TM
Tuesday, February 3rd, 7:10 PM & 9:28 PM
You must see this trailer: Kill Bill, Vol 2 (Could I be more excited?) and another which seems like it could go either way, King Arthur. (Check out Keira Knightley's viscious Guinevere. Yikes!)
But back to the Oscar contenders...Wow, those Oscar nominations and P&A pushes really worked. Mystic River, long since dead at the box office managed to reenter the top ten this weekend nabbing a very impressive 4 million. I assume that's one of those "Gee, we always meant to see that" couples weekend. Master and Commander and Lost in Translation both added a couple of million to their cumes as well by adding hundreds of screens and getting new press. The littlest change is for Return of the King which didn't see much of a box office difference --but it's been in the top five since its release and last week beat Finding Nemo as the biggest hit of 2003. So, it's hardly hurting for cash. Just following the normal 'everyone-has-seen- it' downward box office slope, slowly losing screens as it ages.
Box Office Rank? Return of the King is #1 for the year, Seabiscuit is #16th for the year with a very Oscar-ish box office tally ($100-$130 seems mighty common for Best Picture nominees. Big enough to be considered a real hit. Small enough to not be a populist blockbuster with McDonalds tie-ins) Master and Commander ranks #31st for the year and is so close but yet so far from a $100 million tally that it hurts. A weekend of $2 million after the nominations is not going to get this sturdy old Hollywood effort up past that magic mark. The film sits at $87 million. Mystic River at #44th for the year has the rather dubious distinction of being sandwiched between Mona Lisa Smile, Shanghai Knights (just below it) and Lara Croft 2: The Cradle of Life and the League of Extraordinary Gentleman (just above it). It's like one shiny new renovated home in a very scary bad-reputation neighborhood. Carry your mace!
I'm hardly one of Mystic River's biggest supporters but I truly hope it's Oscar nominations continue to shine on its box office take. It needs out of that skanky neighborhood. Another 12 million or so and it can sit more comfortably in the Kill Bill and Cold Mountain neighborhood. Films like River need to do well so we can get more adults-only dramas that don't pander.
But wait a second. How did Cold Mountain get up so high!? You gotta hand it to Miramax. This was no sure thing. Kidman, Law, and Zellweger are not "openers" or at least not consistently. They've all been in big hits. But they don't hit it out of the park every time. They're not impervious to harm like Tom Cruise who can bring nearly any film to $100 million (witness The Last Samurai and Vanilla Sky). But I'd say a final take in the neighborhood of 85 million is pretty damn good for a civil war romance, don'cha think? Too bad they spent so much dough making it. Otherwise they could have had a modest hit on their hands. The audience does actually seem to like the film. Even though it got the bad press boogey-monster of not getting a preordained Best Picture nom --that following weekend it barely took a dent (!) dropping a measly 18% where the other pictures were dropping in the 30-40% range.
But enough about money. Let's talk nomination tallies. The FiLM BiTCH Awards are complete. I am slightly ashamed that I didn't spread the wealth as much as usual. Usually I handily beat Oscar at recognizing individual merit within the year's films. In the traditional Oscar categories (minus the foreign, animated, documentary, and short categories which I don't have -since I don't get to see enough of the eligible candidates to have an opinion) Oscar honored 26 films with nominations. Here at the Film Experience I honored 34. The difference stems from the fact that I don't nominate my best pictures for everything like Oscar does. Although, to give them credit this year they did restrain themselves far more than usual. Last year's Oscar nominations were shameful with the Best Pictures hogging a huge percentage of ALL nominations. It was rather ridiculous.
But the real fun of the FiLM BiTCH Awards is that I have more awards categories than you can read in one sitting --41 in total. So masochistic I am. So, if you count all 7 pages, than the nomination tallies jump. (And Kill Bill surpasses Return of the King as the most nominated film with 26 nominations) The number of films represented jumps considerably as well. 51 of the 82 2003 releases that I saw are represented somehow. Even Daredevil, my most hated film of the year manages a measly 1 nomination. It's strange sometimes to look at vote totals and see what things are missing. For instance, if you count just the traditional categories, I realize that I completely snubbed In America though I thought it a good film. I just didn't think it quite had the 5th best of anything I guess. It's also weird to realize that of 51 films represented somehow some films you like will suffer in comparison to some films that you don't like at all. Some movies have lots of good stuff but no great stuff. Some films have one great thing and everything else sucks. Etc...
