The Nominees: Part I of VIII

I did this last year and I like how it turned out, so I'm going to do it again. There are more films this year (40 as opposed to last year's 35) and I've seen fewer (I had seen 81 by this time last year and this year I've seen a mere 67). Also, you should note that I have 34 films I'd like to see before I close the books on 2006, and so this list and especially the rankings remain in flux--since I know I'm seeing Marie Antoinette tomorrow evening and will doubtless see The Black Dahlia this weekend, etc., etc. At any rate, this is the first of eight planned entries, so from the top:

DREAMGIRLS

8 Nominations:

Best Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson

Best Costume Design: Sharen Davis (Ray)

Best Art Direction: John Myhre (last year's winner: Memoirs of a Geisha), Nancy Haigh (who also has a trophy, for Bugsy)

Best Sound Mixing

Best Original Song: "Listen" sung by Beyoncé Knowles and written by Henry Kreiger, Scott Cutler and Anne Preven

Best Original Song: "Love You I Do" sung by Jennifer Hudson and written by Henry Kreiger and Siedah Garrett

Best Original Song: "Patience" sung by Eddie Murphy & Anika Noni Rose and written by Henry Kreiger and Willie Reale

Director: Bill Condon (Kinsey, Gods and Monsters)
Cast: Beyoncé Knowles, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, Anika Noni Rose, Danny Glover, Keith Robinson

This movie was slated as the frontrunner for Best Picture by pundits and was thought to be the frontrunner for the big trophy on Oscar night but, alas, the film was not nearly as good as everyone predicted it would be and failed to get its predicted Best Picture nomination. Bill Condon also got snubbed as Best Director. The film failed for all sorts of reasons, but critics mostly agree that the film's stars, Beyoncé Knowles and Jamie Foxx, are the ones who really failed. Nevertheless, it looks pretty (much like last year's Memoirs of a Geisha) and got the most nominations of any film. Oscar was paying attention to this movie, but didn't particularly care for it.
Will Win: Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Sound Mixing
Might Also Win: Best Art Direction, Best Original Song
My Rating: #34 out of 67

BABEL

7 Nominations:

Best Picture

Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Best Supporting Actress: Rinko Kikuchi

Best Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza

Best Original Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga

Best Original Score: Gustavo Santaloalla (last year's winner Brokeback Mountain)

Best Film Editing

Director: Iñárritu (21 Grams, Amores Perros)
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi, Kôji Yakusho, Michael Peña, Clifton Collins Jr.

Everyone seems to think this film has prestige written all over it. It has some great movie-star-in-makeup-that-makes-me-look-ugly parts and is genuinely emotionally affecting if heavy-handed. The film has support across the board, though it may end up going home with nothing, like last year's Good Night, and Good Luck.
Will Win: N/A
Might Also Win: Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Origina; Score
My Rating: #24 out of 67

THE QUEEN

6 Nominations:

Best Picture

Best Director: Stephen Frears (The Grifters)

Best Actress: Helen Mirren (Gosford Park, The Madness of King George)

Best Original Screenplay: Peter Morgan

Best Costume Design: Consolata Boyle

Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat

Director: Frears (Mrs Henderson Presents, Dirty Pretty Things, High Fidelity, Dangerous Liaisons, My Beautiful Laundrette)
Cast: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, Helen McCrory, James Cromwell, Sylvia Syms, Alex Jennings

Michael Sheen was totally robbed for a nomination. I also really loved Helen McCrory in this film. This is easily my favorite of the Best Picture nominees. As far as Oscar goes, I think for them this film is "The Helen Mirren Show" and not much more, a lot like last year's Capote.
Will Win: Best Actress, Best Original Score
Might Also Win: Best Original Screenplay
My Rating: #9 out of 67

EL LABERINTO DEL FAUNO (PAN'S LABYRINTH)

6 Nominations:

Best Original Screenplay: Guillermo Del Toro

Best Foreign Language Film: Mexico (El Crimen del Padre Amaro, Amores Perros)

Best Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro

Best Art Direction: Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta

Best Original Score: Javier Navarrete

Best Makeup

Director: Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, The Devil's Backbone, Blade II, Mimic)
Cast: Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Álex Angulo, Doug Jones

This is a horror film! The fact that it's doing so well with the Academy is a bit of an anomaly. Fantasy films occasionally do well--okay not that often. But that a horror film did this well is really shocking. These nominations surprised a lot of people, me included, but the film is excellent and I feel like the Academy really did something right here.
Will Win: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Art Direction, Best Makeup
Might Also Win: Best Cinematography
My Rating: #16 out of 67

THE DEPARTED

5 Nominations:

Best Picture

Best Director: Martin Scorsese (The Aviator, Gangs of New York, GoodFellas, The Last Temptation of Christ, Taxi Driver)

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Wahlberg

Best Adapted Screenplay: William Monahan

Best Film Editing

Director: Scorsese (Bringing Out the Dead, Kundun, Casino, The Age of Innocence, Cape Fear, The Color of Money, Raging Bull)
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Alec Baldwin

This movie is probably the most widely loved of all the candidates this year (as opposed to just generally supported). And the public loves this movie too. It made tons of money and boasts--bar none--the best acting ensemble of any film this year, in my opinion. Warner completely botched the marketing of this film, or you would see many more nominations than you do, including one for Best Actor, one for Cinematography, and an additional one for Best Supporting Actor. The performances in this movie are really outstanding. I expect this movie to take the big prize at the end of the night, but we all know that Best Picture is the most confusing it's been in forever, so who knows what will happen. let me just give one final shout out to the Academy for nominating the perennially underappreciated Mark Wahlberg. His was my favorite performance in the film and I was as excited as I've ever been on nomination morning to hear his name read. Now, if they could just get around to recognizing the brilliance that is Alec Baldwin...
Will Win: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing
Might Also Win: N/A
My Rating: #30 out of 67

More to come...

Oh dear lord

I returned from my area meeting (which was a trial run for some folks presenting papers at a conference we're having at FSU called Film/Lit) to the following message from the staff at Facebook:

Hey, your account is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance. It should be available again within a few hours. We apologize for the inconvenience.

And I don't know what to do. How did I function before facebook?

Waking Up Scared

I've been having a series of dreams where I worry. Last night I was back at the old accounting office in Monrovia (before I worked at the airport) making some extra money--something that will never ever happen again. But I was supposed to leave the office at 5:00p in order to make a 6:00p rehearsal call. So I leave the office on time and get in my car and the clock says 6:47p. I am already an hour and 45 minutes late. And I have no idea how that happened or what the dream was about.

The night before that I dreamt someone had rifled through my wallet and stolen all of my money. I woke up and checked my wallet as though it were real.

Maybe I'm moving into a paranoid phase.

Picture Share

The theatre studies crew.
From left to right: Julie (Roomie), Amy and me!

10 points to whoever can name which chain restaurant we're in.
...and let's not talk about how shapeless and weird that sweater makes me look. At least I had my hair cut, right? Right?

Another couple photos to make up for how weird I look above:

My father is all the way to the left. In the center is my uncle, his brother. It's like we're triplets. I think it's such a trip!


I took this photo when I got to Hollywood. This is from the top of the parking lot at the Grove. I miss it already.


Me and my dear Aines.


I am so blessed to have these people in my life. I love you guys! Truth be told, we're all a little drunk in this photo.

How I Get Convinced to Go to Things

A series of text messages from my friend Ryan.

