The Decade List: (Some of) The Worst Films (2007)

Since it was established with 2006's Worst that the Austin Butt-Numb-a-Thon, hosted by everyone's favorite troll, is a legitimate place for a film to make its world premiere, technically 300 and Black Snake Moan belong in the previous year. But 300 is such a fucking horribleterriblewretched film that I'll just leave it with the '07s for now. Black Snake Moan, however, doesn't even register on the shit list when compared to that garbage I once heard referred to as "gay porn for soccer moms," but it sucks enough on its own, outside of one nicely edited music sequence.

This list does beg the question: which breed of bad movie is worse? The obvious abortions (I Know Who Killed Me, Norbit, Good Luck Chuck) or the respected-foreign-auteur-remakes-himself-in-some-form-or-another-for-his-English-language-debut (My Blueberry Nights, Funny Games U.S.)? It was a real lousy year for both Wong Kar-wai and Michael Haneke, whose '07 offerings reeked of not just complacency but utter laziness. Neither could be accused of losing artistic control as a result of Hollywood's over-the-shoulder glare as both were multinational productions, receiving quite a bit of funding from the French in addition to their native countries. They had otherwise respectable English-speaking actors on board, who either did their usual schtick (Naomi Watts) or just embarrassed themselves completely (Rachel Weisz).

Thankfully, Haneke has recovered from the injury of Funny Games U.S., which was one of the major failures that eventually shut down Warner Independent, with his creepy, elegant Palme d'Or winner The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band]. Wong has yet to truly follow My Blueberry Nights up (Ashes of Time Redux doesn't count), though he has reteamed with Tony Leung for 2010's Bruce Lee/martial arts "biopic" The Grand Master, rumored to also star Gong Li and an out-of-retirement Brigitte Lin.

Some lingering questions/thoughts about a few of the titles below. 1.) Why do my parents insist on watching that manipulative drivel August Rush every time its on television (which can sometimes be thrice daily)? 2.) Aside from Assayas' demonlover (and probably The Wizard, but for altogether different reasons), most films that visually incorporate video games are going to blow (w/r/t Ben X, and possibly its upcoming American remake if that's still in production). 3.) Jodie Foster < style="font-weight: bold;">Diary of the Dead? It retains none of the qualities that made his previous zombie films (even Land of the Dead) so enjoyable. 5.) If Dragon Wars had extended that big Los Angeles destruction scene into its full running time, you might have seen it appear on the actual Decade List (as long as they axed poor Robert Forster in the process).

6.) Lots of nudity apparently does not make a horrible movie that much more tolerable (w/r/t the Uschi Obermaier biopic Eight Miles High). 7.) In the past 10 years, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre received a crappy US remake, a crappier US prequel and a wonderful in-spirit-only French take in Fabrice Du Welz's Calvaire; so why bother with something as lousy as Frontière(s)? 8.) Was anyone else deeply disturbed by Dawn Wiener's death scene in Hostel: Part 2? I've already forgotten the specifics of everything else about the movie, but that scene... I can't get rid of. 9.) I should look up and see what other films were in the running for the Caméra d'Or at the '07 Cannes Film Festival, because there had to be something better than Jellyfish playing that year. 10.) The list has a number of "comedies" that didn't pull a single laugh out of me: Good Luck Chuck, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Mr. Woodcock, Molière, Kiss the Bride, Starrbooty and The Ten. I'm pretty sure I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry belongs on that list, but I can vouch that the others didn't provoke even a smirk out of me.

- 300 - d. Zack Snyder - USA [also here]
- August Rush - d. Kirsten Sheridan - USA
- Ben X - d. Nic Balthazar - Belgium/Netherlands
- Beowulf - d. Robert Zemeckis - USA
- Black Snake Moan - d. Craig Brewer - USA
- The Brave One - d. Neil Jordan - USA/Australia
- City of Men [Cidade dos Homens] - d. Paulo Morelli - Brazil
- Diary of the Dead - d. George A. Romero - USA
- Dragon Wars [D-War] - d. Shim Hyung-rae - South Korea
- Eight Miles High [Das wilde Leben] - d. Achim Bornhak - Germany
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age - d. Shekhar Kapur - UK/France/Germany
- Frontier(s) [Frontière(s)] - d. Xavier Gens - France/Switzerland
- Funny Games U.S. - d. Michael Haneke - France/UK/Austria/Germany/USA/Italy [also here]
- Good Luck Chuck - d. Mark Helfrich - USA
- Hannah Takes the Stairs - d. Joe Swanberg - USA
- Happily N'Ever After - d. Paul Bolger, Yvette Kaplan - USA/Germany
- Hostel: Part 2 - d. Eli Roth - USA
- I Can't Think Straight - d. Shamim Sarif - UK
- I Know Who Killed Me - d. Chris Sivertson - USA
- I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry - d. Dennis Dugan - USA
- In the Valley of Elah - d. Paul Haggis - USA
- Into the Wild - d. Sean Penn - USA [also here]
- Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - d. Jon Knautz - Canada
- Jellyfish [Les méduses] - d. Shira Geffen, Etgar Keret - Israel/France
- Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten - d. Julien Temple - UK/Ireland
- Kiss the Bride - d. C. Jay Cox - USA
- Lost in Beijing - d. Li Yu - China
- Molière - d. Laurent Tirard - France
- Mr. Woodcock - d. Craig Gillespie - USA
- My Blueberry Nights - d. Wong Kar-wai - Hong Kong/France/China
- Norbit - d. Brian Robbins - USA
- The Orange Thief - d. Vinnie Angel, Boogie Dean, Arthur Wilinski - USA
- Poor Boy's Game - d. Clément Virgo - Canada
- Schoolboy Crush - d. Kôtarô Terauchi - Japan
- Sex & Breakfast - d. Miles Brandman - USA
- Starrbooty - d. Mike Ruiz - USA
- Sunshine - d. Danny Boyle - UK/USA
- Teeth - d. Mitchell Lichtenstein - USA
- The Ten - d. David Wain - USA
- Then She Found Me - d. Helen Hunt - USA

