The Screengrab : brokeback mountain

DVD Digest for March 3, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

I’ll be reviewing this week’s most notable DVD in a separate post later this morning, but for now here’s a list of this week’s other major releases.

This week’s list of recent releases coming to DVD is looking pretty paltry, with the highest-profile new arrivals being Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (Fox, also Blu-Ray) and (ugh) Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Disney, also Blu-Ray). Also this week is Kristin Scott Thomas in I’ve Loved You So Long (Sony, also Blu-Ray) and Bertrand Tavernier’s long-delayed In the Electric Mist (Image, also Blu-Ray). And, just in time to be tied in with the release of the big-screen blockbuster, Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic (Warner, also Blu-Ray), which got reviewed here by former Screengrabber Kent Beeson.

Aside from the subject of my DVD review later on, this week’s most notable classic release is Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time Redux (Sony). Likewise, not much in the way of TV on DVD, with the biggest-ticket item being ER Season 10 (Warner).

Finally, in Blu-Ray only releases, this week brings Brokeback Mountain (Universal) and The Silence of the Lambs (MGM).

Up The Academy: Screengrab Salutes The All-Time Best & Worst Best Picture Winners (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:30:00 GMT

THE WORST:

CRASH (2004)

I didn’t actively hate Crash when I first saw it. Paul Haggis’ schematic, artificial examination of race relations in Los Angeles was a pleasant enough way to pass an evening: I enjoyed watching Sandra Bullock play against type as a sour yuppie, and the vignette with Michael Peña and his daughter was sweet (in a Six Feet Under subplot kind of way). But the whole storyline with Matt Dillon’s Racist Cop® was nothing more than Haggis the mainstream milquetoast trying way too hard to provoke, like a suburban teen buying a Slipknot hoodie at Hot Topic with his mom’s credit card and then wearing it to church. The really annoying thing about Crash, though, was the way it allowed Academy voters (after pretty much ignoring films like Hoop Dreams and Malcolm X) to pat themselves on the back for their willingness to confront “the race issue” by rewarding Haggis’ toothless paper tiger of a film while simultaneously snubbing the superior (and timely) “gay cowboy” movie that apparently made them feel icky and uncomfortable.

BEN-HUR (1959)

If David Lean is the best-case scenario for a filmmaker who can hit Oscar's Pavlovian reflexes with deadly aim and still produce something worthwhile, Ben-Hur is pretty much the silliest, most bloated example of "epic" filmmaking there is. As it happens, Ben-Hur is a "milestone" in "Oscar history" because it's one of only three movies to win 11 Oscars; the other two are Titanic and Lord Of The Rings: The Film That Never Ends, which pretty much proves that running way over three hours (and the usual budget) are non-negotiable prereqs. Have you watched all of Ben-Hur lately? It's leaden, endless gay camp (Gore Vidal did it on purpose, but it's still not very funny). The chariot race is great, only because William Wyler ceded directorial duties to Western cowboy-stunt specialist Yakima Canutt, who thankfully had zero interest in propriety or "good" directorial values. On the plus side, this makes Spartacus look faultless.

TOM JONES (1963)

With the tail-end exception of 1969's Midnight Cowboy and this film, the Academy did its darndest to ignore changing cinematic mores in the '60s. So: Tom Jones. Henry Fielding's comic genius is boiled down into a series of too-cute reflexive, winking gestures in a long, overcooked souffle. No surprise: Tom Jones was adapted by John Osborne — the angry young man par excellence, so humorless he was buried with a copy of Hamlet in his pocket, with everyone but Hamlet's lines crossed-out — and clunkily directed (per his usual "form") by Tony Richardson. Together, they water down Godardian gestures for farce, toying with every possible distancing device (it's a silent movie! It's an undercranked Keystone Kops moment!) without any real effect or exuberance. Rarely has jollity seemed this excruciating.

