Resolution Probability

I'm usually cautious about broadcasting any New Years resolutions that I may or may not have declared to myself; running around barking about how you've quit having one night stands (or whatever, that isn't mine, trust me) for the new year leads you to the inevitable quicker. Or so I've witnessed. However, as this particular resolution I've made (namely, to keep better records of the films I watch throughout the year) is one that comes about every year with little success, I was wondering if any of you had any special way of doing so. Perhaps online somewhere? I've already started an Excel sheet to track the three films I've already watched in '10, but it may be useful to have this list on the Internet somewhere. Maybe. The thought of avoiding all '00 films I've already seen crossed my mind, as a revisit of Rachel Getting Married yesterday made me regret its low-ish placement on my Decade List. But that sort of resolution doesn't seem likely to happen. We'll see if this project produces any success... as I'd love for it to move into other territories, like balancing my checkbook.

The Decade List: Rachel Getting Married (2008)

Rachel Getting Married – dir. Jonathan Demme

[There's going to be quite a few reposts and/or brief write-ups coming soon on The Decade List, as I'm pressed for time. This is what I had to say about it on my best of 2008 list, and my feelings haven't changed, after watching it again.]

Rachel Getting Married falls into the same category I place David Fincher's Zodiac. It's acceptable to dislike them (as a handful of people do), as long as you don't do so for the wrong reasons. If someone drops the phrase, "well, nothing happens," you can cross them off your list of people whose opinions are worthy of respect. The fact that "nothing happens" in both Zodiac and Rachel Getting Married is where their brilliance lies. Both take familiar subjects (a hunt for a serial killer; a dysfunctional family reunion or wedding movie) and display a sublime fascination in the mundane. In easily his finest fiction film to date, Jonathan Demme conducts Jenny Lumet's screenplay like a beautifully enchanting piece of music. It's frequently mystifying, but always grounded. Rachel Getting Married doesn't sacrifice its bedazzlement or its rawness, allowing the hypnotic dancing sequences to feel perfectly in place with its astute depiction of the unbearable guilt between family members.

With: Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Mather Zickel, Debra Winger, Anna Deavere Smith, Tunde Adebimpe, Anisa George
Screenplay: Jenny Lumet
Cinematography: Declan Quinn
Music: Donald Harrison Jr., Zafer Tawil
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Premiere: 3 September 2008 (Venice Film Festival)
US Premiere: 3 October 2008

DVD Update, 1 July, Plus Maybe The African Queen After All?

Some DVD release updates, ordered by release date:

- Sin nombre, 2009, d. Cary Fukunaga, Sony, 1 September
- Camille, 2007, d. Gregory Mackenzie, National Entertainment/E1, also on Blu-ray, 15 September, w. Sienna Miller, James Franco, David Carradine
- Easy Virtue, 2008, d. Stephan Elliott, Sony, also on Blu-ray, 15 September, w. Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jessica Biel
- Grace, 2009, d. Paul Solet, Anchor Bay, also on Blu-ray, 15 September, w. Jordan Ladd
- Lymelife, 2008, d. Derick Martini, Screen Media, also on Blu-ray, 22 September, w. Alec Baldwin, Timothy Hutton, Cynthia Nixon
- O' Horten, 2007, d. Bent Hamer, Sony, 22 September
- Nightmare, 2005, d. Dylan Bank, IFC Films, 29 September
- The Skeptic, 2009, d. Tennyson Bardwell, IFC Films, 6 October, w. Tim Daly, Tom Arnold, Zoe Saldana
- American Violet, 2008, d. Tim Disney, Image, also on Blu-ray, 13 October, w. Will Patton, Alfre Woodard, Tim Blake Nelson
- Chinatown, 1974, d. Roman Polanski, Paramount, Centennial Collection, 13 October
- Gnaw, 2008, d. Gregory Mandry, Dark Sky Films, 13 October
- Sorry, Wrong Number, 1948, d. Anatole Litvak, Paramount, Centennial Collection, 13 October, w. Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster
- The Stepfather, 1987, d. Joseph Ruben, Shout! Factory, 13 October, w. Terry O'Quinn
- The Butcher, 2007, d. Kim Jin-Won, Palisades Tartan, 27 October
- Night of Death! [La nuit de la mort], 1980, d. Raphaël Delpard, Synapse, 27 October, w. Charlotte de Turckheim

Also look for Stop Making Sense on Blu-ray from Palm on 13 October and the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol on Blu-ray on 3 November. And, maybe, The African Queen will really come out on 13 October as part of Paramount's Centennial Collection.

