Burning Questions: Can Biopics Help But Glorify Their Subjects?

Michael C. here, just returned from witnessing Meryl Streep in all her awards bait glory.

When controversy arrives in Phyllida Lloyd’s Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady, it comes in the standard form of news footage montages depicting seas of angry protesters clashing with policemen. The actual substance of the issues - massive union strikes, war in the Falkland Islands – is not discussed so much as reframed in the most generic possible terms. Every issue boils down to the same dynamic: Thatcher’s opponents are invariably lily-livered scaredy cats pushing for compromise if not outright surrender, while The Iron Lady holds firm to strength, courage, and principle over popularity. The filmmakers would no doubt say that they are focusing on character over unimportant detail, but it has the direct effect of letting Thatcher off the hook for her positions. Conservatives are free to mentally fill in their ideology and cheer her resolve, while the rest are encouraged to ignore partisanship and admire her gumption.

To be fair to the filmmakers, if Iron Lady had taken the opposite tack and really dug into the thought process of why Thatcher did what she did it would no doubt serve to amplify charges that the movie was aggrandizing its subject. It appears to be a case of damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. The very act of storytelling itself invites the audience to understand the protagonist’s motives and actions. It begs the question: Can biopics help but glorify their subjects? 

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Good Morning. Happy News!

It's a pancake version of DRIVE's scorpion jacket, see?! No? Okay an Alien face-hugger? Humor me.No, no. Stop salivating. It's not another announcement that I've made pancakes in the shape of movie whatsits. The happy news is that tomorrow afternoon there will be an Emergency Podcast Broadcast. What emergency, you ask? The Oscar nominations, silly... 22 hours and counting!

Tuesday is Christmas morning for Nick and I, don't you know. We'll be here to discuss. Possibly with another guest.

I  ♥  this time of year hard. You read lots of web griping that awards season is too torturously long. Oh please. Punish me with red carpets and star sighting and predictions and list-making!!! I don't need a safe word.

The only part of awards season that is reliably awful is the mad rush of movies, more than anyone can possibly see, all in the space of a two week period and the weird fatigue that can set in as a result when you realize you won't be able to see, think about, write about, or revisit everything you'd like to before you have to move on to the next thing and then the next and the next. It's like running a 26 mile marathon with only one stop wherein they may hand you repleneshing treats and juices. Or attending a wedding where the flower girls drop all the petals in one square inch of the aisle. Or... okay I'll stop now. 

FINAL OSCAR PREDICTIONS ~ THE ARTICLE | THE INDEX TO CATEGORY PAGES

Film Bitch Awards: Song, Score, Sound & Film Editing

Around this time of year when I abruptly stop watching movies in full (a breather if you will. It usually lasts two to three weeks) I tend to spend a lot of time skimming through films I've already seen for writing purposes or little reminders of what makes them tick (or tick me off). Scanning through Hanna recently I was amazed anew at the rich theater of its sound work. I didn't quite love the movie or even like it at all in spots and yet it's really difficult to shake.

Of course, you always notice great sound work more when you're also responding to the music and you'll see that reflected in the song, score, sound mixing and sound editing categories which contain nominations for films ranging from Drive to Captain America, The Skin I Live In to The Muppets, Moneyball to Super 8. I don't tend to write much about these categories and I don't claim to be an expert but every year I promise myself to pay a little more attention to sound and scoring. I can't say that I kept the promise in 2011 but since Hollywood was busy obsessing over silent movies (Hugo and The Artist) I'll interpret that as a deferrment.

Let's talk scoring a lot more in 2012, mmmkay?!

As for 2011, which is still going on in our world since Oscar is the New Year's Eve of the film year, I'm all about Alberto Iglesias. There are a number of composers that do multiple films a year these days. Many of them repeat themselves. I think the strain is starting to show a smidgeon with Alexandre Desplat, for example, a god among composers. He's the Jessica Chastain of composers; working round the clock and signing up for endless more projects.  But WOW with Iglesias this year. He's done great work before but The Skin I Live In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are both A grade scores for very different films. I'd nominated him for both but for my policy of not doing that (I treat the craft categories like Oscar treats acting. You're only allowed on nomination in a category each year).

I hope Iglesias hasn't peaked yet but if he has, you'd be hard pressed to find a better twofer from any composer in the space of a single year. Both scores really fit and elevate their films.

NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED IN ALL FOUR AURAL CATEGORIES

P.S. I've add editing to the VISUAL CATEGORIES. I meant to have more done by now but I'm told that I was wrong about their being 32 hours in every day. Who knew?

