Jesse Unleashed. And Other Links

i09 the best critical responses to Safe Haven's batsh*t ending (spoilers, obviously)
Natasha VC the Boogie Nights premiere photos are debilitating. (amen)
Cinematic Corner expresses disatisfaction with The Master. I think the qualms expressed here are very imply put the problem a lot of people have with the second act of Paul Thomas Anderson's career. I wonder if he'll change again?
Awards Daily salutes the hard working Oscar publicists as ballots close
MNPP Judy Garland's A Star is Born even wins over JA! She's just brilliant in that film. One of the worst Oscar losses ever. 

Coming Soon on a new Bruce Lee biopic in the works. I read a few articles on this last night and not one of them mentioned that there already is a Bruce Lee biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story which came out in the 90s and starred the hotness that was Jason Scott Lee (no relation)
Playbill Les Misérables will be returning to Broadway in 2014, just 11 years since the original long running show closed. Meanwhile the show has never closed in London and has now been playing for 27 years
Jesse Williams the actor (the hottie from Cabin in the Woods) doesn't pull punches detailing his issues with Django Unchained's treatment of race and slavery
Advocate Kelly McGillis will reminisce about Top Gun generically but she won't talk about Jodie Foster's coming out!
Lainey Gossip checks in with the pre-Oscar gingers Jessica Chastain & Nicole Kidman
In Contention looks at Sound Mixing which I personally think is terrifically hard to predict this year 

Finally... if you believe that math can predict the Oscars check out Ben's Oscar Forecast. He's a Harvard student who's trying to predict them with formulas. He's predicting the usual suspects that have been winning everything for acting but for best director... Ang Lee (!?!)

Nom Nom Nom: The DGA's.

Hey, lovelies. Beau here, with the announcement of the DGA Nominees for 2013 whilst Nathaniel lunches with one of them.

• Ben Affleck, Argo 
• Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
• Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
• Ang Lee, Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

And so, the open spot goes to Tom Hooper, a recent recipient a couple years back for his work on The King’s Speech. If anything must be said about Les Miserables, it is that it is indeed a director’s vision; the intimacy of the camera superseding the largeness of the story in an effort to maximize the full emotional impact of the musical.

While I have many issues with the film, Hooper’s vision does lend itself well to Hathaway’s ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, the strongest scene in the film. Observing despair and bottling it in a shot that would have made Bergman proud, his attention to detail in Hathaway makes for something profoundly intimate and personal. That the rest of the film never lives up to this moment is not really surprising; its pacing and its reticence to self-edit do it a disservice, as the film never really gives its audience a moment to breathe and take in the considerable emotional toll. 

That being said, this is the lineup many have been predicting for quite some time now, give or take Hooper in place of Russell or Tarantino.  We’ll just have to see if Oscar feels the same way come Thursday morning.

Until then, dears. xo, Beau

The Lady or The Tiger: Ambiguity and Life of Pi

Michael C. here. I hope everyone has had a chance to see Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. I’ve been dying to dive into spoiler territory since the film’s premiere at the New York Film Festival. 

If you haven’t seen the film I recommend you do. Lee has created a visually magnificent fable that transfers the book’s expansive imagination to the screen better than I thought possible. It’s a terrific return to form for Lee following the face plant that was Taking Woodstock. 

But then there’s that nagging problem of that ending. I’ve struggled with it in the book and now I struggle with it in the film. Try as I might, I just can’t get behind it. 

Detailed SPOILERS follow… 

Click to read more ...

Lifeboat of Pi

Despite having not read "Life of Pi" in its previsual form -- I know I know --  I found myself unduly excited this morning seeing this image from the Ang Lee adaptation. Is it because I love cats? Unfilmable books? Ang Lee? All about the above? ☑

24 Frames has an article about it involving a Scorsese/Lee conversation about Lee's 3D learning curve. Here's the image.

Despite his belief in the format, Lee was open about his struggle to adapt to the technology. While filming "Life of Pi," he said, the 3-D cameras were cumbersome, and he compared working with them to "operating a refrigerator." 

