The Screengrab : happy-go-lucky

Screengrab Review: "Goodbye Solo"

Phil Nugent — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Goodbye Solo, the third feature from Ramin Bahrani, the 34-year-old, American-born writer-director of Iranian extraction who was recently inducted by A. O. Scott into the "neo-neo-realism" hall of fame, represents a major leap forward for a filmmaker who wasn't in a bad place to begin with. Shot in Bahrani's home town of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, it's one of those rare movies that is hard to discuss, in terms of the story and characters, without making it sound simpler--and more pat--than it is. The title character, Solo (played by Souléymane Sy Savané) is a Sengalese immigrant who's driving a cab while working at fulfilling his dream to become a flight attendant; optimistic and high-spirited, he meets his match in the form of William (Red West), a sturdy-looking old man and the demeanor and expression of someone who once loaned Death twenty bucks and has decided to go ask for his money back. William regularly employs Solo to drive him to the movies, a pilgrimage he seems to be making so he'll have an excuse to talk to the kid who mans the ticket station; one night, he tells Solo that he'd like to schedule an appointment at some future date for Solo to chauffeur him out to a nearby nature spot--a mountain called Blowing Rock, where the wind blows up towards heaven--and leave him there. There's a good tip in it for him.

Part of what sets Bahrani-- who co-wrote Goodbye Solo and his previous film, Chop Shop, with Bahareh Azimi--apart from the run of Hollywood directors is how resistant he is to reducing his characters to pieces in a machine that runs on formula. Having gotten Solo's attention, William finds himself unable to get rid of him. The cabbie, who already has a full plate studying for his flight attendant exam while juggling the demands of a lover (Carmen Leyva) who'd rather he stay grounded and close at hand and the woman's tiny daughter, Alex (Diana Franco Galindo), stays in William's face, calling him "big dog" and trying to show him a good enough time that he'll snap out of his suicidal fixation. He also makes a stab at getting to the bottom of whatever has turned William against life, which is a dry run: Solo does learn a bit more about his favorite passenger, but if Goodbye Solo is packing anything that be given so banal a lable as a "point", it's simply that the forces that drive people can't be summed up in the space of a ninety-minute movie, and that someone who's made up his mind to recede and withdraw, and who has his own damn reasons for it, can't be easily persuaded to change course by all the free beers and childlike smiles in the world.

What sets Bahrani apart from some of the other directors in Scott's neo-neo-realist pantheon, such as Lance Hammer (Ballast) and Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy, Old Joy), is that he can put miserable people on the screen and generate something from their presence that's richer and more complicated than mere pathos or the warm feeling some moviegoers get from feeling sorry for poor people. And as he demonstrated with his nonprofessional leads in both Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, he's also different from some of his alleged peers in that he knows how to get non-actors to behave expressively and to hold the screen, instead of filling a movie with nonprofessionals and inviting the audience to admire how authentically uninteresting they are. In an interview with the director at SpoutBlog, Noralli Ryan Fores described a moment during filming when Galindo pulled Bahrani aside "to ask why it was that [Solo's] character at this moment seemed so sad. 'I don’t know; why do you think he is so sad?' Bahrani asked." That kind of intelligent openness to the mystery of what people are about suffuses the picture. You can taste it even in Michael Simmonds's cinematography, which makes Winston-Salem seem like a place so alive that it seems likely that every bit player would have a story worth telling.

The movie's web site describes Souléymane Sy Savané as a "former flight attendant, high-fashion runway model and African televison star." I don't know what he got up to on African TV, but Savané's performance in this, his first movie, is altogether remarkable. It's earned comparisons to Sally Hawkins's work in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, and it's a similar kind of high-wire feat, in that you may be aware of how easily Solo's cheerful determination to insert himself into other people's lives, whether they want him to or not, because he thinks he can get them to share his affable worldview (and then everything will be all right) could easily make him one irritating son of a bitch. Solo doesn't have as secure a support network or financial status as Happy-Go-Lucky's Poppy, and there are moments when life wipes the smile off Solo's face and leaves him winded. Even then, he never senses what's clear to the audience, which is that his indefatigable good cheer and expansive nature are every bit as mysterious as William's determination to pull defeat out of the jaws of acceptance and possibility--or, as William might see it, to go out on his own terms.

As William, Red West has the most well-worn face, in terms of its exposure to the camera, of anyone who's been in a Bahrani movie to date. The 72-year-old West is best known as a member of the Memphis Mafia, the group of old pals and bodyguards that settled around Elvis Presley. You can catch glimpses of him in Elvis on Tour and Elvis: That's the Way It Is, but long before that, he had broken into movies and TV as a stunt man, with help from actor and Friend of Elvis Nick Adams, who hired West to work on his TV series The Rebel. That eventually led to scads of acting jobs, mostly in small roles, in such movies as Walking Tall and Framed and a shitload of TV. More recently, he appeared in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker, Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, and Ira Sachs's 40 Shades of Blue, though his most prominent role in a film may have been in the 1989 bad-laugh classic Road House. He's a hard-working pro, and in Goodbye Solo, he looks like an inexplicably magnetic old man who Bahrani lured over from standing in line at the DMV. Nothing in West's catalog of eighty-something movie and TV appearances would give you much reason to think that he could pull off what's asked of him here. William turns out to have a greater tolerance for Solo's company than you might have guessed, and he also turns out to be capable of going from ornery to scary when he feels that Solo's crossed the line. Then the moment passes, and you can see that William has one more trespass to regret, and that it'll be bothering him long after Solo has shrugged it off, which happens pretty much instantaneously. West never overplays his hand, and you can't take your eyes off him. The next time he runs into Elvis, who famously fired him and banished him from his sight a year before the King's death, West can delight his old pard with the news that, of the two of them, he was the one who wound up getting the breakthrough movie role.

