National Film Registry. Have You Seen These Titles?

Porgy & Bess, in which Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge both lipsynched is one of the 25 inductees.The film is rarely screened, not all that well and regarded but badly in need of restoration. Is that what did it?Each year I read the press release list of the films admitted to the National Film Registry and promptly forget them. I guess I've never absorbed just what this does for the films beyond being an obviously prestigious honor. So this year rather than doing the usual read the titles and forget, I stopped, actually took a breath (a rarity on the web), wondered, and googled a bit. I stopped being lazy about it so you don't have to be either. I didn't just list titles below but actual information!

However I am still a bit confused as what the honor actually means beyond admittance into the Library of Congress. If this meant government funding to restore or preserve the films or if it meant an automatic transfer to each new medium that surfaces (VHS to DVD to Blu Ray to whatever is next) so that that film in question never disappears it would be a truly astounding honor. But it doesn't mean this.  The National Film Preservation Board which is connected to the National Film Registry  does not own the rights and can thus not distribute the films. The honor is also no guarantee of preservation. Film preservation is still a privately funded matter. Hollywood as a whole is fairly disinterested in its own history (except to mine it for remakes) and US politics has always been depressingly anti-arts funding. (Thank the Right Wing of the country for that.)

Here are the 25 new inductees in chronological order of creation. I am ashamed at how few of the I've seen. Should we watch them together?

• The Cry Of The Children (George Nichols, 1912) a short film about child labor
• A Cure for Pokeritis (Laurence Trimble, 1912) a short slapstick comedy
• The Kid (Charles Chaplin, 1921) another Chaplin film for the Registry
• The Iron Horse (1924) a long western starring George O'Brien of Sunrise fame.
• Nicholas Brothers Family Home Movies (1930s and 1940s) I assume this is the famous tap dancers?

The Nicholas Brothers

Beloved orphan fawns, globally famous serial killers, and remarkable actress faces, and more after the jump... How many have you seen?

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Anne Hathaway Sings "She's Me Pal" to Meryl Streep

The Kennedy Center Honors were a good hagiographic time last night on CBS (unless you were expecting something different in which case... where ya been? This is how lifetime tributes are). Musical theater fans would have had to enjoyed that endless Parade of Amazement when they trotted out a healthy cross section of Broadway's best female voices for the Barbara Cook homage (Sutton, Rebecca, Kelli, Patti, Audra + Glenn Close doing "Losing My Mind" !) but as for me.... as for me...

I got both my musical theater kicks and my 80s nostalgia and my Streep Mania and a current actress obsession (Hi, Annie!) all rolled up in one gift as Hathaway repurposed Streep's most indelible moment from Ironweed* (1987) to serenade Streep herself.

The line "her heart is as big as a ham" is accompanied by the splits, marking Anne Hathaway once again as a true kindred spirit PERFORMER/actress -- both ladies woulda been in vaudeville if they'd been born 100 years ago.

A+

I love that Hathaway can make her eyes well up with tears totally on cue. Acting is magic. The complete video is below. Hathaway comes in at the 11:40 mark.

*Ironweed was a flop in its day and I know so few people who have seen it but I still remember sitting in the movie theater absolutely electrified / paralyzed when Meryl belted out that "He's Me Pal" number for Jack Nicholson. At the time Meryl's musical-theater chops were a complete shock! It's easily one of my favorite moments from her entire lauded filmography.

"Worst" of 2011. A Quick Purge

year in review part whichever

I use the term "worst" loosely as I am generally not paid to see the obviously terrible films that open all year round. Plus, I'm not feeling the negativity this year. Or, rather, I'm trying not to feel it. With Bridesmaids and Melancholia both speaking so eloquently on the subject of depression this year like some perfect if unlikely double feature (more on that soon) why should I wallow in my own? No, 2011 was a good year for cinema. So here is a very quick purge of the things that momentarily led me to believe otherwise. 