Ryan: 80's night @ brothers??
Me: When is that?
Ryan: Tonight
Me: I know you're joking. I'd love to but I'm drowning here.
Ryan: Carpe diem - gay research?
Me: Ha ha ha ha. Sorry. I'm out.
Ryan: You may be missing your husband! You will miss me next year. These moments will be gone.
Me: Oh shut up. You are ridiculous. I can't go. I will never get my degree if I do.
Ryan: You are going to be a spinster with a degree.
Me: You are so mean.
Ryan: You know I love you. That is why I am concerned. Well at least you can make me a scarf.
Me: I hate you.
Ryan: Brothers 1130? Move away from the loom.

Song for Today

This is from Damien Rice's new album, which is called 9. The song is called "Accidental Babies". It's totally lyric-driven, and I don't think I've heard such audacious lyrics in a song in a long time.

I held you like a lover
Happy hands
Elbow in the appropriate place

And we ignored our others
Happy plans
The delicate look upon your face

Our bodies moved and hardened
Hurting parts of your garden
With no room for 'apart'
In a place where no one knows what we have done

Do you cum
Together ever with him?
Is he dark enough
Enough to see your light?
Do you brush your teeth before you kiss?
Do you miss my smell?
Is he bold enough to take you on?
Do you feel like you belong?
Does he drive you wild
Or just mildly free?
What about me?

Well you held me like a lover
Sweaty hands
And my foot in the appropriate place

We used cushions to cover
Happy glands
And the mild issue of our disgrace

Our minds pressed and guarded
While our flesh disregarded
The lack of space
For the lighthearted in the boom that beats our drum

And I know I make you cry
And I know sometimes you want to die
But do you really feel life without me
If so, be free
If not, leave him for me
Before one of us has accidental babies
For we are in love

Do you cum
Together ever with him?
Is he dark enough
Enough to see your light?
Do you brush your teeth before you kiss?
Do you miss my smell?
And is he bold enough to take you on?
Do you feel like you belong?
Does he drive you wild
Or just mildly free?
What about me?
What about me?

This Weekend's To-do List

This looks sort of insurmountable, I have to admit.

• Read Plato: The Republic, Book II


• Read Plato: The Republic, Book III


• Read Plato: The Republic, Book X


• Read Peter Euben: “Plato’s Republic: the Justice of Tragedy”


• Read Gail Bederman: “Remaking Manhood Through Race and Civilization”


• Read Richard Janko: “From Catharsis to the Aristotelian Mean”


• Read Alexander Nehamas: “Pity and Fear in the Rhetoric and the Poetics”


• Read Robert Bogdan: “Cannibals and Savages”


• Read Janell Hobson: “Venus in the Dark”


• Finish reading Bernard Williams: Shame and Necessity


• Arrange Woyzeck according to Aristotle’s suggestions for a good tragedy


• See Night of the Iguana


• See The Prestige


• See The Death of Mr. Lazarescu


• Begin grading papers on August Wilson’s Fences

Check This Out!

A brilliant Terry Gross interview with El Laberinto del Fauno director Guillermo del Toro. This whole thing is so cool! Here is a filmmaker who has read everything.
Here's a fun bit:

TERRY: Can you talk a little bit about creating that kind of ugly fairy tale? ...the insect that she turns into a fairy. Were you surrounded by a lot of really big insects in Mexico?
GUILLERMO DEL TORO: Yes! And I'm not talking about the politicians, only. I really... When i was a kid, I used to spend a lot of time in my grandmother's garden and I would actually do insane stuff like I would spend hours watching an anthill. And I would try and recognize the ants from one another every day and of course the garden was full of insects and I would name them. I admired them. I think that they're present in most of my movies because I have such admiration--and fear of them.
. . .
And another...

TG: ...The princess of the underworld?
GDT: Of the underworld. I think that there's a point in our life when we're kids when literature and magic and fantasy has as strong a presence in our soul as religion would have in later days. You know, I think it's a spiritual reality as strong as when people say "I accept Jesus in my heart." Well, at a certain age I accepted monsters in my heart. The girl is basically sort of autobiographical.
TG: Well, I really understand what you're saying because for me the movie is about the stories that we have to tell ourselves to get through life and for a lot of people those stories are religious stories but for some people they're other stories: they're literature or fairy tales or whatever.
GDT: I think the entire world is fabricated...

Five Movies for Hump Day

Roomie and I went to see Jesus Camp this evening at the Student Life Building. Jesus Camp is a documentary about an Evangelical youth ministry, and specifically one youth pastor named Becky Fischer, who wants to train children to be militant about Jesus. The film posits it as a fiercely political movement aimed squarely behind the Christian president George W. Bush and directed against global warming (!) and a woman's right to choose. The film is very problematic. It can't hep but totally deride these Christian people who have let them into their homes and the camera feels a little exploitative. This is especially true when the children are being interviewed. They are, of course, terribly indoctrinated and impressionable young people, but they appear really sweet and one ten-year-old girl really tugged at my heart with her story about how she wanted to run a nail shop and just tell people about Jesus while they got their nails done. What's fascinating in the film--the filmmakers make no point of this--is that the film has no reference to anything in the Bible. These people who purport themselves to be Christians and want the world to be Christian have no relationship to Christianity's holy texts, probably haven't even read them. It's extraordinary. They have this twelve-year-old child up onstage preaching to them, but the child wrote his sermon without looking at any scripture whatsoever. This is what terrifies me the most about the people in this film and the Christian Right in general: becaue their faith is grounded in nothing at all, not the words of Christ, not the words of the prophets, not Judaeic teachings, their speech is completely, totally rhetorical. This fascinates me. I'm not even sure why they believe what they believe. Believing I have god's word in my hands and reading it and spending my life learning what it says is one thing. Yelling about bringing Jesus back into our schools is just empty rhetoric without any basis in Christianity.
Anyway, the film reminded me of my childhood a lot, but I didn't really enjoy the picture, and it's shot for television and not the cinema, so if you do feel like watching it, rent it, because it will look better on your tv than it did in the giant theatre I saw it in.

Derek Jarman's Edward II is a quasi-modern, very gay adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II. It was an important film in 1991 when it came out and there was much brouhaha over it. Tilda Swinton stars (and is incredibly overdone.) I didn't like it at all, I have to confess. And maybe that makes me a bad gay man, but, though the costumes are always intriguing, the film has no structure at all. A still bigger problem is that the gay characters are unlikeable and (unfortunately) also uncomplicated. Skip this unless you want a history lesson in gay cinema or really like Marlowe.

I LOVED The Last King of Scotland. I know everyone's been talking about Forest Whitaker all season, but why has no one mentioned how brilliant Kevin Macdonald's film is? It's one of the best of the year, and boasts a second excellent lead performance from James McAvoy. This is a movie about struggles in Africa and a psychotic dictator, but also a film about white privilege and (I felt) recalled Rachel Corrie's story in a few key ways. By this I mean that The Last King of Scotland seems unafraid to explore the feeling of invincibility that white people seem to feel when they are abroad. It's a superb thriller with some breathtaking action sequences and moments of sheer terror while also being a sensitive, intelligent inquiry of race relations in post-colonial Africa. I loved it.

