Jose here. The summer not only brings us cheesy special effects movies and superhero blockbusters, it also announces the start of something else in movie theaters: the arrival of Oscar season trailers! Yesterday we got our first glimpse at Baz Luhrmann's take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby which, no surprise, showed us Baz at his Baziest.
Those of you who were expecting him to show some restraint will be highly disappointed (although didn't you learn your lesson with Australia?) while the rest will rejoice in the way he flahses his unique visual style. Anyway, before you pick a team, let's do our usual Yes, No, Maybe So...
Nicole says "Hi!"DGA and SAG (tonight!) awards just aren't enough prize-giving for one weekend so let's talk two more.
AUSTRALIA via WEST HOLLYWOOD Have you ever heard of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts International Awards? Neither have I. It's okay because they're newborn babes in the awards woods. Apparently they eyed an empty clearing in the great forest of movie awards and voila! (Seriously why are there so few awards shows? Magical unicorns they are.)
The great unsolved mystery of all of these organizations that have been popping up (I'd like to see a study but it does seem like each year brings at least one new organization along with it) is this: how do they get the celebrities to show? Even brand new ventures like this one bring out the stars. When you can convince Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep to attend your inaugural awards maybe there will be a second year for your prizes! Then again the AFI Awards had one televised ceremony (early 2002) and the stars came out for it en masse and there was never a second year of prizes, so we'll see.
Meryl looked gorgeous at the Australian International ceremony held in Beverly Hills AACTA Winners
Screenplay (tie) The Ides of March (George Clooney, Grant Henslove and Beau Willimon) and Margin Call (JC Chandor). A rare occurence: Midnight in Paris losing a screenplay nomination.
Director Michel Hazanavicius The Artist
Actor Jean Dujardin The Artist
Actress Meryl Streep The Iron Lady
FilmThe Artist
I can't tell you why their press release lists only film winners when they have television right there in the title.
They'll show this intimate ceremony (held in West Hollywood with Australian Academy president Geoffrey Rush naming the winners) or at least clips of it on Australia television on the 31st.
Craig here (writer of Take Three) reporting for Nathaniel from the BFI London Film Festival. Today's round-up features three dark explorations into violent minds. Perfect for Halloween week then!
If disquieting French drama EarlyOne Morning were a comedy it would need to hijack the title of another recent office-based film: Horrible Bosses. The financial suits upstairs are the cause for middle-aged everyman-exec Paul’s (played to fraught perfection by Jean-Pierre Darroussin) consternation in Jean-Marc Moutout’s film. What a total bunch of bankers! But Paul takes matters into his own hands in an explosive, very personal way. It starts with a coldly curious, matter-of-fact sequence: Paul gets up and ready for work, kisses his wife, gets on a bus and arrives at the office. The immediately perturbing vibe suggests that something terrible is inevitable. As it turns out, he shoots his bosses dead and then sits down at his desk. The film then flashes back to an earlier time to try and work out why Paul goes full nutjob with a handgun. It's clear from the finger pointing at the highly unsporting, self-regarding pair of CEOs (one played with pompous relish by Xavier Beauvois, the director of Of Gods and Men) and the hot potato topic of the recession that the film is trading on being a seasonably pertinent and bold exploration of current themes people will feel a kinship for. The film’s drastic actions are worrying, but maybe the Pauls of the world need a vicarious fictional mouthpiece to do the undoable acts on their behalf. After all, we like a David vs. Goliath tale. This one just goes one furious step further and attempts to annihilate its Goliath for all previous unfair dismissal. Early One Morning is mostly gripping viewing. Best avoided by those who’ve just been fired, mind. C+
The terrible bursts of violence in Early One Morning came fast and furious, but that’s nothing compared to what we get sporadically, intensively and with gut-churning abstraction throughout bold Australian drama Snowtown. [More after the jump.]
The Lost Boy Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams is just a few days away from joining the top gro$$ing documentaries club. JobMob check out what some celebrity acting resumes look like Sociological Images Some off flick backstory on that DDT spray scene in The Tree of Life. I wanted to soak in that scene, didn't you? Tom ShoneTerminator 2 turns 20 years old this week. What a stroke of genius casting Robert Patrick was. Old Hollywood great my-how-time-changes-things quote from Kim Novak on the initial failure of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Movie|Line Remember those omnibus films celebrating Paris and New York. It's official: Sydney, I Love You plans to move ahead in early 2012 The Wrap looks at the reasons that the superhero crop of 2011 isn't really delivering as expected at the box office.The last sentence, though, is an unintentionally hilarious negation of the 'there's too many of these' thesis statement. It goes like so...
The good news for the box office: New installments of Batman and Spider-Man are due out next summer, with fresh incarnations of Superman and Iron Man following soon after.
off cinema The Daily Beast backstage at Men's Fashion Week Low Resolution ranking the hotness of Wimbledon men Slant reviews Björk's new single "Crystalline". I love this bit:
Bjork's most esoteric album to date, 2004's Medúlla, is also among her best, and so my policy is to indulge Mrs. Matthew Barney in all pretensions so long as the music works.
Hey, TFE readers. As you check out this latest reader spolight I'm probably in the friendly skies (heading to Nashville as previously indicated). One day I hope to flap my arms and fly to Australia (despite my fear of kangaroos) where Peter hails from. Peter, who you know as 'par' in the comments, used to run a blog "six things" that I worshipped -- our elongation of every mention of Laura Linney's name to "The Lovely Laura Linney" is his fault -- so this is my selfish excuse to make him list things again. And unlike so many of you he's older than me. Not everyone reading is allowed to claim Beauty & The Beast or The Lion King as their very first movie; People were having babies before 1987! (gasp)
Nathaniel: What were your first six movie obsessions? PETER:
i. anything that played on tv on a weekend as we lived hundreds of miles from the nearest cinema (usually Doris Day musicals) ii. cabaret iii. jesus christ superstar iv. grease v. hair (sensing a theme here?) vi. the invention of the VCR (yes kids i am that old) enabling me to see movies at home on my own schedule
Hey I remember the big-change of the VCR, too. The 1980s were so eventful. What are your six favorite things about The Film Experience (yes, I'm shameless)
a. the film bitch awards b. the endless love for actresses c. so much goodness every single day (seriously, i couldn't keep my blog going at one thing a day) d. narrowing down the oscar contenders throughout the year so i don't have to e. you, nathaniel f. that it's still around (when you spun off to the blog from the original site i feared you were making a huge mistake)
Your 6 favorite actresses. The others only got 3 aren't you proud? PETER:
Six things you would do if you were elected Supreme Overlord of the Movies for a year.
one - no budgets over $10,000,000 (except for pixar) two - no 3d three - no sequels four - ang lee gets to do whatever the hell he wants five - make woody allen watch all the movies he made between 1969 and 1994 in the hope he might make another as good (starring diane keaton) six - i'll be deciding the oscars this year, thank you very much
Six Oscars you would recall. Who would they go to?
1. grace kelly (the country girl) to judy garland (a star is born) 2. helen hunt (as good as it gets) to helena bonham carter (the wings of the dove) 3. julia roberts (erin brockovich) to the lovely laura linney (you can count on me) 4. gloria grahame (the bad and the beautiful) to jean hagen (singin' in the rain) 5. donna reed (from here to eternity) to thelma ritter (pick-up on south street) 6. crash to brokeback mountain
Six favorite things about Australia. As you know I have a never-been-there fetish.
01. olivia newton-john 02. judy davis 03. toni collette 04. guy pearce 05. peter weir 06. kangaroos - big, scary, street roaming, american-blogger-eating kangaroos!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 1:00PM 