Hell's Multiplex
Hell's multiplex has noisy audiences, crying babies, constant texting, and 50 million miniature screens showing only 50 movies, a million microscopic screens for each sorry movie! All of them requiring 3D glasses... even the ones in 2D. I wisely avoided the films I thought might play there -- if I hear the names Nicolas Cage, Adam Sandler or Kevin James or "Part One" I run -- though I inadvertently stumbled on a few grotesqueries. I've no wish to bury amateurish festival films but bigger names and wider releases are fair games. The 8 worst films I saw this year, then, were:

• Beastly and...
• I Am Number Four 
  This Double Feature of Dickery tops the list (bottoms the list?), with both of the films starring Prince Charmless himself Alex Pettyfer. What possessed his management to give the go ahead on Beastly in particular in which he must sell -- and sells all too well -- utter despicability of character devoid of all traditional humanity? And selling that so well while playing the hero?
• Abduction [reviewed]
• Cars 2 -Cars was Pixar's previous worst film. So naturally all of Cars's worst impulses were jacked up for the sequel. Michael said it best to me when we were leaving the screening "It's like George Lucas deciding to make a Star Wars prequel with Jar Jar Binks as the lead character!"
• Green Lantern [reviewed]
• J Edgar - Less outright terrible than devoid of any reasonable expectations of entertainment value or historical insight. Cliche filled stuff spun from complex fascinating real life. [reviewed]
• The Other Woman [reviewed]
• Kaboom [reviewed]

Michelle & Nicole in widely hated filmsWorst Reviewed Movies of 2011 That I Myself Did Not See
New Year's Eve and Trespass ...yes I have every intention of seeing these two films; I am willing to suffer for my Pfandom and my Kidmania. But I'm no hurry. But those I intentionally avoided include: Jack and Jill, Just Go With It, The Roommate, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, Season of the Witch, Red Riding Hood, Dream House, Zookeeper, I Don't Know How She Does It, The Rite, The Smurfs and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Worst Actress
True story Part 1: I had never* seen Vanessa Hudgens act before seeing Beastly.
True Story Part 2: I still haven't seen her act because no reasonable person could call it such. 

Mating Rituals From Hell's Multiplex: BEASTLY

Worst Actress That Has Been Good In Other Things
If you figure out what Abbie Cornish was doing in W.E. besides counting down the days till the shoot ended please share this information. But my guess is that's what was going on because otherwise I can't figure it...

Worst Actor
Let's play "Jeopardy" instead...

Violins, totem poles, Grandma Willow, trees, 'Mr. Pointy', antiques, wardrobe, pianos, chaise lounge, picket fence, Treebeard, staves, matches, witch's broom... 

??? 

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This Just In... The Official Poster for Oscar's 84th

Here he is, in all his shiny beauty and questionable* taste splendor...

"Life Camera Action... celebrate the movies in all of us" -- I'm not sure what this actually means but okay. I do like to live vicariously through movies, it's true.

* Forrest Gump, Gladiator and Driving Miss Daisy are films you want to remind me you loved more than everything else over the past three decades? And you want to compare them to Giant, Gone With the Wind, The Godfather and The Sound of Music? You're such an abusive lover... I give you so much attention, so much affection, everything! And then you slap me around carelessly with those naked gold hands and that frozen robotic face! You don't love me at all, do you, Oscar? [Weeping] You never did!

Oklahoma & Phoenix & The Supporting Actress Traffic Jam

The Artist, Albert Brooks, Michelle Williams and The Tree of Life's cinematography continue to assert dominance in the regional critics prizes as two more circles & societies weigh in. How long until we have 60 US critics organizations, one for each state plus a handful of redundant consolidating regional groups and another handful of national groups?

11 perfs by 9 women have divvied up Critics Supporting Actress prizes in North America

Meanwhile Supporting Actress --which is a real clusterf*** to predict with 6 women doing superbly in precursors and 2 more super lauded performances waiting eagerly for a miracle stumble from one of those 6 -- continues to be a total free for all among critics groups as I've illustrated with this map of the prizes thus far... so exciting! Would that more races would inspire this much healthy difference of opinion, art being subjective and all.

I've been discussing the Best Supporting Actress race with other pundits recently and I'm finding it amusing how "obvious" everyone claims it is despite no one agreeing on who is out front or who gets dumped. How then, can it be obvious? Even the statistics don't solve this equation as will be noted after the jump...

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