Remember Moonrise

Michael C here to make sure memory one of 2012's masterpieces isn't washed away in a flood of Oscar bait. 

The more I think about the final moments of Moonrise Kingdom the more it feels like the saddest thing I’ve seen at the movies all year.

At first glance it feels like the ending couldn’t be much happier. The young lovers are reunited, the storm has passed, and even if things aren’t perfect life is left in greater balance than when the story began. Yet on repeat viewings a nagging feeling of loss rises to the surface. Sam and Suzy are together but it’s not accidental that the last thing we see them do is say goodbye to each other. We first meet Suzy as a raven and now the soundtrack sings of birds flying away in the changing seasons. In film’s closing moments we see Suzy pause to acknowledge Sam’s painting of their beachfront camp. Their stolen adventure sits there, already frozen in the past.

This For Your Consideration reminder continues after the jump...

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Our Kind of Voting ~ Finale!

These were so much fun on election day (pt 1 & pt 2) that we'll do one more before we hunker down into this year's Oscars. Tell us who you'd vote for and why in these famously divisive and/or just plain fabulous Oscar categories.

BEST ACTRESS 1961
SOPHIA LOREN (Two Women) vs. AUDREY HEPBURN (Breakfast at Tiffany's) vs. NATALIE WOOD (Splendor in the Grass) vs. GERALDINE PAGE (Summer & Smoke) vs. PIPER LAURIE (The Hustler) 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY 2007
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Deakins) vs. THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Elswit) vs. ATONEMENT (McGarvey) vs. DIVING BELL AND BUTTERFLY (Kaminsky) vs. THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (Deakins) 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 1999
HALEY JOEL OSMENT (The Sixth Sense) vs. MICHAEL CAINE (The Cider House Rules) vs. TOM CRUISE (Magnolia) vs. JUDE LAW (The Talented Mr Ripley) vs. MICHAEL CLARKE DUNCAN (The Green Mile)

poll by twiigs.com

BEST PICTURE 1975
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST vs. BARRY LYNDON vs. NASHVILLE vs. DOG DAY AFTERNOON vs. JAWS 

Can you even choose from all the awesome?

Oscar.... 'he goes a little mad sometimes'

Let's talk Hitchcock and Oscar. I'm in the process of updating every Oscar chart -- tis the season! -- and I think I'm just going to give Hitchcock the benefit of the doubt. No one has seen it but if they're rushing to complete it having moved it from 2013 to now, Fox Searchlight must feel they really have something (best case scenario) or that the competition or their other films are weak (worst case scenario). New photos just emerged from People Magazine of which these of Alfred Hitchcock (Sir Anthony Hopkins) and Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) are excerpted below.

The "Scoop" page ripped from People makes the movie look a little cheapzy (that's cheap + cheesy) but that could just be People's formatting influence for broad appeal. I'm giving the film the benefit of the doubt and expecting an Oscar hit. You?

BEST PICTURE & BEST DIRECTOR
Fully updated charts with shakeups and some new text. Gains for Hitchcock and Life of Pi as The Master and Lincoln are in danger of fading and Hyde Park on Hudson disappears altogether.

Where do you think my "order" is spot on and which films would you flip? Do you think the Directing Oscar is Ben Affleck's to lose even if Argo doesn't win Best Picture?

"Silver Linings" Wins TIFF. Here's What It Means Statistically For Oscar.

The Toronto International Film Festival wraps up today (movies are still being projected, though, even as I type) and the awards are out. Silver Linings Playbook took the Audience Prize, which is usually a good sign for Oscar. 10 of the 34 past winners have gone on to Best Picture nominations with 4 eventually winning the top prize (The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, American Beauty and Chariots of Fire). That group of 34 films also includes 1 Best Documentary Oscar winner and 9 Best Foreign Language Film nominees (5 of them eventual winners.)  It's not fail safe of course. Last year's winner Where Do We Go Now? looked strong for Oscar foreign play but wasn't nominated and the previous winner's list includes various sixth-slotters like Amélie and Hotel Rwanda which didn't quite make their respective Best Picture lineups. But to make this long story much shorter this is the silver lining for Silver Linings come December; expect big golden things.