Well, it's over now...

You can jazz the Oscars up and put Beyoncé in as many red outfits as you want, but the sad fact will still remain: the Oscars are still a bore and another unmemorable film has been declared the best by the Academy. Kate Winslet has finally won her deserved Oscar for easily the worst of her six nominated performances, and the night's only surprise win came in a category where I didn't want to be surprised: foreign film. (Keep in mind, I haven't seen Departures). Congratulations to Penélope Cruz and Sean Penn.

Where I Am Felix To The Academy's Oscar

Tonight is the night when we feeble schlubs get to dip our toes in the lake of glamour that is the Academy Awards, staring in disbelief at the staggering beauty of our betters. I say this without sarcasm, as I am powerless to resist it. The award period is like my Christmas (with the summer season of robots, monsters, superheroes and explosions being my extended birthday). This year, though, has been particularly frustrating, as the likely winners seem more predictable than ever. It's obvious that, by now, Slumdog Millionaire is going to win most awards. That frustrates me enough as I'm on record as hating the damnable thing, but also because it has robbed us of some speculation fun. Last year I might have had a terrible time picking winners, but it was a lot more fun guessing.

Before revealing my picks (can you bear the suspense?), first the results of our poll to find out the most popular longshot Oscar winner from this year's nominations. It was pretty clear who was the favourite.

Kung Fu Panda (Animated Feature Film) - 6 (50%)

Martin McDonagh (Original Screenplay - In Bruges) - 3 (25%)

Richard Jenkins (Actor- The Visitor) - 2 (16%)

Melissa Leo (Actress - Frozen River) - 1 (8%)

Michael Shannon (Supporting Actor - Revolutionary Road) - 0 (0%)

Viola Davis (Supporting Actress - Doubt) - 0 (0%)

Gus Van Sant (Director - Milk) - 0 (0%)

Thomas Newman (Soundtrack - Wall*E) - 0 (0%)

Peter Morgan (Adapted Screenplay - Frost/Nixon) - 0 (0%)

Wally Pfister (Cinematography - The Dark Knight) - 0 (0%)

The Baader Meinhof Complex (Foreign Language Film) - 0 (0%)

Milk (Picture) - 0 (0%)

Iron Man (Visual Effects) - 0 (0%)

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Makeup) - 0 (0%)

The Dark Knight (Sound Editing) - 0 (0%)

Wanted (Sound Mixing) - 0 (0%)

Kung Fu Panda's win in this most insignificant of polls warms my heart. KFP has been damned with faint praise since its release ("It's surprisingly good for a Dreamworks movie!" "It's a lot of fun, but it's not profound like the Pixar film!" etc.), though that didn't stop it sweeping the board at the Annies, recently. Recently I rewatched Wall*E, hoping I would like it more second time around, but sadly no. As usual, I offer the usual caveats. It's beautiful, it's got a lot of incredible ideas and imagery, and the sound design is stunning, but the second half is flat, and Wall*E spends far too much of the movie falling over or having things land on him. In Kung Fu Panda the slapstick has a purpose (Po's clumsiness is the source of his kung fu strengths, as his unpredictability makes him unstoppable), whereas in Wall*E it's more like punctuation at the end of scenes, something I have a real problem with. The analogy I ended up with was that Kung Fu Panda was a Buster Keaton movie (it's all about the story and the spectacle), and Wall*E was a Charlie Chaplin movie (convinced of its own importance, and deeply unfunny). Keaton beats Chaplin any day of the week. Sorry, Pixar.

The votes for Martin McDonagh, Richard Jenkins (who had a really good year with great work in Burn After Reading and Step Brothers as well), and Melissa Leo were cool too, but the latter two are in categories that seem decided already. Martin McDonagh has a better chance, as his category of Best Original Screenplay is kinda weak, but even so, In Bruges was too filthy and odd to win votes from the staid Academy members. Shame. No one else got a single vote. Maybe I chose badly, or maybe readers of this blog haven't seen the movies I picked. No matter. Thanks to everyone who participated.

And now, my picks for this year. Except for a couple of categories, it was a no-brainer. Even if the Weinsteins have been trying to turn people against Slumdog, it's just not going to happen. To be honest, I may have hated Slumdog, but I might hate The Reader more. Not only is it of questionable value as a comment on post-Nazi German guilt (I think these comments and these reviews sum up my feelings far better than I could express), it's also a really stupid and pompous movie, filled with wall-to-wall cliches and laughable dialogue. David Hare and Stephen Daldry should hang their heads in shame. The list of nominees seems even worse now that I've seen that fucking appalling exercise in static worthiness. And so, I think the Oscars will, should, and can't (due to stupidity) go to the following...

