Sunday, February 24, 2008

My Favorites

Are winning.

Tilda Swinton

Coens

Robert Elswit


Fuckin' Glen and Marketa repr'zent!

This never happens.

Call It

Song

Winner: Falling Slowly (Once)

My Fav: Falling Slowly (Once)


Editing

Winner: No Country For Old Men

My Fav: No Country For Old Men


Cinematography

Winner: Atonement

My Fav: There Will Be Blood


Art Direction

Winner: Atonement

My Fav: There Will Be Blood


Original Screenplay

Winner: Juno

My Fav: Juno


Adapted Screenplay

Winner: No Country For Old Men

My Fav: No Country For Old Men


Foreign Film

Haven't seen any of this category, but will mention it because Romania's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is a chilling, superbly acted and directed film that should've been at least nominated.


Best Director

Winner: Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men)

My Fav: Joel-Paul Thomas Coen Ethan-Anderson Fuck


Supporting Actress

Winner: Ruby Dee (American Gangster)

My Fav: Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)


Supporting Actor

Winner: Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)

My Fav: Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men)


Actress

Winner: Julie Christie (Away From Her)

My Fav: Ellen Page (Juno)


Actor

Winner: Daniel DAY Lewis (There Will Be Blood)

My Fav: Daniel DAY Lewis (There Will Be Blood)


Best Picture

Winner: No Country For Old Men

My Fav: There Will Be Blood

Friday, February 22, 2008

I Say Thee Write Your Own Original Content...

Because I have to post a section of this article verbatim here, in anticipation of the most significant Oscar Night I've ever seen (in my short life):

From The Carpetbagger:

A Critic’s Critic

Paul Thomas Anderson, apart from being the holy vessel of hope and aspiration for critics and cineastes, is known in the industry as both a straight shooter and a barrel of monkeys — someone who takes the work seriously, but not himself. On Thursday night at STK, he did not disappoint.

He was in full cry with his mates, staying late and talking with all comers. The Bagger, who has admitted here that he finds “There Will Be Blood” more admirable than convincing, introduced himself. Mr. Anderson laughed for a while. And then he laughed a bunch more.

“You know you don’t know a thing about movies,” he said.

Um, gee, the Bagger thought, maybe this is the point where he should change the topic to “Punch-Drunk Love,” another movie by Mr. Anderson, one of his favorite films of all time? But the filmmaker just kept laughing.

“ ‘There Will Be Blood’ was the best movie of the year,” Mr. Anderson said. “Except for maybe ‘Juno.’ And ‘Clayton.’ And ‘Atonement.’ Other than that, it was the best movie of the year.”

Um, there seems to be one omission in that gracious tick-tock, the Bagger noted. The one that sent the Bagger into fan-boy convulsions. The Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men.”

“You really think that movie was better than ours!” Mr. Anderson said, scoffing. “C’mon, do you really believe that?” Mr. Anderson laughed one more time, clapped the Bagger on his back and wished him on his merry, misguided way.



My original content for the day? Why, if I encounter one more article reminding us of the "obscurity" of this year's noms, I'm going to just drink the editor's fuckin' milkshake. Seriously, I know you have stuff to do, people, but you've gotta be kidding me. Y'all went to see Hayden Christensen refuse to use a damned car door this weekend, right?!! C'mon, eejits.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Of Course...

...none of the previous post means for a second that Terry Gilliam's solution isn't worth noting.

Your Mother Should Know

These past few months have been the most chemical imbalancy, abject, crazy-town, gut-wrenchingful months of a life full of 'em, and I figure culminating stress found fulmination finally in a fight or flight response that squarely found itself in column "flight".

Not, mind you, the kind of flight that makes me reparations for being a twenty five year old with a B.A. in Theatre and no discernible future on the horizon, save for the obvious future of time. Consequently, that flight was the kind which shuts you down and cold cocks your system but good. I ran out of "fight" for the first time in my life, and am just left with the angry.