Other Winners...

Canadian Feature: Xavier Dolan's transsexual drama Laurence Anyways starring Melvil Poupad.
Canadian Directorial Debut: [TIE] Brandon Cronenberg's (Son Of David!) body horror drama Antiviral and Jason Buxton's teen violence drama Blackbird two chillers from up north.
Canadian Short: Keep a Modest Head by Deco Dawson

Brandon Cronenberg's debut features Sarah Gadon, his dad's current muse (A Dangerous Method / Cosmopolis).

FIPRESCI Prize Special Presentation: François Ozon's In the House which stars Kristin Scott Thomas as the wife of a French teacher (Fabrice Luchini) whose gifted teenage student is writing too intimately about the people in his life.
FIPRESCI Prize Discovery: Mikael Marsiman's Call Girl is based on the true story of a 1970s prostitution ring in Sweden.
Audience Award Documentary: Artifact finds Jared Leto's band "30 Seconds To Mars" battling their record label. More on this one soon.
Audience Award Midnight Madness: Seven Psychopaths from the singular comic talent Martin McDonagh
Asian Film: Sion Sono's Japanese tsunami survival drama The Land of Hope 

THE LAND OF HOPE (The Impossible isn't the only tsunami drama out there)

TIFF hits that lost out included Sarah Polley's reportedly bewitching Stories We Tell and the two runners up to the big People's Choice prize: Ben Affleck's Argo (of which you're already as familiar as you can be without seeing the damn thing) and Eran Riklis' Zaytoun which is a war drama about an Israel fighter pilot (Stephen Dorff) shot down over Lebanon.

TIFF devotee we appreciate most: Amir. 

TIFF virgin we're crazy jealous of: Nick. 

TIFF fringe dweller who never even made it to Canada: Nathaniel... [sniffle]

For what it's worth expect much more festival coverage for NYFF (coming very soon). Michael Cusumano and I will both hit the fest and share our reactions right here.

Catching Up: Oscar Buzz & Blunders, Festival Debuts & Misses

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Fall Film Season is upon us. And with it the 0 to 60 Oscar buzz. Even if you're blessed enough to have the means to jetset from Telluride to Venice to Toronto to New York, chances are you can't keep up with it all. I know I haven't been able to while juggling other demands. Before I fly up to Toronto on Wednesday for the last heady days of TIFF, I should do my best to catch up on the buzz and update those dusty Oscar charts. They're not yet a month old but.... 0 to 60, you know. The movies are upon us!

BUT FIRST LET ME VENT...
So, they announced the winners of the honorary Oscars this week and as per usual, they've demonstrated their complete lack of respect for Actresses. There are so many fine actresses who never won Oscars who are still alive and yet year after year they ignore all of them to honor various men. I don't mean to take anything away from this year's talented recipients who all deserve a congratulatory round of applause (mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, stuntman Hal Needham, documentarian D. A. Pennebaker, arts advocate George Stevens, Jr.) it's just that the pattern is obvious and concerning.

Worse yet, when AMPAS does honor a woman, it's someone without a rich acting background (Hi, Oprah Winfrey). By the time this year's Oscars have wrapped, for a twenty year stretch from 1993 through 2012, thirty-eight people will have been given honorary Oscars or Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Awards and there are only three women among them (Deborah Kerr, Lauren Bacall, Oprah Winfrey). Oscar has a very real problem with women so if living screen giants like Maureen O'Hara, Doris Day, Catherine Deneuve, Mia Farrow, Eleanor Parker, Angela Lansbury, Gena Rowlands and other classic actresses ever want an Honorary prize, they might want to look into sex change operations or at least a tuxedo rental. Exasperating!

Now on to movies people have talking about...

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