Best Picture:

Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: Milk
Should've Been Nominated: The Dark Knight / Rachel Getting Married / The Wrestler

I may have had some reservations about Milk, but it's far and away the best movie of a really poor bunch, and by an order of magnitude in the case of Slumdog and The Reader. The snubs for the three films I have listed truly grate on me. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; this is the worst nominations list I can remember, which is another thing that has robbed me of my enthusiasm.

Best Director:

Will Win: Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Should've Been Nominated: Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight / Jonathan Demme - Rachel Getting Married

An easy pick, though I chose Fincher as the Should Win as there was so much work done on Benjamin Button that I thought he edged it over Van Sant, who also did excellent work on Milk (though, as I've said before I would have liked a bit more unconventionality in it). None of this matters, though. Boyle will win it for the worst film of his career. Yuk.

Best Actor:

Will Win: Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Should Win: Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Should've Been Nominated: Robert Downey Jr. - Iron Man

This has to happen. If someone else won it would be the biggest upset of the night. And by upset, I mean, I would turn off the TV and not bother watching to the end. Come on, Mickey!

Best Actress:

Will Win: Kate Winslet – The Reader
Should Win: Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Should've Been Nominated: Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road / Julianne Moore - Blindness

I love Winslet and think she's one of the great actors of our time (seriously), but for The Reader? Nuh-uh. She's good in it, but that movie deserves no reward. Having her nominated for that and not the far superior (and not despicable) Revolutionary Road is testament to the efficacy of the Weinstein's strong-arming tactics, but that's little consolation to us. I'd love for Anne Hathaway to win instead, just to rob the Weinstein's of their little victory, but that would also rob Winslet, who has deserved Academy recognition for about ten years at least.

Best Supporting Actor:

Will Win: Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Should Win: Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Should've Been Nominated: Aaron Eckhart - The Dark Knight / Bill Irwin - Rachel Getting Married

Another no-brainer. And deservedly so.

Best Supporting Actress:

Will Win: Penélope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Should Win: Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
Should've Been Nominated: Rosemarie DeWitt - Rachel Getting Married

I would have plumped for someone else in this category, but Tomei isn't winning (even though the Academy might like to legitimise her Vinny award), and Cruz will get it for losing out on a justified award for Volver.

Best Original Screenplay:

Will Win: Milk - Dustin Lance Black
Should Win: In Bruges - Martin McDonagh
Should've Been Nominated: The Wrestler - Robert D. Seigel

See above for my feelings on this. Milk wasn't a bad screenplay, but it was pretty unimaginative, and filled with clunky exposition. Seigel's work on The Wrestler, on the other hand, was feather-light. It would have been nice for a former Onion employee to get a nod.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire - Simon Beaufoy
Should Win: Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan
Should've Been Nominated: The Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan / Jonathan Nolan / David Goyer

A particularly weak field. Beaufoy's script is shockingly poor, a stream of one-dimensional characters, contrivance, phony uplift, and childish humour. That said, David Hare's adaptation of Bernard Schlink's novel is equally vapid. I would love for them both to lose to Peter Morgan, even if his screenplay was also loaded with some silly Cliff Notes-style exposition to help the viewer along (though the amount of contextual information in that film has to go somewhere if it's going to be less than fifteen hours long).


Best Animated Feature:

Will Win: WALL-E – Andrew Stanton
Should Win: Kung Fu Panda – Mark Osborne and John Stevenson
Should've Been Nominated: Fear(s) of the Dark - Various

I've not even seen Fear(s) of the Dark, but it sounds great, and it would be fun to see Charles Burns getting a nomination (read Black Hole; it's awesome). That would have meant Bolt misses out, which is a shame, as it's a lot of fun, and the nomination is a nice present to Disney Animation, which has had a difficult couple of years.

Best Foreign Language Film:

Will Win: The Class (France) in French - Laurent Cantet
Should Win: Waltz with Bashir (Israel) in Hebrew - Ari Folman
Should've Been Nominated: Gomorrah (Italy) - Matteo Girrone

I suspect The Class will win as much for its quality as for not being the far more controversial Waltz With Bashir. I've not yet seen The Class, and it might be amazing, but I can vouch for the incredible Bashir, a film that moved me to horrible tears. I just can't see something that bleak winning an Oscar. Though it would ruin my spread, I'm hoping for a Bashir win here.

Best Animated Short:

Will Win: This Way Up - Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

As I've not seen anything in this category, I don't feel right commenting on what should or shouldn't have been nominated, but I will make this prediction, based on my super-scientific method of picking the one I've heard of (this short was profiled in the Times this week). Besides, it looks pretty cool.

Best Art Direction:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
Should've Been Nominated: Hellboy II: The Golden Army - Stephen Scott

The wide-range of time periods for this movie, and the amount of work in replicating them, ensures this win. Either that or The Duchess will win for Removal of Contemporary Items From Stately Homes. Yawn.

Best Cinematography:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Claudio Miranda
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Claudio Miranda
Should've Been Nominated: The Spiderwick Chronicles - Caleb Deschanel / The Fall - Colin Watkinson

It was ravishing! How can it lose? It won't win anything not in the non-technical categories, so this is a sure thing (he said with obnoxious over-confidence).

