Exclamatory Titles

We're celebrating the 1968 film year sporadically as countdown to the Smackdown! 

The first time I consciously remember obsessing over exact typography in a film title was in 1995 when David Fincher's Se7en emerged and then again when Moulin Rouge! hit in 2001. With the latter I got angry every time I saw someone type that title without the exclamation point. Bazmark movies require their specific punctuation. (See also: Romeo + Juliet. It's just not the same at all with an ampersand!) 

Surveying 1968's film releases recently I couldn't help but wonder if that era, a seminal time for the world and the cinema, and that year specifically was the peak of exclamatory film titles? No less than four major films released that year asked you to shout their titles rather than politely sound them out.

BOOM! with Liz & Dick. Which also wins our Best Tagline of '68 for "together they devour life"
OLIVER! the only exclamation point film title to ever win the Best Picture prize (though not the only nominee obviously)
BANDOLERO! with Jimmy Stewart, Dean Martin & Raquel Welch. The exclamation point wasn't exclamatory enough so they had to add all caps in the tagline "a NEW kind of western"
STAR! with Julie Andrews ! as Gertrud Lawrence

Are you fussy about people using exactly correct titles? I am. I mean if you say Moulin Rouge without the exclamation point it's just a dusty Jose Ferrer biopic, don'cha know.

The only excuse for ditching the exclamation point is when you're just not feeling it.

♪ ...or by a comma when the feeling's not as strong... ♫

(Geraldine is such a cocktease.)

Be Careful What You Wish For: Lubezki's First Oscar?

"Oscar giveth. Oscar taketh away."

I've said it often and each year the phrase reasserts its truthfulness. One might also substitute this with "Be careful what you wish for." Oscar maniacs know this warning well. They beg for a first Oscar for Winslet or a third for Streep, for example, and then those things come true and no one is really satisifed with the way it came to pass. And that's just two recent examples. I don't much believe in "locks" in Oscar races in the way most pundits and Oscar fans do -- especially pre-Christmas locks. Upsets do happen, fates don't align, narratives don't take hold and so on. But if there's one or two Oscars this year that I feel are most probable at this juncture, yea even unto lock-dom, it's not Best Actress Cate Blanchett (though she's in third place for "most likely"), but the visual effects and cinematography of Gravity. 

Famed DP Emmanuel Lubezki is a true genius not just a "genius" in the overindulgent fandom sense. His work is exquisitely lit and beautifully composed but never in quite the same way, each time his light beautifully enveloping and serving the film at hand.  If you think of it like vocal range he's a Mariah Carey/Cyndi Lauper 4 octave diva while most other DPs, even the really fine ones, are closer to the standard 2 octave pop stars. I've wanted him to win the Oscar so many times and I still consider it insane that he lost for both Children of Men (2006) and The Tree of Life (2011).

Oscar Trivia, Computer Trouble, and more after the jump

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Monty & The Seasons First Oscar Screeners

Monty, my beloved gray furball, is the web's original cat Oscar pundit. So once again we beg his feline proclamations. They are usually mysterious and non-committal but there are also the unambiguous dismissals,  100% prescient predictions and dumb blunders... just like any pundit might make.

The first screeners of the season arrived last night: indie hit Mud and Sarah Polley's documentary hopeful Stories We Tell. I presented them to him. Which would Monty favor?

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Countdown to Carrie: "When There's No One"

I'm not suggesting that I want to see Chloe Grace Moretz in a musical (God, no) but wouldn't it be great if the impending Carrie remake (October 18th) were an adaptation of the infamous flop stage musical instead or just a retread on hallowed cinema ground? At least then it would have a reason for existing.

Here's the beautiful Alice Ripley, famous to Broadway fans as one half of Side Show's siamese twin stars and the lead in the mental illness musical Next To Normal (which also needs to be a movie, right?) and singing Carrie's 11th hour amazement "When There's No One" on Seattle TV. The stage musical, which we've written about before when it played here in NYC recently, is playing there this month so Seattle readers take note and let us know if you go to the show!) This number is the signature showstopper from cracked mamma Margaret White, a role originated by Betty Buckley on stage (who neatly also co-starred in the Brian dePalma classic... albeit not in the same role.)

It's hard to picture Julianne Moore belting that out but I hope the movie star at least does it for friends at karaoke for a laugh.

Curio: Capturing Gravity

Alexa here. Like many, I saw Gravity this weekend in all its IMAX 3D glory. I was astounded by the experience, since it is as close as I'll ever come to a spacewalk.  Yet, like Nathaniel, I was underwhelmed by what remained. As I watched Sandy's floating tears I thought, Finding Nemo was subtler in conveying this, "just keep swimming" and all that. But, wow, space, man! 

by Peter Stults

With that in mind, here's a selection of alternative posters for the film...

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