I gotta be honest with you. I love Marty Scorsese almost as much as any random film buff but his current incarnation as "Mr. 3D" may lead to divorce. Irreconciliable Differences. I preferred Marty when his cause was film preservation. 3D just takes me out of movies, ironically flattening their visual interest for me. It feels like a straight jacket to me or rather, a toothpick propping my eyes open, forcing me to see things I don't want to see. Maybe I need to use my own imagination to add the depth, I don't know. I just hate it. I keep trying to love it because powerful and great filmmakers like Scorsese and James Cameron (a hero of young me and I still love his movies) will never give up till all movies require glasses.

But 3D just makes the movies less magical for me. Sniffle. I adore Titanic and seeing it in 3D just made it... smaller. It no longer felt like THE MOVIEST OF MOVIES but just "a movie".

I'm only tolerating 3D because I have to. 

Someone toss me a Lifeboat. Life of Pi needs less 3D and more Tallulah! Can I get an amen?

Alfred Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT OF PI

Have any of you read the book? I understand that young "Pi", an Indian boy, finds himself on a boat after a shipwrech with only a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger. Since only Pi and Shere Khan are in the official image I'm assuming the tiger ate the other animals already?

If I were to be shipwrecked on a boat with four animals those maybe aren't the four animals I'd choose. I'd think I'd go straight herbivore across the board. Not that you can choose in a shipwreck.

But if I had to go with famous movie animals...

Life of NathanielR

Someone to entertain, someone to protect, and someone who might rescue me and look great doing it.

And there's no way it'd be anything but a 2-D picture.

Don't leave me floating in this ocean all alone... Which movie animals could you handle a shipwreck with and have you resigned yourself to movie glasses forever?

Reader Spotlight: Andrew

The "Reader of the Day" was a popular feature during Reader Appreciation Month so we're going to share a Reader Spotlight a couple times a week now for another month. What'cha think about that? Get to know the Film Experience community!

Today's reader is Andrew, another Canadian. He's an actor, too. A lot of actors read The Film Experience. This makes me happy though I can't say that I knew it before starting these Reader Spotlights.

Nathaniel: So Andrew what's the first movie you remember seeing?
ANDREW: The first movie I can remember seeing in theatres was The Lion King, which I loved. I had a lot of Disney movies on VHS and I remember just watching them over and over again. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, 101 Dalmatians, The Little Mermaid, and The Rescuers... obsessively.

We are all children of Disney, really. No matter what generation. It's kinda scary!

Three Greats: Andrea Arnold and slowpokes: Baz Luhrmann and Jane CampionNew Question. You're suddenly in charge of world cinema for a year. Name 5 directors you'd give big budgets to with a blank slate. Wield your power!

Where do I start?! I would end up being a bit selfish (how could you not be?!) and pick directors that I personally would like to see more films from. I would love to see what Lars von Trier would do with a big budget and completely blank slate. Derek Cianfrance, Jonathan Glazer and Andrea Arnold are all filmmakers I have a personal interest in making sure they stick around. And funds to Jane Campion and Baz Luhrmann to give them some incentive to work more frequently. I love their films so much, but I hate that they take so long in between projects. I know I picked six, but it was difficult narrowing it down!

Three Favorite Actresses?
Kate Winslet. Meryl Streep -the quality of work she puts out is absolutely top notch, and you can look at any time in her career and find work that is intriguing and just as strong as any other actress out there. She is also so compulsively watchable on and off  screen. However my absolute favourite actress has to be Nicole Kidman. Her film choices are so brave and unexpected, I would say she is definitely a risk-taker when it comes to her career and I love that about her. She really challenges herself as an actress.

Have you ever dressed as a movie character for Halloween?
I once went as "Bang Bang" from The Brothers Bloom for Halloween, but it didn't really last long because I got into the vodka and the costume came off pretty soon thereafter.

Bang Bang! And the awesome Joan Chen

LOL. Okay, the movie of your life. Cast it. Etcetera.
I am only 23 so I feel like my life has barely started. Actually it would just be a selfish excuse to work with Ang Lee who is one of my favourite directors. I would star in it myself. I am not Chinese but I think it would be a blast to have Joan Chen play my mother... her collaboration with Lee was so awesome in Lust, Caution so it would be a great reunion. I would also cast Chow Yun-Fat as my father because I think he is great and really underrated.