Best Costume Design:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Jacqueline West
Should Win: Milk – Danny Glicker
Should've Been Nominated: The Fall - Eiko Ishioka

As in the previous category, an egregious snub for The Fall. I know the movie wasn't seen by many people, but even just looking at the trailer should be enough of a showreel to get some attention. It was one of the most beautiful movies ever made, and no one noticed. I'd feel sorry for the director, for which this was a work of great personal significance, but I imagine worldly things do not matter to the mighty... TARSEM!

Best Documentary Feature:

Will Win: Trouble the Water
Should Win: Man on Wire
Should've Been Nominated: Standard Operating Procedure

Boy, I was looking forward to watching Trouble The Water on More4 this week, but our Sky+ record function has gone kerflooey, so that's not happening any time soon. I would think that will win over Man On Wire due to the subject matter, no matter how good it is (I hear it's wonderful, but I wouldn't know). Maybe I'm being too cynical. I'll happily eat my words later, if necessary.

Best Documentary Short:

Will Win: The Conscience of Nhem En – Steven Okazaki

As with the animation short, I've not seen any of the nominees in this category, so I won't insult everyone here, and will plump for this nominee as I have heard of it as well.

Best Film Editing:

Will Win: The Dark Knight – Lee Smith
Should Win: The Dark Knight – Lee Smith
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - Roger Barton, Zach Staenberg

There is an awful error in The Dark Knight, during the Batpod sequence, where Batman shoots a glass door, drives through a building, shoots another glass door, and then is back in the building even though it should have driven out. GAH! It drives me crazy every time I watch it. Even so, the editors do an amazing job of cutting a big complex movie down to a manageable size (it should have been a lot longer).

Best Live Action Short:

Will Win: On the Line (Auf der Strecke)

Here is where my foolproof method for selecting the hard-to-find nominees fails. I've not heard anything about any of these movies. ::sigh:: Sorry, short film filmmakers. I'm going for On The Line as it's the top of the list. Oy, that's some crappy motivation.

Best Makeup:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Greg Cannom
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Greg Cannom

I didn't select a film that should have been nominated, as I think they picked the best three films of the year, though I will say I suspect Tropic Thunder didn't get picked for Robert Downey Jr.'s blackface makeup as the Kodak theatre would explode from the white liberal confusion over it. I think Ben Stiller et al have a good defense when they say that the character of Kirk Lazarus is a lampoon of actorly pretension, and it's a hilarious turn, but I really don't think we're ready to be handing out awards for that kind of divisive and explosive makeup just yet.

Best Original Score:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Alexandre Desplat
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Alexandre Desplat
Should've Been Nominated: The Dark Knight - Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard

Doesn't it seem ironic now that The Dark Knight's ineligibility caused so much fuss, and all for nothing? Repeated viewings have shown how complex, unorthodox, and stirring that soundtrack is. The eventual snub is deeply frustrating. And why did I choose Desplat's soundtrack over A.R. Rahman? Because Desplat is super-awesome and I just don't want Slumdog to keep winning things. Please?!

Best Original Song:

Will Win: "Down to Earth" from WALL-E – Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (music), Peter Gabriel (lyrics)
Should Win: "Down to Earth" from WALL-E – Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (music), Peter Gabriel (lyrics)
Should've Been Nominated: "The Wrestler" from The Wrestler - Bruce Springsteen

This category is utter bullshit this year. I can understand Slumdog and Wall*E getting a nomination each, but leaving out Springsteen makes absolutely no sense. It's good news for Peter Gabriel, though. Slumdog should, again, win, but I suspect (as does Richard Corliss in his picks) that the Slumdog vote will be split, leaving Gabriel free and clear to win.

Best Sound Editing:

Will Win: WALL-E – Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
Should Win: WALL-E – Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - Dane A. Davis, Mike Chock, Drew Yerys

Big no-brainer. Burtt's work is the main reason Wall*E works at all.

Best Sound Mixing:

Will Win: The Dark Knight – Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
Should Win: The Dark Knight – Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - Felix Andriessens, Christian Wegner

The Dark Knight is the big action film of the year. This is the way this kind of voting goes.

Best Visual Effects:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - John Gaeta

The last no-brainer, though I'm still upset with the FX voters for yet again snubbing John Gaeta's work. The same thing happened with the two Matrix sequels. No matter what you think of those films, the effects were ground-breaking and beautiful. Who has this guy pissed off in the FX community to keep getting snubbed like this? I'd put Speed Racer above the competent Iron Man work any day of the week.

And that's that. Sorry for going on at such great length. After tonight I hope to stop thinking about this for at least eight months. Getting annoyed by something so trivial is exhausting.

Countdown to the Oscars (bleh), Part 1

Now that I've watched all of the big Oscar nominees, from the main eight categories (I'd like to consider Foreign one of the "big categories," but as I've never been able to see all the nominees before the ceremony, I can't consider it such), I've ranked each of the nominees in descending order for your arguing pleasure. I've placed the titles in bold that actually deserved their nomination.