THE STING (1973)

Like Tom Jones, The Sting is another would-be light entertainment that's actually incredibly boring and way too long; the highlight is when Paul Newman says "crap." The best part is the old-school Universal logo at the start, and that's over in thirteen seconds, embedded above for your viewing pleasure. Seriously, why do people like this movie? You can listen to Scott Joplin on your own time and there are many much better Redford and Newman charm vehicles (separately, anyway). One side note: somehow, in 1973, Cries And Whispers was also nominated for Best Picture. Really?

CHICAGO (2002)

Chicago isn't the worst musical of the decade (Moulin Rouge! is hard to beat), but it is kind of magnificently dull. Hollywood always loves a good circle-jerk, and this thinly-veiled "condemnation" (read: winking celebration) of celebrity and the glamor of wrong-doing obliges. Criminal justice is like showbiz, because obviously everything is like showbiz, because everything is like Hollywood. The single most memorable moment in the entire movie isn't any of the murder/juicy stuff; it's Richard Gere dancing in his underwear. Rob Marshall's direction is impressively unimaginative — something most people finally caught onto with Memoirs of a Geisha — and let's not even get into what a disservice this does to the memory of the late, great Bob Fosse: he of the original choreography, he who didn't wait for someone to call him a bastard but interrogated himself for real with All That Jazz. Fosse played for keeps, for better or worse; Chicago plays for winks.

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four, Five, Six & Seven

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Vadim Rizov

Oscar Prospectus

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

We’ve already presented our Oscar predictions, and we assure you we put as much thought into them as the next guy…assuming the next guy isn’t Nate Silver. That name may ring a bell if you’re either a baseball fan or a political junkie. His statistical work for Baseball Prospectus, including PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm), has long been invaluable to statheads and fantasy players, but it was his FiveThirtyEight.com project, which proved to be the most accurate predictor of the 2008 election results, that made him a household name (at least in households where MSNBC plays more than three hours a day).

Now Nate Silver has turned his statistical genius toward helping to win your office Oscar pool. “Formally speaking, this required the use of statistical software and a process called logistic regression,” according to New York magazine. “Informally, it involved building a huge database of the past 30 years of Oscar history. Categories included genre, MPAA classification, the release date, opening-weekend box office (adjusted for inflation), and whether the film won any other awards.”

Among Silver’s findings: Heath Ledger runs away with the Supporting Actor category, with an 85.8% chance of winning, Taraji P. Henson is his somewhat surprising pick for Supporting Actress, and Slumdog Millionaire is a slamdunk with a 99% chance of taking home Best Picture. “Slumdog Millionaire won all three awards associated with Oscar success: the Directors Guild Award, the Golden Globe, and the bafta. It’s also a serious film, which the Academy favors. If there’s an upset (which would be a shocker), it will be Milk; guilt over Prop 8 and the Brokeback snub of ’06 could split the vote, with Boyle getting Director and Milk getting Picture.”

Screengrab Review: Milk

Paul Clark — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:34:00 GMT

Following the 2005 release of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, there was some excitement over the possibility that more high-profile gay-themed movies would follow, a development that didn’t really pan out. Now, three years later, Hollywood has once again decided to tackle gay-friendly subject matter, this time the life of slain San Francisco politician and activist Harvey Milk- directed by the openly gay filmmaker Gus Van Sant, no less. But while the film has attained a certain amount of contemporary relevance with its parallels to California’s recently-passed Proposition 8, Milk biggest breakthrough may be the idea that the lives of gay heroes can be boiled down to the Hollywood biopic formula just as easily as their straight counterparts.

