The Screengrab : milk

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?

Movieguide, Wall Street Journal Detect Anti-Communist Trend at Box Office; Iron Man Praised for His Faith in the Free Market

Phil Nugent — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:30:00 GMT

In an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, a publication that often inspires readers to compare what's in its highly esteemed, award-winning news coverage to what's being professed on its op-ed page and come to the conclusion that somebody's nuts, has published an analysis of the state of the movie business by Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, and someone named Tom Snyder, who I'm guessing is neither the late, much-missed host of the Tomorrow show not the guy who did Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, but really, who the hell knows anymore? If there's one thing I've picked up on in the course of doing this job, it's that life's full of surprises, put it that way. Anyway, Baehr is a big wheel with Movieguide, a family-values organization that promotes better living through morally correct movies or something. Part of his op-ed amounts to a press release announcing that Movieguide recently "held its 17th Annual Faith & Values Awards ceremony", where they saluted such entertainments as Fireproof, "which received a $100,000 Epiphany Prize for the Most Inspiring Movie of 2008, sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation." Even more valuable was the information we released in our Report to the Entertainment Industry, a detailed survey of what kinds of movies made money last year, and why. Regular readers of the Screengrab will immediately recall that we did our best to cover the Fireproof experience, because we, too, want to "help families who want to find movies and TV shows that stay within the perimeters of biblical principles", to use Baehr's pithy phrasing, and because opportunities to update readers on the state of Kirk Cameron's career don't come along every day. But the most exciting news to come out of this year's Movieguide report on the state of the art is that Baehr and company have figured out how to keep the entertainment industry solvent in these perilous times. (If you can keep Kirk Cameron solvent, you can do anything.) "With media conglomerates, from Time Warner to Disney to News Corp., reporting big losses," write Baehr and Snyder, "few can afford to ignore proven recipes for box-office success. And when it comes to movies, what succeeds is capitalism, patriotism, faith and values...Once again, family-friendly, uplifting and inspiring movies drew far more viewers in 2008 than films with themes of despair, or leftist political agendas. Sex, drugs and antireligious themes were not automatic sellers, either. Among the 25 top-grossing movies alone, 14 out of 25 had strong or very strong Christian, redemptive and moral content, and nearly all had at least some such content."

These results are based on a close examination of "more than 250 major films from Hollywood studios and independents for their social, political, philosophical, moral and religious content. When all the information -- categorized by dozens of criteria -- is in a database, we calculate which movies took in the most money at the theatrical box office in America and Canada in 2008." We have no doubt that the good people at Movieguide have gone about their work with great devotion and seriousness of intent. But in their efforts to connect with the money changers of Hollywood, they may have come too close to embracing that time-honored but morally dubious practice known as Hollywood accounting. For instance, Movieguide makes a point of claiming that movies with "anti-Communist" messages made a hell of a lot more money this past year than the usual flood of high-profile commercial releases that nakedly proselytize for Communism. If you spend any of your time listening to the right nationally broadcast conniption fits, you will of course agree that, barely ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the threat of a Communist takeover of the West is a major issue, one that demands that filmmakers take sides. And as Movieguide sees it, Americans would much rather see anti-Communist movies. As proof, it offers a list of what it terms anti-Communist message movies--An American Carol, Fly Me to the Moon, City of Ember, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--and notes that, as a group, they "averaged $71.8 million at the 2008 box office in America and Canada." Compare that to the group's list of pro-Communist propaganda movies--Che, Gonzo, The Children of Huang Shi, Trumbo and Vicky Cristina Barcelona--which "averaged a measly $7.9 million in 2008." However, as Jim Emerson points out at his great film blog Scanners, the "average" $71.8 million figure for the anti-Commie films seems to have been arrived at by spreading the wealth around and giving An American Carol and City of Ember, which cost, respectively, $20 million and $55 million, and which each took in about $7 million, some of the credit for Indiana Jones's $317 million gross. (I confess to never having heard of Fly Me to the Moon before. Turns out it's a Belgian-made 3-D animated feature that cost $25 million and had a domestic gross of $12 million, though it managed to make enough worldwide to cover its costs.) By contrast, the standout film on the "pro-Communist" side of the roster, Vicky Christina Barcelona, was made for somewhere between $15 and $20 million and has grossed more than $85 million worldwide. Many people, some of whom invested in An American Carol, would say that this counts as profitable, but apparently Movieguide feels there is a special kind of math that is "within the perimeters of biblical principles" and another kind that is not.

Then there is the problem of how Movieguide defines its terms. A certain round peg-square hole quality can be felt. For instance, why is City of Ember, a children's fantasy film in which the corrupt mayor (Bill Murray) of a dying city is seen stockpiling canned goods for his own selfish use while the people he is meant to be governing do without, specifically "anti-Communist"? Movieguide simply says that it must be because it's a movie in which "a tyrant steals from the people", which could just as easily (and just as weirdly) justify calling it a veiled attack on Boss Tweed. Similarly, in what way is Vicki Christina Barcelona pro-Communist? It is true that it features a character who identifies as a political leftist, and it is true that although this character's life is a self-destructive mess, at no point is there a scene where he is struck by lightning. Similarly, the basically apolitical (and largely unseen) The Children of Huang Shi, which is set in China during the Japanese invasion, features a swaggering, charismatic Communist Chinese guerrilla fighter played by Chow Yun-Fat. Put all this together, and you might be forced to conclude that Movieguide thinks that it's a dangerous political act to ever have a Communist character played by somebody hot. But then you remember that they approve of Cate Blanchett's Commie dominatrix with Louise Brooks bangs and that theory gets shot to hell.

The politics of Movieguide and the Journal's op-ed page are no secret, but if you'd never heard of either one, you wouldn't have any trouble guessing what they are from their attitudes towards certain movies. These are people who, faced with an admiring portrait of a genuine hero like Milk, only see the "licentious content"; who think that the documentary Gonzo must be pro-Communist because its hero, Hunter S. Thompson, didn't approve of the Vietnam War or Richard Nixon; who see the humanistic, one-world attitudes of The Visitor as an expression of "anti-Americanism." (These are also people with so little sense of history that their list of liberal-minded dirty movies includes an adaptation of Brideshead Revisited; that noise you are hearing is the sound of Evelyn Waugh trying to claw his way out of his coffin so that he can get his hands around their throats.) Risible as all this is, it's also kind of annoying, because this is a time when a changing economic reality might make it possible, and desirable, to have a real discussion about the morality of the movie culture, and how that culture might enhance its own profitability by addressing people's actual concerns on a real-world level instead of wasting more and more money on thinner and tawdrier fantasies. So it's frustrating to see more of these silly circle jerks whose sole purpose is to give the jerkers a chance to claim solidarity with what they think is the core of the mainstream culture and cite its "success", whether that success is real or imaginary, as evidence that tomorrow belongs to them. Among the other movies that Movieguide sees as on their side is the animated feature Bolt, which is about a dog that has spent its life performing in a TV show and bounds out into the real world believing that it actually has super powers, and which is said to embody "such moral values as loyalty, sacrifice and doing the right thing," values that you might think transcend politics but that Movieguide identifies as constituting specifically "conservative content". I guess if you think that An American Carol provides a blueprint for financial success, it's only natural that your idea of a moral example would be a delusional dog on a power trip.

Harvey Weinstein Predicts Another Great Oscar Year for Harvey Weinstein

Phil Nugent — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:00:00 GMT

For three years, Harvey Weinstein went without an Academy Award Best Picture nominee to promote. That's like three Decembers in a row where they forget to run How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (Talking to Ramin Setoodeh for Newsweek, Harvey recalls the golden days of early Miramax Oscar campaigns when he would force his way into potential voters' homes to make them watch his movies, and actually says, "I was like Santa Claus. I had all the DVDs, and I'd go to everybody's house, with cookies." Setoodeh fails to ask about reports that anyone who tried to reach for one of Harvey's cookies got a fork stuck in his hand.) This year, Harvey--my apparent inability to refer to this man, who I have never met, as "Weinstein" testifies to his status as a semi-beloved living cartoon character--has a contender in The Reader, the roots of which go back to the days when, as the head of Miramax, he was an Oscar force to be reckoned with, sending out Shakespeare in Love to defeat Saving Private Ryan and somehow wangling a nomination for the fluffy Chocolat. Apparently Harvey read the Bernhard Schlink novel in a single night back in 1997, the year it was first translated into English, while keeping watch over his sick daughter. In the dawn he rose like thunder and and sent one of his minions to Germany to secure the movie rights, with orders that if he failed, he was never to darken Harvey's towels again. The movie had a troubled history that included the deaths of two of its producers, Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack. And when it finally opened this past fall, it didn't get the reviews that the filmmakers might have wanted. In fact, it set off a brief exchange of gunfire on-line when a blogger used Manohla Dargis's dismissive New York Times review to accuse her of being insensitive to the plight of ambitious bad movies. And since the nominations were annnounced, Ron Rosenbaum of Slate pondered the question of whether the movie should be given an Oscar in an essay with the ambiguous title, "Don't Give an Oscar to The Reader".