Best Picture

1. Milk
2. Frost/Nixon
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. The Reader

Best Director

1. Gus Van Sant, Milk
2. Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
3. Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
4. David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Stephen Daldry, The Reader

Best Actor

1. Sean Penn, Milk
2. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
3. Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
4. Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
5. Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Actress

1. Meryl Streep, Doubt
2. Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
3. Melissa Leo, Frozen River
4. Kate Winslet, The Reader
5. Angelina Jolie, Changeling

Best Supporting Actor

1. Josh Brolin, Milk
2. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
3. Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
5. Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

Best Supporting Actress

1. Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2. Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
3. Amy Adams, Doubt
4. Viola Davis, Doubt
5. Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Original Screenplay

1. Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
2. Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
3. Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
4. Dustin Lance Black, Milk
5. Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon, WALL-E

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
2. John Patrick Stanley, Doubt
3. Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
4. Eric Roth, Robin Swicord, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. David Hare, The Reader

Comments: Why is it that the original screenplay category is the only one in which all five nominees are worth praising? The Reader is easily the worst best picture nominee since Crash. I hate that in a few years, people will look back at the nominees for Best Picture and assume 2008 was a shitty year for film, when it was just the opposite. Let's just hope Hollywood's liberal guilt gives Milk just enough push to take the prize over its extremely less deserving nominees.

I Semi-Promise This Will Be The Last Oscar-Related Poll...

One last poll before the big day (Feb 22nd), when some really mediocre movies get handed awards, and hopefully, just to make the whole thing not a total disaster, Mickey Rourke and the FX teams on Benjamin Button get their gold-plated just desserts too. By now it's probable that even though Slumdog has mysteriously been hit with all sorts of unsavoury accusations of child exploitation and dismissal by India, it's going to romp home. Though I am on record as not being best pleased about that, I'll just be happy if people stop referring to it as the longshot. It really isn't. By now people desperately want it to succeed, and it will. Benjamin Button will go home with some technical stuff, and Slumdog will get the biggies, a decision that will be the sanity-twisting equivalent of this...


...and, eventually, just as regrettable and embarrassing for the Academy members and the folks at home as this.


That inevitability aside, there are some actual longshots in that list. The ones no one thinks to bet on. In some awards the longshot occasionally wins (no one expected Bryan Cranston to get an Emmy for his Breaking Bad work as there were other, better known nominees there), but with the Oscars it pretty much never does. That doesn't mean they should be ignored though. Hence this new poll. Which longshot nominee would you most like to see score an upset and win?

Richard Jenkins (Best Actor for The Visitor)

Melissa Leo (Best Actress for Frozen River)

Michael Shannon (Best Supporting Actor for Revolutionary Road)

Viola Davis (Best Supporting Actress for Doubt)

Gus Van Sant (Best Director for Milk)

Thomas Newman (Best Soundtrack for Wall*E)

Martin McDonagh (Best Original Screenplay for In Bruges)

Peter Morgan (Best Adapted Screenplay for Frost/Nixon)

Wally Pfister (Best Cinematography for The Dark Knight)

Kung Fu Panda (Best Animated Feature Film)

The Baader Meinhof Complex (Best Foreign Language Film)

Milk (Best Picture)

Iron Man (Best Visual Effects)

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Best Makeup)

The Dark Knight (Best Sound Editing)

Wanted (Best Sound Mixing)

I will admit, I have no idea if Wanted really had amazingly well mixed sound. I just want to know if anyone out there is eager for a movie featuring a Loom of Fate, bullet-curving, and bomb-rats to win an Oscar. If anyone votes for it, I'll assume Mark Millar popped by. Anyway, have at it, my pretties.

Rachel Gets Married In Magnificent Style

When I posted my Best Movies of 2008 lists, I had a little rant about release schedules, and how making a list before seeing some potentially great movies got released made a mockery of the whole thing. Canyon argued very persuasively that we wait for a little while longer, but the thought of posting a Best Of list at the end of March (the earliest we could see Synecdoche, New York, which is released on Region 1 DVD two months before it gets a UK release) was anathema to me. I love lists like Picard loves Earl Grey, so there was no way I could put off blurting out my picks.

To be honest, I thought that the final few big contenders might not get on the list. Synecdoche was the big hope, praised by some whose opinion means a lot to me but dissed by some hardcore Kaufman fans, so I couldn't be sure. Doubt looks promising, especially if you're a fan of Viola Davis, guilt, ACK-TING, and/or Joe Vs. The Volcano. The Reader could appeal to the Winslet enthusiast in me, even if it sounds like a potentially mind-shredding mixture of worthy ingredients and themes baked into Seriousness Souffle.


Other than that, there was Rachel Getting Married, which Canyon had been excited about since The AV Club went a bit mental about it. Even though it was great to hear that Jonathan Demme, a director I had once been crazy about, was back on form after some dodgy efforts, I was less enthused than Canyon, thinking I would like it well enough, but surely not more than I had liked the perfect crowd-pleasingness of Iron Man, or the complex power struggles and martial arts mastery of Red Cliff: Part One, or Colin Farrell's eloquent profanity and existential misery in In Bruges.

And yet I did like it. More than Iron Man. More than The Wrestler. More than In Bruges. More, even, than Kung Fu Panda, a film that makes me cry when watching just because I love it so much. We went to see it last night (finally released in the UK months after its initial US release), and I was floored by it. The only film of 2008 that I liked more was The Dark Knight, though Rachel Getting Married gives it a run for its money. Sadly for Demme and his amazing cast and crew, their excellent film still lacks Ledger and Eckhart, the Batpod, and the boat dilemma, so it could never be top of my list.