Letters from Iwo Jima was not as good as Flags of Our Fathers for me. Everyone likes Letters better than Flags, so I am clearly in the minority on this one, but though I thought Letters was a sturdy, committed picture, it lacked a lot of things I needed it to have. There was, for instance, no rooting interest in the film. The Japanese are all going to die on that island. This is a given from the very beginning and yet the film is still about the fighting of the war. I'm not going to trash the movie too much, but I was bored and everything in the film is so dark (they're in those caves) and for so long. The film also praises the Japanese soldiers who aren't traditionally Japanese and approach the war from a more American point of view. It's more interesting than that, and Eastwood complicates the American soldiers, too, but the whole thing felt vaguely colonialist. The acting is excellent, though. Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya are wonderful in their twin lead roles and my favorite performance comes from Tsuyoshi Ihara as a horse-loving former Olympian.

And I saw The Good Shepherd which is painfully, horribly bad. I moved it to the very bottom of my list for '06. I haven't been that bored in a film since Pirates of the Caribbean 2. It's totally plotless, completely lacking in stakes of any kind and boasts about twenty well-known actors saying and doing absolutely nothing. This list includes Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon, Barton Fink John Turturro, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lee Pace, and many more that you would recognize immediately--which just makes the whole thing so much worse! Angelina Jolie is quite good in the film, doing unexpectedly good work with terrible material. This film is terrible. It's this year's Alexander. Avoid at all costs.

New List

Oscar-nominated films I haven't seen yet:

An Inconvenient Truth
Cars
Click
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
Efter Brylluppet (After the Wedding)
Indigènes (Days of Glory)
Marie Antoinette
Poseidon
The Black Dahlia
The Good German
The Good Shepherd
The Prestige
Venus

Hmm. I will have to Netflix some of these, which means I have to send back my DVD of Alban Berg's Wozzeck. I'm going to see The Good Shepherd tonight. I'm prepared for the worst.

Christmas Morning

Some thoughts...

BEST PICTURE
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
*I got 4 out of 5 here. Just like last year. The Dreamgirls snub is a big talking point everywhere. The film is not that great, so I really don't blame them for snubbing this movie. They also, if you'll remember, snubbed the similarly musical Walk the Line last year in favor of Munich. Letters is the big story here. No one thought it had as much traction as all this.

BEST DIRECTOR
Babel, Alejandro González Iñárritu
The Departed, Martin Scorsese
Letters from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood
The Queen, Stephen Frears
United 93, Paul Greengrass
*With its strong showings elsewhere, I'm very surprised Del Toro didn't make the cut here. Everyone seems crazy over Labyrinth. I got 3 out of 5 here, but I don't really care because Paul Greengrass made it in and I'm very excited for that. A little sad Alfonso Cuarón didn't score here, but I recognize not everyone thinks Children of Men is as brilliant as I do.

BEST ACTOR
Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole in Venus
Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland
*Okay, Blood Diamond sucks. Didn't anyone see it? Boo to Leo being snubbed for The Departed. I got 4 out of 5 here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children
Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg in The Departed
*This is the category I am most happy about. Mark Wahlberg's nomination makes my whole day. It was a longshot prediction and I'm delighted. I think he's hugely talented (I would've nominated him in this category two years ago for I ♥ Huckabees as well.)

BEST ACTRESS
Penélope Cruz in Volver
Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren in The Queen
Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet in Little Children
*5 for 5 on this one. It's a good list.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Adriana Barraza in Babel
Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi in Babel
*5 for 5 again. As I said before, I'm not crazy about this list at all, but it was sort of easy to predict.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal
*Woo hoo! I'm delighted Borat showed up here. The Last King of Scotland should have been here for sure, but I guess no one was paying attention to anything but Forest Whitaker in that film.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Babel
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Queen
*I think Babel's kind of a mess, but this is an adequate list. I would substitute Half Nelson and Volver for any of these movies, though.

ANIMATED FILM
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House
*I'm out of the loop on Cars, but the others are fine choices.

ART DIRECTION
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
The Prestige
*Fucking Pirates?!?! That's so ridiculous. What about Curse of the Golden Flower?

CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Black Dahlia, Vilmos Zsigmond
Children of Men, Emmanuel Lubezki
The Illusionist, Dick Pope
Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo Navarro
The Prestige, Wally Pfister
*I'm sort of anti-Illusionist, but good for Dick Pope on his first nomination. I think Lubezki is my favorite in this list. He shot my fave from last year, too: The New World. This is a cool list, though, I would've loved to have seen The Fountain place.

COSTUME DESIGN
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Marie Antoinette
The Queen
*The academy done good here. That Prada got a nomination is really a great step in the right direction for the costume branch, which has consistently ignored brilliant contemporary work (Remember Clueless?) The others on the list are excellent. I love Sharen Davis's work and I think the costumes from Golden Flower are out of control and fabulous. And Milena Canonero deserves all the nominations she gets.

EDITING
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
The Departed
United 93
*Another nice list. Except for fucking Blood Diamond. Why is that picture making an appearance anywhere?

FOREIGN LANGUAGE
After the Wedding - Denmark
Days of Glory (Indigènes) - Algeria
The Lives of Others - Germany
Pan’s Labyrinth - Mexico
Water - Canada
*These better be some damn good films, because Volver, which didn't place is brilliant. To be fair, I love Water and I really liked Pan's Labyrinth, but no Volver??? I am sad about that. I love me some Pedro.

MAKEUP
Apocalypto
Click
Pan’s Labyrinth
*Um, Click? Really?

ORIGINAL SCORE
Babel - Gustavo Santaolalla
The Good German - Thomas Newman
Notes on a Scandal - Philip Glass
Pan’s Labyrinth - Javier Navarrete
The Queen - Alexandre Desplat
*Now, you know I love Philip Glass, but the score for Notes on a Scandal is insistent and jarring. I mean, I'm glad he got a nomination and all, but I wish it had been for The Illusionist or something else. Ditto Alexandre Desplat's first nomination. I wish he had gotten nominated for The Painted Veil instead of The Queen. As usual, the music branch is on crack and brilliant at the same time. Thank god, though, that John Williams didn't make an appearance this year. He's ineligible this year, which is the only reason. Expect him back in 2008.

ORIGINAL SONG
"I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth, Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge
"Listen" from Dreamgirls Music by Henry Krieger and Scott Cutler, Lyric by Anne Preven
"Love You I Do" from Dreamgirls, Music by Henry Krieger, Lyric by Siedah Garrett
"Our Town" from Cars, Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
"Patience" from Dreamgirls, Music by Henry Krieger, Lyric by Willie Reale
*Hee hee. Three Dreamgirls tunes. So nice for Henry Krieger. They're good songs, too. I have to say.

SOUND EDITING
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
*Should I complain some more about Blood Diamond? I am happy to see Flags here, though. I'm the only one in the world who loved that film, it seems, except for the sound branch at AMPAS.

SOUND MIXING
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
*Um, how are these two categories different? I've never understood that.

VISUAL EFFECTS
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns
*This makes me want to sing "There's Got to Be a Morning After". And I guess this means I have to finally see Poseidon.