The best films I saw that didn't place at all in my awards: Capturing the Friedmans (I don't have a documentary category because I don't see enough of them to have one --but this was a really fine film), The Man Without a Past (which nearly made my top ten list and I'm shocked it didn't sneak in anywhere), and Finding Nemo. In retrospect it seems weird that the fish tale didn't snag anything. I didn't love it as much as everyone else but it was beyond cute and it had some terrific vocal work, particularly from the goddess Ellen Degeneres who did indeed rule. Maybe I should add a best vocal work category? It seems weird because I like those three pictures... but there you go.
The medalists (Gold, Silver, and Bronze... You know the drill) will be announced either this weekend or next. I hope you've enjoyed the awards experience this year...
Monday February 2nd, 11:41 PM
Today I'm really sick of thinking about Oscar. I was watching Buffy with friends (my Monday ritual) and it was the 'Faith returns' episodes from Season 4 and suddenly all movies that are up for Oscars felt so lame. Joss Whedon packs more interesting/entertaining/creatively satisfying stuff into one 45 minute episode of that series than most movies with multi million dollar budgets do. So, anyway, Oscars Schmoscars!Oh, and I totally forgot to mention that I finished the FiLM BiTCH Awards in all categories. Damn, I was slow this year. (Winners will be announced next week.)
Monday February 2nd, 8:13 AM
A reader responding to yesterday's entry informs that Miramax has indeed already spoken publicly about moving The Aviator to November (Damn, whaddya bet that Scorsese and Weinstein lock horns again with less than a year for Marty in post production, test screenings, editing, etc...)Another reader asks me to clarify why I feel that Dennis Quaid's characters gayness got him snubbed last year. The explanation is in full over here. It's not that the Academy doesn't warm to gay characters. It's that they prefer certain types. This has nothing to do with this year's race except that the "types" remain. It's easy to shoot holes in any Oscar theory unless if you're not considering the full theory. Some people have, over time, said I'm way off base in terms of Quaid's snub --and the cite all the gay characters that have been nominated. But that wasn't my point. My very general Academy feelings type of theory is that, unless it's a lead character played by an actor with a stellar reputation, an unlikeable or in any way confrontational character --no matter how complex -- a character that makes the audience uncomfortable is not the best way to get nominated. Supporting nominations often come for likeably show stealing roles as opposed to unlikeable complex ones. Dennis Quaid, Patricia Clarkson, and Michelle Pfeiffer all suffered last year with Oscar because their characters (supporting) were, in the end, rather unsympathetic. All three performances were wildly praised by some. Queen Latifah, John C Reilly, Ed Harris, etc... were nominated with less acclaimed but generally enjoyed performances. All the roles were sympathetic, harmless, likeable. They didn't challenge anything in the audience. They stayed in their alloted, typed place.
And right now you're like "But WHAT does this have to do with the nominations this year?" This has everything to do with why Evan Rachel Wood was snubbed in favor of Keisha Castle Hughes and/or Samantha Morton. Samantha Morton is always great but her role in In America is a lesser one for her. She doesn't have as much screen time as the other nominees and the focus and main character arc is not really on her. Keisha's character is honorable, sympathetic, and very very easy to warm to and like. The brilliance of Evan Rachel Wood's performance, however, is in its dark and confrontational side. I don't mean this in the sensationalistic : "she drinks! she does drugs! she sleeps around! and she's only 13" type of way that people think of when they diss the film. I mean it in the way Wood totally "gets" and explores how cruelty and manipulation can feel like power to someone who is unhappy or feels powerless. The drug for Tracy isn't the drugs, but the way she can hurt other people. She suddenly has power --she can suddenly control the family dynamic. She can maniuplate her mother. Now, that's only PART of her performance. But I think it's the part that got in the way in terms of a nomination. It's too confrontational. It's rather like Pfeiffer's dissing of organized religion in a great monologue in White Oleander or the way she, in the film, openly despised what we traditionally think of as "motherly" and soft. It's too much for traditional Academy members.