Weinstein laughs off all of this and much, much else. The important thing for him is that he's back, baby, after a dearth of nominations and a few high-profile box-office disappintments (such as Grindhouse) that followed his and his brother Bob's departure from the company they'd created and the establishment of their new base of operations, The Weinstein Company. But when things start swinging Harvey's way, they swing hard: as evidence, consider not just The Reader's nomination, but the fact that Kate Winslet got her Best Actress nomination for that movie, when everyone thought she would get it for her role in Revolutionary Road, which was directed by Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes. Originally, the Weinsteins tried to play it safe, and stay out of Revoltionary Road's way, by nominating Winslet for The Reader in the Supporting Actress category, "But the Academy clearly said, 'You guys are completely full of shit. It's an insult to all the girls in supporting.' This is why I always love the Academy. They're so just at the end." It's true--that lynching party the Academy has dispatched should be showing up at Roberto Benigni's house any minute now.

In the meantime, Harvey remains convinced that his baby has a shot against perceived front-runner Slumdog Millionaire. "What happens is: there are some times when a front runner peaks. All of a sudden people say, "That movie is going to gross $100 million. It's fun, it's won a million prizes, but what else is there?" Milk has done a very good job on their campaign, and is also a very important movie, in my opinion. What could happen, Slumdog and Reader could split. Slumdog and Milk could split, and one of those could get through. With The Reader, lots of Academy members still haven't seen it. I know, it's shocking." Of course, some would argue that the fewer voters have actually seen it, the more that it improves its chances. And now that he's in a position to win his friends Oscar nominations again, Harvey is that much more beloved among people like Judi Dench. "Judi Dench did six movies in a row with me and got five Academy Award nominations. She took me to the Four Seasons restaurant, with Mike Nichols, Carly Simon, Nora Ephron, a bunch of really famous, fun people. It was the day she got her fifth nomination. She said, 'I have a present for you.' She pulled down her pants and she had a tattoo...It's a tattoo you could wash off. 'JUDI LOVES HARVEY', right on the rim of her butt. Everybody at the table is completely shocked. I think she chose it on purpose because she wanted to embarrass me, and she did." Now there's a headline for you: "HARVEY WEINSTEIN CAN'T TAKE JUDI DENCH ANYWHERE."

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.”

Bloody Valentines: The Worst Relationships In Cinema History (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:00:00 GMT

HARVEY & JACK, MILK (2008)

Most every straight guy I know has tangled at some point with the Sexy Crazy Girl (y’know, the one that stole your wallet and set your bathroom on fire but looked so damn good in that little plaid miniskirt), and most straight girls have their horror stories about that Hot But Psycho Bad Boy all their friends warned them about, to no avail. From Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and Leslie Mann in The 40 Year Old Virgin to Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise and Mark Wahlberg in Fear, Sexy Crazy Girls and Hot But Psycho Bad Boys have been well-represented in mainstream cinema over the years. And while independent films (not to mention six seasons of The L Word) have provided numerous rainbow-flavored versions of the aforementioned archetypes, the gay characters depicted in most Hollywood films are usually too sexless and/or noble to fall into the sorts of messy romantic entanglements that pit brains and common sense against libido, heart and instinct. Gus Van Sant’s Milk, of course, was a recent and notable exception, dramatizing not only Harvey Milk’s heroic struggle for gay rights, but also the concrete realities of the complicated human relationships beneath all the abstract rhetoric. Like Hillary and Julia Goodridge, who recently got divorced after helping to pave the way for same-sex marriages in Massachusetts (yeah, MA!), Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk is only human as he fights for human rights. Like any number of hard-working professionals before and since, he has trouble balancing his personal and professional life, and falls into a mid-life crisis affair with Diego Luna’s clingy, troubled good-time-guy Jack Lira. For those who haven’t seen the movie, let’s just say that, in the tradition of countless real world and cinematic Crazy Girl/Bad Boy relationships, it doesn’t end well.

BOBBY & HELEN, THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971)

Not giving your characters last names to make them more universal is always generally kind of a cheap trick, but Joan Didion co-wrote this, so I suppose we should just let it go. The Panic In Needle Park outdid Requiem For A Dream by nearly 30 years through a really simple expedient: just show people shooting up in needle close-ups. You don't need the anal dildo or hallucinations then. Bobby (Al Pacino) and Helen (Kitty Winn) don't use at first; he just deals, and she stares adoringly. Then he starts "chipping," she sneaks some while he's sleeping to see what it's all about, and much OD'ing, jail time and bad decision-making ensue. They're a couple who accelerate each others' downward spirals; thanks to one of Pacino's early galvanizing performances (before the ham set in) and Winn's essentially passive, worshipful gaze, it works.

MIMI & OSCAR, BITTER MOON (1992)

Oscar, an older American expat writer meets Mimi, a hot young French girl on a bus in Paris. After the initial meet-cute hot romance ensues. Years later we meet Oscar again, a broken man, as he tells his story to an awkward young Brit (Hugh Grant) on a Mediterreanean cruise. Don't let the presence of Hugh Grant fool you. This is a Polanski flick. The gist is that a man hasn't truly loved a woman unless there were animal masks and water sports invoved and he treated her like shit. Conversly, a lady never really loved a man unless she let him dismantle her self-confidence brick by brick and then took her revenge by putting him in a wheel chair and flaunting her magnificently muscled lover in front of him. Sounds like fun, no?

GEORGE & SHERRY PEARY, THE KILLING (1956)

There may be no film genre richer in sordid, back-stabbing, and generally unrewarding relationships than that of film noir, and they never got nastier than when Marie Windsor, star of Cat Women of the Moon, was in the room. With her heavy lids, bottle-blonde Wilma Flintstone 'do, a nose that she seemed to be looking down at men from even when they were taller than her, and a voice that could make any line sound withering, Windsor was born to nag, and in Stanley Kubrick's classic caper movie, she's partnered with an actor who was such a natural sucker that he first made crime movie history getting sold out by Sidney Greenstreet. Loitering around their apartment, Windsor casually reduces her short hubby to asking why she married him --"You used to love me. You said you did, anyway." -- to which she responds that he hasn't exactly delivered on those promises he made about hitting it big and setting her up in style, adding that she doesn't mind the lack of money so long as she has "a big, strong intelligent brute like you" to be down with. Even Homer Simpson would have trouble missing the sarcasm. The final proof that this marriage cannot be saved comes when she finds out that her husband George is involved in a million dollar racetrack robbery scheme; rather than just wait for him to pull off the heist and show up at home to wave the dough in her face, she just can't resist getting her boy toy -- Vince Edwards, all muscles and smirk -- to oil his own gun and go try to rip off the robbers. Poor George finds out that his lovey-dove has set him up for the last time when he hears Edwards break into the room, look around for him, and ask, "Hey, where's the jerk?"

STEVE BOLANDER & LAURIE HENDERSON, AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)

When American Graffiti begins, the plan is for Steve and his buddy (and Laurie's sister) Curt to go off to the East Coast and attend college; this means that his relationship with Laurie will be going long-distance, but not to worry -- Steve has thought about that and proposes to Laurie that they strenghten their bond to each other by seeing other people. This goes down about as well as you could expect. Bad as this is, those of us who actually know people who saw the momentous event of their high school graduation as a cue to marry their first serious dating partner will recognize that the real sign of horror to come arrives when Steve and Laurie take to the dance floor, and she clings to him with such fierce tenacity that his bare back must look as if he'd gone a couple of rounds with Lon Chaney, Jr. She then forces him to recognize the depth of his "true feelings" for her -- defined here as his acquisitive male jealousy -- by flouncing off and landing in Harrison Ford's lap. Come dawn and they're so solidly committed to each other that Steve isn't going away to college anymore, which means that in a few years, he'll have someone handy to blame for the fact that he's stuck in a shitty job in the same podunk town he grew up in, and she can't look at him without thinking about the twenty minutes when she was Indiana Jones' girl.

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

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Vadim Rizov, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Phil Nugent

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:30:00 GMT

BEST ACTOR

And the nominees are...

Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

Paul Clark Predicts: Mickey Rourke

This might be more of a ballgame had Penn not won five years ago -- and if Milk had real Best Picture traction. As it stands, Rourke has the comeback story, the body transformation, the hype machine, and best of all, the awesome performance to carry him here.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Sean Penn

Mickey Rouke got his Golden Globe, so his fairy tale comeback story had a nice happy ending, but Sean Penn won the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance in a Lead Role, so I think he’ll take the Oscar. Besides, for once, I actually want to hear Penn pontificate on a political subject...specifically, I want him to aim his famous humorless scowl at California’s clueless voters and ask them why they felt the need to make George Takei sad.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Mickey Rourke

Frank Langella’s blowsy overacting is getting way too much attention, making him a risk to steal the thunder of much better performances. Brad Pitt’s Benjamin Button is showy but ultimately hollow, which should leave Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke to fight it out over Milk and The Wrestler. Given Penn’s history and AMPAS’ love of a comeback story, this one should by Rourke’s to lose.

Should Win: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Will Win: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Nick Schager Predicts: Mickey Rourke

Penn’s superb turn as the slain Harvey Milk is just as worthy, but the Academy loves underdog-comeback stories, and this year, that narrative belongs to The Wrestler’s Mickey Rourke.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Sean Penn

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Mickey Rourke

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: MICKEY ROURKE

BEST DIRECTOR

And the nominees are...

Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant – Milk

Paul Clark Predicts: Danny Boyle

There are years when Oscar voters decide to spread the wealth by giving this award to a celebrated filmmaker whose film they liked just a shade less than the Best Picture winner. But this isn’t one of those years -- among the nominees no one’s particularly “due”, so they’ll fall back on their Best Picture pick.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: David Fincher

Just hedging my bets on this one, in the same way Academy voters may split their love in the absence of a slam-dunk Best Picture frontrunner.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Ron Howard

This could be a curious case, insofar as there doesn’t appear to be any single movie poised to sweep the Oscars. I had originally predicted that neither David Fincher nor Gus Van Sant would receive a nomination due to the atypical films they made, but my colleague Scott Von Doviak, probably correctly, felt that this increases rather than lessens their chances. Stephen Daldry winning would be a worst-case scenario.

Should Win: Gus Van Sant, Milk
Will Win: Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon

Nick Schager Predicts: Danny Boyle

Of all the nominees, Boyle’s work is the flashiest, and his film has populist-landslide-winner written all over it. Given that he was also honored by the Director’s Guild of America, count on him taking home the gold.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Danny Boyle/Ron Howard

It's a toss-up between everyone's favorite — Slumdog Millionaire — and Frost/Nixon because Ron Howard is exactly the kind of "Hollywood insider taking his art seriously" that the Academy likes.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Danny Boyle

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: DANNY BOYLE

Stay tuned for our Best Picture predictions and your very own souvenir Academy Awards ballot as the Screengrab 2009 Oscar Special continues way past your bedtime and pre-empts the evening news!

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

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

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:30:00 GMT

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

"Down to Earth" from Wall-E – Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (music), Peter Gabriel (lyrics)
"Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire – A. R. Rahman (music), Gulzar (lyrics)
"O Saya" from Slumdog Millionaire – A. R. Rahman and M.I.A.

Paul Clark Predicts: "Jai Ho"

Some might be predicting vote-splitting among the two Slumdog nominees, but I’d say the dance number clinches it for the song, giving it a level of goodwill with audiences it doesn’t necessarily deserve.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: "Down to Earth"

What the hell is going on with this category? What do they actually base this nomination on? Why does the Academy consider the unmemorable “Down To Earth” better than that unmemorable Bruce Springsteen song from The Wrestler? MSNBC.com has some theories...but as for my prediction, I’m assuming the two Slumdog songs cancel each other out, leaving Wall-E with the prize.

Nick Schager Predicts: "Jai Ho"

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: "Down to Earth"

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NO CONSENSUS!

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

And the nominees are...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Alexandre Desplat
Defiance – James Newton Howard
Milk – Danny Elfman
Slumdog Millionaire – A.R. Rahman
Wall-E – Thomas Newman

Paul Clark Predicts: Thomas Newman

Newman’s been nominated ten times so far without winning (take that, Kate Winslet!), and his Wall-E score is one of his finest yet. Of its strongest competitors, Slumdog will have to settle for a win for Best Song, and Button’s Alexandre Desplat will have plenty of other chances to win.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Alexandre Desplat

There are categories people have strong opinions about. This is not one of those categories. As such, I’m just marking down Benjamin Button, in the same way I suspect many Academy voters (or their assistants) will. Plus, the funny name rule applies again, because the nominated composer is Alexandre Desplat and I just like saying “Desplat.”

Nick Schager and Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predict: A.R. Rahman

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Danny Elfman

I don't know why The Dark Knight isn't nominated in this category. That's a tremendously exciting score. I could clean my apartment in about twelve minutes with that music playing.

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: A.R. RAHMAN, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

And the nominees are...

Revanche (Austria) in German - Götz Spielmann
The Class (France) in French - Laurent Cantet
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany) in German
Departures (Japan) in Japanese
Waltz with Bashir (Israel) in Hebrew - Ari Folman

Paul Clark Predicts: Waltz With Bashir

With no dramedies about cranky geriatrics or Holocaust epics in the mix, the voters will have to get creative. This is the highest-profile of the bunch, and the one that seems most like the health food they generally go for in this category.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Class

I’m not up on my foreign films this year, though I’ve heard a lot of swoony buzz on The Class. But riddle me this: if Waltz With Bashir is good enough for a nomination here, out of all the world’s films, how come it wasn’t good enough to compete with Bolt and Kung Fu Panda in the Animated Feature category?

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Waltz With Bashir

The Baader Meinhof Complex is far too controversial to take an Oscar back to Germany. It’s likely to come down to a battle between The Class, which has crowd-pleasing, voter-appealing qualities, and the overrated Waltz with Bashir, which is gimmicky and thin but has a sort of immediacy that voters are prone to like. I’m guessing the voters will make the wrong choice in this case.

Should Win: The Class
Will Win: Waltz with Bashir

Nick Shager Predicts: Waltz With Bashir

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Waltz With Bashir

Because it's done for documentary film what Maus and Persepolis the book did for memoirs. Also it could hardly have come at a better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) time in terms of current events in Israel.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Waltz With Bashir

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WALTZ WITH BASHIR

Stay tuned for a bunch of editors, make-up artists and writers nobody cares about while all the cool kids go out for a cigarette break as the Screengrab 2009 Oscar Special continues!

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

SAG Awards Announced

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Fifteen years ago, members of the Screen Actor's Guild -- tired of their work only being acknowledged by 24/7 news coverage, 7000 entertainment magazines and the paltry 938 awards shows available at the time -- established the SAG Awards, to more conveniently bestow awards directly upon one another.

And so, last night, the glitterati convened once again to honor the following actors with the coveted "Saggy":

Film

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
SEAN PENN - Milk

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
MERYL STREEP - Doubt

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
HEATH LEDGER - The Dark Knight

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in (an allegedly) Supporting Role
KATE WINSLET - The Reader

Outstanding Performance by a Cast
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble
THE DARK KNIGHT

Television

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
PAUL GIAMATTI - John Adams

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
LAURA LINNEY - John Adams

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
HUGH LAURIE - House

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
SALLY FIELD - Brothers & Sisters

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
ALEC BALDWIN - 30 Rock

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
TINA FEY - 30 Rock

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
MAD MEN (Woo-hoo!!!)

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
30 ROCK

Outstanding Performance by an Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
HEROES

Life Achievement Award
JAMES EARL JONES

Oscar Nominations Announced

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:30:00 GMT

A week or two back, your friends here at the Screengrab took a stab at predicting which people and movies the Academy would nominate for Oscars this year -- and now you can see which of us was the best prognosticator, since the official list was just announced this morning in Los Angeles by Forest Whitaker and Academy president Sid Ganis:

BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), A Kennedy/Marshall Production, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), A Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment and Working Title Production,Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Eric Fellner, Producers
* "Milk" (Focus Features), A Groundswell and Jinks/Cohen Company Production, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Producers
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), A Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH Production, Nominees to be determined
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), A Celador Films Production,Christian Colson, Producer

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

* Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor" (Overture Films)
* Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon" (Universal)
* Sean Penn in "Milk" (Focus Features)
* Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
* Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight)

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

* Josh Brolin in "Milk" (Focus Features)
* Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder" (DreamWorks, Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
* Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.)
* Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

* Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married" (Sony Pictures Classics)
* Angelina Jolie in "Changeling" (Universal)
* Melissa Leo in "Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics)
* Meryl Streep in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Kate Winslet in "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company)

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

* Amy Adams in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (The Weinstein Company)
* Viola Davis in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Taraji P. Henson in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
* Marisa Tomei in "The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR

* "Bolt" (Walt Disney), Chris Williams and Byron Howard
* "Kung Fu Panda" (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount), John Stevenson and Mark Osborne
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Andrew Stanton

ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION

* "Changeling" (Universal), Art Direction: James J. Murakami, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration: Victor J. Zolfo
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Peter Lando
* "The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Art Direction: Michael Carlin, Set Decoration: Rebecca Alleway
* "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Art Direction: Kristi Zea, Set Decoration: Debra Schutt

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY

* "Changeling" (Universal), Tom Stern
* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Claudio Miranda
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Wally Pfister
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Anthony Dod Mantle

ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN

* "Australia" (20th Century Fox), Catherine Martin
* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Jacqueline West
* "The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Michael O'Connor
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Danny Glicker
* "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Albert Wolsky

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Fincher
* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), Ron Howard
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Gus Van Sant
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), Stephen Daldry
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Danny Boyle

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

* "The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)" (Cinema Guild), A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
* "Encounters at the End of the World" (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment), A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
* "The Garden" A Black Valley Films Production, Scott Hamilton Kennedy
* "Man on Wire" (Magnolia Pictures), A Wall to Wall Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
* "Trouble the Water" (Zeitgeist Films), An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

* "The Conscience of Nhem En" A Farallon Films Production, Steven Okazaki
* "The Final Inch" A Vermilion Films Production, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
* "Smile Pinki" A Principe Production, Megan Mylan
* "The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306" A Rock Paper Scissors Production, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde

ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Lee Smith
* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Elliot Graham
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Chris Dickens

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR

* "The Baader Meinhof Complex" A Constantin Film Production, Germany
* "The Class" (Sony Pictures Classics), A Haut et Court Production, France
* "Departures" (Regent Releasing), A Departures Film Partners Production, Japan
* "Revanche" (Janus Films), A Prisma Film/Fernseh Production, Austria
* "Waltz with Bashir" (Sony Pictures Classics), A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production, Israel

ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Greg Cannom
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O'Sullivan
* "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (Universal), Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SCORE)

