Best in Show

At first I liked Uggie (The Artist) best but I'm starting to lean Arthur (Beginners). Less manic, more soulful!

God loves a terrier
yes he does
God loves a terrier
that's because
brown sturdy bright and true
they give their hearts to you

God didn't miss a stitch
be it dog or be it bitch
when he made the Norwich merrier
with his cute little 'derrier'
yes God loves a terrier!

-"Best in Show"

And may 2012 be the year of the cat! They need a good cinematic year.

BAFTA Long List Losses

I've said it before and I'm forced to say it again. I'm *so* glad that the American Academy does not publish a long list. i.e. the semi-finals. You see, It's so much more bearable / engaging when you can imagine that straight up great achievements or achievements you really responded to personally but you knew might have trouble rallying huge swaths of support were in 6th or 7th place or 10th place in voting. The way BAFTA does it, however, you are forced to understand that Oscar buzz is everything and Super Size Mediocrities will always triumph over critical darlings or more challenging Art.

Take the Best Picture categories for a prime example. Notice that Weekend for example, a very British and very acclaimed film is not one of their "outstanding" homegrown products (they might want to check the reviews again) and notice that auteurist films frequently called masterpieces by their fans (The Tree of Life and Melancholia) are also absent. Other films ignored because you have to have space for The Lukewarmly Reviewed Biopics About Lady Actresses and Lady Politicians are... no, no. It's too horrible to start listing them!

Best Film The Artist, The Descendants, Drive, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Help, Hugo, The Ides of March, The Iron Lady, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, My Week with Marilyn, Senna, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, War Horse, and We Need to Talk About Kevin 

Outstanding British Film Arthur Christmas, Attack the Block, Coriolanus, The Guard, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Iron Lady, Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn, Senna, Shame, Submarine, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tyrannosaur, War Horse, and We Need to Talk About Kevin 

BAFTA voters went crazy 4 My Week With Marilyn, longlisted many many times

Film Not in the English Language  Abel, As If I Am Not There, The Boy Mir – Ten Years in Afghanistan, Calvet,  Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries), Incendies, Little White Lies, Pina, Post Mortem, Potiche, Le Quattro Volte, A Separation, The Skin I Live In, Tomboy and The Troll Hunter

More long list looniness with commentary after the jump...

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The Link Menagerie

Stale Popcorn defines "Xanadusiasm" and we're all about it. Make it official, Websters.
Towleroad in which I make New Year's Resolutions for Hollywood since they keep having dumb ideas like remaking Carrie (1976) of all things. Just... NO.
Observer Rex Reed laments the many cultural departures of 2011 from La Liz to another Oz Munchkin.
Best Week Ever who knew that Michael Shannon had this much adorable cuteness in him?

THR Jessica Chastain coming to Broadway in 2012. I guess she wants the EGOT by 2017 or something. Over Achiever!
Some Came Running Glenn Kenny has a J. Hoberman top ten to mark the Village Voice's strange decision to dump their famous critic. 
Cinephilia & Sass has a letter to the fading James McAvoy... who does need his "Here I Am!" role surely. 
Acidemic If I were a TCM programmer... 

Your Movie Buddy shares his Oscar ballot. Kurt is also busy over at...
The House Next Door ...offering up Oscar prospects for The Tree of Life
Super Punch why your clothes don't look as good as in magazines (illustrated by Antonio Banderas)
Tom Shone wonders why Best Picture so rarely lands a Leading Acting Oscar to go with it anymore. Oddly, he seems to be complaining about it. Me, I love the spreading of wealth at the Oscars since the best film of any given year rarely has the best everything. 

Finally...
This week's most actressy event -- other than my interview with Charlize ;) -- is Nicks Flick Picks announcement of a Best Actress Birthday Party project. Here's the calendar and the first birthday party favor: Jane Wyman in The Glass Menagerie. Nick's been busy! In related news it's also Annie Hall's birthday today. Ms Diane Keaton turns 66. I'm itching for her to be in a good movie again so here's hoping one of her recently completed pictures works. It's not that she doesn't work.

Distant Relatives: Blade Runner and Moon

Robert here w/ Distant Relatives, exploring the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. A warning today, there are SPOILERS AHEAD for anyone who'd like to go into Moon with as little ruined as possible

When technology gets advanced enough to make suitable replacements for humans, we're going to use them as our slaves. Right now we view the technologically sub-human as means to our needs, and why shouldn't we? We've yet to create anything sentient. But when we do, and I'm more and more convinced that it's a "when" not an "if" (in all fairness this convincing mostly has to do with people showing off their smart phones to me, but still... progress) whether we'll be filled with empathy toward our creations is not likely a given. The android and the clone aren't exactly the same thing, but they often serve the same purpose in science fiction. They're human stand-ins, whose genuine humanity is questionable. In some stories they're not advanced enough to raise the inevitable moral questions, or they're often comic relief, or exist in futures where they've already attained full equality. But frequently they are shown as created with the intent of doing the will of their creators... us. Such tales from the point of view of humans often involve apathetic individuals coming to sympathize with them. Tales from the point of view of the clone and/or replicant can provide more dramatic introspection. In terms of point of view, both of our films today feature a little from column A and a little from column B.

 

At the beginning of Moon, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) believes himself to be another in a long line of employees of Lunar Industries, coming to the end of his three-year-stint on the moon, looking forward with great anticipation to going home and working on mending his relationship with his wife. He's almost got it right. He is, in fact, one in a long line of clones implanted with memories, under the mistaken belief that he is the real Sam Bell, when in fact the life and wife he believes are waiting for him back on Earth have long since changed. Oh, and it's not his three-year employment contract coming to an end, it's his three-year lifespan. Blade Runner follows Deckard (Harrison Ford) a retired police officer who specialized in tracking down and "retiring" (if you don't know what that means, guess) replicants, or bioengineered humans. Deckard is brought in to find a collection of escaped replicants whose short life-spans are coming to an end, and in the process encounters more advanced replicants unaware even of their in-humanness.

 
Here we have the two most central issues to the human copies of Blade Runner and Moon. The first is lifespan. Dissatisfied humans don't get the opportunity to confront their creator (whoever or whatever that may be). And most world religions try to foster an attitude of thankfulness not anger. No such option from the replicants of Blade Runner who, like the Sam clones of moon are questioning and attempting to comprehend their mortality. In both cases, hell hath no fury like a human copy with the desire to survive. It's the ultimate motivator, much to the detriment of their human creators and it's the central motivation that fuels both stories. The second issue to these characters is the extent which was taken to keep them from understanding their true nature. Anyone whose ever had even the slightest element of their identity revealed to them as false knows that it's a monumental shock. Imagine the entire essence of your identity being a lie, that it was engineered that way intentionally, so you could be used. It's easy to root for the Sam clones and not surprising that even the intense brutal mug of Blade Runner baddie Roy Batty (Ruter Hauer) has become synonymous with that of the sympathetic villain.

And what of our heroes? In Moon, Sam begins under the belief that he's an original human and slowly comes to accept that he is a clone. We see the story through both the eyes of a human and a clone. And interestingly enough through the eyes of someone who still depends on a lesser sentient servant. Sam's computer Gertie waits on his every need. Perhaps he's not advanced enough to know otherwise. As for Blade Runner's Deckard, he also give us the point of view of both a human and a replicant, since his identity is eternally in question. Whether you believe he's human (like Harrison Ford) or a replicant (like Ridley Scott) is likely to color how you react to the film around him. But whether he's hunting down his own kind or not, it's difficult to cheer for him.

What does it mean to be human? The ultimate question asked by these two films, and ultimately unanswered, though ultimately we see more of ourselves in our copies than ourselves. It's not exactly a message but a meaningful ponderance from two films who suggest that man's long history of inhumanity will maintain itself well into the future.

 

Other Cinematic Relatives: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1992), A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001), Never Let Me Go (2010), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Writers Guild Nominees and Their Oscar Competition

The Writers Guild of America nominations are always interesting to look at -- we love discovering what other writers admire --  but they are greatly overvalued in terms of Oscar prognostication. The tricky part is remembering what's not eligible. The Academy doesn't require you to be a member to receive nominations for your cinematic achievement. Some guilds do and the Writers Guild is notoriously strict about qualification. So several key Oscar-seeking movies were NOT eligible for these honors.

Bridesmaids won a WGA nomination but the Oscar shortlist is far more competitive.

Not Eligible, Therefore We Know Nothing About Their Oscar Prospects: 
(Original) Take Shelter, Martha Martha Marcy May Marlene, Beginners, The Artist, Shame, Margin Call, The Iron Lady, Rango, Melancholia, and Like Crazy
(Adapted) Drive, My Week With Marilyn, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Jane Eyre, Carnage, Albert Nobbs, and The Skin I Live In

 ... and quite a few of those -- especially the originals -- seem like definite threats in the Oscar Screenplay races. 

The WGA Nominations (Three Categories) are  AFTER THE JUMP

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