Sometimes you can be TOO brilliant in fully inhabiting a role. Sometimes you prevent your own nomination by doing what you should do as an actor.
Sunday February 1st, 10:35 AM
I got my first e-mail already about who I think will be nominated next year. I usually wait until April Fools Day for this... but since the site will be under re-construction at that time, it'll probably come the day after this year's Oscars. But you'll have to be patient until then as that sort of crystal ball looney-tunes moment requires a lot of research. I'm tired of making predictions only to have films delayed so I'm going to try to steer clear of films that are iffy this time (like Cinderella Man which hasn't even started filming yet and Russell Crowe is already injured again. You may remember that last time he was injured it put the brakes on Flora Plum, Jodie Foster's next directorial project, altogether. She's tried to get it off the ground since then. Last I heard was Ewan MacGregor in the lead... but the buzz on the development there is remarkably quiet. Will it ever happen?Another big question mark is The Aviator. They're reportedly already done filming but Scorsese is not a speedy post-production guy and Gangs of New York, you may recall, took at least one year longer than expected to open. With the accelerated Oscar schedule and Miramax's recent spin "Cold Mountain opened too late!" I think they might be a wee bit embarrassed to open several films in December this year. Or at least they should be after making that statement. They currently have three films scheduled to open in the second half of December: The Aviator, Cinderella Man, and An Unfinished Life. Expect one of the first two to not be ready in time.
Sunday February 1st, 12:01 AM
OK, We aren't even a week into this diary and I'm already getting tons of e-mails. It's hard to keep up so please forgive --I won't be doing a mail page but just incorporating letter ideas into the diary.
Today I got a note saying: "I can't believe you run an Oscar site and haven't seen City of God" and it went on to say that I would lose all credibility if I didn't see it! I wasn't aware that I had any -but OK. (that's a joke) I found this to be a curious enough letter to talk about. Why exactly would I have seen City of God? It's not like it was common knowledge that it would get four shocking nominations in 2004. If it was they wouldn't have been shocks. But anyway... I hate to break everyone's hearts or illusions --but I don't see everything. Nor do I have the desire to see everything. Plus nobody pays me. Hell, Roger Ebert who makes quite a fortune for himself watching and discussing movies doesn't see everything.
Around the time City of God first premiered to much hoopla, it was ALSO when it was simultaneously failing to procure itself a nomination in last year's foreign language race. And in December and January I have NO time for anything that's not an Oscar contender (seriously). Here in New York there are dozens of movies premiering every week. You have to make choices. City of God was a natural "skip it" because it wasn't nominated and the violence scared me off . I have no regrets about skipping it. And even now, seeing it will only be out of this strange self-imposed Oscar duty. I saw several stills and read a few reviews and --I'm sorry but the idea of watching little boys killing people is NOT something I would consider a good time at the cinema. Or that I would even subject myself to unless something like 4 Oscar nominations was beckoning.
The violence in cinema thing got me thinking. I feel weird talking about it because it makes me seem like such a prude mainstreamer when I discuss über violent / depressing arthouse films. The truth is I love art films. I love dark depressing dramas. And I love seeing foreign language films, etc... but I don't much care for this current nihilism=quality meme that seems to be going on in film criticism in response to recent international cinema trends. I couldn't make it through Irréversible's homophobia, brutality, and rape sequences, no matter how many great reviews it got from people I respect. I tried. But I'd rather go have dinner with a friend I love than watch films about man's inhumanity to man, or how cruel and meaningless life is. I can sit through 100 obscure Russian Arks, Late Marriages, Friday Nights, and Morvern Callars... but I can't take being emotionally and psychically brutalized by repeated scenes of rape, murder, and chaos just because the films they're in happen to have handsome production values.