DVD Digest for March 10, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a handful of the most acclaimed films of 2008, and an animated classic gets released from the Disney vaults again.

This week’s selection of recent releases coming to DVD includes some of 2008’s best-reviewed films, including Sean Penn giving an Oscar-winning performance in Gus Van Sant’s Milk (Universal, also Blu-Ray), Anne Hathaway in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married (Sony, also Blu-Ray), Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York (Sony, also Blu-Ray) [the best film of the year, says I], Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky (Disney), and the Swedish vampire chiller Let the Right One In (Magnolia). Also this week, Jason Statham in Transporter 3 (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray), the real-life blues story Cadillac Records (Sony, also Blu-Ray), Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott in Role Models (Universal, also Blu-Ray), Charlize Theron in the WTO-centric ensemble piece Battle in Seattle (Universal, also Blu-Ray), and finally, one of the worst-received films of 2008, Mark Herman’s Holocaust-themed family movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Disney).

The big news in classic releases this week is the 70th Anniversary “Platinum Edition” of one of Disney’s greatest animated classics, Pinocchio. Also coming to Blu-Ray, the new DVD includes new commentary from Leonard Maltin and others, some newly-unearthed deleted scenes and storyboards, and a bunch of new features for kids and animation buffs alike. Also this week: Richard Gere and Edward Norton in Primal Fear Special Edition (Paramount, also Blu-Ray), and perhaps the least likely “classic” I’ve spotlighted to date, Howard the Duck Special Edition (Universal).

In TV on DVD news, this week brings South Park Season 12 (Paramount, also Blu-Ray) and The Starter Wife Season 1 (Universal).

Finally, the biggest Blu-Ray only release this week is Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997 (Warner), which is great news if you don’t mind paying for two DVDs you’ll probably never watch just so you get DVDs of the Burton Batman movies. Also, where’s Mask of the Phantasm?

Oscar Fallout: MIke Leigh's Diary, Danny Boyle's Home Base

Phil Nugent — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:00:00 GMT

The last scattered bits of 2009 Oscar news are petering out over the Atlantic. The Guardian has Mike Leigh's Oscar week diary: Leigh, whose Happy-Go-Lucky star, Sally Hawkins, was robbed of the Best Actress nomination she was widely assumed to have coming her way, but Leigh himself somehow managed to nab a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. (This is typical of the Academy's sense of humor, since Leigh is known to develop his movies out of improvisational sessions with his cast and used to take a pass on giving himself official writing credits until he moved from television to theatrical-release films and the unions got involved.) Leigh reports that his Los Angeles cab driver "thinks that we're kidding when we say it's got only one nomination", but not because he thought that the movie deserved better: Travis Bickle had "never heard of Happy-Go-Lucky." A recurrent theme quickly develops. Told that Happy-Go-Lucky is "creeping up in the blogs and polls" and that "yesterday, the bookies' odds in London were 39-1", but Leigh can only shrug and confess that he's "convinced that Dustin Lance Black will win for Milk." His next day in town, he enjoys "breakfast in the patio cafe" with his sons, after which "we potter round Hollywood Boulevard with its stars on the sidewalk and its tacky gift shops - it feels familiar to my film-maker son Leo, who's just been shooting in Blackpool. The boys snap me with a plastic Oscar in a shop. We all agree that's the nearest I'll get to one." The day of the awards, his dates for breakfast are David Hare and the screenwriter Danny Strong, who "insist that my category is wide open, and I stand a good chance. Still unconvinced." Finally, Leigh, who has been nominated twice for director and a total of four times for original screenplay, insists that "At one, weird moment, some strange force suddenly convinces you that you're about to win, while you affect to look benign and generous for the camera that's suddenly in your face; then you don't win, and you spend the rest of the night trying to be grown-up and sporting. You even try to enjoy yourself." He's got the part about covering up his expectation that he might win down to a science. In the end, he claims to be happy to lose to such a deserving crowd (though he thinks Sally Hawkins got shafted) and salutes Danny Boyle as a deserving winner. Give the man credit for being a gentleman.

Boyle himself has been taking his prize on a victory lap, stopping off at "St Mary's Social Club in Radcliffe, Bury, where his family and supporters watched the ceremony", and which Boyle was good enough to give a shout-out to in his Oscar speech. Boyle has already been around to the establish, which his father used to run--"He used to get up and sing, 'Oh Danny Boyle', which was pretty embarrassing when you're 11 years old."--to show off his Golden Globe and his Bafta, and by now you'd think that the locals might be getting a little tired of the sight of him bursting in yelling, "Hey! Look what I got!" But apparently Radcliffe is a tolerant place, and everyone seemed tickled that he'd pulled off a trifecta. Now the local council is considering him for "the honour of Freeman of the Borough of Bury," which comes with fries.

Screengrab Predicts the Oscars: The Winners (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:00:00 GMT

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

And the nominees are...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan
The Reader - David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire - Simon Beaufoy
Doubt - John Patrick Shanley

Paul Clark Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

It’s the Best Picture nominee, so it’ll win here too.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Ugh.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

It’s a good rule of thumb that the Screenplay Oscars go to the movies that deserve a Best Picture nomination but aren’t going to get one. This year, the screenplay adaptation category mostly consists of movies that, deserving or not, have already received Best Picture noms, leaving the popular and critically acclaimed (and I'd argue overhyped) Slumdog Millionaire to take home the Screenplay Oscar as a consolation prize because it’s not going to get anything else.

Should Win: John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Will Win: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

Nick Schager Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

Rolling, rolling, rolling, keep that Slumdog rolling…

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: The Reader

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

And the nominees are...