Think I’m kidding? Let’s go to the tape: middle-aged Milk (Sean Penn), fed up with his life, moves to San Francisco with his new boyfriend Scott Smith (James Franco). Appalled at the treatment of homosexuals even in the most gay-friendly neighborhood of the most gay-friendly metropolis in America, he’s spurred on to community activism, which ends up leading to politics. After three unsuccessful runs for public office, he finally wins a seat on city’s Board of Supervisors. There, he spearheads a number of major social reforms, including an effort to shoot down the hateful Briggs Initiative in 1978, before being gunned down by a disgruntled formal colleague. Take out the homosexual material and a few of the other details and we could just as easily be talking about any number of civil rights leaders. Hell, there’s even a frightened wheelchair-bound gay boy who inadvertently inspires Milk during his time of doubt, and Smith essentially gets assigned the role of the requisite concerned significant other who wrings his hands and tells Harvey that he’s not devoting enough time to the person who loves him most.

Material this formulaic (courtesy of Big Love writer Dustin Lance Black) would not seem to suit the recent career trajectory of Van Sant, who has lately made a series of highly experimental meditations on death. However, Milk finds Van Sant largely on autopilot, telling his story in a straightforward style that’s virtually indistinguishable than that of most Oscar-bait dramas. Gone are the spare, largely experiential narratives of his other recent films, in favor of a conventional mode of storytelling, with plenty of stock footage and montages to establish the film’s historical context. And while there’s plenty of first-rate cinematography from Van Sant favorite Harris Savides, Van Sant keeps his trademark expressionistic soundscapes to a minimum. Practically the only scenes in the film that feel unmistakably Van Santian are those involving Milk’s fellow supervisor and eventual killer Dan White, played, in yet another in a string of vivid character performances, by Josh Brolin.

If there’s one thing that’s especially distinguished about Milk, it’s the acting. Not only is Brolin perfectly cast as White, but so are Franco, Diego Luna as Milk’s ill-fated rebound lover, Alison Pill as the butch, no-nonsense campaign manager, Denis O’Hare as the hateful Briggs, and so on. Best of all is Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, a former hustler who under Milk’s mentorship is reborn as an activist. And Van Sant wisely lets Anita Bryant play herself in stock footage, letting the smiling, singing anti-gay gorgon serve as a distant, but very real enemy to the beliefs espoused by Milk and his followers. That Bryant would quickly turn from a political force to a punchline in Airplane! in a scant two years is one of history’s more humorous small miracles.

But if the film works- and on balance, I’d say it mostly does- it’s because of Penn, who gives his best performance since… Sweet and Lowdown? Dead Man Walking? Carlito’s Way? Suffice it to say that he’s pretty great here, infusing the wit and intensity that has marked his best performances with a warmth that I’ve never seen from him before. Penn’s Milk is a natural leader because he cares and brings out the best in those around him, but Penn also doesn’t shy away from the thornier aspects of the character. Unfortunately, the film itself isn’t nearly as well-equipped to deal with the contradictions of a man who advocated coming out of the closet yet remained closeted himself for over forty years, who was both an impassioned advocate for social change and a canny politician and self-promoter. At one point, Milk mentions that three of his lovers have attempted suicide, and it comes as a shock because the film so completely paints him as a caring partner and companion. And this, more than anything else, is what keeps Milk from being the cinematic landmark that it so clearly aches to be- that it’s so eager to give the audience Harvey Milk the secular saint that it ultimately forgets about Harvey Milk the man.

Star Trek Can't Be Metrosexual; Or, Why Action Heroes Must Have Manly Haircuts

Vadim Rizov — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:59:00 GMT

So the long-awaited Star Trek trailer dropped, by all available evidence, sometime on Saturday and was exhaustively analyzed on the Internet by everyone capable of typing with an interest. As a franchise now over the forty-year mark, there's legions of the (overly-)invested just waiting to see what J.J. Abrams was going to do to Gene Roddenberry's long-straggling franchise. (Never mind that the Mission: Impossible had been kicking around for just as long when he got around to doing the third installment; presumably no one was that invested in the series' '88 iteration, whereas there's some desperate souls out there who still want to talk about how awesome Deep Space 9 was.)

And, of course, no one can agree on anything. But we can all agree on one thing: men who spend too much time on their hair aren't manly.