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.

2009 Notebook: Vol 6

God, I'm watching films faster than I can write about them. Again, I'll have longer rundowns of the films within the week. And, yes, I've been on a Parker Posey kick lately.

The Bad

Antarctica - dir. Yair Hochner - 2008 - Israel - here! Films - with Tomer Ilan, Yiftach Mizrahi, Lucy Dubinchik, Guy Zoaretz, Rivka Neuman, Noam Huberman, Liat Ekta, Yael Deceklbaum, Dvir Benedek, Dina Limon, Yuval Raz, Ofer Regirer, Oshri Sahar, Shirli Salomon

Revisited: The Old Favorites

Hannah and Her Sisters - dir. Woody Allen - 1986 - USA - MGM - with Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Woody Allen, Max von Sydow, Carrie Fisher, Maureen O'Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Daniel Stern, Julie Kavner

Rachel Getting Married - dir. Jonathan Demme - 2008 - USA - Sony Pictures Classics - with Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mather Zickel, Bill Irwin, Debra Winger, Tunde Adebimpe, Anna Deavere Smith, Anisa George

Volver - dir. Pedro Almodóvar - 2006 - Spain - Sony Pictures Classics - with Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio de la Torre

Revisited: Les Autres

Adam & Steve - dir. Craig Chester - 2005 - USA - TLA Releasing - with Craig Chestor, Malcolm Gets, Parker Posey, Chris Kattan, Sally Kirkland, Julie Hagerty, Kristen Schaal, Melinda Dillon, Michael Panes, Noah Segan

Desperate Living - dir. John Waters - 1977 - USA - New Line - with Mink Stole, Liz Renay, Susan Lowe, Jean Hill, Edith Massey, Mary Vivian Pearce

Personal Velocity: Three Portraits - dir. Rebecca Miller - 2002 - USA - MGM - with Parker Posey, Kyra Sedgwick, Fairuza Balk, Lou Taylor Pucci, Leo Fitzpatrick, Tim Guinee, Patti D'Arbanville, Seth Gilliam, Wallace Shawn, Ben Shenkman, Ron Leibman, David Patrick Kelly

Polyester - dir. John Waters - 1981 - USA - New Line - with Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, David Samson, Mary Garlington, Ken King, Mink Stole

Savage Nights [Les nuits fauves] - dir. Cyril Collard - 1992 - France - Gramercy - with Cyril Collard, Romane Bohringer, Carlos López, Corine Blue, Claude Winter, René-Marc Bini, Maria Schneider

Revisited: Shit

The House of Yes - dir. Mark Waters - 1997 - USA - Miramax - with Parker Posey, Josh Hamilton, Tori Spelling, Freddie Prinze Jr., Geneviève Bujold

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.

The View Sounds More Interesting When Described By Rosie

Though I feel dirty for linking to a Fox News post, seems Rosie O'Donnell lost control of her mouth again and compared working on The View to violent scenes from exploitative prison movies. She is reported to have said, during a warm-up for a stand-up tour:

It started out as a tea party and wound up like a women’s prison movie. There were shivs out on the table.

That was the nice quote; she said worse things in another quote. How dare she insult women-in-chains exploitation movies by comparing them to something as tawdry as The View! Has The View ever been directed by Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme? No, it hasn't. Do ladies-in-prison flicks feature anything as offensive, unpalatable, and insulting to the reputation of the female gender as Elizabeth Hasselbeck? No, they don't. Put a cork in it, O'Donnell, or I'm burning my copy of Another Stakeout.


(Disclaimer: No contributor to Shades of Caruso owns a copy of Another Stakeout in any format. This was merely an attempt to prevent Rosie O'Donnell from saying anything else from a position of zero perspective.)