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.),Alexandre Desplat
* "Defiance" (Paramount Vantage), James Newton Howard
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Danny Elfman
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), A.R. Rahman
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Thomas Newman

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SONG)

* "Down to Earth" from "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
* "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
* "O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman andMaya Arulpragasam

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

* "La Maison en Petits Cubes" A Robot Communications Production, Kunio Kato
* "Lavatory - Lovestory" A Melnitsa Animation Studio and CTB Film Company Production, Konstantin Bronzit
* "Oktapodi" (Talantis Films) A Gobelins, L'école de l'image Production, Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
* "Presto" (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Doug Sweetland
* "This Way Up", A Nexus Production, Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

* "Auf der Strecke (On the Line)" (Hamburg Shortfilmagency), An Academy of Media Arts Cologne Production, Reto Caffi
* "Manon on the Asphalt" (La Luna Productions), A La Luna Production, Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
* "New Boy" (Network Ireland Television), A Zanzibar Films Production, Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
* "The Pig" An M & M Production, Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
* "Spielzeugland (Toyland)" A Mephisto Film Production, Jochen Alexander Freydank

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING

* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Richard King
* "Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Tom Sayers
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
* "Wanted" (Universal),Wylie Stateman

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney),Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
* "Wanted" (Universal), Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
* "Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
* "Doubt" (Miramax), Written by John Patrick Shanley
* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), Screenplay by Peter Morgan
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Hare
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

* "Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Courtney Hunt
* "Happy-Go-Lucky" (Miramax), Written by Mike Leigh
* "In Bruges" (Focus Features), Written by Martin McDonagh
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Written by Dustin Lance Black
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter

(And stay tuned for much more Screengrab bloggage on the 81st Academy Awards!)

Screengrab Predicts the Oscars: Nominations (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

BEST PICTURE

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E

My sure thing is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, just because it looks so Gump-ish. The Reader takes the Holocaust slot, Milk fills both the biopic and social issues categories, and Slumdog Millionaire is the little not-really-indie that could. That leaves one opening, which could go to Revolutionary Road if it picks up some momentum or dark horse The Dark Knight…but I'm going to give it to WALL-E, as the Academy voters' attempt to show they're open-minded enough to consider an animated film for the top prize.

WINNER
Milk

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
The Dark Knight
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Synecdoche, New York

This year's likely nominees for best movie reads like a field guide to the Academy's pet subjects: there is a Holocaust movie, a dark blockbuster action hero movie, a heart-felt gay rights movie, the token foreign-ish movie, and the movie that was so odd that frankly — who knows if it was good or not?

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

After last year’s nominees, which contained two bona fide masterpieces (There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men), this list looks pretty lackluster. However, based on the critics’ awards thus far, this looks to be the way it’ll go down. Each of these films fits pretty well into a comfortable category -- the blockbuster (Dark Knight), the epic (Button), the stage-to-screen adaptation (Frost/Nixon), the biopic (Milk), and the indie crowd-pleaser (Slumdog). Right now, the only other movie that’s been getting the same amount of awards love as these five is WALL*E, which will most likely get relegated -- unfairly, I might add -- to the Best Animated Feature category. Barring a last minute surge for a handful of other possibilities -- Doubt, The Reader, The Wrestler, either of the Eastwood films -- I’m guessing this’ll be your shortlist. But who will win? Frost/Nixon should be grateful to be here; ditto The Dark Knight. Slumdog has won legions of fans, but the backlash is just now getting warmed up. This leaves Milk and Button. Button should clean up in most of the technical categories (at least, the ones that Dark Knight doesn’t take), and while Milk should be somewhat less alienating to the Ernest Borgnines and Tony Curtises than Brokeback was, I suspect there are still enough of them out there to make Button the winner.

WINNER
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Milk

Well, this is the most boring category to predict, because...yeesh, there really aren’t that many flicks this year with that big mainstream Best Picture-y feeling. Milk is “small” by Hollywood standards, and the old relics who voted Crash over Brokeback Mountain in 2006 still want to pretend (in public anyway) that Rock Hudson just never found the right girl...but there’s enough passionate support for Gus Van Sant’s biopic to at least snag a nomination. Frost/Nixon and Doubt are both stage adaptations (i.e., classy) by respected industry vets, so I suspect they’ll squeak past more new-fangled contraptions like Slumdog Millionaire or the love-it/hate-it Rachel Getting Married. I’m only picking Benjamin Button because it’s been nominated a lot for other things (and Entertainment Weekly called it a lock), but...really? Benjamin Button? I dunno, my wife wants to see it, so maybe it’s a lady thing. On the XY end of the spectrum, meanwhile, there’s The Dark Knight. I used to complain about Christopher Nolan’s overwritten funny book movie, but now I’m just gonna drink the Kool-Aid and say The Dark Knight is not only the best movie in the history of cinema, but it’s also the best novel, play, song, restaurant, architecture style, third baseman and dance craze of all time, and it’s also going to be this year’s Best Picture.

WINNER
The Dark Muthahfuckin' Knight

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS
Changeling
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Rachel Getting Married
Revolutionary Road

Doubt and Changeling are both the kinds of message pictures the Academy loves, and the latter will probably slip in as the one-off picture, since it’s too much in their wheelhouse to ignore, but I don’t see it getting nominated for much else. Rachel Getting Married is the best of the pictures likely to score a nomination, but it hasn’t captured Hollywood’s attention the way Silence of the Lambs did, and Frost/Nixon, while it’s got a good chance, is probably a bit too atypical, not to say political, to get the big prize. It’s gonna be Revolutionary Road’s year, almost by default, as Mad Men-loving America enjoys a brief moment of ‘50s/’60s pseudo-nostalgia. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Synechdoche, New York will only win a writing Oscar, also known as the award they give to the actual best picture of the year.

MARK MY WORDS!

WINNER
Revolutionary Road

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, THE DARK KNIGHT, FROST/NIXON, MILK, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
NO CONSENSUS!

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

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

Screengrab Predicts the Oscars: Nominations (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:45:00 GMT

BEST DIRECTOR

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

David Fincher got respectable with Benjamin Button. Gus Van Sant did the same with Milk. Ron Howard is always an Academy favorite, so he should be there for Frost/Nixon. Danny Boyle put on a show in Slumdog Millionaire. The final slot is up for grabs, but I think Christopher Nolan has the best shot for The Dark Knight.

WINNER
Danny Boyle

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Charlie Kaufmann (Synecdoche, NY)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

Charlie Kaufman will be nominated for Synecdoche, NY because it is a director's movie. However that will feel too forced of a winner, so Gus Van Sant will win for Milk. That is, unless the Academy goes with escapism in these trying times and Christopher Nolan wins for The Dark Knight. If the latter transpires, it will be one of those head-scratching moments when the reel of past winners rolls at future Awards shows. There is no way Danny Boyle will come in from left field and win for Slumdog Millionaire, but the Academy will want to show that they appreciate a good movie, so will nominate him anyway. Ron Howard will be thrown a nomination for engaging the Nixon presidency, a national trauma that we like to think seems timely.

WINNER
Gus Van Sant

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Andrew Stanton (WALL*E)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

It’s rare for a Best Director shortlist to double the Best Picture nominees five-for-five, and of the Best Picture nominations I’m predicting, Frost/Nixon feels the least like a “director’s movie.” But who takes Ron Howard’s place? If The Wrestler catches on with the voters beyond a couple of acting nominations, Darren Aronofsky might place here -- likewise The Reader’s Stephen Daldry and Happy-Go-Lucky’s Mike Leigh, both two-time directing nominees. As always, one shouldn’t count out Clint Eastwood. But I’m going out on a limb here and predicting WALL*E director Andrew Stanton, as a nomination here would give Academy members a chance to recognize the film outside of its inevitable Best Animated Feature win, thereby making him the first director ever nominated for an animated film. As for the winner, bet on Fincher to win even if the film doesn’t, as the epic scope and classically-inflected style of Button should prove to be right up the voters’ collective alley.

WINNER
David Fincher

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)

We made our Director predictions before the announcement of the DGA awards, so we’re all flying a little blind in this category. Ron Howard was Opie and Frost/Nixon was good, so he seems like an even-money bet. Christopher Nolan will surely ride The Dark Knight wave, and folks seem enamored of the creepy old man baby (and, I suppose, the swoony, melancholy romance) of Benjamin Button, so I reckon the powers-that-be might finally be ready to forgive David Fincher for Alien³. Whether or not his film receives a Best Picture nod, Danny Boyle will probably get nominated...because if directing means wrangling a zillion elements (including half the population of Mumbai) into a coherent, entertaining auteurial vision, then Boyle certainly directed the shit outta Slumdog Millionaire. And finally, I guess I have to go with Gus Van Sant for Milk, even though it means I just basically wound up parroting all the predictions in Entertainment Weekly. As for the actual winner...hmm. Though I think Dark Knight’s gonna win Best Picture, it’s still basically just an action film (no, really...it’s just an action film, people). Howard, Fincher and Boyle did fine work, but Van Sant has passion on his side and managed to get a labor of love to the finish line (after many failed attempts by previous players) so: him.

