Biutiful Interrupted

It's not my habit to skip an Oscar nominee. But things happen. So it was that I missed Javier Bardem's Oscar nominated Best Actor turn in Biutiful (2010). This seems to happen to me about once a decade, so I've already used my "get out of jail free" card for the 'teens.... or the ten's... what are we calling this new decade? (In the Aughts the only nominee I missed was Tommy Lee Jones in In The Valley of Elah.) As the movie began with its somber first notes and black screen the words "Alejandro González Iñárritu" struck dread in my heart. I quickly remembered why I hadn't wept when the film had given me the slip before the nominations in January. Iñárritu's insatiable appetite for Miserabilism has been killing my mood since Amores Perros way back in 2000. I will forever be grateful that he introduced me to Gael Garcia Bernal but beyond that he hasn't done me favors.

I was no great fan of Babel and I openly hated 21 Grams. In fact the only Iñárritu I've ever enjoyed was the short film "Powder Keg" which is very typical of his oeuvre despite being a BMW commercial so maybe I can only handle his aggressive Feel Bad omnipotence in short doses?

It's not my preference to balk at a Reader Request. But this happened: as I began to watch the film, I suspected very quickly that I wasn't going to be able to handle it. A shot of Bardem's smiling face framed by wintry whites and cool blues immediately upset me; the saddest smile I've seen onscreen in many a year. Bardem is such a fine actor but more than that he has almost the perfect movie face, it's hugely memorable without being limited by its specificity: Is he handsome? Is he ugly? How can he be so imposingly monolithic in profile yet so human and fleshy head on?

I've always loved Javier Bardem but by the time his "Uxbal" was in a doctor's office getting a prostate exam and being an asshole about the needle for a blood test (is Uxbal a drug addict?) my mood was crashing. The last two funerals I've been to were both cancer related and one of them, very very recently, was for a dear friend's father who happens to be the exact same age as my own father (thankfully still with us).

I wasn't expecting the follow up scene, wherein Uxbal visited a funeral home where three little dead boys lay, one of them (ostensibly) haunting him. Nor was I expecting Uxbal to prey on the boy's family for money (something about his ability to commune with the dead -- fake or real?). By the time his sad looking son (like father like...) was having a bedwetting episode and Uxbal was pissing blood the next morning, I had to turn the damn thing off.

Note to filmmakers: never ever show a closeup of the contents of a toilet bowl. There are some things we see every day in real life that we need never see onscreen.

I looked at the DVD clock and realized I was only 20 minutes in and I had a full 128 minutes to go and opted for self preservation. I have been struggling with a particularly strong stubbornly escalating bout of depression and I didn't want to welcome more of it in. I had heard from the film's naysayers that the movie is relentless about piling on -- to the point of Job-like cruelty. And if cancer, addiction, poverty, ghosts, blood, and preying on grieving parents were just Iñárritu's opening reel gambit, it was going to be beyond my coping abilities in my present state.

I am not one of those sad and limited moviegoers who yearns for all movies to be happy -- a boyfriend of a good friend once complained about the sad movies we were dragging him, too "do you like any happy movies?" he asked in exasperation. And it's true that I do quite love a good tragedy. But I know my limit-testing buttons and Biutiful pushed nearly half of them in its first 20 minutes, including a peculiar uncommon one... toilet bowl closeups. Were I convinced that the world revolved around me, I'd suspect that Iñárritu was created in a lab just to test me. For this test, I have laid down my pencil and admitted defeat.

Have you ever fully intended to watch a movie and bailed from mood crashing?

Previous Reader Requests:
The Other Woman, The Rescuers and Beauty & The Beast

Fool For Link

Vogue Vibes on the duel era fashions of Midnight in Paris
Acidemic free ranging piece on the images and scoring of The Tree of Life
Nick's Flick Picks, never one to shy away from a massive project, has decided to recreate Cannes 1986 (25th anniversary) and write all about it. First...
Nick's Flick Picks Robert Altman's Fool For Love. Nick thinks Kim Basinger is sensational in it (so do I).
Guardian on the ever thorny topic of how to "date" a motion picture, production date, release date, initial screening?
Basket of Kisses Mad Men's Aaron Staton (we love him) is the lead in the new video game L.A. Noire
Movie|Line loves Ari Graynor -- they're always trying to claim actresses we also champion damn them -- so must share this clip from the upcoming comedy Lucky.

Stale Popcorn with another halfway mark listicle: the good, the bad and the ugly of 2011
Pajiba advice for screenwriters willing to sell their souls from those who've made billions at the box office with almost no discernible talent whatsoever.
Awards Daily Oscar's blind David Cronenberg spot. Recently I've been thinking that I wanted to do a whole comprehensive review of one director's every film. Maybe it should be him? Although maybe he's made to many. Never mind.

the divas
The Advocate Lady Gaga profile on her connection to the gays and those comparisons to legendary performers like Barbra Streisand, Debbie Harry and Madonna.
Boy Culture EEK. Proof that Madonna is finally back in the recording studio. As of yesterday.
The Broadway Blog honors Marin Mazzie, about to take on the iconic Mrs White role in the revival of Carrie the Musical (yes that musical based on the 1976 pig-blooded classic)

sorry. back to the movies...
ion cinema has a bunch of halfway point top ten lists. Can't get enough of this topic, can you? Or am I just speaking for myself?
PopMatters 10 insane lessons that Transformers Dark of the Moon is trying to teach us
Old Hollywood omg, yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the "Overlook Hotel Ball" (immortalized in The Shining) We MUST remember this in ten years time for the centennial.