I cannot overstate how happy I am that Demme has made a movie that feels so much like his earlier work, even if the shooting style (handheld cameras and a home movie feel) is so different from anything he has ever done before. Demme was renowned for making movies that feel like they're full to the brim with life and unpredictability even though, formally, his movies were often very stylised and structured. Even something as potentially uncinematic as a Spalding Gray monologue was rendered visually lively in his movie Swimming to Cambodia, and yet all he was doing was filming Gray at a desk.


His post-Corman movies all felt like parties with plotlines, bristling with energy and quirkiness, and even if they weren't all perfect, they were still a lot of fun. Something Wild is possibly the ultimate Manic Pixie Dream Girl movie, generating so much goodwill in the audience that even the much-discussed third-act detour into thriller territory doesn't derail the good times. Married To The Mob is possibly the oddest and most lovable gangster movie yet made, with Dean Stockwell doing a great job of being funny and threatening at the same time. Stop Making Sense is the classic concert movie, a playful celebration of not only the music of Talking Heads but the idea of live music as theatre. Melvin and Howard, coming across like a lost Hal Ashby movie or the brother of Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces, is in dire need of reappraisal. Even something as compromised as Swing Shift had the spark of something made outside the restrictive studio system despite the interference of people who just didn't understand what he was aiming for.

The only other filmmakers from that period who managed to fill their films with such energy (at least that I can think of) were Jim McBride and Martin Scorsese. McBride regrettably disappeared after the failure of Great Balls of Fire (one of the most infectiously anarchic mainstream movies ever to fail miserably at the box office), and Scorsese has been chasing Oscars with some uninspiring prestige movies for a while now, cranking out shadows of his former great work. That said, I totally don't begrudge him winning, and even shed a tear when it happened. Look at him! I want to give that man a hug.


(An aside: There is also former Demme collaborator George Armitage, responsible for the gleefully unorthodox Miami Blues and Grosse Pointe Blank, but sadly he too came unstuck with The Big Bounce, a deeply frustrating project that hinted at, if not greatness, then at least some light-hearted and good-natured fun.)

That ossification of their exuberant style is similar to what happened to Demme. In a complete left-turn that still baffles me to this day, he made Silence of the Lambs, his biggest hit and an award magnet even though it is wilfully peculiar, bleak, and filled with idiosyncracies. It was a strange triumph for his brand of unorthodox and imaginative storytelling. However, for the longest time it was his last great hurrah. Philadelphia did a great job of raising awareness about HIV and AIDS, but it's not a particularly good movie. It's the first Big Theme movie of his career, and signalled that awful time in an Oscar-winning director's career when they lose whatever it was that made them interesting in the first place. It doesn't happen all of the time. Spielberg made Minority Report and Munich after winning two Oscars, and Bob Zemeckis followed his Forrest Gump win with performance-capture experiments of varying quality that were, however, still bold and fascinating on a technical level. However, how many interesting films has Barry Levinson made since Rain Man? Or Bernardo Bertolucci?


In the case of Demme, while I would be eager to see his early movies, I have little interest in seeing The Truth About Charlie (despite having Joong-Hoon Park, aka the Korean Marlon Brando, in the cast), and zero interest in Beloved, which looks like a deeply flawed interpretation of Toni Morrison's book. Plus, who wanted to see a remake of The Manchurian Candidate? It has all the elements of a potentially good movie, except that it serves no purpose. The updating of the story to satirise the nefarious motives of Big Business was potentially interesting, but garbled by horrible plotholes and inconsistencies. Flashes of Demme's quirky eye for detail or image broke through from time to time, and the performances were a joy to watch, but it was a dispiriting experience, seeing Demme making movies that were a world away from his earlier films, all of which looked and felt like they were made on Planet Demme. His earthbound projects just didn't inspire me at all. (N.B. I wrote this paragraph a couple of days ago, but a quick look at The AV Club's New Cult Canon feature on Married To The Mob features the phrase Demmeworld. He really does make movies unlike anyone else.)

In recent years his documentary work, such as Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, The Agronomist, and Neil Young: Heart of Gold, were critically praised, but their releases were so badly organised that, with my new apathy towards Demme, I couldn't muster the energy to chase them down. I never thought it would come to that. And now, that period has passed. Rachel Getting Married did many things to my brain and heart and soul, but first and foremost it's made me excited to watch his movies again. Those documentaries are definitely getting tracked down as soon as possible.


Rachel Getting Married has been described as being Altmanesque simply because it features a large ensemble cast that talks a lot, and the subject matters echoes that of Altman's A Wedding. Other than that the connection between Demme's work here and that of the great man is not as definitive as has been noted. The use of naturalistic speech patterns have more to do with the way the movie is filmed, with hand-held cameras and natural sound, than with some stylistic tic appropriated from elsewhere. Cleverly the movie is filmed in the same style as a wedding video, as if an invisible visitor to the ceremony was recording everything. At times the film cuts to the PoV of a guest who is recording everything, and other than the film stock you can barely tell the difference in style. Altman's overlapping dialogue was intentional and often overdone to the point of parody. In Rachel Getting Married, it's a natural consequence of Demme letting his actors loose without rehearsals, hence lines are stepped on and come at the wrong moments, much as with real conversations. Check out this press kit for more information about Demme's shooting style.