Wall-E - Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter
Happy-Go-Lucky - Mike Leigh
Frozen River - Courtney Hunt
In Bruges - Martin McDonagh
Milk - Dustin Lance Black

Paul Clark Predicts: Milk

Wall-E is more a director’s movie than a writer’s movie, and the other three nominees will split the indie vote. So this category will be Milk’s best shot at a win.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Milk

I’m thinking this is where Milk gets the love it’s denied in the Best Picture and Best Director races, but Wall-E could be a spoiler.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: In Bruges

This one’s quite a bit more open, because only one film is up for a Best Picture Oscar. Milk might seem to be the favorite, but a case can certainly be made for the otherwise-ignored Happy-Go-Lucky and the cult favorite In Bruges. Normally I’d guess that Wall-E would be a lock, but the presence of the animation category might jeopardize its chances. This one could be one of the tightest calls of the year, like I know what I’m talking about.

Should Win: Andrew Stanton & Jim Reardon, Wall-E
Will Win: Martin McDonagh, In Bruges

Nick Schager Predicts: Milk

This may be the tightest race, since it’s likely the only award that both Milk and Happy-Go-Lucky have a legit shot at winning. Given Sally Hawkins’ egregious snub in the Best Actress category, the Academy must not dig Leigh’s latest, so Dustin Lance Black should be at the podium come Oscar night.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: In Bruges

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Milk

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THERE WILL BE MILK!

BEST ART DIRECTION

And the nominees are...

Changeling – James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
The Dark Knight – Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando
The Duchess – Michael Carlin, Rebecca Alleway
Revolutionary Road – Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt

Paul Clark Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Here’s where Button starts ruling. With its ornate period settings, Duchess could surprise, but I’d say Button has this by virtue of sheer scale, spanning continents, and decades’ worth of sets.

Andrew Osborne, Nick Shager & Scott Von Doviak Predict: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

And the nominees are...

Changeling – Tom Stern
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Claudio Miranda
The Dark Knight – Wally Pfister
The Reader – Chris Menges, Roger Deakins
Slumdog Millionaire – Anthony Dod Mantle

Paul Clark Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

Anthony Dod Mantle, you are a sinner. But on Sunday, February 22, you’ll be a sinner with an Oscar.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Nick Shager Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NO CONSENSUS!

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

And the nominees are...

Australia – Catherine Martin
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Jacqueline West
The Duchess – Michael O'Connor
Milk – Danny Glicker
Revolutionary Road – Albert Wolsky

Paul Clark Predicts: The Duchess

It’s got the frilliest costumes, which is as good an indicator as any, I suppose.

Andrew Osborne and Nick Schager Predict: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Milk

I want Milk to win, because why can't costumes from a recent era ever win this category, dammit? But I fear this award may go to The Duchess.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

BEST FILM EDITING

And the nominees are...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
The Dark Knight – Lee Smith
Frost/Nixon – Mike Hill, Daniel P. Hanley
Milk – Elliot Graham
Slumdog Millionaire – Chris Dickens

Paul Clark Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

Both Button and Slumdog have snazzy flashback structures (so do Milk and Frost, come to think). But Slumdog’s is flashier, so it’ll win here.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Dark Knight

Nick Schager Predicts: Slumdog Millionaire

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: The Dark Knight

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NO CONSENSUS!

BEST MAKEUP

And the nominees are...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Greg Cannom
The Dark Knight – John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan
Hellboy II: The Golden Army – Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

Paul Clark Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Hellboy’s prosthetic work is far more ambitious, but Button will dominate among those who can’t distinguish between the film’s CGI work and its traditional makeup effects.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Old baby = Oscar!

Nick Schager, Sarah Clyne Sundberg & Scott Von Doviak Predict: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

BEST SOUND EDITING

And the nominees are...

The Dark Knight – Richard King
Iron Man – Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
Slumdog Millionaire – Tom Sayers
Wall-E – Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
Wanted – Wylie Stateman

Paul Clark Predicts: Iron Man

This category often goes to something that doesn’t have a lot of other Oscar love (remember when they gave one to The Ghost and the Darkness?). And I just can’t bring myself to vote for Wanted.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Dark Knight

Nick Schager: Slumdog Millionaire

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: The Dark Knight

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THE DARK KNIGHT

BEST SOUND MIXING

And the nominees are...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Mark Weingarten
The Dark Knight – Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
Slumdog Millionaire – Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty
Wall-E – Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, Ben Burtt
Wanted – Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño, Petr Forejt

Paul Clark Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Dark Knight and Wanted should split the “crash-bang-boom” vote, Wall-E’s visual wonders may (sadly) overwhelm the aural ones, and Slumdog could be too small to prevail here. That leaves Button, a movie the voters clearly like, and which could end up cleaning up the tech categories.

Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager & Scott Von Doviak Predict: The Dark Knight

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THE DARK KNIGHT

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

And the nominees are...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
The Dark Knight – Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber, Paul Franklin
Iron Man – John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick, Shane Mahan

Paul Clark Predicts: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

See Best Makeup.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Dark Knight

Well, now, this one’s a real toss-up, but I suspect the Academy considers The Dark Knight more of a special effects movie...because, y’know, Benjamin Button’s all about acting.

Nick Schager and Scott Von Doviak Predict: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

THE JEAN HERSHOLT HUMANITARIAN AWARD

And the nominee is...

Jerry Lewis

Paul Clark Predicts: Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis will win the Humanitarian Award. And you can take that to the bank.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Jerry Lewis

I’m hoping we finally get some clips from The Day The Clown Cried.

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: JERRY LEWIS

Stay tuned for Mickey Rourke's potato face, Darren Aronofsky's peculiar moustache, Sean Penn's disapproving grimace and Frank Langella's sweet, sweet bumcakes as the Screengrab 2009 Oscar Special continues!

