Will Somebody Please Save These People From Themselves*

A couple pertinent strike-related news items came out today that I felt compelled to comment upon. Anything to put-off working on my Year End piece I suppose. They are as follows:

Letterman Makes Deal With Writers.

Followed later in the evening by the official press release.

In short, David Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants (which is not to be confused with CBS Television, the network), has agreed to the Writer’s Guild’s terms and has secured a waiver for both the “Late Show with David Letterman” and “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.” The Writer’s Guild leaderships goes on to commend Letterman for agreeing to the “integrity and affordability” of their proposals stating that this is an important strategic move in brokering an industry-wide resolution.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This is why I feel, the Writer’s Guild will ultimately gain nothing from this alleged work-stoppage, with a special gift basket of nothing delivered at the doors of the “little guys” in the guild whom this strike is supposed to be about. In addition to the lack of clarity over their demands, the lack of solidarity and conviction by the Guild’s leadership has been undermining the work stoppage since day one. Either you’re flinging your wooden shoes into the machinery or you’re not. There are no half-measures with this one.

The issue was never whether the benevolent David Letterman, Writer’s Guild member, edgy cat and all-around burr in the side of corporate America would support the union’s demands. Letterman may be a successful entrepreneur and television mogul with an enterprise worth hundred of millions of dollars, but he’s also an entertainer. Furthermore he knows those Top 10 sketches and Paul Shaffer songs about hot dogs don’t write themselves. Furthermore, he's able to sniff out a competitive advantage when one's presented to him. The move was a no-brainer for him, as it would be for Leno or Conan. Or for that matter Jerry Bruckheimer ("C.S.I.")or Bad Robot ("Lost") or Dick Wolf ("Law & Order"). Because, you see, the WGA isn’t striking to bring about change from individual producers. The enemy here is The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Collectively. Just as Writer's belong to an organization that collectively negotiates and protects their rights, whether it effects them or not, so to do the producers. But in the eyes of an individual producer such as Letterman (or any of the aforementioned production shingles), this waiver represents nothing more than a case by case contract renegotiation. A bump in after-air/alternate media residuals to keep the workforce happy. Since it’s their pie, they’re free to slice it up however they see fit. Essentially, the waivers push the writers' problems onto the show's producers, with the real people causing the harm and getting rich (the networks and the studios) remaining blissfully removed.

But how exactly is that helping the cause? Sure twenty writers (who, it’s been informally reported, make in excess of six figures a year) get to return to their jobs with new WGA-approved contracts. Letterman is viewed as a savior both to the WGA (already showing favor towards the man, paving the way for his show to be the first to hammer out an arrangement such as this in addition to this recently published release) as well as to his network. But here’s where the kick in the balls comes in: CBS gets to reap the benefits of that WGA approval while still continuing to be a part of the very system that’s (allegedly) keeping writers down. A textbook case of having your cake and eating it too.

So what exactly does Letterman get out of this deal? Well for starters he gets to return on January 2nd at full steam, with the writers Dave is comfortable with, able to perform an opening monologue (something union leadership has warned Leno and Conan not to do) as well as employ his usual routine of skits and audience Q&A’s while killing time before this month’s hot starlet and Oscar-grubbing star spend time on his couch. Oh yeah, that’s the other thing: no WGA picket-lines outside the Ed Sullivan. So, the few remaining actors with principles no longer have to fret over angering another union over crossing a line to shamelessly promote their new product. I’ll give you a for instance. Let’s say you’re Tom Hanks. Your new movie is horribly underperforming in a crowded winter marketplace and it’s time to slap a Band-Aid on the situation by hitting the late night, talk show circuit. Do you go on Jay where you’re might run into Aaron Sorkin or Akiva Goldsman carrying picket signs (oh, who am I kidding… the guys Aaron and Akiva paid to carry picket signs) or do you stick to Dave and Craig where you’ll be patted on the back for supporting “the good guys?”

So what’s the big deal you ask? Isn’t some progress better than none? No, not when it comes about like this. Because the WGA is cherry picking who it is they do and do not want to guide through this painful period in our national history which is sure to be remembered for a proliferation of hastily conceived reality shows, game shows, reruns from sister networks and more televised sports (I don’t think CBS has ever looked forward to March Madness more than it does this year). Worldwide Pants has agreed to a waiver. Does anyone doubt for a second, if given the opportunity that Leno or Conan or “The Daily Show” would not jump at the opportunity to sign one as well? Does anyone else find it suspect that the WGA is creating semantics arguements to justify that this is a deal with Worldwide Pants and not CBS, (the alledged reason that Jay and Conan are SOL is they are considered employes of NBC/Universal and not entities unto themselves)? But that’s not how the WGA is playing this one. They’re anticipating the return of those shows to be such abject failures that their desperation (especially in the face of Letterman operating at 100%) creates even more leverage. I’m not quite sure what Letterman did to be placed in such a lofty position of unfair creative advantage though. Or for that matter how it was deemed that it was acceptable for CBS to benefit but not NBC or Comedy Central.

The favoritism as lobbying for position continues elsewhere. It was recently reported that the Golden Globes were denied a waiver from the WGA and as a result may not be televised . Before everyone starts making obvious jokes about one less bloated award show or how “we’ll never know who gets drunk” it should be pointed out that the WGA granted waivers to both the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards (broadcast on TNT a subsidiary of Time Warner) as well as the Film Independent Spirit Awards (broadcast live on the Independent Film Channel and later on AMC, both subsidiaries of Cablevision). So what we’re to take away from this is some award shows are acceptable for movie stars to grace the red carpet unfettered by noisy picketers and heavy consciences but others are not. Namely the Hollywood Foreign Press, who serve (seemingly) no other purpose than to hand out trinkets in the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards. Again, I’m forced to ask, does anyone really believe that if push comes to shove that Daniel Snyder (owner of Dick Clark Productions which produces the show, the Washington Redskins and BFF of Tom Cruise) wouldn’t agree to a similar waiver that would allow the stars to shine at his awards show and for the whole event to broadcast at NBC? But what’s to be gained from that? The cancellation of the Globes is nothing more than a shot across the bow at the Academy Awards: You see what we did to them, well we’re coming for you next.

And since no one seems to be asking it, then I must: what is an industry pocked with a handful of waivers really going to matter when (because no one can honestly believe it’s a case of “if”) the work-stoppage is resolved? What happens if the WGA folds on their demands, or at the very least compromises on some of them? I mean, it’s not like you’re not giving some of the studios an advantage anyway by letting them make money off new original content while your brothers and sisters in arms continue to “starve” on the picket line, right? I eagerly await the announcement that since Reveille Productions sent a plate of muffins to WGA leadership, “The Office” and “Ugly Betty” can resume production. But I digress: back to the earlier issue. Wouldn’t these waivers be as worthless as the Confederate dollar in 1866? What would bind a production company to adhere to a contract out of step with the rest of the industry? And conversely, how would the rest of the rank and file react to some productions having more amenable bylaws than others simply by virtue of being on the waiver pecking list? I thought this strike was supposed to be for all future generations of writers. Strength through unity and all that jazz. How does this move reflect that candy-coated sentiment in the slightest?

And then there are the real losers of this latest development: WGA feature film writers, who don’t stand to benefit as heavily as their TV-brethren from weekly streaming content. Who could probably give fuck-all about Reality TV and animation. Who stand to benefit not at all from Waivergate (if this term catches on, I want to be on record as coining it) who, most importantly, stepped away from their Power Books and potentially lucrative paychecks to support their poor, exploited television writing cousins. Because it was the right thing to do. What could they possibly be thinking right now, as they continue to metaphorically (I can only hope not literally) go hungry while they’re future is sold out from underneath them by short-sighted management. For this they gave up months (and counting) of employment?

I’m over the strike frankly. I’m industry, but in an especially apt irony, I work in a sector of the industry that isn’t successful enough to be negatively affected by the strike so I’m more or less observing from a safe distance. I’ve kept my eye on the trades, regularly read Finke and Poland, have watched the battle lines being drawn, have seen the number of recordings on my Tivo dwindle. I’ve been hopeful for a speedy resolution but not a hasty one. I am not a WGA member (although I suppose on some level I can’t deny that I’d like to be one some day, if only for what is implied by said membership) so I can not pretend to be swayed by the same issues that have emptied the writer’s rooms out in front of the Warner’s Gate on Barham and the Paramount Gate on Melrose. But if it was decided that a strike was required to change the industry then I accepted my small sacrifice of less television and the realization that almost every big budget movie rushed into production for next summer will be even more shitty than usual. But, it could be rationalized, even as just a consumer, that these are small prices to pay for the greater good.

However I now feel betrayed. So I can only imagine how the membership at large is feeling right now, no matter how leadership spins this:

Guess what folks: you’ve jeopardized your livelihood, your careers and the security of yourself and your families so the men and women who feed lines to Rupert at the Hello Deli can get a slight increase in their residuals for online content. Wait a minute, Worldwide Pants doesn’t control that: CBS does, so I suppose it’s their prerogative whether or not they honor the waiver agreement. The important thing is two dozen of you are going back to work and we get to increase Les Moonves’ bottom line. Smells like victory to us.

Smells like something alright.