WINNER
Gus Van Sant

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS

Jonathan Demme (Rachel Getting Married)
Clint Eastwood (Changeling)
Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road)
John Patrick Shanley (Doubt)

Clint’s gonna get nominated for something, and please God don’t let it be for the damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn disaster Gran Torino. Demme gets the ‘year of the comeback’ nomination for Rachel Getting Married, and Shanley will pick up a nom since the Academy has a weakness for directors who aren’t really directors. It’ll come down to a slugfest between Mendes and Howard, who’s finally made a movie worth nominating, and I think, in a year that won’t see any big sweep winners, that Revolutionary Road will get Mr. Kate Winslet the big prize. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Hollywood isn’t quite ready to welcome back Gus Van Sant, and Benjamin Button is the least David Fincherish movie David Fincher has ever directed, so they’ll get passed over.

WINNER
Sam Mendes

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
DANNY BOYLE, DAVID FINCHER, RON HOWARD, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, GUS VAN SANT

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
GUS VAN SANT

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

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

Screengrab Predicts the Oscars: Nominations (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:30:00 GMT

BEST ACTOR

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

If Sean Penn can get nominated for I Am Sam, there's no reason to think his beautiful work in Milk will be overlooked. Everyone loves a comeback, so even if they're a little worried he'll take a drunken stumble into Jack Nicholson's lap, Mickey Rourke will be nominated for The Wrestler. Rounding out the leading men will be Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Brad Pitt (Benjamin Button), and this year's sentimental "Hey, you're almost friggin' 80!" nominee, Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino).

WINNER
Rourke. Watch out, ladies!

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Christian Bale (The Dark Knight)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Synecdoche, NY)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Since Philip Seymour Hoffman appeared in two movies likely to figure in the Academy Awards this year, it follows that he must be nominated for at least one. Brad Pitt will be nominated for long and faithful service, Christian Bale for being in a blockbuster that didn't suck, and Mickey Rourke for appearing again out of nowhere. Sean Penn will win, because he is playing a gay man. But also because this is the best role he has done in a good while, if not ever. Madonna will be jealous.

WINNER
Sean Penn

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Where’s Richard Jenkins, you ask? The Screengrab favorite won numerous early accolades for his work in The Visitor, but the risky plan to open the film early to build steam for Jenkins has led to the unassuming actor getting lost in the end-of-the-year shuffle, as most of the honors have been split between Penn and Rourke. With early predictions such as Leonardo DiCaprio (Revolutionary Road) and Benicio Del Toro (Che) having largely stalled out, Jenkins is the only potential spoiler here, but between Rourke’s comeback-kid status, the high-profile biopic turns of Penn and Langella, and two big stars in Eastwood and Pitt, I’m predicting that Jenkins pulls a Paul Giamatti and gets shut out of a nomination despite the early hosannas. As for the eventual winner, it seems too soon for Penn to win a second Oscar, and unless Rourke torpedoes his chances between now and February 22, I suspect that capping off his comeback with a statuette will prove too perfect an ending for voters to resist.

WINNER
Mickey Rourke

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

After all the endless hype about Mickey Rourke’s comeback in The Wrestler, it’d be heee-larious if he didn’t actually get nominated. And I’m guessing there’s more than a few Academy voters not exactly wishing Mickey well...but Hollywood and professional sports are all about storylines, so a Rourke nod seems inevitable. Unlike Rourke, Frank Langella and Sean Penn were playing other people in their movies rather than semi-autobiographical stunt-casting versions of themselves...and doing it well: Penn, in particular, seemed like an entirely different human being in Milk (which, y’know, is probably why the award is “Best Actor” instead of “Best Comeback”). Then again, there’s something to be said for a beloved screen icon just playing a stylized, hyper-real version of themselves, especially when they’re still kicking more ass in their seventies than alleged action star Shia LaBeouf will kick on the ass-kickingest day of his life, and especially when said role occurs in what may be said icon’s last screen role ever...in other words, I’ll be surprised if Clint Eastwood doesn’t grab a nomination for Gran Torino. And speaking of beloved movie stars, I’m supposed to pick Brad Pitt for the fifth spot, but what if the Academy decides his performance in Benjamin Button was more to do with CGI than acting chops? In that case, they might choose a dark horse, under-the-radar industry vet who’s paid his dues and (unlike Pitt) may never get another shot at the brass ring: the lovely and talented “that guy” Richard Jenkins for his role in The Visitor. (But Penn’s gonna actually win, partly thanks to Proposition 8...and I mentioned that whole crazy “acting” thing, yes?)

WINNER
Sean Penn

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS
Leonardo DiCaprio (Revolutionary Road)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Goodness knows why anyone continues to insist that Leonardo Di Caprio is a good actor, but I’d bet my next paycheck on him getting the nod. Frank Langella, likewise, plays Nixon like a broad majestic Shannon – that ain’t acting, that’s overacting – but the Academy loves an old pro. Pitt’s Button nom makes up for the Burn After Reading one he won’t get. In the end, though, it’ll be a battle between comeback kid Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and Sean Penn’s well-deserved nomination for Milk; I’ll predict that Rourke gets it, though, since Penn has had (and will have) many more moments in the sun, while this is likely Mickey’s last dance. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Benicio Del Toro’s incredibly tight performance in Che won’t get recognized because the public won’t sit through a 17-hour movie, and right-wing critics will yap endlessly that the movie glorifies a killer, which has never, ever happened before in a Hollywood movie.

WINNER
Mickey Rourke

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
CLINT EASTWOOD, FRANK LANGELLA, SEAN PENN, BRAD PITT, MICKEY ROURKE

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
MICKEY ROURKE

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, 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

Watch It For Free: “The Times of Harvey Milk”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Gus Van Sant’s biopic Milk finished in the top five in the Screengrab’s consensus list of the best movies of 2008 (certainly the highest honor the film has received thus far). If, like us, you’re still astounded by the performance of the strangely human-like creature calling himself Sean Penn, perhaps you’d like to compare the actor’s work with the real thing. Well, now you can! Let’s face it, it’s still too early in the year to get any actual work done, so while you’re trapped at your desk, you might as well take a look at the Oscar-winning 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. Watch it for free after the jump!

Courtesy of Hulu, here’s your complimentary Harvey Milk documentary:

2008: Still Combing the Wreckage

Phil Nugent — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

The results if the Village Voice/L.A. Weekly year-end critics' poll are in. The snarling, pointy-headed elitists who make up the core voting bloc went with a kiddie cartoon and box-office smash, Andrew Stanton's Pixar instant classic WALL-E, a choice that meets with the Screengrab's hearty approval. "Sometimes", writes Voice Grand Poo-bah J. Hoberman, "the movies really are universal." However, Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, which finished out of the Top Ten at #12, deserves recognition as the year's "prize critical cult film...Despite generally mixed reviews, Demme’s independent feature received a higher percentage of first- and second-place votes than even WALL-E, meaning that the people who liked it really liked it." Hoberman detected an optimistic strain in many of this year's top films, not just WALL-E and Rachel but also such favorites as Happy-Go-Lucky and (its ending aside) Milk, extending even to Let the Right One In, "an unexpectedly touching treatment of child vampirism", and his own choice for best film of the year, "the relatively cheerful" Flight of the Red Balloon. Maybe if this optimistic vibe can be fully tapped, the Voice itself will be able to last another year.

One last, must-see on-line portal for tributes to the year past: "Moments of 2008", parts one and two, at the Museum of the Moving Image's "Moving Image Source" site. Here, a lively selection of writers and film folk, including Guy Maddin, Karina Longworth, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jonathan Lethem, Todd Gitlin, Joshua Land, Dennis Lim, Scott Foundas, and others, cite their own most thrilling "moving-image highlights", with results that include movies both new (Man on Wire, Before I Forget, Madden's own My Winnipeg) and old as well as TV (The Wire, The Wire, The Wire) and news and politics. Also among those participating: David Hudson, whose work at GreenCine Daily has set a high standard, and provided invaluable assistance, to the Screengrab and all on-line film writers. Hudson has just gravitated over to IFC's fil blog The Daily, leaving the GreenCine site in the capable hands of Aaron Hillis. We offer our thanks for past services and wish them both well in the coming year.

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

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

2008 is already getting a rap as a bad year for filmmaking, which is entirely unfair -- it's merely a good year that has to contend with coming right after 2007, one of the greatest years in recent cinematic history. It's also the first year where I spent the entire year as a critic living in a city that seems allergic to art films; when it came time to compile my top tens, which no doubt reflect my current cultural circumstances, I found I had seen fewer of the most highly praised films of the year than in any recent memory. Putting this list together involved a lot of work on my part -- not the normal intellectual work of weighing the artistic merits of each movie and finding something to say about them, but the physical work of actually seeing the damn things, when a good half of them didn't play in my city. This is especially true of the 2008 end-of-year releases. But throught a combination of tactics, including but not limited to Netflix, filesharing, begging publicists for screeners, shuttling back and forth to Austin, and, in the case of my #1 pick, engaging in a quest that would, itself, make a pretty good movie, I managed to put together a list of my ten favorite films of the year. I don't know how you loyal readers will take it -- I know that I'm at odds with a few of my Screengrab colleagues on at least a couple of these -- but here I stand, in a year that ain't as bad as it seemed.

