MIFF 1: Battle of the Aussie Pop Stars

[Editor's Note: Glenn of Stale Popcorn fame, pictured left, will be covering the Melbourne International Film Festival for us. Yay!  He'll hit titles we're interested in because we've definitely perused his plans. -Nathaniel]

Glenn checking in. As I type this it is August 2nd, opening night of the 61^st annual Melbourne International Film Festival. With the festival proper beginning tomorrow, I have 32 films booked (whether I get to them all is another thing altogether...) but I've caught a few biggies beforehand.

You have probably heard about Wayne Blair’s The Sapphires, what with its rapid ascent from unknown Aussie musical to full blown Harvey Weinstein pet project. While I can’t see this chintzy sixties-set musical garnering much in the way of Academy buzz – unless the music branch’s “no end credits original songs!” attitude suddenly changes for the swingin’ original tune “Gotcha” – I can’t see how its light-as-air sensibilities can’t turn it into a pretty money-maker for The Weinstein Company and net itself a couple of those eternally in flux “Musical or Comedy” Golden Globe nominations in the process. 

Musical Madness, Kylie Minogue and Holy Motors after the jump...

The Sapphires

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From Here to the Oscars and Back ♫

This morning this sweet ballad popped into my head again -- I recently finally got around to Joyful Noise -- so I thought I'd share it. I hope Dolly Parton gets to sing this at the Oscars to the tune of her third nomination... provided it's declared eligible of course.

If the Academy would ever get their music branch in order, can you imagine how much fun the Original Song category could be? I mean this year alone we could have Paul Williams, Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift and Hugh Jackman singing at the Oscars.

But we've learned not to hope for too much. If you have legacy artists like Bruce Springsteen and Cher and Madonna and whomever singing on stage, you just won't have time for those this-has-nothing-to-do-with-movies-but-we-the-producers-like-it performances from the likes of Cirque du Soleil.

Oscar Trivia / 2012 Original Song Category after the jump...

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12 Word Reviews: "Brave", "Beasts of Southern Wild", "Moonrise Kingdom"

My 1000+ word review of Magic Mike will be up tomorrow but in the meantime, let's clear the cache with a few words, a dozen in point of fact, on movies I didn't review properly.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
A six year old girl learns survival lessons from her father in a drowned world. But synopsis won't due its real poetry any justice. See it!
10WR: Overwhelming sense of loss tempered by vivid originality, guileless acting, flexible allegory.  A-
Oscar? I doubted it at an Oscar contender at first (defiantly weird and filled with first timers) but it has tremendous critical approval, and there's nothing else even remotely like it on the filmscape. It's very difficult to shake once you've experienced it. Could factor in across the board or, more likely, fight for a few key nods. Adapted Screenplay might be the safest bet (so far).

Brave (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, and Steve Purcell)
A Scottish princess seeks to transform her fate but the magic she calls on has dangerous repercussions.
10WR: Refreshing steps outside Pixar comfort zones but oddly disjointed. Still... that hair! B
Oscar? A good bet in the Animated Feature category (Pixar has only missed that nomination once -- just last year with Cars 2) but anything beyond that and the music categories will be a tough sell.

What kind of bird are you?

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
Troubled pen pals run away from home (and scout camp) in this darkly sweet tale of adolescent (and adult) loneliness.
10WR: Amusing affectations are balm and escape from real pain.Anderson's second best! B+
Oscar? That brilliant last movement in the end credits, with the narration of Desplat's music could go a long way for selling Best Original Score. But how about Screenplay and Art Direction? Too affected or just right?

People Like Us (Alex Kurtzman)
A young man (Chris Pine) discovers a half sister (Elizabeth Banks) he didn't know existed but keeps the truth from her and his angry recently widowed mother (Michelle Pfeiffer. 
10WR: Strong actresses but uncomfortably incestuous plot bizarrely filmed like an action flick. C-
Oscar? If it's an unlikely hit, Pfeiffer could win traction in Supporting Actress.

poll by twiigs.com

Peace , Love & Misunderstanding (Bruce Beresford)
An uptight depressed lawyer visits her estranged hippie mother and their cultures clash... again.
10WR: Kindhearted with enjoyable if obvious performances. Too programmatic when complexity is needed. C
Oscar? No. Though it sure is nice to see Jane Fonda back onscreen.

Prometheus (Ridley Scott)
A team of scientists seeks our genetic ancestors on a far away planet and discovers the diabolical origins of those pesky acid-blooded creepy crawlies instead.
10WR: Tremendously visual. Intermittently heart-stopping --  that abortion sequence!. Plot is a tough sell.  B
Oscar? We discussed this! 

YOUR TURN in the comments

AMPAS Continues To Change Rules, Add Members

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka AMPAS aka The Oscars aka "That Organization That The Media And Public Are Constantly Calling 'Irrelevant' Whilst They Disprove Their Point By Talking About Said Organization Incessantly") has changed their rulebooks yet again and opened their figurative doors to new players. Their reasoning and criteria remain, as ever, a mystery to those of us with strong opinions on the matter.

Here's what happened...

Visual Effects
The bakeoff system is a bit different now. Ten films will be selected as semi-finalists. The branch will then vote and five will become nominees.
TFE DECREES: Smart, humane move after those years with only 6 or 7 semi-finalists... which was embarrassingly like being "the last one picked" when you didn't end as a nominee.

Makeup (and Hairstyling!)
New Rule: It's a name change from Best Makeup to Best Makeup and Hairstyling. 
TFE Decrees: Good Move But Entirely Cosmetic. The award was already meant to include hairstyling if it greatly contributed to the film -- you'll remember that Meryl Streep's longtime hairdresser won for The Iron Lady last year. The name change will only matter if the branch that's voting takes the name change to heart and starts conveying, through their nominations, that they care about things other than werewolf makeup and old age latex. The last few years have shown a bit of willingness to shake up this category for the better so good on them.

Best Foreign Film
New Rule: Films still have to be submitted in 35mm to AMPAS for consideration but they no longer have to screen that way in their home countries.
TFE Decrees: Good, though only 0.000001% of Oscar watchers will ever notice. But anything to loosen restrictions up for the committees in other countries who have to decide which film best represents them.

Best Original Song
New Rule: In special circumstances four songwriters can now become nominees. The number was three.
TFE Decrees: Excuse me .... [raucous laughter] ... how does this even matter since the system as is keeps refusing a full slate of nominees? It's as if the music branch is completely ashamed of their craft and considers nothing worthy. The only thing that would fix this category is a complete overhaul of the rules and maybe even the branch members. The voting system, in which you can actually torpedo viable popular contenders by giving them terrible scores, is the problem... not the number of songwriters credited.

176 NEW ACADEMY MEMBERS!
This is the best part of AMPAS changes each year, since it's fun to look at who is finally "in" and scratch your head at what took so long. Trying to parse meaning behind the newbie invites is a fool's errand since their criteria are suspicously vague. Non-distinguished actors, for example, are invited each year and yet sometimes they don't invite one of the actual Oscar nominees. Michelle Williams was a strange example as she was not an Academy member until some years after Brokeback Mountain.

New AMPAS Members: Yeoh, Kulcher, Martindale, Kar Wai, and Djurkovic

Ten invitees I was extremely happy about... (excluding last year's nominees which are too obvious to chat about): ACTORS - Fine character actors Margo Martindale ("Carol"!!!! from Paris Je T'Aime) and Clifton Collins Jr (Traffic), gorgeous actresses who should be much bigger stars like Kerry Washington and Michelle Yeoh, and Andy Serkis who will undoubtedly be in the history books given his pioneering role in a newish form of acting; VISUAL TALENTS - Production Designer Maria Djurkovic who did such surpassingly excellent Oscar snubbed work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Cinematographer Alwin Kuchler who recently wowed with Hanna, MAKEUP ARTIST -Toni G (who did the Oscar statue worthy Oscar snubbed work on Charlize Theron's Monster); DIRECTORS -Wong Kar Wai and Terrence Malick (!!! Perhaps he's refused them in the past?)

How are you receiving all this Oscar news? With indifference or excitement?

Review: "Snow White and the Huntsman"

This article was originally published in my movie column at Towleroad

"Fairy tale revisionism" has been rapidly climbing the Hollywood idea chart. In the past few years we've seen Alice in Wonderland, Rapunzel in Tangled, Red Riding Hood, and Snow White in Mirror Mirror (reviewed here).  There are several more on the way including Angelina Jolie as Maleficent terrorizing Sleeping Beauty Elle Fanning. This weekend Snow White returned to theaters for the second time in three months. Her timing is apt since the apple-munching princess is celebrating her 75th big screen anniversary (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered in 1937). Why so many fairy tales? Modern Hollywood thrives on branding so the more familiar the movie before it arrives the better. And what's more familiar than fairy tales?

Tale as old as time. 
True as it can be…  ♫

Oops wrong fairy tale. Regret to inform that Snow White and the Huntsman does not have a theme song sung by Angela Lansbury but let's borrow that song anyway as framing device. Snow White and the Hunstman does have a theme song but it's a less catchy dirge-like ballad. One of the seven dwarves coughs it out at a funeral until Florence and the Machine take over on the soundtrack as the heroes rise up against evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) in montage. 

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. If you can suspend your disbelief that Kristen Stewart is "the fairest of all them all" in a beauty contest with Charlize Theron, read on...

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