* Line courtesy of WGA member Peter Morgan

Ramble On

Was turned away from another big, holiday, awards contender screening tonight, my second in a week. Apparently claiming you write for The House Next Door doesn’t mean much in L.A. So, an opening in my evening means lots of free form blogging. If I’d just get on the twitter bandwagon already something like this would be unnecessary.

**

Turned 27 on Saturday which, as everyone knows, is the dead rockstar age. It’s telling that I received more congratulatory emails from the Pepsi Corporation, radio message boards and (TMI alert) porn sites I subscribed to in college than from actual friends. Still, I actually had a pretty good time playing cards with a big group of people till 1 in the morning. The beer was cold, the conversation was lively, they stuck candles in homemade congo bars and I ended up winning $25 with a 2-7 off-suit. I certainly hope I’m not looking back on the day 40 years from now as “one of the good ones” but all things considered it could have been a lot worse.

**

I fly back to Boston on Wednesday and I’m not looking forward to it. Because of all sorts of logistic hoops I need to jump through for this trip, I was unable to book a direct flight from LAX to Logan, which means I’ll be heading to Atlanta first then flying up the eastern seaboard arriving in Boston sometime in the late evening. All in all, it’s looking to be an almost 10-hour travel day and that’s assuming the ice storms that have been pummeling New England for the best week don’t mess things up any further. It’s times like this I wish I had an iPod, particularly one of those kickass touch-screen ones where you can watch episodes of “The Office” that the writers aren’t getting royalties for. As is, I’ll be listening to something like fifteen hours worth of stockpiled O&A on my XM, although with battery life being what it is I’ll be lucky to hear a 1/3 of that. I haven’t been back for a year and yet I feel like it’s been way too recent for my liking. I really should phase this part of my life out already. After the initial buzz of seeing my family wears off, it really does come down to me watching my ass expand while I channel surf and bitch about how cold it is for ten days. On the upside I can finally watch a Pats game at a decent hour. Something about watching a game at 10:30 in the morning just isn’t right.

**

One upside to going back to Boston: HBO on Demand. It’s like crack it is. And it’s absolutely the future of home entertainment. My impressive wall of dvd’s might make for a fun conversation piece but they’re about to go the way of the dodo. In the future, every movie you could possibly want to watch will be at your fingertips. Who’d ever bother with waiting on Netflix again? First point of business: the first episode of the fifth (and final) season of “The Wire” which is allegedly available early on Demand. I’d hoped to get the entire new season in advance as I’d done in the past in order to give a little closure to my anthology on the film’s credit sequences but my emails to my former editor went unreturned (no surprise there). Guess I’ll just have to be patient and download them as they air.

**

Big winter movies still to see: There Will be Blood, Charlie Wilson’s War, Sweeny Todd and most importantly Alien vs. Predator 2. I kiiid.

**

In anticipation of There Will be Blood I found myself rewatching Boogie Nights for the first time in ten years. Wow has that film aged badly. I’ve never been a big PT Anderson guy but Boogie Nights was the film of his I stomached the best, or at least I did when I was 17. Yet it really does lay out every horrific tendency as a filmmaker he possessed in the late 90’s. A “more is never enough” aesthetic that trickled down to everything from the soundtrack, which never met a cutesy 70’s staple it didn’t love and demand to be piped in over every scene (Anderson really is categorically terrified of letting scenes play out over silence), to the histrionic performances to the nascent adolescent dialogue to the dick-wagging (literally) steadicam shots which seem to exist only for their own amusement. Yeah it’s got style and energy, but so does City of God and who the hell wants to watch that again?

**

Speaking of dick-wagging steadicam shots, how awful is Atonement? In the interest of staying up to date both with cinema trends and the Golden Globes (when will I learn?) I checked out a matinee at the new Arclight Sherman Oaks this weekend. I skipped Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice despite near universal acclaim because, frankly, I don’t do “corset movies” but this was promising to be a bitter little pill of a film not at all like prestige Oscar-bait such as The English Patient. Turns it it’s something far worse: it’s Wright’s attempt to remake Cold Mountain only without the colorful supporting characters or even a loosely defined narrative to hang itself off of. First half of the film (ie: the half everyone seems to love) is laughably over-plotted, relying on the same risible contrivances that sunk the long forgotten Reservation Road earlier in the fall. Allegedly the film is sexually charged but I couldn’t get over the fact that costumes not withstanding McAvoy and Knightly look like the same person. But the film doesn’t become truly insufferable until it enters the last Great War which consists of nary a single scene but rather an hour plus of elliptical moments in time which are comprised mostly of McAvoy walking through fields and leafing through postcards. Gotcha ending is neither cathartic nor subversive; simply one of a hundred literary conceits found within the film that just plain don’t translate to the screen.

**

One upside of awards season? The now standard practice of making the screenplays of awards contenders free and available for download. Paramount Vantage, Focus Features and Fox Searchlight have all taken this approach which is what allowed me to read the script to Juno this afternoon while at work. All I can say is fuck the haters; this thing is too charming for words. Found myself both laughing aloud and tearing up. After today I’m convinced that anyone clinging to the “all the characters in the film speak the same way” modus of criticism are either tone deaf or just lazy and using a convenient party line to explain their inabilities to warm up to the film.

**

Speaking of scripts, I am Legend was a bit of a full circle experience for me this weekend as it was the first screenplay I ever read back in the mid 90’s. This was when the film was supposed to be a vehicle for Ahhhhnuld and hued a lot more closely to Matheson’s original story. Over the years, I’d built the script up in my head as one of the great unproduced projects of the modern blockbuster era but going into the film I knew it’d been given the entire Akiva Goldsman treatment. The final result is a film that’s as devoid of humanity as the streets of New York City portend to be. Most of the original story’s more wicked ideas have been tossed aside (although it’s only recently dawned on me that they made their way into the first two Blade films) in favor of a big budget 28 Days Later knock-off only without the ingenuity, terror or (most importantly) the waking sadness of a world once familiar reduced to a monument to its former vitality. Smith’s widely hailed performance (which has earned comparisons to Hanks in Castaway? Really?) is, to be polite, uneven. Sufficiently screwy and vulnerable in places, far to often the actor falls into “Big Willy Style” mode, riffing as though he were auditioning for the last sitcom on earth. Lawrence has a knack for small-scale action but the big FX sequences feel like outtakes from The Mummy films.

**

On a final note, I just received the new, uber-dorky Blade Runner 5-disk box set complete with origami unicorn and matchbox car in the shape of a spinner. If I were to point to something I own that could personify why I haven’t been laid in ages, I think this thing would have to be it. I doubt I’ll ever get through half of it, but the sheer volume of geektastic stuff thrown into this package zeroes right in on my completist tendencies. I love this thing so much I want to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant.

Fun with Steroids

Breathing a sigh of relief over the recently unveiled Mitchell report. It was ultimately less of a stunner than first expected; almost every name on there is someone whose name had been whispered about in the past ten years. Prior to the official announcement a friend of mine leaked me a list of names he said he’d received from an inside source at a news affiliate that turned out to be about 75% bunk. Needless to say, that got my heart racing. Sorry I ever doubted you Captain.

Of course the big “revelation” which should have surprised no one who’s been paying attention, is that Roger Clemens was a focal point (9 pages worth) of the investigation particularly during his years in Toronto and New York. The man who has to be smiling the widest this morning is former Red Sox G.M. Dan Duquette who famously said Clemens was in the “twilight of his career” when the team parted ways with the pitcher in 1996. Duquette had a valid point: Clemens’ last season of the team he went 10-13 with an E.R.A. of 3.63. He was getting injured with greater frequency, averaging about 25 starts a season. Those Sox teams of the mid 90’s were pretty lousy (the team didn’t begin to turn things around till the Pedro/Nomar years) but Clemens had become a consistent disappointment, unable to win more than 11 games a year from 1993 through 1996.

So imagine the surprise in Boston when Clemens went to Toronto and proceeded to rack up back to back 20-win/Cy Young seasons. Duquette, an already unpopular GM, was vilified and the city watched in horror as Clemens eventually made his way to the hated Yankees where he won another Cy Young, an average of 15 wins a year and two World Series titles (a distinction which obviously alluded him in Boston). For years this improbable turn-around had been rolled into the curse that hung over Boston for 86 years.

But here we are in 2007. The Sox, still basking in the afterglow of their second title in three years. The Yankees, despite spending the GNP of Guam on over-priced, past their prime arms (including, tee hee, Clemens) are the ones chasing the Sox. And this morning the final piece of validation. The last puzzle piece is in clear sight as Red Sox Nation is purged of one of its last demons.

Clemens was past his prime. The Sox were working off the best information they had available to them. They just didn’t anticipate one little thing:

Clemens if a fucking cheater!

Oh the joy, the joy. For years Sox fans joked that Clemens’ bust in the Hall of Fame should be adorned with a ball cap with a dollar sign on it. Now, we can begin the jokes about asterisks and hypodermic needles instead. There had been a softening towards Clemens in recent years; a willingness to let bygones be bygones. When it was rumored that the pitcher might come back to Boston this past spring it was met with almost a uniformly favorable response. There was something poetic and apt about Clemens finishing his career in the same city he started it in. But Clemens went with the Yanks, made an embarrassment of himself, limping off the mound during the playoffs in (presumably) his final game of his storied career, only to watch his one-time team celebrate again without him. Now on top of that, every single accomplishment Clemens had between his time with the Sox in 96 and the Astros in 2004 (when, it’s worth noting he won his record 7th Cy Young) has been tainted.

