Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 12:30PM Apologies but it seems the link function has stopped working and stopped working retroactively replacing links with odd coding. Many of the links are malfunctioning on older posts as well as the new link roundup which I have now removed. Currently investigating. Posting delayed until solved. Bear with us.
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 9:30PM On Day 1 of the symposium we partied with the Best Picture field and considered Star Vehicles. On Day 2 we discussed movies that are hopelessly in love with themselves (to good and bad effect), the forever contentious Lead vs Support debate, the invisible arts of editing and screenwriting. We pick up there. Nathaniel was admitting he wasn't entirely comfortable falling for Margaret....
Nader & Simin: A SeparationNATHANIEL: I've scraped my knees up on cold hard pavement. I too was caught up in #TeamMargaret excitement. I love it when critics remember that part of their job is to advocate for buried treasure rather than merely rubber stamping the critical darlings over and over again (Did Michelle Williams really need to hog the majority of critics awards for My Week With Marilyn, which is straight down the middle awards bait? They didn't see anything off the golden path that was worthy of praise?). But when I finally saw Margaret, I left somewhat dejected. There's a lot to love. But there is also just an awful lot. It plays, to me, like a series of brilliant pieces that haven't quite been shaped to fit the genius-level mosaic they're intended for. Or maybe I was just thrown by the length and those phone calls to daddy. Lonergan is a brilliant writer but a brilliant actor not so much.
And maybe I was still just high on A Separation (my choice for Best of the Year) which illuminates a bit of the same ground in terms of personal actions creating ripples that we can't possibly grasp the full reach of. And they both show us how flawed people (i.e. all of us) can get tangled up in very difficult moral, social, religious, political and ethical webs they probably helped spin.
KURT: I'm glad you brought up that comparison between A Separation and Margaret, because it's definitely something I was thinking about while watching the latter (in between all the reveling in how Lisa initiates an allegorical, post-9/11 war that's ultimately futile and only reaps money for people who don't deserve it). Though vastly different in structure (one drum-tight, one manic and sprawling), these two scripts hold a lot of similarities, and are, in my opinion, at the tip-top of the year's best.
I'm also glad that Mark brought up Margin Call and Tinker Tailor in the same thought bubble because I found myself linking those two in my head a lot as well. Both films are essentially corporate dramas with power players coping with crisis, and both teem with a kind of impenetrable language you really have to crack. I hail from the team that doesn't really buy all the "Speak to Me Like a Golden Retriever" crap, because A) I don't believe those folks would actually expositionally coddle each other, or need coddling, in that way, and B), as mentioned, the movie keeps promising through dialogue that it's clearing things up, when it's really just thickening its fog of jargon. I do believe Chandor took a highly commendable crack at presenting this world, and I don't know if I've seen anyone do it better in terms of writing (Oliver Stone certainly didn't), but there's a lot of pretense about those scenes that irks me. (I prefer his small details, like the gross arrogance the company shows by firing Tucci's head risk manager, and little shots like the one of Demi and Simon Baker in the elevator with the cleaning lady.)
...and we've reentered MI6 where we began!
As for Tinker Tailor, there isn't a lick of coddling, just a glimpse into a radically rarefied world, filled with so much code talk, names and lingo it's like Tolkien does MI6.
Symposium Wraps with Bridesmaids, eye candy and film futures after the jump.
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 7:09PM I'm working on a Madonna piece at the moment but couldn't resist popping in to share tweets from another legendary pop diva we adore who dabbles in the movies: the Oscar winning Cher. She regularly responds to fan tweets and this very random question about eating at McDonalds with Britney Spears 'would she?' gets a funny response.
She recently answered a question of who she loved with working with "Meryl,Stanly,Kurty,My darling little girls CR&Nonie !!!" Yes, Meryl, who we've just been discussing, was name-checked twice this week. But then there's this...
Cher *just* saw The Help, one presumes at an AMPAS screening, and it sounds like for the first time. She tweeted that she came out of the theater crying. But if she only just saw The Help one has to wonder whose names she scribbled down on the nomination ballots weeks ago. She must be way behind on her screeners.
Silly Comment Game of the Day: Tell us who you think Cher nominated and who she is going to vote for? She loves The Help "you brought joy to my heart!" but her dear friend Mary Louise Streep is also in the running. Predicament.
Cher, Meryl Streep, Oscars (11), The Help Friday, February 3, 2012 at 1:18PM Last month we asked readers to rank all of Meryl Streep's Oscar nominated performances...