Award Totals:
8 Dreamgirls
7 Babel
6 El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)
6 The Queen
5 Blood Diamond
5 The Departed
4 Letters from Iwo Jima
4 Little Miss Sunshine
4 Notes on a Scandal
4 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
3 Apocalypto
3 Children of Men
3 Little Children
2 Cars
2 Flags of Our Fathers
2 The Devil Wears Prada
2 The Prestige
2 United 93

Big winner of the day: Pan's Labyrinth and Blood Diamond (fist to the sky!), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (second fist to the sky!)
Big losers of the day: Dreamgirls, Casino Royale, Flags of Our Fathers, Volver

On Vacation I Think About Time

I wrote this on 3 January 2007:

On Vacation I Think About Time

Away from home I spend an inordinate amount of time waiting
Expecting friends to show
Dawdling expectantly before movies start
Peevishly biding time until roads are cleared


I am not in control of sequences of time
The way I would be if I were in my own stomping grounds
But then, I think, even there


Even in my bedroom or on my sofa
In the high-backed overstuffed chair in my living room
Or running my fingers over the speckled counter-tops in my kitchen
Time enslaves me there, too


As I wait to hear the deep mellow tones of your voice
Cracking slightly under the weight of the day
Or is that break the low gravel of artifice?
A voice made deeper for my benefit
A performance of masculinity I believe unquestioningly


I wait for that crack, its belying surety
As though I have no other schedule
No demands but those hopeful glances I steal toward the telephone
Hoping you'll call

A Poem for Today by Linda Pastan

"I Married You" by Linda Pastan, from Queen of a Rainy Country. © W. W. Norton & Company.

I Married You

I married you
for all the wrong reasons,
charmed by your
dangerous family history,
by the innocent muscles, bulging
like hidden weapons
under your shirt,
by your naive ties, the colors
of painted scraps of sunset.

I was charmed too
by your assumptions
about me: my serenity —
that mirror waiting to be cracked,
my flashy acrobatics with knives
in the kitchen.
How wrong we both were
about each other,
and how happy we have been.

Oscar Predictions

BEST PICTURE:
Babel
The Departed
Dreamgirls
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
I think everyone's pretty sure this is how it's looking. This is the DGA and PGA lineup.
Best film not on this list: Children of Men

BEST DIRECTOR:
Cuarón, Children of Men
Del Toro, Pan's Labyrinth
Frears, The Queen
Gonzalez Iñárritu, Babel
Scorsese, The Departed
I'm predicting a snub for Dreamgirls' Bill Condon. I think the film has already peaked.
Best director who won't be nominated: Paul Greengrass, United 93

BEST ACTOR:
DiCaprio, The Departed
Gosling, Half Nelson
O'Toole, Venus
Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
You won't see Sacha Baron Cohen here on Tuesday morning, I'm sorry to say, though I'd trade him for Will Smith any day.

BEST ACTRESS:
Cruz, Volver
Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Mirren, The Queen
Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Winslet, Little Children
There are no spoilers for this list.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Haley, Little Children
Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Murphy, Dreamgirls
Nicholson, The Departed
Wahlberg, The Departed
This is the craziest category this year. Expect surprises. Michael Sheen, Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin and even James McAvoy could all potentially take one of these slots. Murphy is the only sure thing.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Barraza, Babel
Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Hudson, Dreamgirls
Kikuchi, Babel
This is the list everyone's predicting and I sort of hate it. I don't think anyone else can place, though.

I'm going to just relax on the other categories and let them happen on Tuesday without thinking about them too much. I feel far away from all of the buzz down here in Tally and I don't have a very clear picture of how Los Angeles is thinking.

Sarcasm with a Light Cream Sauce: The Movie!

The Movie Soundtrack of Your Life!
The meme asks:
If your life is a movie, what songs are on the soundtrack?
1. Open iTunes; 2. Put it on shuffle and press play; 3. For every stock movie scene listed, note the song that's playing; 4. Make up a title; 5. Choose cast

I'm playing this meme because I was tagged by the fierce and fabulous Stinkylulu.

And now for the movie:

TITLE:
Confessions of a Matinee Idol

STARRING:
Jude Law as Aaron
with Takeshi Kaneshiro as Aaron's love interest
and
Drew Barrymore as Jaime
Rachel Weisz as Julie
Claire Danes as Aines
Catherine Zeta-Jones as Lisa
Hugh Grant as Derek
Rick Yune as JDD
Hugh Jackman as Ryan
Rachel McAdams as Roomie
...and FEATURING all of the rest of my friends in their big movie-star breaks as themselves.


The Songs

Opening Credits:
"Karma Police" by Radiohead
This is an ominous opening. It's like I'm the star of a Mel Gibson film and I'm going to kick everyone's ass. This could be fun.

Waking Up:
"In the Springtime of His Voodoo" by Tori Amos
We're off to a bizarre start. This "waking up" means were clearly beginning this movie in medias res. Aaron appears to be waking up from an awkward assignation with someone he doesn't want to see anymore.

First Day At School:
"Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" by Levi Stubbs Jr. from Little Shop of Horrors
My first day at school and I've already met (and appear to have conquered) my mortal enemy.

Falling In Love:
"Evergreen" by Barbra Streisand
Oh my lord. I guess I've taken a break from subjugating people to my will to fall in love to the song stylings of Barbra.

Fight Song:
"I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance" by Diana Krall
Slow-motion fight. Maybe I'm fighting with Barbra.

Breaking Up:
"Butterflies and Hurricanes" by Muse
Oops. This just turned very sensitive and emo. Aaron flees from the room in hysterics, mascara streaking his face (even though he never wears mascara). This is clearly a fictional film.

Prom:
"Represent, Cuba" by Orishas, featuring Heather Headley
A nice beat. We're re-writing history and pretending I had dance moves in high school. "Let me introduce myself!" Hell yeah.

Life:
"Merrily We Roll Along" by Stephen Sondheim (from the musical)
This is a quickly-paced montage wherein Aaron moves up in his career and establishes his worldwide fame.

Mental Breakdown:
"I Have Nothing" by Whitney Houston
I'm glad this song made an appearance. Aaron realizes his life is meaningless without love. He sits in the car with Celeste Holm and says the immortal words "And in the last analysis nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed and there he is." Celeste nods knowingly.

Driving:
"Like I Love You" by Justin Timberlake
Oh yeah. We're driving now. The top is down. JT might even be in the car at this point, making a cameo. I think this is where I meet Takeshi.

Flashback:
"Bodyrock" by Moby
Um. Okay. This must be a flashback to some sort of alcohol-induced hallucination. Probably late in high school (which is when this fucking song came out).

Wedding:
"Kiss" by Prince
Best. Wedding. Ever. It ain't in a church, if you were wondering.

Birth of Child:
"Take a Look, Lee" from Stephen Sondheim's Assassins
I've given birth to a psychopath, obviously. ...And I'm training him to kill the president.

Final Battle:
"She's Your Cocaine" by Tori Amos
Turn the soundtrack way up on this one. Aaron returns to his ass-kicking roots and battles his nemeses to cacophonous electronic Tori from her most ass-kicking album.

Death Scene:
"Tearing Herself Away" from the score to The Hours by Philip Glass
This seems appropriate, although I'm a little sad I don't get to die at the opera.

Funeral Song:
"End of Our Days" by Howie Day
Howie sings "We'll escape" and my ghost makes a final appearance, squeezing Takeshi's hand for the last time and then walking out of the theatre auditorium where they're holding my memorial service. Everyone's crying buckets at this point in the film in case you were wondering.

End Credit:
"Gnossiene II" by Erik Satie
A little bittersweet solo piano to take us out of the movie theatre

And I tag: Julie (my dear roommate), , , Debbye and .