Oh but wait, it gets better. Clemens wasn’t the only one taking shots in the ass on those Series winning Yankees teams.

Andy Pettite: cheater

David Justice: cheater

Chuck Knoblauch: cheater

Jason Grimsley: cheater

Glenallen Hill: cheater

Denny Neagle: cheater

Mike Stanton: cheater

Dan Naulty: cheater

*

As if there weren’t enough shame in being a Yankees fan, we now have proof that half the team’s bullpen was juicing. If they’re going to attach an asterisk to Barry Bonds’ home run record, then by all means let’s put one on the Yankees’ World Series wins in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000.

A sad day for baseball, a lousy one in the Bronx, but once again Boston has reason to celebrate.

Now if only we can change the “Year 2000” chants to “nine-teen seventy-eight!”

* Whoops: forgot Jose Canseco won a ring with the Yanks in 2000 as well. How appropriate an omission is that?

Thoughts on the Independent Spirit Nominations

My God is it that time of year already?

This morning LA-based Film Independent (or FIND) announced its nominees for the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards at an LA-friendly 8 AM PST. You’ll notice either from the weather outside or your nearest calendar that we’re not even free of November yet and they’re already rolling out the award season. Everyone get out your party hats. One does have some time to get used to these particular nominees though: the winners aren’t announced for another two months. In keeping with their status as the Academy Awards’ obnoxious little brother, the Indie Spirit Awards are held on a beach in Santa Monica the day before the Oscars which take place in late February, long after you’ve forgotten most of the films that were even released in 2007.

So why make Zach Braff and Lisa Kudrow get in front of the press and announce these stupid things now? Politics of course.

First a little background: a few years back the Independent Spirit Awards were run by an organization called IFP (or Independent Feature Project) which was created to nurture independent filmmakers by offering up seminars, workshops, occasionally funding, and networking opportunities. Filmmakers are inherently secretive and standoffish but filmmaking is collaborative by necessity. IFP attempted to bridge this gulf of personality and served as a valuable resource to upstart filmmakers looking to get their first films off the ground.

But around 2003 a rift formed between the upper levels of IFP’s management regarding the direction of the non-profit organization. Specifically, ditching the whole non-profit thing. The organization had become schizophrenic in trying to serve as both a fund-raising organization and a de-facto film school and a fissure was created. As though it had lost a turf war and had 72 hours to get out of the state (what was Bush behind this one too?), Much of the IFP staff uprooted itself from California and focused on New York City as its base of operations with satellite offices in the hinterlands of Minnesota, Seattle, and Phoenix (as well as Chicago although that one’s less of a stretch). Left in its place was the Angelino-centric Film Independent (formerly IFP-West) which was created to run the Los Angeles Film Festival (formerly the IFP-LA Film Festival) and the Independent Spirit Awards. These were two high-profile cash cows that brought national exposure to the organization but they also became the be all-end all of Film Independent; each a giant tent pole at opposite ends of the year which FIND could hang itself on.

The festival and the awards brought in enormous attention and dollars but were hardly self-sustaining and they certainly weren’t profitable. So sponsors were brought in. Such “independent-friendly” companies as Target, Acura, Pop Secret and Biloage (it’s an herbal shampoo they’re now handing out at screenings in little tubes). The LA Film Festival, abandoned its aspirations of being a mid-year Sundance and sold out. Big time. I’m talking making Transformers’ world premiere the festival’s center piece gala.

There was also a larger emphasis on expanding membership beyond filmmakers to film fans and patrons at large. FIND still holds seminars and workshops but they’re mostly set dressing. For $95 a year anyone could become a member, regardless of their aspirations behind the camera and the direction of the group steered away from nuts and bolts and collaboration and more towards guest speakers and rubbing elbows with Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. In addition to paving the way for a whole new generation of starfuckers, membership also fulfills the great, film fan fantasy of voting for the Academy Awards. Or at least the next best thing.

That’s right: the Independent Spirit Awards are decided by its membership. Ballots will be sent out in January to all 6000 FIND members, unless of course you choose to “go green” and cast your vote electronically to save paper. At its essence, the Independent Spirit Awards are nothing more than the People’s Choice Awards for people who frequent the Landmark and Laemmle’s theater chains.

As for old IFP, just because they relinquished control of the Independent Spirit Awards doesn’t mean they got the awards bug out of their system. The created their own, costal-specific awards, The Gotham Awards to hand out to deserving “independent” films. Admittedly they’ve endured some growing pains in trying to establish who it is they’re representing (two of last year’s nominees The Departed and Marie Antoinette cost a combined $130 million dollars) but they’ve also differentiated themselves by limiting the number of awards they give out as well as their emphasis on highlighting films without distribution. You might be asking yourself when this organization gives out their awards.

Tonight of course. Oh the pettiness of it all.

As for the nominations themselves, their mostly inoffensive especially once you consider FIND has imposed an arbitrary, 20-million dollar budgetary cap to nominees which precludes the involvement of such films as Atonement, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and Gone Baby Gone, all films which are probably considered by the public at large as “indies.” It’s also worth noting that with the exception of I’m Not There, FIND’s awards have mostly ignored the films that were Gotham nominees with Sean Penn’s Into the Wild being completely shut-out and Margot at the Wedding and The Namesake having to contend themselves with a single nomination apiece in the supporting acting categories. I suspect the Dylan film only made the cut because director Todd Haynes is practically the pope of the Indie Spirit Awards (his Far From Heaven swept in 2002 and they even nominated his unwatchable Velvet Goldmine). I’m surprised that Sundance winner Grace is Gone and sex-doll romance/fairy tale Lars and the Real Girl are absent as well even if I did find the latter overly precious. I’m personally pleased that the panel resisted the urge to shower Sidney Lumet’s derivative Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead with nominations but I’m puzzled that Laura Linney wasn’t nominated for The Savages. I’m happy for surprise nominees Fred Parnes & Andrew Wagner, who I got to know while I was in Austin this past fall, for their screenplays for Starting Out in the Evening. Now if only I’d seen their film…

So full disclosure, if you can’t tell from the above graphs, I’m a Film Independent member, mostly for the rare occasions my company attends a FIND event for networking as well as the 3 to 4 free screenings they hold a month. I voted last year and I no doubt will do so this year. Last year I was doubly involved as Steel City was actually nominated so I’m pretty intimately aware with the behind the scenes process. While the membership at large picks the winner, the nominees are decided by small panels who review individual submissions. This is how fringe titles that have never played outside of festivals like Sundance and Toronto can find their way into the running. Having directly benefited from this policy I appreciate the lip service being paid to legitimately independently financed and produced filmmaking if for no other reason than the collective “huh’s” that come from Awards “gurus” like Tom O’Neil and David Poland as they try and wrap their minds around why an organization would “waste” a nomination on the likes of an Anna Kendrick for Rocket Science (who I’ve had a crush on since I saw her in Camp 4 years back) or for that matter Raymond J. Barry for Steel City.

I’m glad smaller films will have a fleeting moment in the sun even if I’m dubious to what real impact it will have on them. I also know you can lead a sycophantic film society to water but you can’t make them vote. For an organization with the word “independent” in their name, there sure is a lot of group thinking to the voting process. As a rule of thumb, films with more nominations usually do better than films with one or two categories under their belts and films that have made more money at the box office always do better than films that haven’t. Last year given the choice between Ryan Gosling’s acclaimed addiction drama Half Nelson and Guillermo del Toro’s visually stunning Pan’s Labyrinth, voters gave it to the Academy friendly Little Miss Sunshine in a 4-award sweep.

Look, voters are lazy. Hell I vote and I’m lazy. Last year FIND struck a deal with Netflix that put dvd screeners on voters’ doorsteps and even I skipped roughly a quarter of the nominated films, and I’m way more vested in independent film than most. This year they have an arrangement with B-Side Entertainment to actually stream the nominated films via the internet which has both minuses (I’m not a huge fan of watching movies on my computer) as well as plusses (I can now fast forward to the “good parts” of Lust, Caution and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead from the privacy of my room). Still I’d be lying if I said I thought I’d watch everything before all the votes are tallied.

In the meantime, I get to watch films. Lots of films. Some I’ve never seen due to lack of opportunity (for my part, I’m glad I’ll be able to watch Lake of Fire at my own leisure, with plenty of breaks built in) or because of poor word of mouth. Or to re-watch films I was underwhelmed by like I’m Not There or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly to see if I can get something out of them with repeat viewings. Or simply watching Juno over and over again until I know every line by heart. It may be a bloated, glad-handling, self-congratulatory group, but I’m a member and I’m glad to have the perks at the moment.

Fuck Myspace

No, I’m not joining Facebook. I’ve actually started weaning myself off Myspace as only a handful of people seem to bother updating regularly anymore (and it’s not like I’m one of them) but I logged in earlier just to see what everyone’s up to and I saw my ex changed her dating status from “single” to “in a relationship” over the Thanksgiving holiday (and what better time to make it “official,” right?). Truth be told I hadn’t thought of this person in probably a couple months (we barely speak anymore) but still, you never want to see your ex being involved (so much so they feel comfortable announcing it to the Myspace world) while you’re still hopelessly single. It’s really a pride issue more than anything; as with most things I’m fairly competitive when it comes to dating. Still: an important lesson. Myspace is fucking evil.