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Nick Schager, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

Thursday Poll for January 29, 2009

Paul Clark — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

With Oscar nominations, there of course comes the second-guessing. While many of our favorites made the cut this year, it seems like just as many got the shaft. But which was most egregiously snubbed? In a shocking turn of events, the Best Picture omission of fanboy favorite The Dark Knight was narrowly edged out by Academy voters’ lack of love for Happy-Go-Lucky’s persistently positive Poppy, Sally Hawkins. Hawkins’ non-nomination brought in 37% of the vote (compared to Dark Knight’s 32%), and prompted Steve C. to ask how the Academy could honor the screenplay for Mike Leigh’s film but not Hawkins herself. Astute question, Steve, and I’d add that it’s doubly odd considering that, this being a Mike Leigh film, Hawkins would no doubt have had a good amount of input on the screenplay, given his methods. Coming in third and fourth place, respectively, were Clint Eastwood’s growly star turn in Gran Torino and The Boss' title track from The Wrestler. Finally, only 5% of the voters found Woody Allen’s inability to procure a fifteenth Best Original Screenplay nomination for Vicky Cristina Barcelona to be the Academy’s biggest oversight this year. I guess that makes sense, since after all, it’s not like he’ll show up for the ceremony anyway…

Moving on to the movies that were nominated, I find myself surprisingly unmoved by this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees. Maybe it’s just that we’re coming off a year in which not only did I actually like all five nominated movies, but I thought that two of them- including the eventual winner- were out-and-out masterpieces. This year, on the other hand… yeesh. Of the five nominees, I can only claim to have liked two of them, and I wasn’t even all that keen on those. How about you? How many of this year’s Best Picture nominees did you like?

(In case you’ve forgotten, and I wouldn’t blame you if you have, the Best Picture nominees are: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire)

How many of this year's Best Picture nominations did you LIKE? | BuzzDash polls

Bonus poll: much has been made of how this year’s Best Picture nominees are the least box-office-friendly in years, with only one having played in more than 1,000 prior to nomination day. So, just for curiosity’s sake, how many of this year’s Best Picture nominees have you seen?

How many of this year's Best Picture nominations have you SEEN? | BuzzDash polls

As always, the comments section is open. Please keep death threats addressed to non-Dark Knight nominating Academy members to a minimum. See you next week!

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

BEST ACTRESS

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

Meryl Streep and her peculiar Livia Soprano accent in Doubt will be a shoe-in, and Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road is nearly as automatic. Anne Hathaway, as one of our commenters put it, acted the shit out of Rachel Getting Married. Cate Blanchett put on old lady makeup for Benjamin Button. That leaves one wild card slot for Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky.

WINNER
Kate Winslet

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Nicole Kidman (Australia)
Keira Knightley (The Duchess)
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (The Reader)

Like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kate Winslet has managed to be in two likely movies this year. She will be nominated for The Reader since it's a Holocaust movie in which she plays a morally dubious character, which easily trumps nineteen-fifties repression. That, and the fact that she wears a sagging old lady suit and appears naked (though not at the same time, thankfully). The unwritten law of the Oscars states that there must be at least one costume drama in one of the more important nominations, so why not Keira Knightley? Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman seems due for a nomination, and the Academy will want to work Australia in there somewhere. If memory serves, frail white women on that continent tend to do well with the Academy. Anne Hathaway will get a nomination for slumming it in Rachel Getting Married when she might have starred in something far glossier. Meryl Streep will be in the mix due to the need to throw Doubt a bone and because her showing up on the carpet every year in crazy cat lady garb makes everybody happy.

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Angelina Jolie (Changeling)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

One might as well send out ballots with Streep’s name pre-printed on them every year, and this year is no exception, with her turn as Doubt’s Sister Aloysius getting lots of attention. Hathaway’s revelatory performance in Jonathan Demme’s family drama should carry its awards-season momentum to an easy nomination and, I predict, a win, in keeping with the long tradition of hot starlets de-glamming in scruffy movies to win Oscar gold (also, she’s pretty great in it). And Winslet, between Revolutionary Road and her so-called “supporting” performance in The Reader, could be the year’s only serious contender for a double nomination. Beyond there, things get fuzzy. Jolie seems like a shoo-in, considering her baity grieving-mom performance, but we said that about last year’s A Mighty Heart too. Still, don’t count out a Clint Eastwood movie. The final spot will likely be a battle between critical darlings Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Kristin Scott Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long) and longshot Michelle Williams (Wendy and Lucy). I predict that Hawkins takes this one, but Leo’s a strong possibility as well. Finally, if Cate Blanchett in Benjamin Button makes it here, it probably means the voters are over the moon for the film, so if her name is called on nomination day, look for the movie itself to take Best Picture.

WINNER
Anne Hathaway

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Angelina Jolie (Changeling)
Melissa Leo (Frozen River)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

Despite mixed reviews for Doubt, Changeling and Revolutionary Road, industry vet + scenery chewing + SAG Award nominations (squared by Golden Globe nominations) = Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet. Meanwhile, on the indie side of the street, much as I would love to see the delightful Sally Hawkins snag a place for Happy-Go-Lucky, it may be a bad sign that (a) she didn’t score a SAG nomination, (b) some people found her character annoying and (c) others may suspect she was only playing herself. Instead, SAG and the Spirit Awards like Melissa Leo for the token “performance in a movie hardly anyone saw” nomination slot, and thus I’ll go with her (even though I'm one of those people who still hasn't seen Frozen River). And in the five-spot, I’m guessing this is the year Anne Hathaway gets invited to the grown-up table (Bride Wars notwithstanding). She’ll definitely get a nomination, and I bet even Meryl Streep votes for her to win.