Saying the movie is realistically filmed is one thing, but it would still ring false if the performances and script were not up to scratch, but they are all nigh-on perfect. Jenny Lumet's debut script is an absolute marvel, superbly managing the tricky task of juggling tone and revelation and pace without giving away her structure. Love McKee though I do, it's hard to watch a lot of movies as learner writers show their act breaks too obviously, using McKee's work as a strict manual filled with compulsory rules instead of a guidebook of advice, which is how it should be treated. Lumet's script flows like real life flows, with unpredictability and awkwardness and accidents, but is structured perfectly. You just never notice until you pick it apart later. Of course, I shouldn't have to praise her for doing something that any writer worth their salt would do, but she does such an amazing job in a world where even this basic competence seems rare that I feel obligated to mention it.


That said, even an amazing script would suffer without a great cast to add life and natural flow to it, and Rachel Getting Married has a superb range of performers who seem to have been in rehearsal forever, so seamlessly is everything played. One memorable scene, which could easily have turned into a stagy shoutfest, is conducted almost entirely through calm, acidic asides and vicious accusations delivered in quiet but furious voices, the protagonists moving from room to room while Anna Deavere Smith hands out plates of melon. Seeing the incomparable Bill Irwin desperately trying to hold his family together as the tragedy in their past threatens to bring everything crashing down is one of the most affecting things I've seen in film for years, and would not have worked if we were watching big meltdown moments.

The only scene containing sustained histrionics, the climactic showdown between Kym and her feckless mother (played with odious brilliance by a perfectly cast Debra Winger), earns those screams. The fight we see has been in the offing for years, and when it comes it starts with almost no warning. I can't remember the last time a scene alarmed me more. Well, a scene that didn't involve a Batpod, exploding bodies, or some kind of monster on a rampage.


The music, something obviously very important to Demme, plays a huge part as well. He's done more to champion African music than any other US filmmaker, and without it his narrative work of the past few years has felt incomplete. As the movie's form demands no non-diegetic music be used for fear of breaking the semi-realist spell, Demme fills the wedding with musicians, used diegetically, throughout. Demme has said he was eager to present a wedding that reflects his life experiences and circle of friends, which is why Sister Carol East and Robyn Hitchcock turn up to perform (this is explained away by having Bill Irwin's patriarch conveniently working in the music industry). There is much African soul and funk in later scenes, and classical-ambient noodling throughout earlier scenes. We even get to hear Tunde Adebimpe, in the role of groom Sidney, sing to Rachel (an excellent performance by Rosemarie DeWitt), which was a lovely touch.

Sadly, that amazing soundtrack by Donald Harrison Jr. and Zafer Tawil's gets no Oscar nomination. Neither does Bill Irwin, or Jonathan Demme, or even (and this really disgusts me) Jenny Lumet. This despite it being widely admired, though I guess that means little when you have the moneyed likes of Harvey Weinstein running around strong-arming voters into praising illiterate Nazi movies. Much of our post-movie debate (conducted over amazing food at the West End branch of super-restaurant Tsunami, food fans!) was spent bemoaning Slumdog's recent SAG Awards win for Best Ensemble Cast. I can think of a number of movies more deserving of that award than the indifferently performed Slumdog, and none more so than Rachel Getting Married, which features a large and talented cast at the peak of their powers.


That cast is Demme's secret weapon. By casting friends and family, filming them constantly, and ensuring that a party atmosphere prevails, Rachel Getting Married, feels fresh and new and exciting, just like Demme's work from decades ago. No other film of recent years is as vibrant and life-affirming as this, even while it deals with tragedy and pain and some of the worst behavioural impulses imaginable. The sense of real celebration, real love and emotion bursting from the screen, is palpable, even though Lumet's script goes to extremely dark places and stares down pain and loss and grief without blinking, and even though Demme is not afraid to have scenes play out to uncomfortable or tedious length.

And yet it is almost totally ignored by the Academy, with numerous nominations given to less worthy movies instead. Of course, that includes my current bête noire, Slumdog Millionaire. Apologies for banging on about this yet again, but after seeing Rachel Getting Married, we were furious about the nominationariational state of play. Danny Boyle's movie purports to be an upbeat celebration of life and love, but at heart it's a hollow, ugly, fake trinket, a cubic zirconium blob of contrived uplift and phony sentimentalism. Rachel Getting Married is often painful to watch, but it feels real, and earns all of the emotions it generates in the audience. It serenades humanity in all its forms, whereas Slumdog is an inconsequential hymn to Hallmark-card simplicity. Despite all of its distracting flash it's little more than escapist Mogadon. As many fans have pointed out, it's not trying to be anything more than escapism, and that wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so ugly and boring and aggressively stupid. Rachel Getting Married is a thousand-times the movie Slumdog is, and seeing Boyle and his cohorts pulling in awards and rapturous praise while Demme's movie is treated as little more than a competent amuse-bouche is driving me into paroxysms of rage.

Of course, Rachel Getting Married did get one nomination. A Best Actress nod went to Anne Hathaway, whose phenomenal career-best performance earns her a prestigious Shades of Caruso free pass.