D’Angelo Stylie

Southland Tales (Richard Kelly) To crib from Burns: most filmmakers would be content for Domino to be the most retarded entry on their résumé… Tonally a miscarriage. Kelly thinks he’s a lot funnier (more probing, more insightful, more original, etc…) than he really is and this pastiche of stunt casting and fanboy wankery is 2.5 hours (!) of one idea smashing on the rocks after another only for the director to quickly move onto something else equally stupid and ill-conceived. This is why second drafts and strong-willed collaborators are encouraged. If you look in the rear-view mirror, you’ll see Heaven’s Gate. Grade: D

Michael Clayton (Tony Gilroy) God Bless Clooney. Aesthetically modern (plot device attached to GPS for cryin’ out loud) but so entrenched in a bygone era of conflicted heroes, sparse visuals and storytelling efficiency it runs laps around pretenders like American Gangster. Not really *about* anything per say (I’ve largely forgotten everything about the film) but it’s a real hummer as it unspools. BTW, in my version of the film he takes the money. Grade: B+

The Savages (Tamara Jenkins) Credit where it’s due: the film doesn’t pull any punches with Philip Bosco’s aging father, never reducing him to a lovable, huggable curmudgeon (Little Miss Sunshine syndrome) and following through on its premise to the bitter end. Fact is this is all perfectly fine (Linney and Seymour Hoffman are so good together it’s a wonder they’ve never shared the screen before) but the whole thing plays so right down the middle, flattering the audience’s intelligence without ever really challenging them (Jenkins, it’s worth noting, is married to Sideways co-writer Jim Taylor and the influence is impossible to miss). Frankly I’d probably cut this one a lot more slack if I didn’t see it the same day as Margot at the Wedding which took hyper-articulate dysfunctional grown siblings into a much more provocative direction. Still… Grade: B

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet) Yuch, we get it: ugly people doing unflattering things to one another. Time capsule of every shitty spec script that was written in 1996, complete with Fargo-esque caper gone horribly wrong and arbitrary Tarantino-inspired chronology hijinks that seems to exist simply so every scene shot can be used in the film to go with stark-black nihilism which has never really gone out of style. The film never quite kicks the direct to video feel; once you get past the leering and plotting there’s no spark of personality or uniqueness to the film (save for a brief exchange with Michael Shannon who seems to have wandered in from a far more interesting film). And did I mention “ugly” and “unflattering?” Tomei waits for *this thing* to spend half the film parading around nude? This thing may set digital photography back twenty years. Grade: C

Beowulf: IMAX 3D (Robert Zemeckis) I was about to discredit the film as an achievement in storytelling and focus purely on the visuals and the experience of IMAX 3D (I couldn’t imagine seeing the film in flat 35), but that’s not fair to what the film accomplishes with what has historically been a difficult, and according to some, impenetrable text. Much credit to writers Avary and Gaiman for creating a narrative through-line that turns a story where simply the protagonist dies at the end (we all knew this going in, yes?) into an honest to goodness tragedy. The film is eons more entertaining than 300, presenting an epic story in all its bawdy, drunken, larger than life glory. Films like this are supposed to be fun and this one is damnit. Zemeckis also takes full advantage of the technology available to him, inching closer and closer to photo-realism, almost seamlessly incorporating recognizable movie stars (especially Jolie, who even without nipples is truly a sight) into impossibly elaborate set pieces. As for the 3D, it’s not so much a must for the gimmicky, Jaws 3D-type projectiles sent hurtling at you (although unavoidably, they’re present as well), but for the depth of field it generates, creating an inclusive sweeping feeling, like you’re inside of a mead hall or a dank cave yourself. I don’t usually go in for bells and whistles but color me impressed. Grade: B+

A Poker Tragedy

I usually hate when people dedicate blog space to tales of poker woe (even Mike D’Angelo, who can make even the most staid and unwatchable third-world cinema seem exhilarating, tends to resort to navel gazing when reporting on some amazing hand he witnessed) but if I didn’t get this experience out of my system it’s just gonna eat at me for weeks.

Okay to set the scene, we were playing nine-handed, No Limit Hold ‘Em. I was first under the gun, but what’s important to note here is that the guys in front of me were getting messy with both their chips and the dealer button. The guy with the button had flopped it down between himself and the small blind, so from my angle it looked like the small blind was actually the dealer. How could I have made this mistake you ask? Well as often happens when people have been lighting up during the breaks of the game, he was getting a bit lax with getting his blinds out in a timely fashion (not that I’m bitter). And of course, I’m as sober as a priest so I look to my right, see the button followed by what I assume is the small blind so I dutifully toss out my “big blind” and, like a good donkey in training, wait for the action to come around to me (the presumed BB) before I take a peak at my cards (the preferred technique of pros everywhere). Except of course, the action doesn’t come back to me. I’ve just called the blind without even looking at my cards.

After grumbling about the sloppy chip work ahead of me at the table, I announce that I have checked in the dark, although realizing that doesn’t mean much of anything to this call-happy bunch. I finally peak at my cards and I find AQ off-suit, which is actually the best starting hand I’d had all night up to that point. Obviously, under ideal circumstances, I’d have raised (even first to act) just to keep the cheapos from out-flopping me, but whatever. I’m quickly appeased when the flop comes in a rainbow of 5A7. I quietly begin counting all that money in the pot which will be mine in a minute. I raise 100. The girl to my right labors for a few seconds before making the call. I dismiss it as she’s been playing pretty loose all night and I figure she caught middle pair with a decent kicker. A couple people fold followed by a quick call by an accomplished player. I immediately suspect he’s got an Ace but that he doesn’t re-raise tells me he’s not confident about it.

The turn hits and it’s a lowly 4. Another card I don’t have to worry about. I bet 200. The girl next door calls, which definitely scares me as now I think she maybe hit two pair. Mr. Experience labors for an eternity before finally folding. He recognizes the strength of my Ace, going so far as whispering his hand to his girlfriend just so she can appreciate his table discipline. I’m starting to suspect I may be in trouble though. A Jack comes out on the river and at this point I know my only hope is to check then re-raise all-in if she tries to bet it but thankfully (in hindsight) she checks herself.

We flip over her cards. She’d had a 23 and caught an improbable, bordering on impossible, 5-high straight on the turn. I was out roughly 40% of my chips.

So what happened? Putting aside how sloppy the business with the dealer button was, my mistake was pretending I was Phil Hellmuth and deciding not to check my dealt cards until the action came around to me (a practice that is henceforth banished from my repertoire). If I had bothered to look at them as soon as they were put in front of me, my sizable re-raise would have easily scared away the 2-3 which was a shit hand, and possibly encouraged the more experienced player to go over the top with a bet to try and defend his hand (which ended up being a totally dominated A9). But instead, I gave a player the chance to win with one of the worst starting hands in the game and paid dearly for it.

I was pretty much on tilt after that so when I was dealt pocket Q’s in position I went all-in. It was the right move but only because of my low chip stack. I actually got 2-calls (yelp) but was better off than both of them. Problem is, one of the guys behind me pairs his Ace on the flop and I’m off to the rails. Done before 10:30 and I’ve got a long ride back to the valley in front of me.

Stupid fucking dealer button.

Catch up part I

In the interest of throwing something up on the blog, here's some brief thoughts on what I've been seeing lately. More to come.

American Gangster (Ridley Scott) Doomed from its inception although no one else seems to agree. Grazer/Scott/Zallian are a perfect storm of miscast creative minds, producing a film every bit as down the middle and generic as the film’s title would indicate. Film timidly incorporates a wan procedural element (and middle-America friendly, white protagonist) to parallel the assent and fall of a black icon making the film every bit as daring as an Ed Zwick film (film might as well be called Dances with Heroin). Scott clearly has no point of entry on the material, so he compensates in the only way he knows how: firing up a smoke machine and trying to re-invision Harlem in the early 70’s as another one of his hyper-stylized sandboxes. Spike Lee would have made the Lucas character mythic, Michael Mann would have fetishized both the minutia and urban rot of the era, both would have been preferable to this assembly line product that’s as devoid of a pulse as it is a point of view. C+

Control (Anton Corbijn) Avoided writing about this one for the longest time as I can see through its flaws but finding it impossible to articulate how or why. Certainly the best of the recent rash of dead rockstar biopics of the past few years but I can’t help but wonder how much of that’s due to the relative lack of notoriety in its subject and leading man. Is star Sam Reilly really that much more convincing as Ian Curtis than, say, Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash or is he merely working from a clean slate that’s not tainted by personal fandom? The film plays less as a greatest hits CD than it does a series of fleeting snap shots in the life of a young man doomed by his own demons, placing emphasis on tone as opposed to incident. Less structurally sound than ideal (the film drags in anticipation of Curtis’ death, turning the film into an impatient slog towards the inevitable) but Corbijn’s direction is stirring, lensing in gorgeous black and white scope, injecting the potential rote performance pieces with an exposed nerve level of energy. Plus, at the risk of blasphemy, the cast’s re-recordings of Joy Division’s material arguably sounds better than they ever did on the band’s albums. B+

Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck) I can’t be the only one sick of Boston at this point, right? The Hub has not only monopolized national sports over the past few years but seems to keep drawing the country’s best filmmakers to the working class hovels and corner bars of Southie. Now if only they weren’t continuously drawn to material beneath them. Like Mystic River (also based on a Lehane novel) this one becomes rather daft as it goes along, rolling along plot points straight out of an episode of “Law & Order” in exploring an undercurrent of corruption and urban decay, although I at least give Affleck credit for keeping his performances from flying off the rails in a torrent of Oscar bating histrionics. Shouldn’t be surprised that the guy who co-wrote Good Will Hunting has a gift for breezy, free-wheeling neighborhood speak, but it’s the first-timer director’s work with actors ranging from little brother Casey to veterans Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris to character actors from HBO Amy Ryan and Titus Welliver that give hint to the promising career this former acting punchline may end up having behind the camera. B

The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona) Mucho derivativo. Another old-fashioned Spanish-language ghost story from Guillermo del Toro (playing the part of a Mexican Tarantino in “presenting” the film) although this one plays a lot closer to his lesser viewed The Devil’s Backbone than Pan’s Labyrinth. Lots of story for story’s sake, not much of it goes anywhere beyond creating a general sense of unease and approximately 2.5 legitimately scary scenes (mostly of the “boo!” variety). Captivating for stretches but once the dread dissipates you’re left with a vacuum that the film attempt to fill with mawkish sentiment it hasn’t begun to earn. B-

What Hypocrisy?

I can’t tell if I’m annoyed that C.S.S. has a song in the new iPhone commercial thus subjecting them to all the mass-consumer losers who are oblivious to under the radar music (btw, I’m loving the new Feist album)…

…Or annoyed that they didn’t even bother to credit the band in the video. Help some Brazilians out, would ya?

My Little Sister

An actual phone exchange from yesterday between myself and my sister:

Heather: Hi.
Me: Who’s this?
Heather: Your sister.
Me: Oh! Hey! What’s up?
Heather: Not much. I wanted to know if you’ve given any thought to what you want to get Dad for Christmas.
Me: No, hadn’t thought about it. It’s a little early though, isn’t it?
Heather: Yeah, but I wanted to know if you wanted to split a new iPod for him. His last one got stolen and I thought it would be a nice present to replace it.
Me: His iPod got stolen?
Heather: Yeah. He had a Nano, so I figured it was cost us $100 each to replace it.
Me: I don’t know. Nano’s are kind of lame. I’d rather we just got him one of the regular-sized ones if we’re gonna do… Tell you what: you didn’t buy it yet, right?
Heather: No I didn’t buy it.
Me: Alright, let me do some research and see what I can find. See if I can find a good deal on one.
Heather: Okay. So… your mother broke her arm.
Me: Whose mother?
Heather: Your mother.
Me: You mean our mother? Mom?
Heather: Yeah.
Me: Mom broke her arm. That’s what you’re telling me?
Heather: Yeah.
Me: When?
Heather: Today. Just a little while ago.
(pause)
Me: Why did you lead with the iPod?
Heather: What?
Me: Why didn’t you just tell me mom broke her arm? Why did we just have a conversation about dad’s Christmas present?
Heather: I don’t know.
Me: Don’t you think telling me how mom’s doing is more important?
Heather: I don’t know, I… I just didn’t want you to think the only reason I called was when something bad happens.

It’s worth noting that this is the first time my sister called me in at least 10 months. My memory doesn’t extend back far enough to remember what the circumstances for that particular call were but she’s not exactly making a compelling case for herself.

At this point I asked to speak with my infirmed mother who’s practically a quadriplegic at this point and won’t have use of her arm (which for those keeping tracking was formerly her “good” arm) for six weeks. Happy holidays!

But hey, at least I know what to get my dad for Christmas. This is my family.

30 Second Film Review: 30 Days of Night (David Slade)

I’m way behind so I’m now in all glib soundbytes all the time mode.

Pretty but dead inside: and you wondered why they cast Josh Hartnet. Slade can compose a gorgeous shot, but as with Hard Candy (aka Hostel’s more arty cousin) it’s yet to be seen whether he can place any two of them in successive order to generate legitimate tension or momentum. The film fails to exploit its on clever premise instead stealing style and story tropes from (insert your favorite genre film of the last 10 years here), forgoing a white-knuckle war of attrition in favor of quick cut action and colorful gore. What’s the point of making a film about a siege with a finite team period if there’s no real sense of how your characters are surviving day by day or how much longer they’ve got? Raimi’s just having an awful year, isn’t he? C-

WORLD SERIES BABY!

More tomorrow after I sober up. A quick note though: you'd think this would be old hat after '04. You'd be dead fucking wrong.

I guess I’ll be going to AFI after all

So money’s been getting a little bit tight lately (and very well could be for a while as I decide whether to move on from the company I’ve spent the past four years with to little financial gain) which means the annual laboring over whether to drop almost $250 on an AFI badge came a lot easier this year. Having become something of an expert on film festivals in the past few years, I’ve really come to appreciate just how convenient and unique AFI is, specifically its one-stop-shop approach to exhibition, infrastructure and networking. The biggest deterrent to seeing films at a festival is simply the energy exerted in getting from one theater to another in time. By setting up shop at the Arclight in Hollywood and setting up the filmmaker’s lounge on the parking structure’s rooftop, they’ve removed all barriers to sampling as many films as you desire and making the rounds at the after parties.

The problem though is that AFI’s a bastard step-child as far as festivals go. Located at the ass end of the calendar year, the festival is a dead zone between the unveiling of year-end Oscar contenders at Toronto and breaking indie films at Sundance a couple months later. The premieres they do get are those that have either been screened elsewhere (as is the case with Juno) or reek of misfires no one else wanted (hello Lions for Lambs). Most depressing of all is the fest’s slate of American independent films which, in my four years of attendance, have been without exception horrendous. In the interest of keeping up with other festivals, AFI added a “Dark Horizons” category to attract genre fans but they seem surprisingly uncommitted this year (Stuart Gordon’s Stuck and Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears both screened at Toronto to much acclaim yet neither chose to make their US LA premieres at AFI).

The one niche the festival has carved out for itself is as a forum for the world’s best foreign cinema, specializing both in films that premiered at Cannes as well as representing the year’s foreign language Oscar contenders. But over two hundred bucks is an awful lot to shell out just to see Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Southland Tales a week early. Thankfully, and through the graciousness of others, a badge has been dropped into my lap. This of course changes everything, as a dozen borderline titles I might never have given a second’s thought to all of a sudden sound promising (including a lot of stuff I didn’t get to see at Austin due to the aforementioned logistics).

I usually have such a hard time enjoying myself at AFI because I’m always aware of how I’m barely getting my money’s worth. This year, there should be no such issue. Once again I find myself engaged and excited. Stay tuned for updates throughout the first 2 weeks of November.

AFF Double Feature: Juno and Lars & the Real Girl

Same usual lack of depth as my mini-reviews only longer and less focused. Bonus!





Festival hype is an especially tricky barometer to gage as it’s based in a genuinely decent place; a want to promote something small and as yet unchampioned, usually with little regard for the backlash that’s sure to come once people are paying $11 to see a film at the mall. Being first out of the gate is always tricky and being first isolated from the rest of the world only clouds things further. After playing Toronto and Telluride last month, Juno, emerged as the year’s darling “indie” comedy, trumpeting the arrival of blogger cum stripper cum screenwriter Diablo Cody and a star-making performance from Ellen Page who's mostly known in the geek world for pretending to castrate Patrick Wilson in Hard Candy and running from the Juggernaut (bitch!) in X-Men 3. Even more telling, the film has been called this year’s Little Miss Sunshine, which personally carried as much excitement as something being hailed as this year’s Big Mac.

What a relief then that the hype is wrong. Or wait, does that make it right? Aside from sharing a distributor, Juno has nothing in common with Little Miss Sitcom. It’s a bold, honest, bracingly original film that balances acerbic wit and unfussy emotion better than any film since the heyday of James L. Brooks. The film actually works best as a companion piece (and I would argue, corrective) to this summer’s surprise hit Knocked Up, telling a similar story but from the point of view of the person who can’t walk away from their responsibility. What differentiates Juno, and ultimately makes it the far better film, is its willingness to explore the entire spectrum of anxiety found in being an unwed parent, even embracing the idea that simply creating life isn’t some biological gateway to becoming an inherently better person. The film refuses to engage in squishy sentimentality about the sanctity of life (if there’s an award for most abortion/miscarriage jokes in a film, Juno is the runaway winner), presenting an intelligent, clear-eyed and scathingly funny depiction of its main character’s predicament and the decisions she arrives at.

Of course the film isn’t all Planned Parenthood jokes. If there’s a central goal to Juno it’s to tear down the notion of what exactly constitutes family and how little the functional, nuclear gathering has to do with anything in the 21st Century. Page is beautifully paired opposite the great JK Simmons and Allison Janney as her father and step-mother respectively, in a dynamic is as refreshingly nurturing, yet unencumbered by bullshit as I’ve seen in ages. Simmons is gloriously oblivious yet true of heart even in his off moments while Janney is given an (admittedly by design) “you go girl/go fuck yourself” scene that would not only put Erin Brockovich to shame but could very well become a rally call for mothers and daughters everywhere.

