Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Ladyhawke"

Time for Season 3 of Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Wednesday evenings.

from left to right: Goliath, Navarre (Rutger Hauer) and Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer's stunt double)

I thought we'd kick off this season with a personal favorite from the 80s. I use the word favorite emphatically because in many ways, Ladyhawke (1985) is a movie with a confusing relationship to objective quality. It's both great and bad, the score arguing that it's a feature that absolutely should not exist outside of 1985 while the mythic story fights for timelessness. The sound (Oscar-nominated) has wonderful details, maximizing the earthly details of fluttering wings, wolf howls and horse hooves while also embracing the transcendently romantic voices (Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer) but it's marred by jarring score cues that take you out of the action and weird post-production "comedy" vocal work from extras. It feels, at least for its first half, like it's a movie with several authors and endless studio interference from people who didn't believe in a romantic fantasy epic in a time long before fairy tales were hot commodities and sword and sorcery epics were the furthest thing from bankable. So, would you laugh at me if I claimed I thought it was thisclose to being a classic? People are always reediting the Star Wars prequels to try to make them into the movies they should have been but the fantasy with the easiest fix to nudge it from punchline to greatness is Ladyhawke.

The one area where Ladyhawke can lay legitimate claim to greatness without lengthy conditional explanations is in the cinematography of three-time Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro (most famous for Apocalypse Now and various Warren Beatty epics). Many films throughout history have used sunsets and sunrises for their sheer beauty but Ladyhawke's reliance on light is more than vanity; it's storytelling.

Pfeiffer's beauty and Hauer's pain after the jump

Click to read more ...

Open Thread

What's on your cinematic mind?

p.s. "hit me with your best shot" returns tonight with 80s fantasy Ladyhawke. Are you participating?

"Who am I... Who am I"

24601 !!!!!!! ♫ "

That's Hugh Jackman in character as Jean Valjean on the set of Les Misérables. The most epic musical made in some time hits the screen in just 268 days. Good luck to Tom Hooper and cast. Please let this be great. The stage show deserves it.

Smash: "The Workshop"

We cover Smash each week. Are you watching?

Bernadette dreams of stardom for Megan Hilty... sort of.

In last night's episode Eileen (Anjelica Huston) presented her workshop of "Marilyn The Musical" to potential investors but though no one literally broke a leg, things went wrong. The building had major heat problems souring the mood. Ivy (Megan Hilty) was plagued by her insecurity and distracted by her legendary showbiz mother Lee Conroy (very special guest star Bernadette Peters. Yes!), Karen (Katharine McPhee) fell during a big number distracting focus from Ivy. Julia (Debra Messing) and Michael's (Will Chase) affair came to a tearful end after Julia realized her son knew. 

The building heat made the investors uncomfortable and immediately we're smelling blood. Who gets blamed? The show dangled more "star" rivals for Hilty (Uma Thurman will appear in 5 upcoming episodes) including Sutton Foster and Scarlett Johansson. And in a sharply acted gutpunch moment, the episode's most interesting beat, unspoken discomfort with Julia's affair resulted in Michael being blamed for the workshop's failure. Overall an uneven episode that felt more like a pivot point than a peak. What comes next? Besides new love affairs for Eileen and Tom, that is, which are being super-telegraphed in advance for some reason.

Set List: Originals - Medley of all the tunes we've heard thus far (company), "Lexington and 52nd Street" (Chase); Jukebox Tunes - "Brighter than the Sun" (McPhee); Showtunes: "Everything's Coming Up Roses" (Bernadette Peters), 
Best ? Moment: Bernadette's uncomfortable exit. This showbiz mom has trouble with feelings but gives it a go anyway. Someone is gunning for a Best Guest Actress Emmy. 
Gay Gay Gay: The chorus boys total delight watching Bernadette Peters perform. I relate.
Anjelica Awesomeness: "That's enough. I won't pretend this isn't useful information but if I hear that you've repeated this..." Eileen is willing to use sneaky evil Ellis, but she knows when to show him who's boss. 
Curtain Call: I've already forgotten exactly how this episode ended. It petered out? But speaking of curtains... Loved that bit when Sam moved the curtain to show the ensemble that Ivy could hear them. Ouch. 
Grade: B

-Guys you wanna maybe shut up? She can hear you."
-Sorry." 

Previous Episodes
1 Pilot 2-3 The Callback and Enter Joe DiMaggio 4-6 The Cost of Art, Let's Be Bad, and Chemistry 

"A Separation" Wins Big at the Asian Film Awards

Congralutations to Andy Lau (representing Hong Kong's Oscar submission A Simple Life) and Eugene Domingo (the star of The Philippine's Oscar submission Woman in a Septic Tank) who won the People's Choice Award for Actor and Actress at the 6th Annual Asian Film Awards.

They look so happy. The Oscars are long over but somehow it's comforting to know that people hold new trophies every day of the year for something or other and not all of them are dreaming of Oscar. And not all awards bodies are concerned with whether or not Oscar voters are watching.

It was a big night for A Separation (which we were just talking about) which took home the top prize and three others. The craft categories were mostly split between Wu Xia and The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale, neither of which have come to US cinemas.

The acting awards were all over the place both in terms of films and countries.

The Winners
Film A Separation [Iran]
Director Asghar Farhadi, A Separation [Iran]
Actress Deanie Ip, A Simple Life [Hong Kong]
Actor Donny Damara, Lovely Man [Indonesia] 
Newcomer Ni Ni, The Flowers of War [China] 
Supporting Actress Shemaine Buencamino, Nino [The Philippines]
Supporting Actor Lawrence Ko Jump, Ashin! [Taiwan] 

Donny Damara plays a transgendered father in "Lovely Man"

Screenplay Asghar Farhadi, A Separation [Iran]
Cinematography Jake Pollock & Lai Yiu-fai Wu Xia [China | Hong Kong]
Production Design Yee Chung-man, Sun Li, Wu Xia [China | Hong Kong] 
Score Chan Kwong-wing, Peter Kam, Chatchai Pongprapaphan, Wu Xia [China | Hong Kong]
Editor Hayedeh Safiyari, A Separation [Iran]
Visual Effects Wook Kim, Josh Cole, Frankie Chung, The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale [China | Hong Kong ]
Costume Design Yee Chung-man, Lai Hsuan-wu The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale [China | Hong Kong] 

The Flying Swords of Dragon Gale hasn't come to the States yet but since it stars Jet Li and it's action oriented, I suppose we'll get it at some point.

Special Awards Lifetime Achievement for Hong Kong director Ann Hui and The Edward Yang New Talent Awards for Indonesia's Edwin.