I don't care if she goes on to make The Devil Still Wears Prada, or a series of Bride Wars sequels that rival the Bond films for longevity. In Rachel Getting Married she is incredible, playing Kym, a messy neurotic bag of hostility and guilt, to perfection. I've heard some people say her tics annoyed them (including at least one loyal reader of this here blog), but I didn't notice that. Perhaps it's because I know Kym, or at least someone who went through some similar life experiences and, sadly, came out of it just as angry and unhappy as her. Hathaway reminded me of that period so much that it freaked me out for long stretches of the movie. But in a good way. For a start, it gave me an insight into why people try to help family or friends who are going through horrible internal strife. Obviously, it's because you love them no matter what. A no-brainer answer, really.


So yes, my lists (all four of them) are now all skewiff. The number two spot on my best films list goes to Rachel Getting Married. Anne Hathaway does the incredible and knocks the Unstoppable Winslet Machine out of the Best Actress spot. Rosemarie DeWitt and Bill Irwin get on my supporting lists. Jenny Lumet gives Martin McDonagh a run for his money for the Best Screenplay spot (I watched In Bruges again this week and I think it remains number one, but only just). Christopher Nolan remains my favourite director of the year, but Jonathan Demme is right behind him.


Oh, Demme. Film buffs are still patiently waiting for the second coming of Woody Allen (or third, or fourth; I've lost count), and two weak-to-average movies have been treated like the equals of Crimes and Misdemeanours and Husbands and Wives, even though Match Point was a silly mess and Vicky Cristina Barcelona is kinda dull and obvious. We're not getting another Manhattan, or Hannah and her Sisters, or even Broadway Danny Rose ever again, and we should just accept that and treat his late career projects as mildly diverting exercises in mannerism and waffling. Demme, however, hasn't just made something better than The Manchurian Candidate. He's not just made his best film since Silence of the Lambs. He's made his best film since Melvin and Howard. Maybe even better than that. It's not a return to form, or the late-blooming of a failed but interesting director (his early movies are too good for that insulting appelation). It's vindication for his fans, proof that the man was an important and fiercely intelligent artist all along, and was just having a bad run that would end one day when the right project came along. In 2008, it finally did. I simply cannot praise it enough.

More DVDs for April/May

Your two favorite Oscar contenders (Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader) have set DVD release dates in the US. Slumdog will hit shelves on 31 March and The Reader on 14 April (although the website I originally found that from no longer lists a date, so don't expect that to stick). I've heard conflicting reports that Milk will either drop on 3 or 17 March; I'll let you know when it's officially announced. Small Oscar correction: I originally said that Japan's foreign language nominee Departures was without distributor, but actually Regent Releasing has the rights to it.

On the sleazy side of things, Hens Tooth Video will be releasing Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders on 7 April. Shriek Show is releasing Gorman Bechard's Psychos in Love on 28 April. Dark Sky Films will be releasing John Peyser's The Centerfold Girls on 28 April. And hold back your excitement for Warner to release another edition of Billy Jack on 19 May. They will also have the western Catlow, which stars Yul Brynner, Leonard Nimoy and Richard Crenna, on the same date.

PeaceArch is releasing JCVD on 28 April. Sony is apparently skipping a theatrical release for Fabrice Du Welz's (Calvaire) new film Vinyan, which stars Emmanuelle Béart and Rufus Sewell; the disc will street on 7 April in the US and 1 April in France. Montery Home Video will have Avi Nesher's The Secrets, which stars Fanny Ardant, out on 7 April. Also from Israel, VCI is releasing Moshé Mizrahi's I Love You Rosa, which was in competition at Cannes in 1972 and nominated for a Best Foreign Oscar the following year.

Universal is releasing Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra from 1934 with Claudette Colbert in the title role. In addition to Cleopatra, Universal will have a box-set of six "Pre-Code Hollywood" films which includes George Abbott's The Cheat, Dorothy Arzner's Merrily We Go to Hell with the wonderful Sylvia Sidney and Cary Grant in a small role, William A. Seiter's Hot Saturday with Grant and Nancy Carroll, Alexander Hall and George Somnes' Torch Singer with Colbert, Mitchell Leisen's murder/mystery/musical Murder at the Vanities and Erle C. Kenton's Search for Beauty with Ida Lupino. Both street on 7 April.

Magnolia will be releasing Franck Vestiel's Eden Log, with Clovis Cornillac, and Robert Celestino's Yonkers Joe, with Chazz Palmenteri, Christine Lahti, Linus Roache and Roma Maffia, on 19 May. PBS will have the documentary I.O.U.S.A. on 7 April. Kino has the documentary Kike Like Me on 21 April, and Facets will be releasing Julien Duvivier's Au bonheur des dammes on 28 April.

And finally, Soda Pictures in the UK is releasing Duane Hopkins' Better Things on DVD on 27 April. A quote on the box describes it as "The Dardenne brothers meet Lynne Ramsay," which is as much of a recommendation that I can think of for me. Anyone heard anything about it?

Cocaine jokes and Cate Blanchett shout-outs!

Was it just me or were the Golden Globes a lot more entertaining than in previous years (well, not including last year)? I don't have a lot to say about them otherwise, except than everyone involved with 30 Rock really kept things engaging, and that Sally Hawkins is adorable. However, did anyone else feel a weird sense of superiority when the winners of Slumdog Millionaire kept referring to the folks in Bombay who "will be going mental" when they see this? I've watched enough BBC to know what "going mental" means, but the way they spoke of everyone in Bombay appeared condescending, and not just because the people in question were children. Whatever.