So we're in recuperation land, have been shuffling there in all possible ways since early November, and who knows what bright patch or dark patch we might land into? Keep fastened your seatbelts, because around the corner it's the end of delayed adolescence land, that white elephantine part of yourself that you've concocted with the help of a Protestant-like devotion to films, breakbeats, literature, intense and worthy friendships, theatre, and other forms of worship that were a part of an ego-involved attempt to be a good boy.

I didn't want to be the next disaster in my family. I spent the next eleven years more or less exceeding that expectation. There are many, many things I'd desperately like to keep from those years, least of which are my dreams. My Protestantism, however, needs to make peace with a personal life of some kind.

This should be interesting.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

I'm Your Goddamned Partner

It's got a ridiculous title. It's been nearly twenty years since the last one. George Lucas rejected Frank "ShawFuckinShank Redemption" Darabont's screenplay and gave the reins to David "Copout/Undercooked" Koepp. Last but not least, apparently this one's a full on slapstick comedy... And I officially CAN'T FUCKING WAIT.



Not after seeing that. I'm totally excited.

Another Something...That Rhymes With June.....

Since Something Awful photo-trolls create exempla of the best of our wretchedest holidays far better than we can:



Happy Valentine's Day.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Intermezzo...

...you know, between now and when they call the Dem's race next week...

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Whackity Schmackity Doo

Patton Oswalt discusses a crazy alternate universe on one of his albums, one in which "Arnold Schwarzenegger runs California, torture is legal, and spinach is poison."

Aside from whomever you think should win today or whomever you think shouldn't, would it not just be fundamentally weird to know that Bill Clinton is the (first) First Husband/Gentleman/Hound Dog, and back in the White House? Well, we'd finally have a woman in the office, only it's, you know, her?

To top it all off, Al Gore has a Nobel Prize (Imagine that in 1994), an Oscar, frequently guest appears on brilliant tv shows, and generally saves humanity when he's not ensconced along with Ed Begley Jr. in his sciencey lair.

Most of all, it's going to be weird for Chelsea Clinton, though I'm sure she won't complain, she's used to it.

It might be too weird for me, though. I don't know, aside from an infinite number of actual reasons to not vote for the Clintons, in favor of unwhackifying the Universe as much as possible, I don't want to give some girl I've never met in my life two freakin' Presidents for parents.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Imminently Utterable

..And quite frankly should be repeated, there has been much talk of Juno dissenters dissenting on the grounds that the dialogue is unrealistic. The logical response has been that movies and books, though a mirror to the world, shouldn't produce an image unaltered by imagination.

Do we look like we come out of a Picasso painting, or do we sound like Ray Charles? No, but we find ourselves depicted by those artists whether we want to or not. We see ourselves as we are or as we could be, depending.

No wonder people are so unhappy. There are apparently large sections of the public that have abandoned any sort of fantasy life, whether it be their own, or the one vicariously supplied to them by the movies.

Surely, at large, this isn't true, right? I mean, considering what makes big bugs at the box-office, that just can't be so.

So, maybe the problem is simply a bad habit of compartmentalising. We can accept a pregnant teenager movie, but it better be earnest and depict a Maria Full of Grace-type reality. Fantasy films mustn't, by the way, have any reflection of the real world. Bah.

On a basic level, though, a Death Star doesn't exist to be blown away any more than the President is likely to fight terrorists with his bare hands, any more than it's right to expect people to talk like they're walking out of Raymond Chandler, Quentin Tarantino or Aaron Sorkin. What fun these things are, though.

To indulge in certain illusions will keep you young, people. The good kind of young.

There's good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, just as there're good illusions vs. bad ones. Consult the experts, in either case.

Friday, February 01, 2008

When Your Mind's Made Up

From The Onion AV Club's Film Poll, about the movie Once:

"I hate musicals. I hate earnest singer-songwriters with guitars. I hate indie-movies where nothing much happens but people have profoundly understated experiences. I loved this movie."

—John Shelton, Prague, Czech Republic