There were 16 of them when the polling began since The Iron Lady was still unseen by many and too fresh for retrospective rank as well. Here are the results in ascending order.
I've included comments on and from the ballots for extra flavor. You'll also find details and guesstimates about that year's Oscar voting though I'm sure you'll "correct" me if you have different ideas about how it all went down, won't you?
16. Music of the Heart (1999)
Role & Balloting: Streep's true story arts-friendly role about a violin teacher (yes, she learned the difficult instrument) is widely seen as her most obvious "default" nomination and though not everyone agrees with its low place in the Streep canon, it ended up in last place with Film Experience readers on 30% of the ballots. Quite a feat when you consider that it was also one of the least seen, absent from another 30% of the ballots. Yikes.
Who Won the Oscar: Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry
Other Nominees in Guesstimate Order of AMPAS Love: Annette Bening (American Beauty), Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds) and Julianne Moore (The End of the Affair) and Meryl (Music of the Heart)
The Dread Sixth Place Finish?: T'was obviously Reese Witherspoon in Election, damnit. Oscar should've picked Flick!
15. Ironweed (1987)
Role & Balloting: Her performance as a severe alcoholic former singer "Helen Archer" was greeted in the 80s as one of her strongest "technical" performances since she's virtually unrecognizable. Nowadways it's the least seen Streep nominated role and one of the most divisive considering where it ranked on ballots that had seen it (all over the place). Ironweed got some attention recently when Anne Hathaway resurrected Streep's "He's Me Pal" for the Kennedy Center Honors.
Who Won the Oscar: Cher, Moonstruck
Nominees in Guesstimate Order of AMPAS Love: Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction), Holly Hunter (Broadcast News), Sally Kirkland (Anna) and Meryl (Ironweed)
The Dread Sixth Place Finish?: I was personally nuts for Emily Lloyd's debut in Wish You Were Here but she wasn't Globe nominated so maybe she didn't have traction. Any 80s Oscar obsessives have an idea about who finished sixth that year? I don't have a strong sense of who.
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 11:00AM I was looking up old Film Bitch Awards the other day, to verify that I had awarded Viola Davis a prize once before, because when she took home the SAG prize I felt like shouting "I SAW HER FIRST!". Turns out I gave her two gold medals the first year I "met" her. For kicks, and because I haven't finished the First Ten Years book for purchase, here is a little flashback for you exactly as they appeared (typos and all)! Viola won the following two prizes "Best Actress in a Cameo or Limited Role" and "Breakthrough"... I had totally forgotten most of these details.
CAMEO OR LIMITED ROLE, 2002
Viola only had one scene in Antwone Fisher so I guess I never found a photo of her. LOL. I remember a teensy bit of Viola and Mary Lynn Rajskub's performances. Toni Collette's cameo on the other hand is super vivid as most things The Hours are, nine years on. Tilda Swinton and Geraldine Chaplin's roles are much fuzzier memories. In fact, I didn't remember until looking at this that Tilda was even in Adaptation (the bulk of my memories from that one are Streep's -- particularly the famous dial tone sequence -- with a little side dish of Chris Cooper).
BREAKTHROUGH AWARD, 2002
[Note: The year before I had given the medals to Naomi Watts, Gael García Bernal and Kerry Washington]
Remember when Maggie Gyllenhaal was Jessica Chastain?
I'm lol'ing at my "Give her a lead role instantly" command about Viola Davis. Meryl Streep would issue the same command at the SAG Awards several years later. It only took Hollywood nine years to get back to me on that with The Help. The other thing that's amusing to me about this flashback is Jesse Eisenberg as a semi-finalist. I didn't seem to have much faith that micro-budgeted indie Roger Dodger would lead anywhere for him but I thought he was great in it.
Does this bring back any memories of 2002 movies for you?
I know I've been slow going on finishing the Film Bitch Awards this year, and even slower to bring you all the promised book of "The First Ten Years". When I finally finish it I hope you'll all purchase to support the site's continued life. [In the meantime a "subscription" on the right hand sidebar -- That's like 8 cents a day -- is a great way to make sure we keep typing at you for yet another year].
Who will win breakthrough and cameo prizes this year? And will we laugh about who was highlighted and who wasn't nine years later? The answer to the first question is coming soon but obviously there's a long wait before we can answer the second.