Yes, Abrams' Star Trek cast is full of pretty young things who'd be just as home on network TV making 13-year-old girls' hearts sw jasoon: Chris Pine, a TV journeyman, as Kirk, and Zachary Quinto (who apparently is on this show called "Heroes" that I really have never bothered to watch) as Spock. The smaller parts have been filled out with better but presumably less expensive supporting actors: Eric Bana, Simon Pegg, John Cho. (God bless the smart-ass who cast Winona Ryder as Spock's human mom; to suggest that her career has sunk so far that she had to find marriage on another planet is pretty hilarious.) No one, however, seems to be interested in their qualifications. Old-school Trek fans have recently been suggesting that the success of the original show rested upon its casting "real" actors with presence in the leads. This is obviously insane: Shatner was a journeyman actor going around doing bad things like trying to be one of The Brothers Karamazov, Leonard Nimoy was a guest-star on pretty much an TV series that would have him, etc. They lucked it in being a show that, whatever its campy excesses, had enough bold-faced Ideas to engage college students and create its own visual iconography — one that would subsequently be confused for a wonderful and brilliant vision, which it isn't. It's just part of the American pop-culture landscape.

Regardless: the big problem seems to be that everyone's haircut is too pretty. One "sott68" was one of the first, over at Ain't It Cool News, was the first to raise an important concern: "No Hetero kid actors available?" he wondered. "Kirk looks a bit womanish." The conservative commentators over at right-wingnut film site Dirty Harry's Place had similar concerns: "If I were a commander in a military-type body like Starfleet," explained one Jared, "any pretty-boy with the frosted hair that looks like it was commissioned in a beauty-salon instead of a barbershop would have to scrub the latrines with a brush made up of the hair we shaved off his head." One "whiskey" gets a little more explicit: "We are talking here [...] the kind of gay vibe that Hollywood insists on pushing. Guys don’t like it — they want leading men who are tough, not highly groomed, salon-friendly, sort of gay Russell Brand types."

Forget about the latent homophobia disguised as some kind of "respect" for the original; if a bunch of Star Trek nerds wants to have a nice day worrying about Kirk's masculinity (and pillory the buzzword "metrosexual" further to death), let 'em have it. What I'm really intrigued by is the idea that you can measure action-hero-viability via hair. One time I made a horrible mistake and went to the Atlas Barber School for a $4 hair-cut, only to find out that what I wanted wasn't possible; real men, it seems, get their haircuts with clippers; layering is for effeminates. Apparently this same kind of logic applies to action heroes.

But when you think about who's been cast lately as ass-kicking heroes, these commenters aren't that far off; they're merely responding to a casting stereotype that's been going on for years. Nothing against Jason Statham (no one's a bigger Transporter fan than me) or the growly-voiced likes of Vin Diesel, but if you look at the list of frequently-shaven-headed actors who've been trying to kill everything that moves on-screen in recent years, then yes: it does definitely look like J.J. Abrams isn't just taking his casting ideas from what kind of 20something inspires teen viewing on TV, but he's actively trying to queer things up, Kirk-Uhuru sex scene or no. At least Schwarzenneger and Stallone got to keep their hair, as ridiculous as it is. If Star Trek lets action stars get nice hair-cuts, then I'm all in favor of turning Star Trek into the Brokeback Mountain of sci-fi space action.

A high-quality trailer is here; far as I'm concerned, it's just fine.

Trailer Review: Milk

Paul Clark — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

After making four films that revealed the capital-A artist within, Gus Van Sant returns to a more mainstream project, an account of the life and death of gay activist-turned-politician Harvey Milk, played here by Sean Penn. Yet while the biopic is one of the most formulaic and Oscar-grubbing of genres, Milk looks like a Van Sant movie through and through. For one thing, the film appears to rival Brokeback Mountain as the most sexually frank movie about homosexuals to be released by a Hollywood distributor to date, in keeping with both the material and with Van Sant’s own work. In addition, Van Sant’s style is very much in evidence- plentiful follow shots and off-kilter framing- particularly in the bits involving Dan White (Josh Brolin, who between this and W. is remaking his career playing men the American Left loves to hate). Unlike many films in this genre, whose stories remain inoffensively in the past, Milk has relevance even today, when gay rights is a point of contention for many Americans. In short, this is one of the best trailers I’ve seen so far this year, and the movie itself has rocketed near the top of my must-see films for fall.