Would you like The Film Experience to be around in 2021? LOL, I know I know. We're getting ahead of ourselves. But if you'd like TFE to be around in 2012, please consider subscribing from the sidebar link
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Halfway Honors. Best of 2011 Thus Far

This year seems to be off to a slow start but here's what I'd choose as the best of the year thus far. I've excluded films that are still waiting for their proper release like Andrew Haigh's finely tuned miniature gay drama Weekend (which has been collecting festival trophies and which I loved) and Paddy Considine's discomfiting abuse drama Tyrannosaur which I did not love but which boasts impressive acting.

TOP TEN PICTURES (alpha order)
The Arbor, Beginners, Bridesmaids, Certified Copy, Jane Eyre, Midnight in Paris, Poetry, Rango, The Tree of Life and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. You can see a complete list of what I've seen here.

[Notable films that I did plan to see but will have to catch on DVD include: Hanna, The Housemaid and Win Win]

DIRECTOR
Clio Barnard - THE ARBOR
Lee Chang-dong - POETRY
Abbas Kiarostami -CERTIFIED COPY
Terrence Malick -THE TREE OF LIFE
Mike Mills -BEGINNERS

notes: I gave Barnard the slight edge over Apichatpong Weerathesakul mostly because I far prefer "Joe's" earlier effort Tropical Malady to Boonmee. But not without some hesitation. I appreciated the bold experimentation of The Arbor, a documentary/narrative hybrid about the life and work of playwright and screenwriter Andrea Dunbar (Rita, Sue and Bob, Too). I just wish the film had been tighter and less relentless in its last 45 minutes. It had already done so much surgical socioeconomic surveillance damage by that point that rather than feeling devastating it started to feel exhausting. But it's definitely worth a look.

ACTRESS
Juliette Binoche - CERTIFIED COPY
Yun Jeong-Hie -POETRY
Mia Wasikowska - JANE EYRE
Kristen Wiig - BRIDESMAIDS
Michelle Williams -MEEKS CUTOFF

actors and the supporting crop and even a few technicals if you just...

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Curio: Fotonovels

Alexa here.  Seeing Super 8 this holiday weekend left me with nostalgia for its template, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  And that brought to mind one of my favorite bits of 70s movie kitsch, Fotonovels. 

Fotonovels were "a collection of books that were filled from front to back with photos from a particular movie" and had "a shorter life than disco itself." Like comic books, but with real photographs! They were so exciting to me as a child. Grease was my favorite; before I even saw the movie I wore out my copy. I also loved Ice Castles (I was especially taken with the "Lexie" embroidered on her collar).  Recently, I scored a copy of the Close Encounters version. Here are some pictures of mine, as well as some I've spotted around the internet.

Click for The Champ and Ice Castles...

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Actress "Characters" Wins: Miranda, Clarice, Clementine

Talking Points!

Last month I asked you to vote on the most memorable characters within the ranks of the Best Actress nominees. It wasn't about who gave the best performances but which characters have stuck with you the most. Here are the results -- I assumed you'd like to see.

1991-1996 

1. *CLARICE STARLING (Jodie Foster) from Silence of the Lambs
2. THELMA (Geena Davis) from Thelma & Louise
3. LOUISE (Susan Sarandon) from Thelma & Louise
4. *ADA MCGRATH (Holly Hunter) from The Piano
5. FRANCESCA JOHNSON (Meryl Streep) from The Bridges of Madison County
   
   runners up (in descending order):  (four way tie for sixth place!!!) SERA Leaving Las Vegas, TINA TURNER What's Love Got to Do With It,  ELINOR DASHWOOD Sense & Sensibility and *SISTER HELEN PREJEAN Dead Man Walking and... coming in tenth *MARGARET SCHLEGEL Howards End
   
   observations: Clarice Starling had the widest margin of victory in any of the polls, a classic character indeed. I was a bit surprised to see Thelma just edge out Louise for #2 given that Sarandon was the "leader" but perhaps people still get the characters mixed up? Thelma, Louise and Ada were pretty evenly matched with Francesca just barely edging out that cluster of women competing for the the 5-Spot. I'm surprised that Margaret Schlegel was as low as she was (I would've voted for her myself) but I have noticed that today's film culture has greatly devalued the Merchant/Ivory filmography. A true shame because nobody does Brit lit adaptations like that historic team.
   
   weakest showing: Rose (Laura Dern) from Rambling Rose, Viv (Miranda Richardson) from Tom & Viv barely made a blip with 1% of the vote each. The surprise there is Rambling Rose since Dern's Oscar breakthrough was quite a memorable girl. But it's true that you never hear people talk about that film these days.

1996-2010 AFTER THE JUMP

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