatatouille.

and it's NCfOM. wow, it's a boring awards season already.

Between these 2 crix faves and The Departed last year, has the arty American bloodbath replaced the English costume picture as default award bait?

didn't Day-Lewis also win NYFCC in '02? They love him in epics and bad accents.

Nah, I don't buy that it's a boring awards season. If NBoR had gone for Atonement as expected, this Country sweep would've been something of a surprise.

has the arty American bloodbath replaced the English costume picture as default award bait?

Yes, thank Christ.

None of the acting categories are locks quite yet, though most seem to be down to two.

http://people.cs.uct.ac.za/~hjacobso/nat.gif

tatatouille

xp: Alfred, yes, he did, and if you knew that from memory that's almost as bad as Ted Baxter's knowledge of the Tedi Awards.

also, if PTA's gets many Oscar noms, I can totally see him splitting w/ the Coens and Atonement or Sweeney Todd winning.

Yes, thank Christ.

oh, horror fans! I still have a life-affirming Anglo/Irish bloodbath as my #1, but Ken Loach gets no love from trendies.

(x-post) It's too soon to say. The Golden Globes still have to reinvigorate the lame stuff and bring the likes of Keira Knightley back into the mix.

I can totally see Depp winning the Oscar if they like Sweeney. They're dying to give him one.

That movie is supposed to be bloodier than The Departed and No Country (which I hear isn't even bloody) combined.

so what are Christie's odds of actually winning the Oscar? Not many people have seen the movie, but Knightley and Cotillard are her only competition, no?

xp: but it's Sondheim too; something for everybody!

Christie is well-liked, English, and it's an illness-related movie. Unless the Piaf gal has a crack PR team, I like JC's odds.

also, 42 years between Oscars would be a good "story."

Speaking of Sondheim a few weeks ago I came across this amusing interview where he basically trashes every other lyricist ever. I found the link on the Famous fans of Powell and Pressburger page.

cotillard was very, very good though the film was rather.. over long.

no country for old men.. i don't know. i found it well put together and great acting and all.. but basically just flat. for some reason the whole coin flipping thing took away from the story in a major way.

also from NYFCC:

Lifetime Achievement Award: Sidney Lumet
Special Critics' Award: Charles Burnett for Killer of Sheep

ie, Armond screams, and is mollified.

"N.Y. Press critic Armond White gave a passionate speech arguing against the proposed Lifetime Achievement Award for director Sidney Lumet on the grounds that Lumet sucks and always has"

-Hollywood Elsewhere

SB: How much compromise have you had to do? What’s the scorecard? Of what you’ve written, how much of what you’ve really wanted to say has gotten out there?

AW: Well, put it this way: I don’t work for The New York Times. They don’t want what I do. I have to work for a place that wants what I do. It’s not about compromise. It’s really about if a publisher or publication wants what you do. The New York Times knows what its doing when it hires people as film critics. It hires people who will present The New York Times agenda. And there is one. They don’t hire people because they’re great writers, great thinkers or great critics. They hire people who will fit with their program.

SB: And what is their program?

AW: You read it and tell me what their program is. They don’t want someone who knows their stuff. They don’t want what I do.

SB: But you’ve written for The New York Times!

AW: Not a lot. You can count the times I’ve been published in The New York Times on one hand.

SB: Some book reviews, some--

AW: Never on film. That door is closed to me.

lol

SB: I must confess, I never bought your book [The Resistance: Ten Years of Pop Culture that Shook the World]. I borrowed this copy from one of my editors.

AW: Why didn’t you buy it?

I don't know if you've seen Iraq in Fragments. This guy, this one guy, with one camera and one microphone... It was the most beautifully shot film that I saw last year. A year of amazing, beautifully shot films.

AW: I've seen it! I've seen it! And I'm afraid that I have to say to you: You need to sharpen your eyes, my brother. Uh-uh, uh-uh.

SB: Maybe it didn't have the resolution, the image was not as sharp...

AW: But what do you care? You got stock in his company? What do you care about the technology? It's all the same: You want to find a result that is beautiful.

SB: Not technology. I care more about it as a filmmaker who--

AW: Now, wait a minute. You said you want to be a film critic. What is it that you want?

SB: Um, the answer is "both." There are certain things that I want to say, certain types of film criticism that I can only express in film. There's a couple things I want to say.

AW: Alright, why don't you get your priorities straight? Because this is a well-established art form that has standards. You-- no one should lower their standards just because there's a new technology. And if you can't see the difference between Iraq in Fragments and Broken Sky, then you got some more studying to do. You and whoever-- this is not a personal--
SB: I haven't seen Broken Sky.

AW: You and whoever. You gotta train your eye better. These things are not the same. To me this is part of the hype that comes right out of Silicon Valley and that guy Walter Murch, the lies he perpetrated through The New York Times, starting with the restored version of Touch of Evil, saying that film and video are approximate. No they're not. And it's sinful for him to suggest that.

SB: But these are matters of degrees and small--

AW: Not small. Real. To me, it matters. It matters!