Trailer Review: Rachel Getting Married

Paul Clark — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

For years, Anne Hathaway has been attempting to make the transition from Disney-family princess roles to full-blown adult stardom. But despite a handful of much-appreciated topless scenes in Havoc and Brokeback Mountain, it hasn’t quite happened yet. I suppose part of the problem is that Hathaway’s roles have been less showy than her costars’, resulting in them getting the lion’s share of the attention. But this time, Hathaway’s not taking any chances, playing a recovering addict whose erratic behavior throws something of a monkey wrench into the wedding of her sister. However, in spite of this quirky setup, I’ve got high hopes for Rachel Getting Married, with director Jonathan Demme making a long-overdue return to off-kilter comedy, and the presence of the sorely-missed Debra Winger in the pivotal role of Hathaway’s tough-love mom, a part she ought to turn into something more than a long-suffering cliché. Plus it’s in the Competition lineup at Venice, which is enough of an endorsement for me.

The Gay Pride Top Twenty (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:45:00 GMT

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975)

By the time I first encountered the film version of Richard O’Brien’s bizarre musical paean to ‘50s horror movies and polymorphous perversity, it was already a well-established cult classic, regularly attended by freaks and frat boys, geeks and fad-of-the-week trendies. But underneath the audience-participation spectacle was a gleefully subversive last gasp celebration of gender-blind free love (before pop culture sexuality became more repressive yet somehow simultaneously more commodified, fetishized and pervasive in the neo-con '80s and '90s). The invocation of Tim Curry’s infamous sweet transvestite Dr. Frank-n-Furter to “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure” became highly questionable advice in the AIDS era; even in the no-holes-barred world of the film's Transsexual Transylvanians, Frank’s lifestyle’s too extreme (and the character, like many overreaching sensualists before him, meets a tragic demise). Yet, the Rocky cult continues to flourish, years after its early ‘80s heyday, with screenings often serving as safe havens for GLBT (and straight!) misfits seeking community, acceptance and glamour in the midst of a “Science Fiction Double Feature” lost in time, lost in space and meaning. (Mee-eeaaaaa-nnniiinnnggg!!!!)

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005)

According to the official Oscar narrative, 2005 was the Year of Gay Cinema, and Brokeback Mountain, which won three Academy Awards that year, was its purest expression. And that’s true, to a point; in a year that seemed to feature more mainstream movies than usual with gay themes, Brokeback Mountain, with its gorgeous scenic cinematography, its elegiac tone, and its powerhouse lead performances by the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as doomed, love-struck cowboys, stood out. But more than a simple movie, Brokeback Mountain was that rare thing, a cultural phenomenon: a work of art that transcends its nature as merely a good or bad, popular or unpopular, example of its type and becomes something that permeates the culture and becomes a sort of intellectual shorthand for something greater than itself. Not only did the movie provide us with a genuine catchphrase in “I wish I knew how to quit you”, but it became such a phenomenon that pundits on the left and the right used its box office numbers to defend or denigrate the mainstreaming of homosexuality. One’s very reaction to it seemed to become a referendum on gay rights. And while there’s no denying that a lot of the attention it got was of the negative sort, tinged with a base and hysterical juvenile homophobia, from the first internet wag who dubbed it Bareback Mountin’ to the last sports radio talk-show guest who used its title as a cheap butt-fuck joke, it saturated the very cultural discourse of its time. And in that way, it advanced the cause of gay cinema – and maybe of gay rights in general – more than its makers could have ever dreamed.