10. MILK (Gus Van Sant, dir.)

Three decades too late, but this is the year of Harvey Milk: the new album by an Athens-based band that bears the assassinated San Francisco supervisor’s name is one of the best of the year, as is Gus Van Sant’s biopic of the country’s first openly gay elected official. Noted by Van Sant as the first movie of his return to mainstream filmmaking, Milk has been criticized for taking a straightforward approach rather than showcasing the director’s more experimental side, but, like Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, it largely succeeds because it lets the flashy stylistic touches take a back seat to what is, after all, one of the most compelling political stories of the American century. Sean Penn is rightly getting props for his terrific performance as Harvey Milk; it’s a career-redeeming showing after nearly a decade of missteps. But no one should ignore the excellent supporting performance, especially those of James Franco as Milk’s partner Scott Smith and Josh Brolin as the tortured killer Dan White. Elegant, appealing, timely and persuasive without being preachy, Milk is one of the best biopics of recent vintage.

9. BALLAST (Lance Hammer, dir.)

Lance Hammer’s debut feature film Ballast is being widely proffered as proof that reports of independent film’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The indie scene was on the rocks this year, to be sure, but Ballast is a mighty convincing argument for its continued vitality. It deals quietly and hypnotically with the emotional paralysis into which a Mississippi family is thrown after one brother commits suicide, and its characters – played almost entirely by an amateur cast using improvised dialogue – are so real as to be astonishing. The performances by a batch of promising unknowns are halting, wandering, and unspectacular, because people rarely react to such an event in a spectacular way. Likewise, criticism of the film’s slow pace seem off the mark to me: the movie’s slow movement and stately grace (visually abetted by some incredible cinematography by Lol Crawley) recall Ozu, who was rarely subject to such carping. Ballast is a thing of dark, slow beauty.

8. THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan, dir.)

The opinion of a million IMDB fanboys notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn’t one of the greatest films ever made. Now that it’s available on DVD, its flaws are easy to catch on repeat viewings: too much of David S. Goyer’s heavy scriptwriting hand, a confused and uncentered role for Batman himself, and an ending that continues to make precious little sense. But, by the same token, its strengths are also mightily in evidence, ready for anyone to savor who thinks a big-screen action picture can’t also be a good movie: a number of near-perfect emotional moments, a riveting conjuration of a city caught in the grips of terror, and, of course, Heath Ledger’s absolutely electrifying performance as the Joker, one of the greatest screen villains in history. And, in the same way he used a pulp noir thriller as the framework for one of the most deeply philosophical mainstream movies ever in Memento, Nolan manages to take a superhero punch-‘em-up and turn it into one of the most profoundly political movies of the year.

7. IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T'AIME [I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG] (Phillipe Claudel, dir.)

This French drama is, with Synechdoche, New York, one of two amazing films made this year by first-time directors who are better known for their writing. Phillipe Claudel, a well-respected screenwriter and novelist, has made a movie as small and controlled as Charlie Kaufman’s is ambitious and sprawling: it’s remarkably tight for a first effort, with none of the excess that often betrays a first effort. With not a single frame wasted, he brings us the story of Juliette Fontaine, a woman whose sister takes her into a distrusting – not to say dysfunctional – family after she has spent fifteen years in prison; Kristin Scott Thomas (who seems an entirely different actress, and a far superior one, in French than she is in English) plays her with an emotional and physical reticence that borders on exhaustion, and she’s perfectly complemented by Elsa Zylberstein as her loving, determined sister. It’s the best family drama in years, understated and nearly perfect at conveying its emotional complexities.

6. MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, dir.)

The most compelling documentary of the year is based on an event so trivial it would be almost entirely forgotten if not for the existence of the movie: Phillipe Petit’s jaw-dropping, pointless, spectacular, and foolhardy tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center during its construction in 1974. Filmed by the director of Wisconsin Death Trip and using similar techniques (including some arbitrary, though skillful reenactments), Man On Wire brings us a movie about the WTC that has nothing to do with the terror attacks that brought it down – and yet which cannot escape comparison, with its images of bits of the towers in chaos (though from construction, not destruction), its central plot of a small group of schemers engaging in intricate planning to conquer them (though their motivation is art, not violence), and its unforgettable image of Petit suspended between the buildings, so eerily reminiscent of the shots of those who fell on September 11th. Petit did not fall; we know he did not, because we see and hear him from the movie’s first shots. The fact that it’s so fascinating to watch though we know he didn’t fall is a testament to its power as a film.

Click for Part Two

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

Year-End Roundup: AFI, Boston Critics…and Stephen King?

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Here’s your Monday afternoon update on the year-end award and Top 10 list derby. The American Film Institute has released its annual top ten list – I’m not sure I knew the AFI had an annual top ten list, but apparently they’ve been doing this since at least 2000 – and most of the titles are familiar from other such lists. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk and Frost/Nixon are among the predictable entries, but superhero enthusiasts will be pleased to see both The Dark Knight and Iron Man represented. The full list is here, along with the AFI’s top ten television shows, which include The Wire, thank you very much.

The Boston Film Critics had an indecisive year in 2008. They awarded ties for both Best Picture (WALL-E and Slumdog Millionaire) and Best Actor (Sean Penn for Milk, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler). No big surprises here, aside from maybe the Ensemble Cast award for Tropic Thunder.

The most idiosyncratic Top 10 list to date has to be that of Entertainment Weekly columnist and Screengrab 24-hour marathon inspiration Stephen King. “I'm not trustworthy when it comes to movies… This is almost surely the only 10-best list you'll read that contains not one but two Jason Statham movies.” Indeed, King singles out both The Bank Job and Death Race for praise (he hasn’t caught Transporter 3 yet), along with the craptastic The Ruins. “It could have been ludicrous. Instead, it's unrelenting.” Yes, unrelentingly ludicrous. Anyway, check out his full list here – it’s the scariest thing he’s written in years.

Related:
Roger Ebert Supersizes Top 10 of 2008
Film Threat Unveils Frigid 50 of 2008

Thursday Poll for December 11, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Last week, the Thursday Poll took a look back at the recent films of Gus Van Sant to commemorate with the release of his latest film, Milk. In the process we made one unmistakable discovery- you folks like your Van Sant movie arty. To wit: of Van Sant’s last five movies, your favorite (and mine too) was 2002’s minimalist slackers-in-the-desert saga Gerry, which simultaneously won the week and conquered Thebes with a 44% showing. In our closest showing in a while, Van Sant’s Cannes prizewinner Elephant finished with a strong 38%, followed by Last Days with 13% and the sadly underrated Paranoid Park with 6%. And while awards-giving bodies will no doubt show plenty of love for Milk, its more mainstream style didn’t make much of an impact with our readers, garnering not a single vote. But hey, it’s better than Finding Forrester, right?

This week, in conjunction with the upcoming release of Frost/Nixon, the latest bit of middlebrow Oscar-bait from the guy who narrated Arrested Development (the best thing he ever did, by the way), we take a look at the varied cinematic portrayals of the Trickiest Dick to ever inhabit the White House. So, who’s your favorite big-screen Nixon?

Who's your favorite big-screen Nixon? | BuzzDash polls

As always, the comments section is open. We'll see you next week, provided nobody Gerries the rendezvous. Don't forget your shirt-basket!

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

LA Critics Go Wacky for WALL-E

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Certainly no one will be confusing the Los Angeles Film Critics Association with the Golden Globes this morning. The LA crit pick for best picture of the year is the little-known arthouse curiosity WALL-E, with the vaguely Scandinavian-sounding The Dark Knight as runner-up. When will these artsy-fartsy dweebs in their berets and monocles figure out that they’re simply out of touch with the movie-loving public?

Perhaps you sense sarcasm. It’s true, I am tweaking my West Coast brethren a bit for picking two of the year’s most popular movies – but I should state for the record that both WALL-E and The Dark Knight are still in the mix for my own Top 10 list, so I’m not really complaining that much about their choices. If this is truly the consensus of the group, then let it be; there’s no rule that says critics can’t prefer mainstream fare to more adventurous, innovative or difficult material, particularly if the latter was in short supply this year. But I do have suspicions. Suspicions that critics, who are losing jobs by the bushel as newspapers bleed red ink, may be playing it a little safe, lest they be deemed completely irrelevant sooner than later. Not all critics, certainly – but you would expect the ones who live at show biz ground zero to be particularly susceptible to such fears. It’s no big deal, maybe, but it is sobering to recall that it was this same group that bestowed Best Picture honors on Brazil based on an unauthorized outlaw screening, and perhaps saved it from being released in butchered form or not at all. What exactly are they doing for WALL-E and The Dark Knight? What undiscovered audience are they serving?

On the other coast, the Washington DC critics have weighed in, bestowing their top honors upon Slumdog Millionaire. The Broadcast Film Critics have announced their nominations; among the ten movies contending for Best Picture are the abovementioned lonely robot and grim vigilante, along with Milk, Doubt and The Wrestler, among others. The full lists of all the awards and critics prizes announced so far can be found at Movie City News.

Related:
Roger Ebert: The Death of the Film Critic is the Death of Society
Ever-Mysterious National Board of Review's Year-End Awards

Morning Deal Report: Uwe Boll Can't Be Stopped

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Four Christmases remains atop the box office chart, earning an additional $18.2 million over the weekend. The first weekend could have been an accident, but now the blame falls squarely on you, America. The third attempt at launching a Punisher franchise should mercifully be the last, as Punisher: War Zone took in a measly $4 million. Nixon now, more than ever? Frost/Nixon raked in $180,147, which may not look like much until you consider that the film is only playing in three theaters. Potential awards contenders Milk and Slumdog Millionaire also did well in limited release.