Box Office: Kate Beckinsale Still Unstaked, Oscar Hopeful Money

There's just no killing Kate Beckinsale's career. No matter how many terrible movies she throws at you, her undead heart will go on. I think she avoids Heigl levels of hatred because she doesn't make as many movies. That's my theory. But nevertheless the fourth installment of her werewolf vs. vampire franchise Underworld Awakening took the top spot at the box office, besting the George Lucas' produced war drama Red Tails and the third week of the hit action film Contraband, and the wide release of the presumed to be failing Oscar hopeful Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Steven Soderbergh's Haywire (reviewed) had a rough first weekend coming in fifth but there were a lot of other action films fighting it for dollars. Plus wouldn't people who go "ooh!" when they hear 'Steven Soderbergh' have been seeing the Oscar contenders anyway?

What did you see this weekend?

Oscar Money Talking Points...
The Artist finally got a major expansion though it's per screen average is no longer something to celebrate. Nevertheless this is good news. Within the next couple of weeks it's likely to pass The Hurt Locker's gross so if it wins Best Picture it won't be the lowest grossing BP ever. The film has earned $33 million worldwide to date. That's pretty impressive for a black and white silent. It just passed one of its Weinstein stablemates My Week With Marilyn's in terms of domestic gross. Although it's roughly 47 times better than that film I think it only goes to show how mishandled Marilyn was ... such a small release for such a pre-branded "wide" topic! 

The Descendants just crossed the $50 million mark and will soon leapfrog Hugo and Midnight in Paris for the "Top Grosser That Isn't Named The Help" title among the predicted BP nominees. Unless Moneyball or Dragon Tattoo get nominated in which case this milestone is no biggie.

Best Picture Hopeful Grosses as of 01/22/2012

P.S. I was at a birthday party last night attended by a very international crowd (the birthday girl, a good friend of mine, is German). The movie everyone was talking about was... A Separation. I was surprised how many people had seen it and everyone seemed to love it... though one woman told me she just thought it was "good" until about 20 minutes after it ended when it hit her in full force. It just crossed the 1/2 a million mark at the box office but it's still barely at any theaters. One wonders how well it can expand with word of mouth so strong and potential Oscar glory coming? 

Naturally all of these movies are hoping for a boost next weekend to capitalize on their presumed Oscar nominations. How many of them will keep expanding and how many will wither from people losing interest?

Producers Guild Wins for Spielberg and Actors Behind the Cameras

Another day, another awards ceremony. Who can keep up?!?

Last night The Producers Guild of America gave their big prize, a transparent glassy gargantuan paperweight, to the man who helped The Artist come into being, Thomas Langmann. One thing that's not being much noted -- since behind the screen forces rarely get attention -- is that Langmann was once a regular presence in front of the camera in France and he's actually the son of director Claude Berri (of Jean de Florette/Manon of the Springs fame!). Of course right at the moment he's best known Stateside as 'that guy who was trying to tell his heartfelt story at the Golden Globes while Uggie was doing his tricks' and distracting the television cameras... as discussed on the most recent podcast. Another actor turned producer, Michael Rapaport was also honored (along with his co-producers) for the documentary Beats, Rhymes and Life.

Finally, Steven Spielberg was honored twice. He got a career-tribute and also won for The Adventures of Tin Tin because in Hollywood they like to re-reward the already abundantly successful people. (Notice how honorary Oscars often go to people who've already won Oscars instead of people who never won! Such a strange impulse. Perhaps it's a bit like paying tithing or making sacrifices to your gods?)

Winners List
Motion Picture The Artist
Motion Picture, Animated The Adventures of Tintin
Motion Picture, Documentary Beats, Rhymes and Life

Brangelina at the PGA. Sans cane!

TV, Long Form Downton Abbey
TV, Drama Boardwalk Empire
TV, Comedy Modern Family
TV, Competition Amazing Race 
(speaking of rewarding the same things over and over again...) 

TV, Non Fiction American Masters
TV, Live Entertainment/Talk The Colbert Report

Tobey and The Bening were among the many big names presenting

Vanguard Award Stan Lee (the award was presented by Spider-Man himself Tobey Maguire)
David O Selznick Award Steven Spielberg 
Stanley Kramer Award Angelina Jolie for In the Land of Blood and Honey.
(For young Oscar obsessives in training out there Stanley Kramer was famous for "message movie" staples like Inherit the Wind, Judgement at Nuremberg, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, and the like)
Milestone Award CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves