MIFF 2: Will "The Sessions" Make Oscar Feel Good?

[Editor's note: Glenn of Stale Popcorn fame is back to report from Melbourne Iwith a look at an Oscar hopeful that's been working the festival circuit all year - Nathaniel]

I suspect it will be easy for cynical audiences to look upon Ben Lewin’s The Sessions as merely a hurdle to get over this upcoming awards season. Yes, it’s about a man with a disability and, yes, it co-stars Helen Hunt, but the mere fact that it got made at all makes it an important film whether you consider it good or not. Given Hollywood’s fussy attitude towards sex (particularly the sex that makes us feel good), it’s strange to see so much talk about The Sessions (nee Six Sessions, nee The Surrogate) in regards to the Academy Awards. That the film is about sex and disabilities and religion, and examines it with maturity and gentle pathos, just makes Lewin’s film that much more of an anomaly worth exploring.

John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone, Martha Marcy May Marlene) stars as Mark O’Brien, a real life figure who lived with Polio into his 40s who has already been the subject of one Oscar-winning movie already. If the rest of the plot – O’Brien hires a “sex surrogate” to lose his virginity – elicits giggles from the viewer then that’s a-okay since the film and the man have a sense of humour. Yes, you know where it’s going, but it's so refreshing to see this topic played out openly that it’s almost hard to care.

The Sessions, for me, most resembled Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids are All Right. [more after the jump]

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Singin' in the Dog Day Afternoon

As I type this I am slick with sweat and praying for rain, glorious thunderstorm born heavy-pellet rain. (In the interim I will crank up the air conditioner --f*** that gargantuan electricity bill! -- and stay inside until I'm forced to scurry off to the next movie theater.) So it strikes me as perfect that the last two episodes of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" this season are Singin' in the Rain (Wednesday night) and Dog Day Afternoon (Wednesday night August 22nd... the day of the actual events in the film!). Won't you join us?

This is the last hard sell for this series but I'm all keyed up because I'm so heartened by the response these past few weeks and I feel like I learn so much just by reading other people's takes on the same movie I'm looking at; 48 eyeballs are better than 2! 

Once Season 3 is wrapped we're entering  fall film season, Oscar's pre-season and with only 156 days to go until Oscar nominations we know that that familiar naked gold man will consume more and more of our thoughts. OSCAR CHART UPDATES COMING VERY SOON...

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Trouble With the Curve"

Longtime Clint Eastwood collaborator Robert Lorenz (producer or first assistant director on many Clint features) rousted Clint out of the director's chair and in front of the cameras for a father/daughter baseball scouting drama The Trouble With the Curve. Or is it a comedy? Let's break down the trailer with our usual system.

YES

• Always up for a father/daughter drama... and Eastwood gave that relationship all sorts of interesting edges and nuances and softspots in Million Dollar Baby. Plus in the interest of selling Gran Torino 2 with all those shots of Clint "Get Off My Lawn!" Eastwood maybe we're not seeing some of the meat of the central relationship in the trailer.
• Amy! Just saw her in Into the Woods in Central Park. She got majorly swallowed up in her wig (so big that from my bad seat I could barely notice her face) but I like that even if she might not have limitless range she is able to adapt her screen persona for drama, comedy, and musicals. That's a type of range -- the movie star type of range which is nothing to scoff at.
• Hei John Goodman!

NO and maybe so after the jump...

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The Way We Link

Yahoo Movies President Obama is a fan of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman
NPR details about Marilyn Monroe as a very profitable posthumous industry. Who gets the money?
CHUD Joss Whedon signs for Avengers 2. But he'll have enough time to do other projects first.
Unreality Indiana Jones is teeny tiny in these amazing posters for the Raiders of the Lost Ark trilogy

Los Angeles Times The Great Gatsby is delayed, and The Master rises. A shifting Oscar race (yes, we'll talk about all this in a couple of days with updated charts!)
Movie|Line the Hitchcock Birds making-of movie The Girl previews for television critics
My New Plaid Pants Paul Verhoeven 'quote of the day' on the original Total Recall's three titties moment. I have to say that the remake's nod to this made no sense whatsoever given the change in planetary setting.
/Film Brave co-director Brenda Chapman leaves Pixar after what one assumes was a troubled relationship and lands at Lucasfilms
Monkey See on the responsibilities of being "the greatest film of all time". 

At the top, you have to be able to play two cultural roles at once: punching bag and celebrated ideal.

Good luck, Vertigo!

Yay, Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln. First official photo.

poll by twiigs.com

 

More goodbyes
Hollywood Elsewhere RIP film critic Judith Christ
New York Times brilliant composer, EGOT winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient Marvin Hamlisch of A Chorus Line fame died at 68. Hamlisch was a frequent Oscar presence with 12 nominations over the course of his career but his 3 wins all came during the ceremony in 1974 for adapted score The Sting (1973) and song and score for The Way We Were. (1973). His last film score for The Informant (2009) won him lots of fresh praise and one assumes very nearly a 13th Oscar nomination since it scored other awards season kudos.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "The Paperboy"

I know you've been waiting to discuss this one or spent all your discussion energies elsewhere. But do it again. Humor me! You know how bad I want this movie, even if it's terrible. Let's break it down quickly since I'm all YESSSSSSSssssSSSsssS Gimme.

YES

 

• "That man is dangerous. Lovin' him is dangerous ♫" - perfect music choice
• Speaking of dangerous Pt 2 Nicole Kidman trashy, sweaty, in character, on fire. If she were a man people would bow down like they do with Daniel Day-Lewis.
• Speaking of dangerous Pt 3 Precious director Lee Daniels. Generally you can't achieve genius unless you're willing to risk looking ridiculous. Reviews suggested the latter but still. Brava for taking chances.
• Zac Efron's wet underwear contest and Nicole Kidman's gawdy costumes, Two great looks that look great together.
• The cast. Matthew McConaughey has been on a roll and Macy Gray is always welcome. She was just inspired in her cameo in For Colored Girls and memorable in Lee Daniels' Shadowboxer, too. 
• "These your paperboys? What are they gonna do for me." // "They're gonna save you" Chills.

NO

• This trailer verges on the totally incoherent. "What the hell is going on?" can be a good future ticket buy question spurred on by a trailer but generally not in the "what the hell is going on within the trailer itself!?" kind of way. I think it's the overlapping sound editing. It's just cacophonous. 

MAYBE SO 

• John Cusack. I admit I am nothing like a fan. Very occassionally I'm intrigued but there are more misses than hits if you ask me.

the trailer in case you're also running late...

Are you a Yes? a Hell Yes? or a Gimme Now Before I Spontaneously Combust? no? maybe so? 

I know I'm not supposed to think that Nicole has an Oscar shot for something this pulpy and outre but damn this looks like a killer part. Will she kill it?