Juno is truly egalitarian in spirit, embracing those it initially targets as disingenuous, slyly shifting our perceptions of its characters, specifically those played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. The film makes early, easy swipes at the class divide and Garner in particular comes across as a pinched yuppie gargoyle at the picture’s onset, yet once the film places these two characters in their respective boxes it proceeds to chip away revealing uncomfortably human places and fears and ultimately redemption. The film is so subtle in shifting the audience’s allegiances, the cumulative emotional impact, once it kicks in, is all the more unexpected and appreciated.

Juno was directed by Jason Reitman whose Thank You For Smoking was liked by many and loved by me. Juno is an even better film, building around the young director’s snickering sense of humor and gift for the visual non sequitur. The film’s direction doesn’t especially call attention to itself, yet it represents an important step in Reitman’s evolution as a filmmaker, striking a balance between sardonic and heart-tugging with the greatest of ease.

But in the end, the film’s success is credited to two women (appropriately): its star Page and its writer, Cody who, as the film progresses, become inseparable. Page cuts through Cody’s Chayefsky by way of the blogosphere dialogue with a buzz saw, never allowing the verbal dexterity of the character come across as overly amused with itself or posturing. Page plays the title character as wise beyond her years yet vulnerable with a sense of where she’s going but no idea how to get there. Cody meanwhile deserves all the credit in the world for not taking the easy path with this story, never wavering from its ideals or losing its spirit or voice. And what a voice. It’s too early to tell whether Ms. Cody will ever follow through on the promise of this film, but after only one feature the young writer (who for those who are interested, is a total sex-kitten knock-out in addition to being insanely talented) announces herself as one of the most unique talents currently working in film. And should she fail to ever match this level of success, we can all take comfort in knowing she’s created at least one gem. A



Lars and the Real Girl may forever be irrevocably linked to Juno as I watched them in immediate succession (a problem most people won’t have) which certainly does this film no service even if it does create an informative case of contrasts. While Juno is hyper-stylized—perhaps bordering on precious—in its telling, its emotions are grounded in an earthy, unmistakably genuine bedrock; its very irony protects it from growing treacly and when it does get genuinely heartfelt (and it does) it has the effect of a baby bird pecking through its hard outer shell. Lars and the Real Girl, by comparison, is firmly grounded in a plain-spoken, aesthetically sparse setting where people keep their emotions close to their vest and seem to be as impenetrable and still as the winter landscape that surrounds them (at times the film feels like a geographical cousin to Steel City). But emotionally the film’s a fraud, predicated on that fabled, affable Midwest temperament which in this instance, to quote Richard Roper (probably the first and last time I’ll ever do so), involves an entire small town “sublimating itself” to the whims of Ryan Gosling’s mumbling introvert. For a film that no doubt sees itself as generous and nurturing, I found it remarkably self-involved.

The film swaths itself in the protective blanket of being a fairy tale, a defense that’s rather en vogue at the moment (see TV’s “Pushing Daisies” which practically induces diabetic comas), yet the genre it most closely adheres to is the “therapy film” where we patiently (no pun) wait on a character to come to the emotional epiphany we’ve quietly been anticipating for about ninety minutes. The film is distressingly more Dr. Phil than Adam Rifkin, leaving aside any of the more provocative or obtuse kinks for what amounts to the story of a boy learning to say goodbye to his imaginary friend. The “character” of Bianca (which for those who can’t tell from the ads is one of those anatomically correct sex dolls that Stern used to have propped up in his studio) is not only accepted by the community in total and without exception, but actually becomes in demand and rather preoccupied with civic duties, inspiring jealousy in Lars (really this is the only interesting idea in the entire film). I’m probably in a real small minority in wanting to see the exploration of love between a man and an inanimate object, but it’s got to be a heck of a lot more engaging than treating the doll as a walking (er, sitting) metaphor for the character’s emotional paralysis to be cured away by the end of act three.

Part of the problem here may be Gosling himself who is suffocated by an impossible part, a predicament he surmounted in Half Nelson that only fueled his legend. It’s a mannered, mumbling Geoffrey Rush-like performance which doesn’t even begin to fill in the rather glaring character holes in the script. The film treats Lars as if he were Rain Man, a cuddly sick person to be protected, when in fact his behavior is flat out creepy and occasionally cruel.

Which is a shame as Gosling’s supporting cast is without exception pretty phenomenal. Collectively keyed into their surroundings and the speed of life where church and Sunday dinners are the most important part of the week, the cast is unshowy and quietly devastating. As the impetus behind the town’s Capra-esque level of self-delusion Emily Mortimer clings to the hope that through sheer and unwavering altruism she can liberate a man who’s too damaged to venture outside his front door. Also desperate to save Lars is Kelli Garner’s Margo, a mousy bundle of nerves and dashed hopes. I’ve never been much of a fan of Garner’s work in the past but her work here is devastating in only a handful of scenes, presenting someone every bit as damaged as Lars without the support system catering to her.

But the performer who walks away from Lars and the Real Girl demanding our attention is Paul Schneider, last seen in some of the more tiresome scenes of The Assassination of Jesse James, as Lars’ older brother and reluctant caretaker to Bianca. Putting on a master class of understatement and quiet desperation, Schneider plays a man who’s only recently come to believe he’s to blame for his brother’s dysfunction, a byproduct of his own youthful rebellion. Mortified by Lars’ behavior yet racked with the guilt that he may have created it, Schneider truly is his brother’s keeper. Only when he dances to the film’s incredulous tune does it ring true. B-

Back from Texas

Had a great time in Austin but it’s a relief to be back in LA. Met a lot of incredible, generous people and reconnected with some old friends, didn’t embarrass myself in my panels (although I heard some horror stories about my inebriated behavior after hours) and saw some great films. I’m trying to get caught up on my blogging but there’s been more distractions waiting for me at home than I thought. The office is especially populated these days, so less time for on-hours goofing around. I’ve also got about 20 hours of TV clogging up my dvr that I’m supposed to be going through so my housemates will stop giving me the evil eye (the sad part is, over half of it is poker… I really do have a problem). The good news is the Sox are in the process of pissing away a glorious season because the bottom of our lineup is abysmal and none of our starters can make it to the fifth inning (save for Beckett, who’s tomorrow’s last hope), so at least I should have some free time now. Oh and more good news: my X-Box is doing that three blinking red lights which I guess is the new “Blue Screen of Death” so that will be out of commission for the next month or so while the criminals at Microsoft fix the problem they were aware of when they sold the damn thing. I’ve got a screening of 30 Days of Night tonight, so once you factor that in to everything I saw at AFF as well as a couple films I saw immediately beforehand and I’m quickly becoming swamped. Too much good stuff.

And in the interest of staying positive: Go Pats, Go!

The 3 AM Hustle

My flight for Austin leaves at 7:30 AM, which means I’ll be pulling an all-nighter just so I know I’ll be up in time to be at the airport by 6. I really hate waking at 4 something in the morning and I fucking despise forcing myself to crawl into bed at 10 at night to try and get a semblance of a full night’s sleep (I blame my mom passing along her night owl genetics). So this is the silly dance I perform every time I travel early in the morning. Yes, it’s probably crazy, although not a whole lot more than tossing and turning in bed for a few long hours as I try and trick my body into aping the sleep habits of a two year old.

And it’s not like I’ll be want for activity to keep me awake and alert. I’m planning on putting in my second workout in a span of twelve hours. I’ve been skipping a few lately and it’s not like the binge of booze and BBQ over the course of the next week will help keep me in fighting weight. Plus, I’m quickly trying to get caught up on the first season of “Friday Night Lights” so I can weigh in on the supposedly awful second season premiere and when I’m on the elliptical seems to be the only time I get to watch.

I’m also trying to cram in as much research as possible for my Austin panels which don’t technically start until Saturday but I don’t see myself having access to the net between now and then. I know I found myself watching the film Over the Hedge TWICE today (once with less illuminating than I’d hoped commentary track on) to get ready and even still I feel woefully under prepared. Right now I don’t even want to think about my Sunday panel where I’m sitting with two entertainment lawyers and a venture capitalist to talk about the nuances of contracts (yeesh).

Of course Austin won’t be all drunkenness and trying not to embarrass myself in front of thousands of people (those two things really are at odds though, no?). I have a lot of activities (read: parties) planned for the week but my passion first and foremost is film, something that’s usually forgotten or overlooked when talking about film festivals. In fact I’m already bemoaning the films I *won’t* be able to see either because of conflicts or that they’ll be screening after I leave including Before the Devil Knows Your Dead (thankfully opening in LA shortly), Grace is Gone (ditto), The Savages (will have to wait for AFI) and Paul Schrader’s new film, The Walker.

What will I be seeing? A couple definites on a few strong maybes. I’ll be at the opening night Gala of Chicago 10, the divisive animated documentary which opened Sundance earlier in the year as well as at the Centerpiece Premiere, Juno which is Jason Reitman’s follow-up to Thank You For Smoking (yes!) that was hailed at Toronto as this year’s Little Miss Sunshine (uh oh). I also hope to see Lars and the Real Girl and Control, both of which are opening in LA soon but I care not as well as a few films that played Sundance earlier in the year but aren’t scheduled to open for several months. I’ll try and keep my ear to the ground, but so much of these things are dictated by scheduling, energy, and distance from where you’re standing at any given moment.