The First of a Couple Posts about Oscar Before the Nominations on Tuesday

I should say first of all (stop me if you've heard this before) that I love Oscar nomination morning. It's my Christmas morning. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it—quite literally—my favorite day of the year. The reason for this is that I love all of the surprises and all of the wealth that gets spread. Oscar night itself, with its glitz and glamor and montages, is relatively lacking in surprises (the ridiculously homophobic display that constituted Crash's win last year excepted). But the morning of the Oscar nominations... there are so many names! And there are so many shockers! I can get so excited when things come through for someone whose performance I think is aces. Last year there were genuine surprises in the nominations for Amy Adams and William Hurt and some years it's downright crazy (remember Keisha Castle-Hughes getting nominated for Best Actress for Whale Rider?) On the west coast, too, there is even more ceremony. To watch the nominations on television in Los Angeles, you have to wake up at 5:30a on a Tuesday... something I know many people are loathe to do. I always do it. In the pre-dawn, I make my coffee and sit with a blanket wrapped around me and yawn while I wait for the president of the Academy to walk out and start reading off names. It's the best day of the year. This year, I'm on the east coast, so I won't have to wake up ridiculously early. I'm sure that will put a glitch in the ceremonial aspect of the morning for me, but I expect the anticipation to be just as pregnant. I can't wait!

A couple more things before I move on to predictions in a day or two (I have a lot of Greeks to read, so forgive me). I want to go over how the nominations work and explain my ballots a little better. The way Oscar nominations work is really weird. First off, everyone votes in their own fields: only actors vote for acting nominations, only cinematographers vote for cinematography nominations and only music composers vote in the music categories. The breakdown of the Academy (this is from Oscarwatch) is as follows:

Actors: 1260
Producers: 461
Executives: 429
Sound: 415
Writers: 396
Art Directors: 378
Directors: 376
Public Relations: 371
Members at Large: 283
Shorts/Feature Animation: 316
Visual Effects: 249
Music: 237
Editors: 224
Cinematographers: 186
Documentary: 134
Makeup: 115
Total: 5830

The way I understand the nomination process to work is like this: each voter picks five names in the order of their preference. For example, my ballot for Best Director would be (in order):

1) Aronofsky, The Fountain.
2) Cuarón, Children of Men.
3) Greengrass, United 93.
4) Almodóvar, Volver.
5) Frears, The Queen.

Next, the ballots are put into piles based on the first choice listed. (My ballot goes into the Aronofsky pile.) From here, the ballots in the pile with the fewest number of votes are removed. Let's say there are ten directors who picked Oliver Stone for World Trade Center as their first choice. If that pile is the smallest, those votes are removed from the Ollie Stone pile and re-distributed based on the second choice on the ballot. This continues until there are only five left. This encourages voters to actually pick the choice that is their favorite as their top choice, because even if their first choice isn't in the popular running, their vote still counts. In this way, too, it makes sense for a voter to weight his or her ballot toward the nominees with the least chance (notice my first Best Actor choice was Melvil Poupaud for Time to Leave, an actor with a snowball's chance in Hell of nabbing a nomination.) So, in my director example, let's say that at some point the Darren Aronofsky pile is the smallest pile, the ballots from that pile are re-distributed and my ballot gets put in the Alfonso Cuarón pile, where it hopefully stays, taking Cuarón to his first Best Director nomination. If Cuarón's pile becomes the smallest pile, my vote will again be re-distributed, this time to Paul Greengrass's pile. The vote only counts once, though, so my vote can really only help one of the directors in question. By this line of thinking, I should be happy if one of my five choices makes it to a nomination on Tuesday morning, since my vote can only count once anyway. This is how I try to approach it. Last year, Amy Adams was my first choice as supporting actress, Philip Seymour Hoffman was my fourth choice as lead actor, Judi Dench was my fourth choice as lead actress and William Hurt was my fourth choice as supporting actor. I try to pick my five favorites and then put the people who I think need the most help at the top of the list. But one person from each of my lists made it on the final ballot, so I have to be happy with that. That's all the say I would've gotten even if I were a proper voting member of the Academy.

That's it for now. I'll have proper predictions later on in the weekend after I see Letters from Iwo Jima and The Last King of Scotland, which both have finally arrived in Tallahassee.

Best Supporting Actress

My top choices in the order I would place them on my Academy ballot if I were allowed to vote:

SEEMA BISWAS, Water


SHAREEKA EPPS, Half Nelson


CARMEN MAURA, Volver


DIANA RIGG, The Painted Veil


HELEN McCRORY, The Queen

Runners-up in alphabetical order:
Adriana Barraza (Babel)
Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada)
Marylouise Burke (A Prairie Home Companion)
Lola Dueñas (Volver)
Mona Hammond (Manderlay)
Jeanne Moreau (Le Temps Qui Reste [A Time to Leave])
Blanca Portillo (Volver)
Maribel Verdú (El Laberinto del Fauno [Pan's Labyrinth])

And apologies to Luminita Gheorghiu because Netflix refuses to send me The Death of Mr. Lazarescu no matter how many times I put it at the top of my queue.

Related:
My Best Supporting Actress Picks for 2005
My Best Supporting Actress Picks for 2004

Oh Jake.

Three Reviews

I say this to spare you. If you're heterosexual, don't see Another Gay Movie. You will be horrified. Ryan and I watched this movie on Thursday night and both of us were in hysterics and totally mortified as well. It's hilarious and irreverent and ridiculous. A lot of noise has been made about this movie. Most people saying "why do gay people need a movie like this," and I suppose it's dreadfully lowbrow of me to say that I enjoyed the film. My gay friend and I needed a little time together to bond and this movie was so ludicrous, so plotlessly asinine, so deliriously campy, that we laughed our heads off. A good time was had by all: certainly the filmmakers enjoyed themselves making it. This movie has no fear; it goes where you think no movie would be willing to go to find humor and it's definitely worth it.

And I loved Friends with Money. A reviewer in Los Angeles when it came out called Nicole Holofcener the Jane Austen of Los Angeles and I totally understand why. It's a lovely, thoughtful and funny film about Angelenos and their foibles, loves, insecurities, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was sad and romantic and very funny with some running gags that are priceless. There is also a final touching moment at the end that I won't spoil, but was, for me, the icing on the cake of the film. It's a movie about friendships, marriages, loneliness and wealth. Loved it.

And today I finally saw Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang finally has reunited with his muse from the 1990's, Gong Li (they made Raise the Red Lantern, To Live, Ju Dou, and Shanghai Triad together) and the film is quite good. As you may know, I am not a fan of Zhang's recent work. I haven't yet seen Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, but I was mostly bored with both the ridiulously over-praised Hero and the Takeshi Kaneshiro-starring House of Flying Daggers. Golden Flower is not a martial arts movie. Instead, it is a royal melodrama of the Lion in Winter variety. Sons and heirs and incestuous relationships and betrayal. This is a film with tricks and surprises up its sleeve. It's also breathtakingly gorgeous to look at. But (and here's the surprise) it's also a film that actually cares about the thousands of people it slaughters, and takes time to deconstruct the pageantry and beauty of all of those monochromatic court ceremonies. It's high tragedy and high diva stuff. Gong Li is totally fucking fabulous and soars in her role and Jay Chou is fantastic as her loyal son. It's a surprisingly excellent film.

Let's also just take a moment to appreciate how gorgeous Gong Li is:

That's all.