So then everyone says to me... "but you loved Kill Bill!" Ah welcome to my Gemini world. Anyway, that's got the stylization factor which puts that protective layer of remove on the blood. Plus there's UMA. ("Umaphile from way back," he says without shame) And Tarantino's revenge flick is cinematically fascinating enough in its construction and performances to distract me from the carnage. But this conversation also brings me back to discussions I was having with friends ten years ago when Natural Born Killers premiered. Are films about sick violent societies actual the critiques they think they are or are they, in actuality, inadvertant glorifications? I genuinely worry. It's not exactly like Americans have a shortage of bloodlust. Now, we want it imported as well! We can't get enough. As our "compassionate" and "wise" president would say "Bring it on" (Note the dripping sarcasm)
I'm just not a violence-tolerant person. I agree with Bernardo Bertolucci. "An orgasm is better than a bomb" So, I'll never love films about gangsters or street gangs as much as the average critic does. I just don't have it in me.
ONE FINAL NOTE: This is nothing other than navel-gazing. But it is a diary so if you're annoyed, it's your own fault for reading. I haven't seen City of God so I'm speaking in generalities about why I stayed away. I'm not saying anything about the quality of the movie. Just sharing my impressions.But alas, it's too late at night to think about this anymore. I'm sure I'll see City of God. But my credibility will have to wait until I feel particularly girded for it. Unless someone wants to insure me that there isn't footage of pre-teens killing each other, in which case I'll be less nervous about what it will do to my psyche.
"The act of creating art is an act of violence --it is the willful destruction of nothingness. All true art is violence. Are all acts of violence art? No. Of course not. Some acts of violence are. But for the inartistic, the creation of violence is a crude substitution for the creation of art. Violece is usually not art because it merely destroys one form of nothingness and replaces it with another. True art always fills the void."
-Louis Edwards, Oscar Wilde Discovers America
Saturday, January 31st, 8:04 AM & 10:42 AM
Best Picture & Foreign Film pages are updated / filled out
Well, I missed a day but I have a good excuse. Birthday celebration for the boyfriend including dinner with friends and a Broadway show; In this case that's the much media-plagued, backstage turmoil filled, critically shredded, Rosie-money-losing TABOO with book by Charles Busch (disastrous), Score by Boy George (luscious -but I wasn't expecting any less from the great songwriter), Euan Morton as Boy George (wonderful), Raul Esparza as the narrator (but DAMN live theater he wasn't there!), lots of other actors (good performances -too many characters!) and Boy George as Leigh Bowery(I'll tumble for him, but I really think this needed to be its own musical instead of half of one). This has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with Oscar, but I felt the need to share over coffee on a Saturday morning.I may brave the cold for the movies today. At one theater you can see ALL of the best picture nominees (minus M&C) plus City of God in one marathon if you start at 11:00 or so and come home after Midnight. Funny how that happens the weekend after nominations. In terms of the recent Oscar nominations, I have but two holes in my viewing: The Cooler, Dirty Pretty Things (which I have comically tried to see a few times and am always thwarted so it's a heebie jeebie twilight zone thing now with me so I may steer clear until dvd) and City of God. It's so weird to have gaps... because that almost never happens to me. Perhaps it was the shortened season?
But keep in mind I am NOT complaining. I love the shorter season. The best picture lineup is composed of release dates encompassing: July, September, October, November, and December. This potentially means a very happy moviegoing experience in future fall seasons instead of the "I know you all wanted Christmas gifts but I was at the movies all day for the past month -sorry!" nightmare I've been living every December for years.
Thursday, January 29th, 9:07 PMI'm still in Carolina country talking 'bout Cold Mountain. OK, not me. I'm just thinking about Cold Mountain but others are still talking about it. This face-off on Cold Mountain is worth a read. It's a little 'Movie Club' Slate-ish but that was such a good thing that we can hope for continued imitation. David Essex from Flak magazine and Zach from Private Joker's Head are the talking-- er typing, heads. They both have interesting things to say although Zach does manage to both diss Bladerunner and defend Phillip Seymour Hoffman's pitched-to-the-rafters performance in Cold Mountain so he's not exactly on my Christmas card list at the moment. For the record, I think PSH is truly the reigning emperor without clothes of American film actors. It's like some form of mass hypnosis. Occassionally he does well (25th Hour) one time he was perfect (Magnolia) and the rest of the time, he's damn near unwatchable. Or the kind of watchable that completely takes you out of the movie. Which is to say -not my kind of watchable. His work in Cold Mountain is so oversized it makes Renée Zellweger's Ruby look as subtle and quiet as Adrien Brody's turn in the Pianist.