WINNER
Anne Hathaway

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS
Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

Streep gets picked because it’s in the Constitution that she gets nominated once a year. Winslet, one of my very favorite human beings in all the world, is about ten times the talent that Leo DiCaprio is, but they’ll both get named for Revolutionary Road. The wildly overrated Happy-Go-Lucky won’t get anything but this nomination, but Hawkins’ performance is so talked about there’s no way it’ll miss. Hathaway is absolutely riveting in Rachel Getting Married, but I’m predicting Blanchett will take it, despite having zero charisma with Brad Pitt, as an ‘overdue’ award for Benjamin Button. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: The Academy will be confused by Kristin Scott Thomas’ Frenchitude in I’ve Loved You So Long, and she won’t get nominated despite turning in the performance of the year.

WINNER
Cate Blanchett

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
CATE BLANCHETT (TIE), ANNE HATHAWAY, SALLY HAWKINS, ANGELINA JOLIE (TIE), MERYL STREEP, KATE WINSLET

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
ANNE HATHAWAY

Click Here For Part One, Two, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:30:00 GMT

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon)

Heath Ledger was penciled in here even before The Dark Knight was released. Philip Seymour Hoffman's work as the Penguin…er, the potentially pedophilic priest in Doubt should secure him a nod. Michael Sheen is probably the lead in Frost/Nixon, but his publicist will push him for this category. Josh Brolin drinks your Milk. That leaves one spot for the other comeback kid, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder.

WINNER
Ledger, who will not attend the ceremony.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Leonardo Di Caprio, Revolutionary Road
Ralph Fiennes, The Reader

Being that Heath Ledger gave an excellent performance and then went and died, there is no way he won't be nominated for The Dark Knight. For the same reason it isn't unlikely he'll win. Otherwise Josh Brolin stands a fighting chance. Especially given that his performance as Harvey Milk's killer in Milk is the type of role this category was made for. Well, that and taking care of actors that for whatever reason didn't end up in best leading actor. Which would explain why we find Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire in here. Let's face it; he just isn't famous enough (yet) to get nominated for Best Actor. Ralph Fiennes seems like a perennial nominee; if he didn't get a golden man for Schindler's List there is no way he will this year, but consider the nomination a consolation prize. Leonardo DiCaprio will be in here too, but we all know he's just filler.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
James Franco (Milk)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

We all agree that this is Ledger’s to lose, right? Likewise, Brolin and Oscar perennial Hoffman are looking pretty locked at this point. With The Soloist moved to spring, Tropic Thunder is the best chance for the Academy to honor the clean-and-sober Downey, while filling the annual comic scene-stealer slot for this category. The race for the final nomination is pretty wide open. Nominating Dev Patel here would be the voters’ best shot at giving crowd-pleaser Slumdog an acting nomination, but while a Patel nomination would likely signal a Best Picture win for the film, the actor’s only major nomination to date has come from the SAG, who are generally more inclined to recognize youth performances. Besides, will the voters really go for his relatively colorless performance, which is really a lead? Other possibilities include Happy-Go-Lucky’s driving instructor from hell Eddie Marsan (who’s been cleaning up the critics’ awards), or such reliable character actors as Bill Irwin (Rachel Getting Married) and Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road). But I’m predicting a second supporting nomination for Milk in James Franco, whose relationship with Sean Penn’s Harvey is the emotional center of the film.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
James Franco (Milk)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)

So, yes, of course Heath Ledger will be nominated and win, resulting in a two-hanky “on-behalf-of” acceptance speech from...hmm...Michelle Williams? Christopher Nolan? Well, that’s a guessing game for another time. And the nomination for Ledger’s whiteface performance will book-end with Robert Downey, Jr.’s blackface role in Tropic Thunder (overshadowed in the comeback kid department by Mickey Rourke’s meatface role in The Wrestler, natch). Philip Seymour Hoffman and Josh Brolin seem like safe, SAG approved bets for their solid performances in Doubt and Milk respectively, and while I liked Tom Cruise’s what-the-hell performance in Tropic Thunder a lot more than some of my Screengrab colleagues (and think it would be a hoot if the Academy followed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s lead and nominated him), I think the fifth nod will officially go to James Franco for Milk (but really for Pineapple Express).

WINNER
Heath Ledger

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey, Jr. (The Soloist)
Ralph Fiennes (The Reader)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Liev Schreiber (Defiance)

Schreiber, a terrific actor who’s long been ignored by most of Hollywood, will get the nomination Defiance earns. Fiennes will be a perfunctory pick, but Brolin’s nod as Dan White will be well-deserved. Downey gets the nomination for The Soloist because he’s had an amazing year, but they won’t nominate him for a comedy (Tropic Thunder) or an action blockbuster (Iron Man). In the end, though, who’s kidding who? Especially since The Dark Knight won’t be getting anything else, Ledger is – forgive me – a mortal lock for his unforgettable turn as the Joker. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Though Brolin deserves his nomination, it’ll come at the expense of James Franco and Emile Hirsch in the same movie.

WINNER
Heath Ledger

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
JOSH BROLIN, ROBERT DOWNEY, JR., JAMES FRANCO/RALPH FIENNES (TIE), PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, HEATH LEDGER

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
HEATH LEDGER

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

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

The Best of 2008: Leonard Pierce's Picks for the Best Movies of the Year, Part Two

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:45:00 GMT

5. WALL*E (Andrew Stanton, dir.)

Pixar has been on such a roll of late that if they were a single director, they’d be getting mention in the same breath as the golden age greats. But they’re not; they’re an aggregate of many clever, talented folks who make computer-generated cartoons that are at least partly intended for children. I’m not going to argue that this isn’t sometimes a weakness; in WALL*E, the environmental message only seems fitting and appropriate because I happen to agree with it, and the crypto-Objectivism in The Incredibles only bothered me because I don’t. But regardless of the heavy-handedness of the moral, it can’t be denied that WALL*E is flat out the most wonderful film of the year, hopeful and funny and romantic and bittersweet all at the same time, and wrapped up in a package so beautiful to look at you wonder why anyone ever questions the potential of CGI. And if this astounding motion picture spawned an obnoxious marketing empire, one can only shake one’s head and say “Damn kids don’t know how good they’ve got it.”

4. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (Jonathan Demme, dir.)

If you ever want to flummox a music critic, ask him to describe one of his favorite new bands without comparing them to another band. Of course, Rachel Getting Married proves that the same can occasionally be said for movie critics: it seems impossible to talk about without referencing something else. It’s got the dysfunctional family dynamics of Il y a Longtemps Que Je T’aime; the comeback-kid story of The Wrestler; the hateful-misanthrope-as-vehicle-for-joyous-redemption jawn of a Wes Anderson film (only better) and the structure and form of the late Robert Altman’s best work (only different). With all of these elements at play, though, it never seems derivative of anything else, only reminiscent in the best possible way. In the end, Rachel Getting Married is its own film, familiar yet new and impressive, and carried along by some of the finest acting of the year, most especially from Anne Hathaway and Bill Irwin.

3. CHE (Steven Soderbergh, dir.)

Steven Soderbergh keeps on making great movies, and never the same one twice. His latest is getting lots of what child care experts call “good attention” and “bad attention”; it’s certain that Soderbergh intended it that way, with its rigid formal structure, back-spasm-inducing length, difficult tonal shifts, and…oh, yeah, it’s a biopic about one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century. It’s just as hard to figure out how much of the negative reception is due to political and moral judgment of the revolutionary Che Guevara as it is to figure out how much of the positive reception comes from those who valorize him, but taken purely as a movie, Che is hard to beat: it’s formally daring, adventurously directed, risk-taking, well-made, and held together by a powerful performance that shows its subject neither as a heroic rebel or a vicious murderer, but simply as a man so consumed by his cause that he didn’t know what else to do than keep fighting for it.

2. WENDY AND LUCY (Kelly Reichardt, dir.)

There have been a number of exceptionally well-done documentaries in recent years about ordinary people dangling from the precipice of financial ruin in economically uncertain times, but successful narrative films dealing with the same subject have been few and far between. That’s largely because it’s hard to approach the topic in fiction without becoming didactic, maudlin, or treacly – and those challenges are certainly, and perilously, evident in Kelly Reichardt’s story about a young woman in brutally limited circumstances who loses her beloved dog while pursuing a slender chance at a decent job. But the miraculous thing about Wendy and Lucy is that it toes that line from its first frame to its last without ever tumbling down and making a mess of itself. That’s a testament to the top-notch script, the surprisingly deep direction, and the beautiful performance by lead actress Michelle Williams. No one could ever have predicted that an heir to the Italian neo-realist tradition would emerge in 2008 from America’s Pacific Northwest; that it happened is one of the year’s greatest surprises.

1. SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK (Charlie Kaufman, dir.)

There are so many things that could have gone wrong with Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut. I first heard him talk about his desire to direct way back in 2004, when I interviewed him for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and when Synechdoche, New York was finally announced, I was full of dread. The video stores of America are choked with mediocre-to-bad movies by talented writers who decided what they really wanted to do was direct. I needn’t have worried: Synechdoche, New York is easily my favorite film of the year. Kaufman approached directing with the same meticulous, self-searching approach that he does writing, and the result is nothing short of astounding. The best movies, for me, are the ones that seem to completely rewire my head – that are so profound and well-crafted that they redefine my basic approach to their subject, form or content. Charlie Kaufman accomplishes that his first time out of the gate, and that’s the mark of a major talent.

ALMOST MADE IT: The Strangers, Doubt, Iron Man, The Wrestler, Bigger Stronger Faster*.

DIDN'T SEE THEM: Entre les Murs (The Class), Standard Operating Procedure, Lat den Ratte Komme In (Let the Right One In), Dear Zachary: A Letter To His Son About His Father, Trouble the Water, Full Battle Rattle, Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge (Flight of the Red Balloon).

PERFORMANCES OF THE YEAR: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler; Bill Irwin, Rachel Getting Married; Kristin Scott Thomas, Il y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime; Viola Davis, Doubt.

MADE IN 2007, BUT GREAT IN 2008: 4 Luni 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days); Paranoid Park; My Winnipeg; Une Vielle Maitress (The Last Mistress); Auf der Anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven); Encounters at the End of the World; Chop Shop.

OVERRATED: Waltz with Bashir; In Bruges; Happy-Go-Lucky; Slumdog Millionaire; Kung Fu Panda.

Click for Part One

Andrew Osborne's Top Ten Movies of 2008 (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:47:00 GMT

So, by the end of first quarter 2008, I’d seen exactly one memorably list-worthy movie (see #7) and figured it was just gonna be one of those low tide kinda years after a pretty strong 2007 (Knocked Up, Juno, The King of Kong, Gone Baby Gone, Hell On Wheels, Zodiac, 2 Days In Paris, etcetera). And yet, looking back over the past twelve months, I have to admit, to paraphrase Charlie Brown, it wasn’t such a bad little tree, with a lot of perfectly enjoyable (if not terribly memorable) films, as well as a number of...

WILDCARDS: (potentially list-worthy movies unseen by moi in 2008): Man On Wire, Encounters at the End of the World, Waltz with Bashir, Trouble the Water, Let the Right One In, Revolutionary Road, Gran Torino

And now, the Top 10 I did see...