Best Supporting Actor

My top choices in the order I would place them on my Academy ballot if I were allowed to vote:

ADAM BEACH, Flags of Our Fathers


MARK WAHLBERG, The Departed


ALEC BALDWIN, The Departed & Running with Scissors


MICHAEL SHEEN, The Queen


PAUL DANO, Little Miss Sunshine

Runners-up in alphabetical order:
Michael Caine (Children of Men)
Matthew Goode (Imagine Me & You)
Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls)
Nick Nolte (Clean)
Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist)

Apologies to Ben Affleck. I still haven't seen Hollywoodland. And to Jason Isaacs, one of my favorite actors, whose film, Friends with Money is sitting on my desk, still unwatched.

Related:
My Best Supporting Actor Picks for 2005
My Best Supporting Actor Picks for 2004

Greeks

So my teacher is wrapping up her introduction to the Advanced Theatre History I class (we'll be studying Greeks, Romans, Japanese and Medievals) and she sums up this way:

"Once upon a time there were plays in Ancient Greece. These are not they."

I thought it was brilliant.

Best Actress

My top choices in the order I would place them on my Academy ballot if I were allowed to vote:

NAOMI WATTS, The Painted Veil


ISABELLE HUPPERT, Gabrielle


PENÉLOPE CRUZ, Volver


MAGGIE CHEUNG, Clean


HELEN MIRREN, The Queen

Runners-up in alphabetical order:
Annette Bening (Running with Scissors)
Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal)
Julia Jentsch (Sophie Scholl - die Letzten Tage [Sophie Scholl: the Final Days])
Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada)

Apologies to Gong Li, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Kirsten Dunst, whose films I still haven't seen.

Related:
My Best Actress picks for 2005
My Best Actress picks for 2004

Best Actor

My top choices in the order I would place them on my Academy ballot if I were allowed to vote:

MELVIL POUPAUD, Time to Leave (Le Temps Qui Reste)


CLIVE OWEN, Children of Men


HUGH JACKMAN, The Fountain


RYAN GOSLING, Half Nelson


JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT, Brick

Runners-up in alphabetical order:
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed)
Colin Farrell (Ask the Dust)
Pascal Greggory (Gabrielle)
Brad Pitt (Babel)
Patrick Wilson (Little Children & Hard Candy)

Apologies to Jude Law, Peter O'Toole, Ken Watanabe, James McAvoy and Forest Whitaker, whose films I regrettably have not yet seen.

Discuss!

Related:
My Best Actor picks for 2005
My Best Actor picks for 2004

Formal Exercises

Last night I saw Little Children, the new film from In the Bedroom director Todd Field. I loved In the Bedroom, as you might recall, but Little Children I found difficult, distanced, overly formal, and nowhere near as good as John Curran's We Don't Live Here Anymore. The actors are wonderful, particularly Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson and Phyllis Somerville. Actually, I loved the entire cast, with the exception of Mary B. McCann's ridiculously played one-note performance as a suburban mother. The film exercises a formal device, namely voice over intended (I assume) to distance the film's viewers from the action of the film, as though the entire thing were an elaborate case study—some kind of microcosm of Americana. The device works if this is the intended effect, but it also put me off the film entirely. I felt far removed from the characters, their petty, suburban problems, and I felt ridicule rise in my gut whenever they expressed any kind of pain. The voice over, by distancing me from the characters' lives, made me think their lives ridiculous. When the final horrifying reveal occurred at the end (a Caché moment like nothing else this year) the whole thing seemed even clearer to me: how dare these happy, gorgeous suburbanites complain about anything when there are people with real problems, real pain, living just next door.

Patrice Chéreau's Gabrielle uses an even larger number of formal devices in its exploration of marital unhappiness at the turn of the twentieth century, but this film I responded positively to. Chéreau (whose work I almost always admire) uses black-and-white as well as color photography throughout the picture as well as the astonishing convention of title cards in key emotional moments. It's an incredibly intriguing choice with the resulting creation of very real intimacy with the characters. The film, which is based on The Return, a short story by Joseph Conrad, mines the depths of a relationship's failure after a woman leaves her husband and then returns, incapable of her act, four hours later. Isabelle Huppert (always brilliant) and Pascal Greggory are fantastic as the couple in question and the film is painful, beautiful and, at times, truly disturbing. The score, by Fabio Vacchi, which sounds more than anything like Igor Stravinsky, is passionate, enormous and unquestionably modern. It's a fascinating film.

Some Movie Madness for 2006

It's the first day of school today, so I'm back in super-student mode, but I wanted to put out a couple of movie lists before I head back in to all-studying all-the-time madness levels.

First off, the movie list for 2006:

Loved:
1. Children of Men
2. United 93
3. Half Nelson
4. The Fountain
5. Volver
6. Water
7. Flags of Our Fathers
8. The Queen
9. Brick
10. L'Enfant

11. Fateless
12. Imagine Me & You
13. Sophie Scholl: the Final Days
14. The Painted Veil
15. Pan's Labyrinth
16. C.R.A.Z.Y.


Really Liked:
17. Little Miss Sunshine
18. A Prairie Home Companion
19. Tsotsi
20. Time to Leave
21. Babel
22. Apocalypto
23. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan


Liked More Than I Disliked:
24. Ask the Dust
25. Clean
26. The Departed
27. Thank You for Smoking
28. Dreamgirls
29. Notes on a Scandal
30. Summer Storm
31. Duck Season
32. Monster House
33. X-men: the Last Stand
34. Happy Feet
35. Running with Scissors
36. The House of Sand
37. Lady in the Water


Barely Liked More Than I Disliked:
38. The Pursuit of Happyness
39. The Devil Wears Prada
40. Evil
41. Casino Royale
42. Snakes on a Plane
43. Little Children
44. The Oh in Ohio


Disliked:
45. Eragon
46. For Your Consideration
47. Art School Confidential
48. Don't Tell

Hated:
49. Blood Diamond
50. Manderlay
51. Hard Candy
52. V for Vendetta


Complete and Total Wastes of Time:
53. Scoop
54. The Illusionist
55. Joyeux Noël
56. Superman Returns
57. The Promise
58. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Now, this list is far from complete. In 2002, I saw 68 movies, in 2003 I only saw 61, but then in 2004 I caught 76 films and last year, the total was 87! (Not bad for an amateur, really.) Here's where you all come in, dear readers. I'm gonna list the films I've yet to see for '06 and I need feedback on stuff that I have left off both of these lists: films you think are must-sees for 2006. (Jackass Number Two does not count, .) Anyway, these are the ones on my radar still to see:

1. Letters from Iwo Jima
2. Curse of the Golden Flower
3. The Last King of Scotland
4. The Dead Girl
5. Bobby
6. The Good Shepherd
7. Venus
8. The Good German
9. Breaking and Entering
10. Cars
11. Sherrybaby
12. Another Gay Movie
13. Basic Instinct 2
14. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
15. 13 (Tzameti)
16. Don't Come Knocking
17. Everything's Gone Green
18. Find Me Guilty
19. The Last Kiss
20. Friends with Money
21. Gabrielle
22. Inside Man
23. Miami Vice
24. Moonlight (the Paula van der Oest movie that finally got released in '06)
25. Odete (Two Drifters)
26. Rescue Dawn
27. Shortbus
28. The Lady in Question is Charles Busch
29. The Quiet
30. Three Times
31. The Notorious Bettie Page
32. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles
33. Marie Antoinette
34. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

And, for purists out there, a list of films I saw in 2006 that weren't from 2006 (this is a list that accurately illustrates just what a loner [loser?] I am, though in '05 the total was around 100 and this year it's 44 [just shows how busy I was with school I guess]):