But anyway, their conversation is more interesting than anything I have to say that I haven't already said. My readers are, if truth be told, begging me to lay off of poor defenseless Renée Zellweger for awhile. So maybe I shall. I'll try not to talk about the big Z until closer to Oscar season. So, to pull the curtain closed on my strange I-HATE-RENEE fixation here is a timeline chart of my fandom.
You didn't ask for it. But you're getting it.
As you can see my relationship with la Z has been quite rocky. This is not steady obsessive true love (Julianne Moore) or an overpowering love/lust/fixation (Pfeiffer) but an actress who alternately delights, bores, and pisses me off. At first I thought I liked her (Jerry Macguire), we went on a couple of dates. Then I quickly grew indifferent (various film choices) Then, "hmmmm. Maybe I did feel something after all (One True Thing)...perhaps I should give her a call" And then, quite suddenly from Nurse Betty to Bridget Jones we were deeply deeply in love. It was quite the passionate romance. Yet, as you can see from the chart above, all good things must come to an end. The breakup? It's been more "Alec & Kim" than "Bruce & Demi" if you catch my drift.
So, in the interest of a moving on. Renée, I set you free. (Don't feel the need to rush back to prove your love or anything. Seriously, it was not meant to be.)
Thursday, January 29th, 7:37 AM
I knew this would come. The explanations about Cold Mountain not making it. In true political fashion it's not blamed on the movie itself but the release date: From the IMDB:
"Harvey Weinstein has admitted that opening Cold Mountain on Dec. 25 hurt its Oscar chances. Weinstein, whose Miramax company had fielded at least one contender for a best picture Oscar in each of the past 11 years, told the Associated Press Tuesday: "If I had to do it all over again, I'd have opened it in November. It wasn't ready then, but that's what you would do."
I love that the omission of defeat is really not an admission of defeat. And, perhaps one could argue that the Academy didn't have time to see it in droves but I adamantly refuse to believe that they didn't. Like Return of the King, it was billed in the media and within the industry as a sure thing. It would have been second on every AMPAS voters list to see after ROTK... such was its hype. They saw it. It's 7 nominations indicate (at least to me) that they did, in point of fact, view it and it was #6th or #7th on the list at worst. It's not that they didn't like it. They just didn't like it quite enough.
Wednesday, January 28th, 7:17 PM & 9:51 PM
How is this for just. plain. wrong. ? My mind and body must have been so wrapped up in all things nominatable last night that they couldn't calm down. I got a grand total of 3 hours of sleep last night before trudging off to work this morning. Ouch. For those of you who have ever suffered from insomnia it is a horrible viscious circle thing. I wish it on no one. So, I go to work. I come home and I hit the bed. And STILL can't sleep. So at this point the insomnia has just taken over and it has nothing to do with Oscar anymore. (Even though when I tried to count sheep I swear they turned into Nazgul!) But no, it's not about Oscar. So, lets' get back to Oscar (!?)
The talk among Oscar watchers after the initial nominations fervor dies down is always (just look on over at Oscarwatch for proof) what new precedent was set? What rules were broken? The breaking of Miramax's best picture streak is the most obvious rule broken. But, they'll probably be back next year. So it's merely a flesh wound. They aren't dead. Any firsts? There's a fun list of these over at Oscarwatch -including the most nominations for a Brazilian film (Central Station also had multiple nods), second generation Oscar nominees --well, that's hardly a first but Sofia Coppola is a woman which makes a big difference since no American woman has ever been nominated as director. She would also make another first -the first for both spouses within a marriage to have Oscar directing nods --except that Spike Jonze (a nominee for Being John Malkovich) and Sofia broke up recently. If their divorce isn't finalized then Sofia set that record as well yesterday. The most press is going to the youngest Best Actress nominee ever. I was hoping to type that it was Evan Rachel Wood but they went even younger than that with 13-year-old Keisha Castle Hughes.
But I would like to speak in general about the most important factoid/thing unveiled yesterday: DIVERSITY. 2001 got a lot of press for the double Black actor/actress win. That was in the same year as Sidney Poitier's honorary Oscar no less. But for anyone who's ever worked in diversity training or Human Resources or anything of the sort, you know that diversity is a far broader subject than black and white. (Even though the media would like it to be that simple) So I was thrilled that Oscar cast their net so wide yesterday. Not only Sofia Coppola's historic nomination but the selection of actors from Australia, Japan, Puerto Rico, Africa, Iran, etc... Now, one year does not a trend make. But it's encouraging that Oscar looks to be reflecting the world's reality. The world is shrinking.