BOUND (1996)

Because its action unfolds mostly in a couple of apartments on what appears to be the planet Earth, it's tempting to think that Bound is the only Wachowski Brothers movie to take place in the real world, when actually it's as much a fantasy as The Matrix or Speed Racer. Gina Gershon's Corky may hang out in the sort of bars where the women are built like Brian Dennehy…but she's still built like Gina Gershon. When she hooks up with breathy femme fatale Violet (Jennifer Tilly), it's the sort of lesbian romance that two dudes from Chicago would dream up. (That is, they were two dudes at the time, Larry Wachowski's later gender bending adventures notwithstanding.) Still, their love affair isn't just Skin-emax-style titillation; it's actually handled rather matter-of-factly in what might otherwise be a pretty standard neo-noir flick. Joe Pantoliano's greasy hood Caesar may disapprove, but who cares what he thinks? Violet and Corky aren't just partners in crime, plotting to swipe two million dollars out from under the noses of Caesar and his gangster pals. They have genuine love and respect for each other, a rarity in a genre where everyone is usually out to screw everybody else.

THE COCKETTES (2002)

This tremendously entertaining documentary, directed by Billy Weber and David Weissman, records through vintage footage and new interviews the rise and fall of San Francisco's pre-eminent drug-addled co-ed transvestite hippie song and dance trip. Led by the charismatic Hibiscus, footage of whom provides grounds for a convincing argument that the Second Coming occurred sometime in the late sixties and that Jesus had to leave again but wants everyone to know that he really enjoyed the acid, the Cockettes went from improvisational dancing to the accompaniment of old records before the midnight movie at the Palace Theater to elaborate, high-camp stage musicals. Their story doubles as a parable of the bust-up of the counterculture; the troupe eventually split up over the question of whether they were in it to make money or for love of performance with quasi-religious ambitions. Hibiscus and his devotees broke apart to form the Angels of Light, while the other Cockettes stormed New York for a disastrous run on Broadway before sneering crowds of jaded, black-hearted sophisticates. They crawled back home and had a few more local triumphs (including the sci-fi extravagaza Journey to the Center of Uranus, starring special guest Divine), but time and medical bills began to tear them apart. Some of the survivors interviewed in the movie look as if they're still trying to catch their breath since having stormed the Bastille, but between their stories and the clips of the troupe in action, few movies have made a misspent youth look like such a noble and enviable calling.

LAW OF DESIRE (1987)

In 1987, American audiences shell-shocked from AIDS and the sexual revolution made a blockbuster out of Fatal Attraction, the movie that created the modern stereotype of the spurned one-night-stand turned stalker as the ultimate embodiment of the fear of the loss of control that can come with romantic obsession and sexual freedom. That same year, Pedro Almodovar, a Spaniard liberated by the death twelve years earlier of the dictator Franco, served up Antonio Banderas as a young, straight stud who experiences one night of bliss with the celebrity director Pablo (Eusebio Poncela) and is so determined to make just one more trip to the well that lays siege to his reluctant love object's life, killing the boy-man of Pablo's dreams (who's such a dullard that the audience couldn't care less) and holding his sister (Carmen Maura), who used to be his brother, hostage until his steamy demands are met. With Banderas in the role and with Almodovar nudging him on, it is very hard to watch this without thinking, "Sure wish somebody loved me enough to put a gun on my family and pitch my significant other off the nearest cliff." Some sniff at early Almodovar as a frivolous artist, but for all his camp humor and extravangance, he was deadly serious in his insistence that respect be paid to those willing to go all the way for love.