Le Samouraï (The Samurai) 1967
Aparajito (The Unvanquished) 1957
Badlands 1973
The Third Man 1949
Pinky 1949
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) 1963
Leave Her to Heaven 1945
Metropolitan 1990
Le Fils (The Son) 2002
Son Frère (His Brother) 2003
Kitty Foyle 1940
Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) 1959
Sex, Lies, and Videotape 1989
The Nun's Story 1959
Hope and Glory 1987
The Fallen Idol 1948
Le Souffle au Cœur (Murmur of the Heart) 1971
The Witches of Eastwick 1987
Sons and Lovers 1960
Tequila Sunrise 1988
An Unmarried Woman 1978
Barry Lyndon 1975
L'Armée des Ombres (Army of Shadows) 1969
Harry and Tonto 1974
À Bout de Souffle (Breathless) 1960
The Hudsucker Proxy 1994
Angst Essen Seele Auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) 1974
Le Cercle Rouge 1970
Born Yesterday 1950
Sudden Fear 1952
Morocco 1930
L'Avventura 1960
The Informer 1935
Nicholas and Alexandra 1971
Body Heat 1981
After the Thin Man 1936
Mogambo 1953
Yi Yi (A One and a Two) 2000
¿Qué He Hecho Yo para Merecer Esto!! (What Have I Done to Deserve This?) 1984
Walk on the Wild Side 1962
The Big Sleep 1946
The Barefoot Contessa 1954
City Slickers 1991
Rope 1948

Soon: Final Oscar predictions and my favorite performances of 2006.

Supporting Actress Blog-a-thon

John Curran's film of Somerset Maugham's novel The Painted Veil boasts some memorable performances, gorgeous scenery, beautiful costumes, an exotic locale and a heartbreaking score by Alexandre Desplat. It is a film, really in the tradition of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant more than it is anything else. Which is, of course, why I liked it so very much—liked it more, in fact, than Merchant-Ivory's final collaborative effort The White Countess.

This post is part of The Class of 2006 Supporting Actress Blog-a-thon hosted by Stinkylulu, so this post really needs to focus on the actressing at the edges that The Painted Veil (so handsomely) contains. The actress to whom I refer is sixties and seventies sex symbol/glamor icon and eighties and nineties "Mystery!" host Dame Diana Rigg, who, in The Painted Veil gives a lovely, sensitive performance of quiet grief and steely determination.

Naomi Watts' English aristocrat Kitty Fane, having lost her husband's love and relocated deep into the interior of the Chinese mainland, finds herself bored and feckless. She seeks out purpose at an orphanage run by a group of French nuns supervised by Rigg's Mother Superior. Though the relationship between Kitty and her husband Walter (an earnest-as-usual Edward Norton) it is the relationship betweenn Kitty and the Mother Superior that becomes crucial to the way the film works. The Mother Superior is what Kitty didn't have in her own mother back in England and both women accept the relationship quickly.

Rigg's work in these moments is exceptional. The actress is, of course, costumed in the full habit of the brides of Christ and so she has only her face and her voice as instruments. But the character emerges fully formed from the first scene: commanding the consumption of a specially-made madeleine and sternly refusing a male access to her convent. The Mother Superior is worn, exhausted from years of service and yet occasionally, in flashes of superb transformation, her eyes twinkle and hope dances in their spheres. When she talks about love with Kitty, Mother Superior speaks of her relationship with god as difficult but old and comfortable. She speaks of her contentment with her choice, but her actions are at odds slightly with this alleged peace. Mother Superior fights with all her power to bring Kitty and her husband back together and when given the opportunity, she forbids Kity from choosing nobility over her own happiness.

Her last word onscreen is "no," a command after which Kitty offers no argument. The film cuts away after the word. Rigg is so convincing, her character so compelling, we don't even need to see if Kitty has tried to argue. We know she hasn't. Rigg's delivery says that the argument is over. It's a brilliant performance.

SAG nominations

The SAG nominations are out today, being the last precursors to the Oscar nominations for the actors. Academy Award nominations will be announced on January 23rd and the polls close on the 13th, so not even the way everyone looks at the Golden Globes will have an effect on the nominations now. All there is left is Hollywood chatter (of which, as ever, there is a lot.) Anyway, on to today's nominations...

 

Ensemble.

Babel

Bobby

The Departed

Dreamgirls

Little Miss Sunshine

 

Now don’t get to thinking that this is really some kind of Best Picture lineup. I know everyone says that SAG’s ensemble nomination is really some kind of BP precursor. Not so. We have the producer’s guild and the director’s guild for that. Mostly I think this category usually sucks. They do silly things like nominate Babel for this category. While I liked Iñárritu’s film, and it’s probably going to end up with a Best Picture nomination on 1/23, it was filmed separately and that’s been said in numerous interviews and is, well, sort of obvious when watching the film. So it isn’t really ensemble work per se. And that SAG left off The Queen, which is pretty much a shoo-in for a BP nomination is ridiculous, especially with all of those great performances. I would’ve left Bobby off of this list, too, in favor of Children of Men.

 

Best Actor.

Leonardo Dicaprio, Blood Diamond

Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson

Peter O'Toole, Venus

Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

 

So there was apparently some sort of glitch with DiCaprio for SAG. Warner Bros. was flip-flopping on where to promote him and spent a lot of time promoting DiCaprio for Best Supporting Actor for The Departed (he’s clearly the lead, but they do what they want—remember Jamie Foxx as Supporting Actor for Collateral? Sometimes they’re stupid.) But why has Blood Diamond picked up so much traction? It sucks so bad. Anyone who’s seen the movie must know this. I haven’t heard anyone say they liked it. So the list for Oscar looks like it’s gonna be Smith, Whitaker and O’Toole for sure. Slot four, I think, goes to DiCaprio, but for The Departed (where Warner is now promoting him). Can Gosling hold on to this slot? I loved Half Nelson and I loved him in the film. To be honest, I would be abandoning hope right now that he could hold on to the slot, except that I don’t see anyone else waiting in the wings to take it. The big surprise on 1/23 in this category, though, could be a complete DiCaprio shut-out. Blood Diamond (ugh) and The Departed (yay) could cancel one another out leaving Leo in the cold. But in favor of… I don’t really see anyone coming up. I think this is the lineup, but I think the Academy will favor Leo’s turn in The Departed over the Blood Diamond bomb.

 

Best Actress.

Penélope Cruz, Volver

Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

Kate Winslet, Little Children

 

This is Oscar’s lineup. Period. And it’s a good list. Poor Annette Bening; I love her but it ain’t happening this year. Running with Scissors just wasn’t a good enough movie.

 

Best Supporting Actor.

Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed

Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children

Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond

Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

 

Murphy is a lock. But I think he’s the only lock in this list. Arkin is probably more of a lock than I give him credit for, but you never know. And (though I hate admitting it) I think Hounsou is in for Blood Diamond. I don’t know why anyone’s talking about this film! DiCaprio’s performance (as I said before) in The Departed is going Lead for Oscar, so he’s definitely out. I also think Haley is shaky although he is getting a lot of traction. I would expect a Jack Nicholson nomination on 1/23. The Academy loves them some Jack, even when he’s overdone and scene-hogging like he is in The Departed. I am also crossing my fingers for Mark Wahlberg’s performance in The Departed. I can’t realistically see him getting a nomination in this crowded category, but I can dream. There is also Michael Sheen in The Queen, a performance I am very fond of which isn’t showing here either. Plus Ben Affleck (Hollywoodland) and Adam Beach (Flags of Our Fathers) and Brad Pitt (Babel). This is a hard one to predict. For now I say Murphy, Nicholson, Hounsou, Pitt, Arkin. Grr.