Oh as if that weren’t enough, the Sox are also in the ALCS.

Game 1 is on Friday, Game 2 is Sunday. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about I now need to sneak away and find an unguarded tv to watch the Sox play the Indians. The irony is last year I gave Brian, our director, endless shit for blowing off the festivities to go watch the Cardinals in the World Series. I’ve also pretty much given up any hope of catching the Pats/Cowboys game (in Texas no less!) because it runs right into my Sunday panels and the Juno screening.

Because I’m a luddite without iPhone or laptop, this will be my last entry till I get back next week. Hopefully by the time I return the Pats will still be undefeated, the Sox will be in strong position against the Tribe and I won’t have imploded due to my lousy public speaking skills.

90 Second Film Review: We Own the Night (James Gray)

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

We Own the Night is essentially three to four stunning sequences floating in a sea of mediocrity and cop clichés that were moldy when Sidney Lumet stopped using them back in the early nineties. Gray returns to filmmaking seven years after making his last gritty, method-infused drama of torn loyalties and families at odds, The Yards, and essentially remakes it here, only this time switching locals from the train yards to Russian-owned night clubs.

As Mike D’Angelo pointed out, this is basically the mirror image of The Godfather, with the younger sibling with criminal affiliations being drawn into the clean-cut world of law enforcement in response to a family tragedy with Joaquin Phoenix in the Michael Corleone role of the black sheep. The problem is it’s a mighty short ascent as the film goes out of its way to paint the character as acting just within the confines of the law (outside of the occasional belt of cocaine) so we see him turning his back on superficial trinkets and hanger-on friends as opposed to a moral code or even a highly evolved criminal lifestyle. The film sets its gears in motion too quickly to place Pheonix into the fold of the police force, negating much of the familial angst of brother versus brother, while setting up perhaps the dumbest plot development of recent memory (I won’t ruin it here but rest assured you’ll know when to scoff). Mark Wahlberg and Robert Duvall essentially share a character, and not an especially well developed one at that, while Eva Mendes looks really, really good in a corset and fishnet stockings.

There is, however, a good twenty minutes buried at strategic points where it gives hints of the potentially great film entombed underneath the dreck. Gray’s use of music is straight from the Scorsese play book, but there’s a reason such a thing even exists and the film employs it masterfully. The film opens to Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” over a scene that’s indescribably erotic (although mostly implicit) that leads one to believe they’re about to watch a less technically accomplished version of Boogie Nights. There are also two set pieces during the film’s second act where you can feel We Own the Night threatening to become a film that actually calls attention to itself. The cutting becomes more acute, the sound design more attuned, the level of verisimilitude in the performances (which are usually terror) becomes more pronounced. The trailer sadly gives away most of this stuff as there’s really little to sell the film on without them. Two hours after I saw the film I could barely remember it. Ten days removed and it’s even less tangible. That says more than anything else I suppose. C

2 Minute Film Review: Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Shekhar Kapur)

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

Important caveat: I haven’t seen the original Elizabeth since it played theaters back in the fall of ’98 and I wasn’t a fan. In general I found it overblown, over-directed and under conceived. The shorthand at the time was “The Godfather for women” which, while both an unfair knock against both that film and that gender, also gets at the fundamentally cartoonish nature of the entire franchise. Filmed amidst impenetrable dark shadows where an assassin can spring forth at any time and a duplicitous climate of intrigue where even your closest advisers conspire against you, Kapur’s hyper-indifferent storytelling actually allowed the birth of England’s most prominent monarchy to become overshadowed by the moon-eyed pining of an adolescent who couldn’t love whom she wanted. In that same vein I found Cate Blanchett’s much championed performance to consist of two notes: simpering and Elmer Gantry. Seven Oscar nominations and the outright devotion of almost every woman I’ve ever met tell me I’m squarely in the minority with these opinions.

So now we have Elizabeth: The Golden Age which not only matches the first film fault for fault but seems to be rehashing the same conflicts (internal as well as external) thirty years farther along in QEI’s life. And yet I’d be a complete liar if I didn’t confess that in its own trashy sort of way the film is actually quite fun at times. I think the secret is—and perhaps I was too young to grasp this the first time out—that you have to toss out everything you’ve ever read in a history book as well as any pre-conceived notion of what a period piece should be and just appreciate the film as a live-action comic book. The realities of, as an example, a 50-something Elizabeth donning a full suit of honor and delivering a ra-ra, Braveheart-esque speech to rally the troops (which strikes me as absurd as the idea of honest Abe fighting at the front lines of the Civil War) are secondary to the grandeur of the imagery and the swell in your chest one is no doubt supposed to feel. Likewise, the threat from all-sides approach to conflict has the effect of turning even the most effete of diplomats into snarling threats to kingdom and crown. It's all quite lurid and baroque and laughable, but never dull.

Also on the plus side of the ledger is Kapur’s toned-down visual scheme which employs less drastic contrasts between light and dark as well as less spastic camera movement (although his predilection for extreme camera angels and 360-spins are still disappointingly the norm) which certainly allows for a great appreciation for the film’s production design and the great weathered faces of its cast. And of course, you have the intended upside of Kapur’s post-modern techniques which is the film cooks, never allowing itself to get bogged down in musty expository pieces or staid chamber-room drama (quite the opposite, the film is so propulsive at times it’s difficult to tell that we’ve actually moved from a different country and even a different year than we were just in a few seconds earlier).

So, clearly this one played well above expectations, but I can’t overstate that this might be the most redundant film in history. Blanchett gives the exact same performance here that she did nine years ago, which will no doubt please those who found the first film a “you-go-girrrrrl” empowerment piece in corsets, but doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense when viewing the character’s dramatic arc over the course of a lifetime. Frankly it’s a bit disheartening to watch a middle-aged woman sulk that in spite of being the most powerful woman in the world still can’t get the guy. Speaking of which, Clive Owen has been slotted into the Joseph Fiennes role, which I’ve got to believe is an improvement across the board (right ladies?), but some last act Errol Flynn heroics aside isn’t given much to do beyond serve as eye candy. But that pretty much sums up the film as a whole. B-

The Crystal Method playing AFF

The cat can finally be let out of the bag.

I’ve had to keep quiet about all the behind the scenes maneuvering over the past couple weeks, but it’s now official: The Crystal Method will be playing the On the Doll party at the Austin Film Festival in a couple weeks. This is, of course, a huge deal for me even if TCM are LA-based and seem to be doing a DJ set every few weeks in the neighborhood. Some of the grandeur is definitely off the band now that I’ve seen them do a set at a Best Buy, but I’ve also seen them play to a packed Hollywood Bowl in the past few years as well. This is definitely a pretty big coup for a film playing a relatively small festival like Austin and I expect the party to be one of the city’s big attractions for the night. Nice to be on the other side of the velvet rope for once.

A quick note about The Kingdom

It’s really not that bad people.

I’m in slight ass covering mode at the moment after being first out of the gate with a mostly positive review earlier in the year. My bullshit detector’s pretty high and while the film’s flaws weren’t lost on me I came to the conclusion that the film was definitely worth your time, predominantly for the film’s first and third acts and the performance of Ashraf Barhom. Is it probably too jingoistic for its own good? Yeah. Does it use contemporary fears as a pretense for what amounts to a well-constructed popcorn flick? Yep. But my God, it seems like every film that tries to address current world events either ends up as inert crap like Syriana or a condescending brow-beater like In the Valley of Elah. So a film tries to quicken the pulse a bit and it’s treated like John Wayne’s The Green Berets?

And the kicker is Universal screened the film like crazy for the press all throughout the summer so they must have thought it would be well received. Oh well, the public decides starting tomorrow. I think it will play well all through the next month or so, but what do I know?

No mini-review for this one. If you care you can paw through the month-old gargantuan piece.

http://andrewdignan.blogspot.com/2007/04/when-did-peter-berg-become-better.html

Hoo Hoo: Everyone rips me off, Robin

Mildly amusing footnote to this blog which got a shout-out at Jeff Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere blog a couple days ago (my God, just typing that makes me realize how little any of this shit really matters) after Jeff decided to call “dibs” on the expression “C.S.I.: Riyadh” as the go-to glib critique of Peter Berg’s quite enjoyable in a rousing, sort of disposable kind of way, The Kingdom. He went so far as inferring that any review that uses the expression should attribute the quote to him in their review (Jeff would no doubt say this was written in jest but I suspect that’s only a disguise of true intent).

First of all why anyone would want to take credit for being the brain trust behind something that’s clearly a plain as the nose on your face call is beyond me (the hard part is simply googling what the capital of Saudi Arabia is so one doesn’t look like an ass) but more to the point Jeff wasn’t the first person to use the expression in print. Not by a long shot.

As Daniel Feinberg (a fellow blogger/Angelino/Sox fan) was kind enough to point out, I used the expression in my The Kingdom piece that I wrote way back in April. At the time, I assumed everyone would come to the exact same conclusion and was amused with myself for all of eight seconds for coming up with something so “witty” and then moved on. But shoot, maybe I should be seeking out royalties from the two dozen or so major market film critics who have reappropriated the expression. Can we get it written in stone somewhere that I was the first one to belch out this t-shirt worthy expression?