Click here for Part One, Part Two and Part Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Scott Von Doviak, Phil Nugent

Trailer Review: The Incredible Hulk

John Constantine — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:52:00 GMT

Yeah, yeah, Ang Lee makes beautiful movies. Oh, Brokeback Mountain is a romantic masterpiece! Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a ballet of sound and emotion! The Ice Storm is tense, suburban tragedy at its finest! Fuck all that. Ang Lee made Hulk. He is the director who thought giant CGI dogs and Nick Nolte were a good combination. Marvel Pictures is banking on the whole world to have shoved that atrocity out of their minds as The Incredible Hulk is a reboot for the franchise and from the looks of this trailer, it’s a fine upgrade. We’ve gone from Eric Bana to Ed Norton (awesome), giant CGI dogs to giant CGI Tim Roth (double awesome), and sloppy introspection to big, dumb action (not necessarily awesome but wise). There are some downgrades (Jennifer Connelly to Liv Tyler is not awesome) but things are looking good. Ed Norton is pitch-perfect as Bruce Banner in these scenes, a perfect mix of frightened and exhausted. It’s nice to see Tim Roth back in a blockbuster as well. I was beginning to think that Planet of the Apes had done scared him off for good!

Extremely Sad Breaking News: Heath Ledger Has Died

Gwynne Watkins — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:34:00 GMT

Twenty-eight-year-old Heath Ledger, one of Hollywood's most promising young actors, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment two hours ago, reportedly surrounded by sleeping pills. Ledger started out his career as a teen heartthrob, garnering young fans and critical derision with pap like A Knight's Tale — but like Leonardo DiCaprio and James Spader before him, Ledger quickly dropped the pretty-boy act for edgier fare that showed off his true range. His breakthrough performance as a taciturn gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain garnered him a slew of Best Actor nominations, including a bid for the Oscar (which he lost to Philip Seymour Hoffman). Ledger had plenty of cinematic prospects ahead: his interpretation of The Joker in The Dark Knight is already the year's most buzzed-about performance, and he was slated for the lead in Terry Gilliam's next film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. His death is a great loss for his generation of actors. (Speaking of which, between Ledger and Brad Renfro, we're starting to get seriously worried. Ryan Gosling, please tell us you're doing okay.)

Anna Faris: The Meryl Streep of Bong Hits

Phil Nugent — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Ty Burr celebrates Anna Faris, "the very best thing in very bad movies." At a time when good actresses are plentiful and good parts for them seem to be scarcer than ever, Faris is hard-working yet remains cruelly underappreciated by critics, because it's been her fortune to have been kept busy by the makers of the some really tacky movies. Faris's big break came with the Scary Movie series, and though she's had a couple of small but attention-getting roles in classier fare such as Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain, her bread and butter has remained comedies pitched at, shall we say, the undemanding audience. Burr writes that "not many people want to admit they sat through the execrable 2002 Rob Schneider film, The Hot Chick, those who did know that Faris just about made it bearable as a woman weirdly turned on by a man's soul in her best friend's body. Or how about the silly romantic comedy Just Friends (2005)? If not for her slapstick turn as a Courtney-Love-style rock star, the movie would be landfill."

Now, Faris has finally landed a starring role in a movie by a major, big-name director. Fat lot of good it's done her. Gregg Araki's Smiley Face, a stoner comedy with political pretensions, should have done at least as much for Faris's career as Araki's previous movie, Mysterious Skin, did for its star, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who needed to give a brilliant performance in a challenging role to elevate his image from Third Rock from the Sun kid to serious young actor. Smiley Face isn't as strong a movie as Mysterious Skin — it's a goof, and Araki's attempts to make it a goof with something to meaningful to say just weigh it down. But Faris gives an amazing slapstick performance as an endearing Los Angeles pothead who's lost in her own world. It would be a star-making turn in anyone saw the movie, but after a successful screening at Cannes, Smiley Face was slipped into theaters in New York and L.A. at the tail end of last year for a "limited engagement" run that turned out to be a sneak preview for the movie's appearance on DVD this week. Anyone who's interested to see what brilliant comic acting looks like these days is advised to rent it. In the meantime, Faris will still be out there someplace. The promise of Scary Movie 5 beckons.