1. YOUNG@HEART

Usually, the top of my Top Ten list is something I’d be happy to watch again at the drop of a hat, but I suspect I’ll never, ever sit through Young@Heart again: the first time was wrenching (and memorable) enough. My wife and I saw the film at the Harvard Square Loews with my Dad, who’s been in AARP territory for quite a while now, and a theater half full of strangers. For the first thirty minutes or so, Stephen Walker’s documentary about feisty senior citizens singing ironic hipster doofus perennials like “I Wanna Be Sedated” and “Staying Alive” was a hoot...and then the first lovable oldster died. And then another, and another, like some horror movie of age we’re all trapped in, and suddenly every single person in the theater was getting smacked right in the kisser with the harsh realities of mortality, and nearly all of us were openly sobbing. Yet for all that, the film is never mawkish: the chorus members are presented as a platoon of happy warriors, singing at the top of their lungs as they march into the shadow of the valley of death, fighting tooth and nail for every last drop of joy they can squeeze out of life, even as their comrades fall around them. As I said before in my 2008 half-time wrap-up, I try not to judge people based on their personal tastes when it comes to movies, but if you can sit through the Young@Heartster’s performance of Coldplay’s “Fix You” (punctuated by the rasp and click of the soloist’s respirator) without a lump in your throat, you may need to check your own pulse.

2. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

While not as powerful or memorable as Young@Heart, Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky was an equally heartfelt (and far less harrowing) film-going experience, with a similar theme (not to mention a timely one, given the world’s collective George W. Bush hangover): get busy living or get busy dying. Yes, life can be tough and full of injustice and, yes, it’s easy to be aloof and snarky and negative about it, but whether or not that makes anything better (for yourself or anyone else) is the question Leigh tackles here. Underpaid elementary school teacher Poppy (the infectiously great Sally Hawkins) is a relentlessly cheery optimist, the sort of person easily dismissed as a shallow, annoying bubblehead...in fact, one guy I know found the character so irritating he ditched the film after fifteen minutes. But then Poppy encounters her polar opposite, a seething mass of bitterness (embodied in a visceral performance by Eddie Marsan) whose dismal, head-full-of-spiders malevolence provides the necessary contrast to show the true strength and value of Hawkins’ irrepressible sunbeam, raising questions (and suspense) about which of the two worldviews will ultimately triumph.

3. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Like my fellow Screengrabber Scott Von Doviak, I didn’t expect this Jonathan Demme curiosity to wind up on my Best of 2008 list. Watching it the first time, it seemed unfocused and self-indulgent with its meandering Altman-wannabe pace, its self-consciously eccentric diversity and its melodramatic Lifetime-esque family drama. Yet because of its unusual construction, Rachel Getting Married feels now like a memory of an actual wedding I attended rather than just a movie I watched, adding extra punch to my recollections of the infrequent but correspondingly vivid moments of drama like the blistering showdown between Anne Hathaway’s loose cannon recovering addict Kym (a.k.a. Shiva the Destroyer) and her mother (Debra Winger...damn!) –- though even if Demme hadn’t gotten all artsy with the structure, Hathaway’s mesmerizing performance alone would have been worth the price of admission.

4. FROST/NIXON

Ron Howard’s cinematic adaptation of the acclaimed Peter Morgan play is what I call a “guys-in-suits” movie (one of my favorite genres) where formidable, top-level professionals like Howard, Morgan, Frank Langella (recreating his Tony-winning stage performance as Nixon) and the reliably great Michael Sheen (as Frost) focus their collective talents on a film about formidable, top-level professionals (like the real Frost and Nixon), sparring and strategizing and walking quickly down hallways and corridors rattling off witty bon mots and dense bits of jargon in the midst of high-stakes negotiations and race-against-time showdowns. Some critics have noted the actual historic impact of the Frost/Nixon interviews wasn’t really all that monumental, but the film charts high on my list as an entertaining poker tournament between two fascinating characters (with extra points for Toby Jones’ hilarious cameo as super-agent Swifty Lazar).

5. MILK

Sometimes timing is everything. In twenty years, critics will still be praising Sean Penn’s amazing transformation from scowling, self-important killjoy movie star into sweet, gawky force-of-nature gay activist Harvey Milk, but hopefully by 2028 this film will seem like just another well-made but otherwise run-of-the-mill “issue” film about an issue that’s no longer really an issue. But here in 2008, in the wake of the Proposition 8 disgrace, Milk is still, sadly, very much of the moment, and even for some progressives, the casual man-on-man kissing and romance between Penn’s character and his lovers (James Franco and Diego Luna) is a rare enough sight to give pause. From a historical standpoint, I was horrified to learn that Dan White (well captured by Josh Brolin in a chilling “mundanity of evil” performance) could murder Harvey Milk and the freakin’ mayor of a major American city in cold blood and get just seven years in prison on a manslaughter rap...that fact, combined with the anti-gay slanders of the McCain/Palin campaign (and, really, every Republican campaign in recent memory), the controversy over Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural and the sense of communion at the packed house screenings of Milk during its opening weekend are just some of the reasons Gus Van Sant’s good movie feels like such a great and important one now.

Click Here For Part Two

Morning Deal Report: Golden Globe Nominees Announced, NY Critics Sound Off

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button lead the way with five nominations each, as the Golden Globe nominees were announced this morning. Both were nominated for Best Drama, along with The Reader, Revolutionary Road and Slumdog Millionaire. Meryl Streep is nominated for both Doubt and Mamma Mia, matched by Kate Winslet for The Reader and Revolutionary Road. Other acting nominees include Sean Penn for Milk, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler and Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight – the sole Bat-nomination. Check out the full roster here.

The New York Film Critics Circle drank up Milk, naming it the best movie of the year and honoring Penn and Josh Brolin for their performances. Happy-Go-Lucky earned kudos for director Mike Leigh and star Sally Hawkins. Penelope Cruz took Supporting Actress honors for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Here's the full list.

“Ben Stiller is set to replace Mark Ruffalo in Greenburg, a comedy-drama Noah Baumbach is writing and directing,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Ruffalo dropped out after the shooting death of his brother last week. Greenburg “is expected to center on the intimacies of relationships in the manner of Baumbach's other films,” if that helps.