 

Best Supporting Actress.

Adriana Barraza, Babel

Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal

Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

 

This list makes me want to go to sleep. Seriously. No Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson). No Seema Biswas (Water). No Carmen Maura (Volver). No Helen McCrory (The Queen). I liked all of these performances more than all of the ones mentioned above. I think this one is a hard one to call for Oscar, too. Hudson is, of course, a lock. The girl is fierce! It’s looking like Barraza and Blanchett are in, too. Breslin, I think, is a dark horse for an Oscar nomination. Kikuchi seems to be a big favorite, too. Expect a surprise here on 1/23. (Hopefully) someone will spoil this pretty list. Maybe Vera Farmiga (The Departed) or maybe Catherine O’Hara (For Your Consideration).

 

That’s it for now. I will have my faves soon.

Ponderous Vacation

Here in Los Angeles for a week or so, I was looking at the Christmas cards that my parents and (by extension, I suppose) I received this year. Most of the cards are accompanied by photographs of families, smiling together at me from glossy paper. The photographs are especially important when new additions have been made to these families, so far away, or so busy, that we don't see each other. We haven't yet been able to picture the new family members, spoken about, perhaps, in letters exchanged or telephone conversations, but with a photograph of the family, new addition welcomingly included in the happy fold, we are able, gratefully, to put faces to names.

I was browsing quickly through the letters and cards--caring mostly for the photographs and less for the notes, with their usual litanies of the year's accomplishments--and I started to wonder about spinsterhood a little. When daughters and sons marry, their spouses are added to the list of family members--this has happened for my brother and his lovely fiancée in our family--and included in the photo. I am terrified, of course, that I won't have anyone to add to the photograph for a long time. But I also wonder whether, if by chance I were to stumble upon a young man who wanted to be my boyfriend, mine would be added to the family along with everyone else's. Certainly he would be... eventually. I wonder, though, how long it would take. Marriage not being an option in most locales, my folks would just have to take my word for our commitment to one another.

I envision a huge scene with an ultimatum from me (one that probably would not turn out in my favor). Or perhaps I wouldn't care at all about being included in the photograph and ask, politely to be excluded, anticipating the inevitable and heading it off at the pass like making the gay joke before the rest of the table does so that I can control how much it hurts.

Four More

My favorite movie so far this year is Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. I caught it on New Year's Eve at The Grove (which is, I guess, the only place it's playing right now). It's a sci-fi piece set in 2027, in a sort of post-apocalyptic Britain. It stars Clive Owen and it--more than anything else--is ostensibly a genre piece: an action/road movie with lots of guns. But it's also a movie about the end of the world, the miracle of birth, and humankind's capacity for both cruelty and generosity. I completely loved it. It's funny and imaginative and brilliantly scripted, not to mention beautifully shot by Emmanuel Lubeszki. Go.

Another Mexican film I saw recently is Guillermo Del Toro's El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), which is an imaginative fantasy/horror story set against the backdrop of 1944 Spain. The story follows a little girl who escapes from the tyranny of her stepfather by imagining (or is he real) a giant faun who assigns her magical tasks to complete and tells her she's really the daughter of the king of the underworld. It's a magical, beautiful movie full of spectacle and gore. I totally dug it.

Last night I also caught Bill Condon's Dreamgirls. Now, you probably know that I love this musical (the original production was on Broadway in 1982), and while I was very excited for the film version, I wasn't too excited about the way it was looking from all of the clips and interviews I watched about it. The film is pretty much all I expected it to be. Jamie Foxx, as the film's headliner, is near terrible; he is the focus of the film and its empty heart of a center. He pouts and sneers his way through the movie and comes across as unlikeable and frustrated. The character is odious, of course, by the film's end, but it would have been nice had the character had a bit of a journey. Foxx picks a note and keeps playing it for two hours. Eddie Murphy is fantastic as James Thunder Early. He gives a fierce, enjoyable performance that's sure to get awards play with the Academy (about time, too, if you ask me). Beyoncé Knowles is excellent as superstar Deena Jones, and looks gorgeous in the film, almost impossibly so. I forget how beautiful this woman is. She also had a song written for her for the film. It's called "Listen" and she sings it in act three with power and vehemence (it's a touch earnest, but her only real belt number). The person everyone will be talking about after this movie, though, will be Jennifer Hudson, the lead of the film and the person with the biggest voice. She has an extraordinary singing voice and her performance as Effie is a great tribute to the original Effie, Jennifer Holliday. Her two huge numbers are showstopping film moments--the movie's worth it just for her. The film itself is a bit of a mess, I'm afraid. I found myself bored quite a bit. Dreamgirls takes a lot of time focusing on Jamie Foxx's character, and he's so dour that he just can't hold interest. Condon, too, has crafted a musical (the same way he worked Chicago) where the singing doesn't happen organically as a part of the narrative, but happens during specific "singing" moments. He makes the music a realistic part of the story. I thought this technique was sort of clever (though unnecessary) in Chicago, but it doesn't work at all in Dreamgirls. Condon has cut songs and parts of songs in order to force the musical into this construct, but he is compelled to keep certain numbers, particularly the act one finale "And I Am Telling You," and so the musical jumps in and out of Condon's reality in a way that rings false. I'm not sure why Condon tries to make this work in the first place. If the audience will buy the actors singing to one another at certain points, then why not all the time? And we know audiences don't really mind singing as an integral part of the show--pretty much everyone I know enjoyed Moulin Rouge! and it's musical number after musical number--so why does he bother? Anyway, I liked the movie alright, but it's the music that's the star of the show here, and I could probably survive by just listening to the soundtrack over and over again and not revisiting Condon's film.

One more: The Oh in Ohio is a little indie with Parker Posey and Paul Rudd. Parker Posey is a seriously frigid wife who Rudd can't make cum. The film is set in Cleveland (although the Walt Disney Concert Hall makes an appearance) and also stars Mischa Barton, Danny DeVito, Keith David and Liza Minelli. I pretty much rented this because I love Parker Posey, I think Paul Rudd is hot and I wanted to see Liza (she plays a sex therapist who says "vagina" about fifty times.) This movie's fairly stupid and almost totally plotless. It's funny briefly. It was good to see Liza, Paul Rudd is still hot, and Mischa Barton gives a horrible, boring performance as a student who seduces Rudd. Posey and Rudd work hard and provide honest, interesting acting, but there's just nothing happening in this film. It's harmless, but a waste of time.

Happy New Year!

I spent the new year with my dear friends in California, running around visiting everyone and seeing as many movies as I can see before I return to the hustle/bustle of grad school and the black hole of cinema that is Tallahassee.

I feel terribly lazy doing all of this vacationing. (Heaven knows I should be reading plays by Euripides or somesuch, but instead I'm reading a deliciously sexy and brilliantly written novel by Alan Hollinghurst--what can you do?)

AND I think I saw my favorite movie of the year. Hint: it's by a Mexican director and it ain't Babel. I'll write more soon.

Much love for 2007
Aaron

And I am making a resolution this year; two, in fact. I will keep them to myself for now, so as not to jinx them.