Twilight is still hanging in there at number two on the box office list, but that’s not enough to keep Catherine Hardwicke in the director’s chair for the sequel. “Summit and Hardwicke cite Summit's wish to rush the movie into production as one reason for their split. Summit wants to release the picture, which will demand substantial CGI work, by the end of 2009 or the start of 2010. A former production designer, Hardwicke wanted more prep time,” Variety reports.

Uwe Boll cannot be stopped. Lauren Holly and Luke Perry have signed on for the master of disaster’s latest atrocity, The Storm. “In the apocalyptic thriller, Holly plays a dedicated wife and mother who must deal with the end of days scenario -- all heightened by the arrival of a mysterious stranger named Silas (Perry) who holds the key to the approaching doom,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Related:
Your Thursday Afternoon "Twilight" Roundup
One Million Uwe Boll Haters Can't Be Wrong

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Nov. 22- Dec. 5, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Because I was busy digesting turkey, stuffing and pie while forming a deep groove in my couch, I neglected to post a highlight reel last week. That means you’re in for a treat – it’s the very first Supersized Highlight Reel! That’s right, we’ve got two weeks worth of leftovers for you. That means not only our Holiday Special: Movies We’re Thankful For (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six) but our list of the Top Biopics of All Time (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six).

But we’re just getting warmed up. We’ve also got reviews of not only Gus Van Sant’s new biopic Milk, but the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. And we’ve got more William Friedkin posts than at any time since 1974 (when the Screengrab was only available via short-wave radio): William Friedkin Has No Sense of Social Obligation, The French Connection Influenced Everything and The Screengrab: Your One-Stop Site for All Things William Friedkin.

You want more reviews? How about The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage, Waterloo, Mister Lonely, Frost/Nixon and the Stop Making Sense soundtrack? How about the first installment of Leonard Pierce’s 12 Days of Christmas, The Nightmare Before Christmas? How about the latest in Ozsploitation, Roadgames?

Still not enough? Check out these other headlines from the fortnight past:

Roman Polanski: Wanted in Los Angeles, Desired in Turin

Roger Ebert: The Death of the Film Critic is the Death of Society

Oscar Launch: The Silly Season Commences

All The Real Girls Is One of the Most Influential Movies of the Decade

Site of the Day: A John Waters Christmas

Take Five: Van Sant

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Gus Van Sant is certainly one of the most curious figures in contemporary American cinema. He pioneered a very specific breed of indie filmmaking before it even had a name, but his forays into mainstream cinema have alternated between clever successes and embarrassing failures. He gives some of the oddest interviews in Hollywood (compared to him, David Lynch is a downright pedestrian chit-chatter), and he's as dedicated to constant reinvention -- or at least refinement -- as anyone in the industry. And his career would seem downright schizophrenic if it weren't so marked by intensely personal qualities; he's done everything from big, Oscar-baiting biopics (such as Milk, his take on the rise and demise of openly gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk) to small, artsy, improvised tales with almost no commercial potential. He's equally capable of having his characters spout unadulterated Shakespeare and having them say nothing at all for endless minutes of screen time, and make both choices seem perfectly natural. He has a curiously critical eye towards his own work -- that is to say, it's not curious that he is self-critical, but rather it's curious how much he talks like a film critic; many of his longer discussions with journalists have sounded more like a well-informed film critic discussing Gus Van Sant's work than it does a director talking about himself. His stabs at mainstream credibility have yielded decidedly mixed results; his successes have been noteworthy (see below), but his failures, especially flattened-out duds like Finding Forrester and Good Will Hunting, and an utterly pointless remake of Psycho, have been spectacular. Through it all, he's remained one of the film industry's hardest men to figure out, but it seems no one ever tires of watching what his next move will be. Here's five of our favorites by the Prince of Portland.

MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (1991)

Mala Noche was the movie that made the underground sit up and take notice of Gus Van Sant's talent; Drugstore Cowboy won over the burgeoning indie world and made him a critic's darling. But the daring, explosively risky My Own Private Idaho was the movie that convinced me that I was seeing the work of an American genius in the making. The story of two sad, sincere male hustlers (played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves), it blended elements of Shakespearean drama, class warfare, transgressive queen cinema, and pure street poetry in a way that so clearly shouldn't have worked that it's downright amazing how well it did. Van Sant crammed the movie with real characters from his beloved Portland and made an intensely personal film that nonetheless hit everyone who saw it right where they lived.

TO DIE FOR (1995)

Gus Van Sant's first stab at commercial credibility was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which, despite a plethora of good intentions, was his first major dud. In fact, its ineptness in spite of itself might be noted as a pattern that the director would follow in much of his mainstream work, if it wasn't for the existence of his follow-up film, To Die For. Working from Buck Henry's sharpest, nastiest script in decades, Van Sant directs a movie that almost invisibly echoes some of the themes of his previous work, especially in those scenes featuring lovestruck, dimwitted local teen Joaquin Phoenix and his crew. Van Sant rarely overreaches, and manages to let the black comedic tone of the script do its work; his greatest accomplishment is to get a truly memorable performance out of Nicole Kidman, who's better here than she would be again for some time.

GERRY (2002)

In 2002, Van Sant was on the tail end of a bad time. Hollywood hadn't been good to him over the previous half-decade, but to be fair, he hadn't been very good to it, either, with Good Will Hunting, Psycho and Finding Forrester gunking up his resume. Returning to his strange interiors for another shot at indie filmmaking, he released the first of his "Death Trilogy", the underrated Gerry, and a lot of critics were ready to call it his fourth disaster in a row: it's static to the point of tedium, its improvised dialogue (by two actors not especially beloved by highbrow reviewers) was sometimes silly and sometimes impenetrable, and it had nothing resembling a plot. But Gerry was a quiet triumph, a movie that builds almost unnoticably and marks a return to greatness by a director who can do very much with very little.

ELEPHANT (2003)

Van Sant followed up the surprising and effective Gerry with the triumphant Elephant, the best film of 2003. The second of his death trilogy takes an almost transcendently naturalistic look at a small high school on the day of a Columbine-style murder spree; the dialogue, again largely improvised, and the endless, unintrusive tracking shots make Elephant a brilliant contradiction: a movie so banal that it's almost mystical. Through the whole event, from boring ordinariness to life-shattering violence, Van Sant's particular genius is to steadfastly refuse to lead the viewers to anything resembling an explanation for the horror. Forcing us to view everything from the eyes of those who don't understand why they have to die, Elephant reflects our own maddening desire to have random violence made explicable -- and the world's refusal to comply.

PARANOID PARK (2007)

A strangely stirring and deeply affecting film, 2007's Paranoid Park -- based largely on a successful young adult novel -- finds Gus Van Sant returning to Portland and making a key transition from the relentlessly bleak indie sensibilities of the Death Trilogy to the artsy mainstream appeal of Milk. Once again trusting an amateur cast (many of whom were recruited off of MySpace) and a good deal of improvised dialogue to carry the tone of the film, Van Sant also lays in a heavy, dark directorial touch that nails the mood of the story perfectly. He's greatly aided in this attempt by the gorgeous cinematography by Wong Kar-Wai's cameraman, Christopher Doyle, and the Zoo-York-clad Gabe Nevins as the affectless skateboarding protagonist. Paranoid Park is a perfect bridge between To Die For and Elephant.

Related Posts:

Screengrab Review: Milk

Gus Van Sant and Paranoid Park: 'It's the End of a Certain Way I Was Making Films'

Screengrab Salutes: The Top Biopics Of All Time! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The problem with biopics, as most cineastes know, is the way they often tend to play like a greatest hits of their subjects’ lives, packed with historical moments and celebrity impersonations rather than realistic character development or any kind of specific story worth telling.

But Gus Van Sant’s Milk vaulted out of the specialty box office charts and into the mainstream top ten largely on the strength of a gripping, inspirational (and, sadly, still timely) story of persecution, triumph and tragedy, featuring a classic protagonist/antagonist duo embodied by Sean Penn’s crusading gay rights activist and Josh Brolin’s conflicted assassin.

And so, with Oscar buzz clinging to Van Sant, Penn and Brolin like...wait for it...yes, milk mustachios, we here at the Screengrab decided now would be the perfect time to Walk Hard through the positively true story of OUR FAVORITE BIOPICS OF ALL TIME!

ED WOOD (1994)

Tim Burton’s tribute to the so-called “worst director of all time” is a two-fer: while Johnny Depp’s relatively obscure title character is the focus, the Oscar-winning main attraction was Martin Landau’s portrayal of a lusty, foul-mouthed, morphine-addicted Bela Lugosi in the final years of his life, after Hollywood had kicked him to the curb and the once proud actor could only find work rolling around in a lake with a giant rubber octopus. Lugosi’s son, Béla Junior, initially criticized Burton’s film for its inaccuracies with regard to his father (who, for example, was married at the time of his death and rarely used profanity, at least according to friends like Forrest J. Ackerman, Ed Wood’s one-time “illiterary” agent). But what makes the film great is that docu-drama realism was never the point: we don’t necessarily see events as they happened, but rather the way Ed Wood, Jr. (and, to a certain extent, Wood biographer Rudolph Grey and cartoonist/old Hollywood enthusiast Drew Friedman) perceived them: in surreal, melodramatic black & white fantasias where an alcoholic transvestite wannabe could actually transcend death and live forever like his idol, Count Dracula.