But you've read this elsewhere before. Sorry. No sleep makes Natty a duller than usual boy. When your eyes are glazed over, and your fingers type robotically, you're far less likely to develop any sudden bizarre fetish to tell your readers about. Or maybe you're more likely to have strange thoughts but you are, sadly, without the capacity or tenacity to properly express them.
If you're not awarded out... I've added a couple of goodies to the FiLM BiTCH Awards page 5 -Best Villians . Heroes, Divas, and Sex Gods and Goddesses are still on the way. They'll be done soon but please have mercy on my weary self. For now I'd like to try that sleeping thing again...
Tuesday January 27th, 9:31 PM
So here we are again. Oscar time is such a weird experience once it becomes an annual seasonal obsession. When I was young watching the Oscars was a great one-night-only event. I mean, I would get so enthused but it took up at most a week of my life. I would get the TV guide for the week which would always have some graphic featuring all five of the nominees. Then I would think about what those movies were like. (I had usually not seen them all or even a good portion of them -- I was raised quite religious and R rated movies were strictly off limits and, in the 80s at least, it seemed to me that only R rated movies got nominated). But I would watch the show and daydream about what those movies were like. I'd get obsessed with the ones that looked good and make plans somehow to eventually see them.(aside: Last year's absence of film clips during the Oscar ceremony was a total nightmare --very unsettling. Like a mutilation of a lifelong ritual)
Now of course I'm older and I have a website and I see all the movies that might be nominated (although this year I do have a couple of strange and conspicuous have-not-seens. My bad). So the Oscars take up a much, much larger chunk of my time. In the past few years I've started not enjoying it so much. Sad but true.
So, it is with great relief that I announce that so far I am very much enjoying a shorter awards season. I used to tell my horrified family that Oscar night was my favorite day of the year "BETTER THAN CHRISTMAS!" I would happily opine. But last year I was so over it by the end. This year I felt the familiar fatigue settling in and then KA-POW the nominations arrived. And it felt so fast. Because it was! But you get my point. Fast is good. Fast is better. I like that the campaigns had last time to ferment into something hideous. I like that there were several wild card announcements (I don't particularly like what they were but it was nice to see them). It was an affirmation of sorts: "Oh, my, yes! The voters do have pulses. They do like things just for the sake of liking them!" That's a nice discovery in these days of excessive campaigning.
So anyway, here I am doing an Oscar diary again. This is where I'm supposed to just share my thoughts as they arrive. I got a great e-mail yesterday that said that I had "the sexiest Oscar site" I thought that that was a rather surprising comment but I like it. I like it a lot. It makes me warm and tingly inside. Can I use it as a blurb? The FiLM EXPERiENCE is "the sexiest" site! hee. Think it will drive my traffic up ?
And though I know the comment wasn't meant literally -I am feeling literal minded so please excuse. BUT SPEAKING OF SEX... Can I share today's fetish? Elijah Wood's neck on the Return of the King character onesheet poster totally turns me on! I can't explain it but it brings the impure thoughts on. And while I'm normally more of an Elf man (Legolas. sigh) than a Hobbit fan, I wouldn't kick Frodo out of bed. There you go. The libido surprises. Maybe I've been watching my Buffy the Vampire Slayer discs too much and the necks have it going on. I don't know. I'm just saying...
But the nominations... the nominations. Love that it was so suprising but I'm still like "what the f***?" about several choices. Keisha Castle Hughes for example. But before you get all hot and bothered about that comment. I would like to express a great deal of happiness for her devoted fans --if ever a favorite of mine were that much of a longshot and still made it I'd be doing happy dances until my legs gave out, so I'm very very happy for y'all by proxy. I mean that.
I scored 74.5% correct in my predictions. But who really cares about that. It's just a number. What we care about is the actual nominees. You can see them here. As we get closer to the big night I'll inform you in the diary of when a page is fully updated.