Related:
Globes Without Glitter
Auto-Baumbach-graphies

Screengrab Preview: Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:00:00 GMT

As of this posting, I haven’t yet had a chance to see Happy-Go-Lucky, the latest release by director Mike Leigh...but even so, just based on pedigree alone, the film is already a strong contender for my Best of 2008 list.

Leigh, an admirably egalitarian humanist and keenly observant class warrior from way back, won an Oscar nomination for the abortion bummer, Vera Drake, yet despite his reputation as a director of grim downers, even his bleakest films are less depressing than most standard “feel-good” Hollywood drek thanks to his stubborn, old-school devotion to art over commerce and relatable reality versus artificial sweetener.

His latest, currently winning rapturous reviews (and a 95% favorable tomato-meter critical response at RottenTomatoes.com) features Sally Hawkins in what sounds like a breakthrough performance as Poppy, a cockeyed optimist whose determined cheeriness would be downright unbearable if not for the hardscrabble verisimilitude of Leigh’s cinematic landscapes. Like the mother in Life Is Sweet, Poppy is no bubblehead, but rather a tenacious survivor determined to wring every drop of joy from an often joyless world rather than succumbing to easy cynicism and despair.

Click here for an exclusive Screengrab preview of the film, and keep your chin up, mate!

Related Stories:
Trailer Review: Happy-Go-Lucky
Location, Location, Location: Mike Leigh’s London

Trailer Review: Happy-Go-Lucky

Paul Clark — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Has Mike Leigh gone and made an honest-to-goodness crowd-pleaser? I’m skeptical. Yet that seems to be what Miramax wants us to think, judging by its marketing campaign. So Miramax takes the latest film from Leigh- director of the less-than-cheerful Naked, Life Is Sweet, and Vera Drake- and sells it as a feel-good charmer in the vein of previous Miramax hits like Amelie. Now, I’m sure Happy-Go-Lucky is probably lighter in tone that those aforementioned Leigh films- probably closer in tone to, say, Topsy-Turvy- but I highly doubt it’s the movie the trailer is making it out to be. But then, the Mike Leigh name, Oscar nominations or no, doesn’t carry much box office cachet, and spunky sells better than bleak, so there you go. I’ve still got faith in Leigh, and Berlin reviews were positive, but if I didn’t know the film’s pedigree, this trailer would probably convince me to give the film a pass. As it stands, I’m hoping it’s just a studio hatchet job.

Location, Location, Location: Mike Leigh’s London

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Mike Leigh has been making films in London since the early 1970s, so it figures he’s a guy who knows his way around town. In anticipation of the April 18th release of his latest, Happy-Go-Lucky, Time Out London asked the man himself for a guided tour of locations from his 18 feature films. They only wanted a few hours, but Leigh was so into the idea, it stretched into two days. The director “barely ever shoots in a studio and the usual drill is that he, his cast and crew will take over a location and inhabit it fully, whether it’s a gothic-looking corner house in Dalston for Naked in 1993 or a derelict council estate in Greenwich for All or Nothing in 2002. It became obvious, too, as Leigh leapt in and out of the car, squeezed through canalside railings in Haggerston, or gamely stood beside the traffic at the entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel, that he lives and breathes this city. There’s no need to ask him where he gets his inspiration from: you’ve only got to watch him in action to see that real people and places mean everything to him.”

Of course, the downside of shooting on location is that real life tends to intrude on your attempts at make-believe. “For Topsy-Turvy we wanted to use a Victorian oyster bar near the Monument,” says Leigh. “But the owner was a very old lady who had once been to a party where someone had said: ‘Never let a film unit in your house.’ Nothing would shift this woman! Not even talk of a putative Royal Command performance. No gold in sums untold would persuade the old girl, so we shot in the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall instead.”

Others are more welcoming, as Time Out learned upon visiting a 19th century block of flats called Stepney Green, which Leigh used as a period location in Vera Drake. “We bump into a woman, one of the residents. ‘Hello, Mr Leigh, are you coming back to shoot here?’ Leigh: ‘It was fun, but I don’t think we’re going to make the sequel, not least because I think we know what happens to Vera: she stops doing what she does.’ The woman: ‘Yes, I liked Vera Drake, but not as much as Topsy-Turvy. Leigh: ‘Yes, there were more songs in Topsy-Turvy.’ ”

You can view the whole tour as a slideshow starting here.

Scandal, Awards at Berlinale

Paul Clark — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:00:00 GMT

The jury prizes for the recently-concluded Berlin Film Festival have been announced, and this year's Golden Bear Winner is unpopular, to say the least. The jury's choice for best film, José Padilha's Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad), deemed by critic Dennis Lim "a violent, cop's-eye view of Rio's favela drug wars that registers more as glorification of the fighting than as critique," has become the center of a wave of controversy. The film is the fiction debut of Bus 174 director Padilha, and much of the controversy has stemmed not from the film itself, but from its being awarded the top prize over more popular titles such as Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood. Filmbrain has even gone so far as to suggest that the Golden Bear was bought by the film's distributor, Harvey Weinstein. It's true Elite was one of the worst-reviewed films in competition — many critics have called it "fascist," making it a strange film for a Costa-Gavras-led jury to get behind, no? However, the idea that it was paid for seems a little far-fetched to me. But what do I know? I wasn't there.

Other prizes from the Berlinale:
Jury Grand Prix- Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris)
Silver Bear, Best Director- Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Silver Bear, Best Actress- Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Silver Bear, Best Actor- Reza Najie, The Song of Sparrows
Silver Bear, Best Script- In Love We Trust (Wang Xiaoshuai)
Alfred Bauer Prize- Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke)
10th Panorama Audience Award- Lemon Tree (Eran Riklis)

Source: GreenCine Daily.