Review: Fruitvale Station

This review was originally posted in my column at Towleroad

Fruitvale Station, the first legit* Oscar Best Picture contender of 2013, hit a few theaters last Friday after months of pre-release buzz.

The buzz was fueled by a double triumph at Sundance this past January where it took home both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize. The feature debut of 27 year-old writer/director Ryan Coogler tells the true story of the death of a 22 year-old African American man named Oscar Grant, who was shot by police on New Year's Day in 2009 at the Fruitvale BART Station in San Francisco. Watching it last Friday it felt like a modest success, a solid specific slice-of-life drama if not a great or ambitious one. But context is a funny thing. The very next day it was feeling much bigger.
 

Nothing exists in a vacuum and that includes the movies. On Saturday George Zimmerman was found "Not Guilty" in the death of Trayvon Martin, another unarmed black man (this time he was only a teenager), whose life was snuffed out nonsensically. The Weinstein Company who distributed the movie couldn't possibly have had better (or sadder) timing. If Fruitvale Station were a fictional drama, it might have felt unnervingly prescient opening when it did but since it is also based in fact it arrives like a stinging reminder of a shameful national pattern.[more...]

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The Rebellious Evolution of Natalie Wood

It's Natalie Wood Week as we celebrate what would have been her 75th birthday (today!). Here's Abstew from 'The Film's The Thing'...

I love the tag line: "...And they both came from good families!" Oh, no! Where did we go wrong?!?The legend of James Dean looms large over the seminal 1955 teen-angst film, Rebel Without a Cause. With his red windbreaker that would soon become his trademark, furrowed brow and pensive gaze, his hobby of drag racing goons that would dare to call him chicken, and dealing with square parents that just don't understand, Dean cuts an impressive figure. The film is so closely linked to the star's iconic status that you'll forgive me that sometimes I forget the other talented stars that also occupy the film. (But, then again, I'm a huge James Dean fan. I've even been to his hometown of Fairmount, Indiana where there's not one, but three different museums dedicated to him. You can compete in the annual James Dean look-alike competition! It's also where he's buried. You can still go to his family farm and see his tombstone.) But, of the three films that Dean starred in, Rebel is the only one he didn't receive an Oscar nomination for.

The film was, however, nominated for a trio of awards including a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Sal Mineo as his pal, Plato, and a Best Screenplay nomination for the Director, Nicholas Ray. Has any film captured the superb agony of being a teenager so precisely?

I don't know what to do anymore. Except maybe die."

It's final nomination was for Best Supporting Actress, giving Natalie Wood her first bit of Oscar recognition. Hers is not, maybe, the first name that spring to mind when you think of Rebel, but her career owes as much to it as Dean's does...

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Faulty "Wedding Bells" Gossip

Are you enjoying Natalie Wood Week here at the blog?

Celebrity gossip magazines are not as psychic as they'd like to be...

They were wayyyy off on their suggestive headline here. It would take Warren Beatty another 31 years and at least 300 more women to settle down. And despite the rude headline, Beatty had nothing that Robert Wagner didn't have when it came to Natalie's heart... at least not permanently.

Though it's true he did take over in the year of Natalie's superstar ascendance. RJ and Natalie had separated in 1961 (the year Splendor & The Grass and West Side Story both hit) but they didn't divorce till the same month as the Oscars in 1962 when this was going on...

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Firth and Kidman Chug Along in The Railway Man

Glenn here looking at an upcoming film from my home country. I may live in America now, but I am still very much interested in what Australia is producing (as I and many of my fellow countrymen can attest, it's probably against my better judgement to do so). One title I've been keeping an eye on is Jonathan Teplitzky's The Railway Man. There a was a minor fuss a few years back when The King's Speech producers were denied Australian funding and, thus, when it won Oscars it was unable to be classified as an Australian co-production despite its producers being Australian and its others local ties. Well, the funding bodies learned their lesson and are officially on board with The Railway Man, a British/Australia co-production from the memoir by Eric Lomax.

Nathaniel showed a bit more faith than others in the project by listing it in several of his Oscar categories. Other prognosticators don't seem to even know it exists! I've been skeptical that the film would even see the light of day in 2013 since the Australian media love being able to hail a star vehicle such as this as "ours", and yet there hadn't been a peep in terms of trailers, posters, or a release date. They'd be all over it ("Our Nicole Returns Home!" read headlines during production) if there was anything to actually talk about. Well, it's Australian distributor has finally put it onto the schedule and they chose the biggest day of the year - Boxing Day, 2013. [more]

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Movies in the Movies

Thanks to reader Pam for pointing on this video. This is one of the best-shaped and edited montages I've ever seen on YouTube. A must see if you love movies about movies...

...and who doesn't that's reading this blog!