What made me most happy about the whole thing is that before I even had a chance to meekly chime in to plug my site, Feinberg had beaten me to the punch. This implies that I not only have readers but they’re actually retaining this drivel? The mind boggles. Makes me wish I proofread more carefully.

Anyway, you can read the whole sordid affair at the link below. Or you can correctly assume that this self-aggrandizing retelling is probably the most interesting this particular story could *possibly* be and go do something productive with you time. Your choice.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2007/09/csi_riyadh.php

Has everyone seen this already?

I’m way late to the party on this one as I needed an Apple commercial to find out about it, but this music video is better directed, choreographed and conceived than just about every movie musical of the past thirty years. For those in the unenviable position of being more oblivious to pop culture than I am, this is the Canadian singer Leslie Feist who had a song in a Verizon Wireless commercial a few months back (profitable year for her). It’s a catchy song but nothing mind-blowing and from a production value standpoint it’s pretty minimal (reminds me a bit of the single-take “Praise You” video Spike Jonze and Roman Coppola did for Fatboy Slim only less self-consciously dorky) but I’m digging on the rustic charm big time. Specifically the on-set echo of the claps and the way it appears uncoordinated and hectic when it fact it’s intimately designed and elaborately staged. Apparently the whole thing was done without CGI or hidden edits which may or may not be impressive to you depending on how you respond to the video.

I initially guessed that it was directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton who between Little Miss Sunshine and that Gap commercial with Patrick Wilson and Clare Danes have been coming across as a little too cutesy-pooh (how’s that for a lacerating critical assessment?) lately, but apparently it’s directed by a thirty-one year old video-director named Patrick Daughters. This guy should absolutely be directing features (certainly over guys like Adam Shankman and Rob Marshall). I haven’t seen Across the Universe yet (and by yet, I of course mean never will I while sober) but my gut tells me that nothing in that film is quite as charming or wondrous as this video.

90 Second Film Review: Into the Wild (Sean Penn)

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

Tough, tough film to externalize my thoughts on. On one hand you have the undeniable pull of the material, oscillating between exhilarating and meditative and tragic. It’s easy to see why so many are responding so strongly to the film as it does tap into the sense of idealism and hope and belief in change and leading by example that most twenty-two year olds possess right out of school. I’ve always found Penn’s directorial-projects to be gnashing, method-fests (shocker!) but there’s a real sense of naturalism and warmth and unfussy grandeur to (most of) the film that permeates everything from Eric Gautier's (The Motorcycle Diaries) photography to Eddie Vedder’s way less obnoxious than anticipated music to the devastatingly empathic performances from the likes of Catherine Keener and Hal Holbrook. It’s also worth commending the job Penn does with adapting the film’s screenplay, maintaining the structure of a novel (complete with onscreen chapter headings), externalizing Christopher McCandless’ (a fine Emile Hirsch) isolation, jumping around seamlessly from one time frame to another and doing his darndest to keep the film from becoming episodic (it’s a failed endeavor but the effort is appreciated none the less).

But then on the other hand you have Penn who clearly identifies with, if not outright idolizes, McCandless, leaving the character unaccountable for almost all of his actions. In short, the kid is an asshole. A self-absorbed, condescending, preachy, hurtful asshole particularly in the way the character treats his parents (the film attempts to off-set and compensate for this by depicting them as bourgeoisie gargoyles) who’s deified on repeated occasions (at one point a character jokingly asks if he’s Jesus), dipping in and out of people’s lives, leaving behind pearls of wisdom and enlightening everyone from the half-naked jailbait throwing herself at him to the kindly old man who wishes to adopt him. The film has so much admiration for McCandless’ journey that is brushes right over the emotional damage left in his wake, never quite willing to acknowledge that his ultimate fate may have less to do with martyrdom than with a shithead getting exactly what he deserved.

I’m told Jon Krakauer’s 1996 book of the same name—which of course I haven’t read—placed more culpability at McCandless’ feet in addition to inferring most of the perceived slights at the hands of his parents (I have a hard time imagining it contains anything quite as embarrassing as a scene in the film where William Hurt tackles Marcia Gay Harden in plain sight of their understandably horrified children). At times Into the Wild feels like you’re trapped in a booth at a coffee house, forced to listen to a boorish trust-fund brat tell you how little you know about the world (it’s ultimately the film’s greatest failing the McCandless’ interactions come across no less arrogant at the end of the film than they do at the beginning). I have a hunch Matt & Trey are going to have a field day with this one. Like I said, tough film to get my arms around. I anticipate being on the outside looking in, so take with more granules of flavorful mineral than usual. B-

90 Second Film Review: Reservation Road (Terry George)

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

May I propose as an alternate title, Crash. Both in the literal sense (Ruffalo kills Phoenix’s son in a hit and run accident) as well as the implied shortcomings shared by both films. Specifically the contrivances, the histrionic performances, and the cursory-level exploration of human anguish. Way less white, liberal guilt at least.

The film is essentially In the Bedroom, big studio edition (mini-major distributor not withstanding) with every emotion broadly telegraphed (cry when you’re sad, rage when you’re upset, etc…), indifferently plotted, building towards an anti-catharsis that’s less ambiguous than it is letting the film off the hook from having to follow through on its own tired premise. Director George, who showed admirable restraint with material infinitely more tragic in Hotel Rwanda, directs his actors like their auditioning for guest spots on "Law & Order." Never quite finds a unique angle in approaching neither the waking tragedy of losing a child nor the torment of being responsible for said act, so it ends up playing like scenes from a drama class.

At the risk of sounding biased, a film like Steel City at least brought a sense of working-class, under-stated angst to similar material. Reservation Road meanwhile appears to have been engineered from the For Your Consideration clips up. Furthermore, the film engenders zero good will by depicting perhaps the most unengaged Red Sox fans (a father and son in the throws of the 2004 post-season run, no less) in history. Jennifer Connolly is of course cast as “least interesting thing in the film” yet again. Seriously Jen, go back to playing crack whores; your career was a lot more promising. C-

2 Minute Film Review: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik)

Those looking for depth, as always, are advised to search elsewhere.

Easy to see what attracted Pitt to this piece of material as the film isn’t a horse opera (comparisons between this and 3:10 to Yuma are unavoidable but absurd to their core) so much as an indictment of fame and the toll of celebrity worship. Ditto for Dominik, whose return to directing six years after the release of Chopper again finds him chronicling the exploits of a charismatic sociopath. Now the only question is how either of these people convinced Warner Brothers to pay for the film.

Frequently lovely but almost impossible to love, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is an ungainly, digressive, morose, over-long meditation on death (it wouldn’t be incorrect to refer to the film as a dirge, with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ mournful, Appalachian-themed score calling the tune) and the impossible demands of living up to a legend. A not entirely successful stylistic amalgamation of Days of Heaven, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Seabiscuit (seriously), the film celebrates the iconography of James as seen both through the eyes of Casey Affleck’s titular sycophant (we witness James as he strides through opaque sheets of steam and wraps himself in serpents) as well as a hero-starved public, with the film often employing a pin-hole camera effect, blurring the edges of Roger Deakins’ glorious widescreen photography, while at the same time presenting James as a paranoid, hollowed-out shell of a man, suspicious of all and never at peace. Gregarious and avuncular up until the moment he slits your throat, Pitt plays James as a man who hasn’t had a moment’s rest from the law and is own unbearable mystique in fifteen years, leaving him suspicious and haunted and incapable of sustained joy.

Arguably even more impressive is Affleck, in an inspired bit of casting, as the less “talented” younger brother hoping to prove his worth and greatness. A fan and scholar of James’ violent exploits, Ford is shown here idolizing the famed bandit like a schoolgirl admiring the star quarterback, building up fantasies and relationships that will never come to fruition inside of his own mind, only to turn cold once his advances are rebuffed (in a strictly platonic sense). Speaking in a high pitched whine and unable to sustain eye contact for more than a few seconds, Affleck’s clingy need for acknowledgment calls to mind everyone from Mark David Chapman to Paris Hilton. In perhaps the most important exchange of the film, James asks Ford if he wants to be like him or actually be him, a question the film, quite justifiably, never answers.

There’s a great film to be found buried underneath nearly three hours of atmosphere and production design but it sadly doesn’t reveal itself until the film’s final act when it is Ford who’s literally been thrust into the spotlight, having eclipsed James in infamy if not in esteem. A slow, self-destructive decline continuing the cycle of hero-worship only to be torn down to size by a fickle public, herein lies the film’s greatest purpose and ultimately its tragic underlining, making it all the more disappointing that it’s been hastily telescoped into what amounts to a disproportionate denouement. Lost and adrift for much of its run-time, with almost an hour of the film dedicated to the misadventures of the buffoonish and forgettable James gang (think of all those subplots in Heat featuring Dennis Haysbert and Val Kilmer’s characters only without energy or purpose), The Assassination of Jesse James seems at a loss for purpose when it doesn’t feature one of the two men of its title. Equal parts poetic and pretentious, flabby and anemic, The Assassination of Jesse James may end up being the most maddening film I recommend all year. B