I'M NOT THERE (2007)

If ever there was an artist who required no further mythologizing, it would have to be Bob Dylan. A conventional biopic of the Bard might well be unbearable, which is why it's a good thing Todd Haynes, World's Cleverest Film Student, signed on for the task. Haynes takes the well-known Dylan mythos, scrambles it all together and then bounces it off a series of funhouse mirrors, delighting in the ever more distorted reflections that result. Six different actors play six different versions of Dylan, among them Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin), an 11-year-old African-American boy who rides the rails with hobos, spinning tall tales of a rambling youth with no direction home; Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), an alternate universe troubadour whose Dylanesque career unfolds as scenes from a mockumentary in the mode of A Mighty Wind; and Robbie (Heath Ledger), an actor who is playing Jack Rollins in a conventional biopic called Grain of Sand. (Sample dialogue: "I'm only a pawn in their game!") The standout is Cate Blanchett, who was nominated for an Oscar for her eerie take on hipster-dandy Jude Quinn, supernova post-Beatles pop star. In appropriating and manipulating various filmmaking styles, Haynes is striving for a cinematic equivalent to the way Dylan adapted and exploded traditional folk forms in his music. The resulting surreal swirl recalls Dylan's most fertile creative period, his mid-60s "thin, wild mercury music" wherein characters ranging from Paul Revere to Jack the Ripper to Cecil B. DeMille could inhabit the same soundscape. Through these methods, Haynes is attempting a biography not so much of a man, but of an artistic sensibility. If I'm Not There is occasionally impenetrable, pretentious or overly impressed with its own cleverness, that only serves to make it a more accurate, warts-and-all portrait, without delving into tabloid trash. You may love it or hate it, but you get the feeling its subject wouldn't want it any other way.

LADY SINGS THE BLUES (1972)

This soapy treatment of the life of Billie Holiday is not beloved by jazz critics or historical purists, who recoil from its sloppy handling of the facts of the singer's life and gag on Diana Ross' pop stylings when she sings Holiday classics such as "Strange Fruit." But the movie remains highly enjoyable when taken on the terms that it set for itself in 1972: a chance for African-American audiences to wallow in the kind of old-Hollywood melodrama that had been spun from the lives of white celebrities such as Lillian Roth and Ruth Etting, with a dash of blaxploitation attitude for flavor. (It turns out that Billie needed a toxically blond white man to turn her onto heroin. Who knew?) Ross' singing here takes a back seat to her acting, which should have marked the start of a major movie career. She proved she had the talent, but once she'd tasted success in Hollywood, her diva gene ate her common sense alive. Her scenes with her piano man sidekick, Richard Pryor, have a special poignance today, because it's hard to remember that there was a time when Diana Ross and Richard Pryor occupied the same planet.

GENTLEMAN JIM (1942)

This affably sanitized life of heavyweight boxer James J. Corbett (Errol Flynn) is probably the most entertaining example of the boxer-biopic genre that Martin Scorsese was to bury for all time with Raging Bull. It also provided its star, Errol Flynn, with a rare chance to appear onscreen in street clothes instead of leggings or cowboy gear. The premise is that Corbett was the first brainiac who conquered his opponents by means of the "scientific" method, which enables him to whup such swaggering sides of beef as John L. Sullivan (Ward Bond). This allows Flynn to win his fights and still display a glib enough tongue to pitch woo at society gal Alexis Smith. This is also the movie that was in theaters when Flynn was dragged into court on hinky charges of statutory rape, a sideshow that turned out to do the movie not the least bit of harm at the box office.

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT (1993)

In this updating of Love Me or Leave Me (the 1955 cult classic in which Doris Day, as singer Ruth Etting, was physically abused by James Cagney as her husband-manager), Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne play Ike and Tina Turner, from their days starting out together on the R & B touring circuit and the period when electrifying star performances on-stage alternated with one-sided sparring matches backstage to the day that Tina, having discovered the untapped strength at her core with the help of a chanting regimen, starting punching back. The closest thing to a flaw in Bassett's performance is that she didn't have Turner's legs, a problem that today would probably be corrected with the help of CGI; she compensates with her slugger's arms, which make the scenes of abuse easier to get through, since you can't help but anticipate the moment when this woman realizes that she can take care of herself. Fishburne may be even better, tapping into deep reserves of rage that a lesser actor would have been tempted to take out on the costume designer. This is probably the finest lead performance ever given by an actor who at one point is forced to don hot pants and a Prince Valiant haircut.

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

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Phil Nugent

Ever-Mysterious National Board of Review's Year-End Awards

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Before any of the critics’ associations weigh in with their year-end awards, the National Board of Review releases its annual awards announcement and Top 10 list. While this organization certainly has an official-sounding name, questions remain about the legitimacy of the group, which was actually founded as a censorship board in 1909. In response to a reader question, Roger Ebert once wrote, “I have never met anyone who has met a member of the National Board of Review. The director John Boormann recently told me that he attended one of their award banquets at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and met several other award winners. There was a celebrity host to hand out the prizes. ‘After I got back home,’ he mused, ‘I realized that I had not met a single person claiming to be a member of the National Board of Review.’”

Be that as it may, the NBR’s list is taken seriously each year as a bellwether of the upcoming critics’ prizes and other awards, so we hereby dutifully present their top honors:

BEST PICTURE: Slumdog Millionaire
BEST DIRECTOR: David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
BEST ACTOR: Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
BEST ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Josh Brolin, Milk
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

TOP TEN FILMS:

Burn after Reading
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Gran Torino
Milk
WALL•E
The Wrestler

2008 Gotham Awards & 2009 Spirit Nominations Announced

Andrew Osborne — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Yes, it's that magical time of year again: Oscar pre-season. True, we've still got a few more weeks of 2008 releases to go (including the obligatory one-week L.A. runs for last minute Academy Awards consideration), but in the same way baseball fans start frothing at the mouth in anticipation when the equipment trucks roll down to Florida for Spring Training, so, too, do the red carpet geeks amongst us jump for joy at the first sign of envelopes opening.

And, indeed, last night in New York City, the Independent Feature Project rolled out their annual Gotham Awards ceremomy, paying tribute to director Courtney Hunt's Frozen River as Best Feature, with Lance Hammer winning the Best Breakthrough Director Award for his film Ballast. Best Documentary went to Trouble the Water (directed by Tia Lessin & Carl Deal), while the Best Ensemble Performance Award went to both the casts of Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Synecdoche, New York (which blew my mind by having Samantha Morton and Emily Watson play the same character, thus further diminishing my already shaky capacity for telling the actresses apart). Rounding out the Gothams was the Breakthrough Actor Award, which went to Melissa Leo for her performance in Frozen River, and Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You, taken by Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues.

But, even better, Oscar's laid-back, pot-smoking kid sister, the Spirit Awards, announced nominations for the ceremony that will take place live on the IFC Channel at 5PM EST on February 21st, 2009 (and will hopefully not have Rainn Wilson as host again). Mmm...plaudits!

THE 2009 SPIRIT AWARD NOMINATIONS

Best Feature

"Ballast"
Producers: Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh
"Frozen River"
Producers: Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae

"Rachel Getting Married"
Producers: Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, Marc Platt

"Wendy and Lucy"
Producers: Larry Fessenden, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani

"The Wrestler"
Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin

Best Director

Ramin Bahrani, "Chop Shop"
Jonathan Demme, "Rachel Getting Married"

Lance Hammer, "Ballast"

Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"

Thomas McCarthy, "The Visitor"

Best First Feature

"Afterschool"
Director: Antonio Campos
Producers: Sean Durkin, Josh Mond
"Medicine for Melancholy"
Director: Barry Jenkins
Producer: Justin Barber

"Sangre de Mi Sangre"
Director: Christopher Zalla
Producers: Per Melita, Benjamin Odell

"Sleep Dealer"
Director: Alex Rivera
Producer: Anthony Bregman

"Synecdoche, New York"
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Producers: Anthony Bregman, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Sidney Kimmel

John Cassavetes Award (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)

"In Search of a Midnight Kiss"
Writer/Director: Alex Holdridge
Producers: Seth Caplan and Scoot McNairy
"Prince of Broadway"
Director: Sean Baker
Writers: Sean Baker, Darren Dean
Producer: Darren Dean

"The Signal"
Writer/Directors: David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry
Producers: Jacob Gentry and Alexander Motiagh

"Take Out"
Writer/Directors/Producers: Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou

"Turn the River"
Writer/Director: Chris Eigeman
Producer: Ami Armstrong

Best First Screenplay

Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
Lance Hammer, "Ballast"

Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"

Jonathan Levine, "The Wackness"

Jenny Lumet, "Rachel Getting Married"

Best Screenplay

Woody Allen, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, "Sugar"

Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York"

Howard A. Rodman, "Savage Grace"

Christopher Zalla, "Sangre de Mi Sangre"

Best Female Lead

Summer Bishil, "Towelhead"
Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"

Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"

Tarra Riggs, "Ballast"

Michelle Williams, "Wendy and Lucy"

Best Male Lead

Javier Bardem, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"

Sean Penn, "Milk"

Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker"

Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"

Best Supporting Female

Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Rosemarie DeWitt, "Rachel Getting Married"

Rosie Perez, "The Take"

Misty Upham, "Frozen River"

Debra Winger, "Rachel Getting Married"

Best Supporting Male

James Franco, "Milk"
Anthony Mackie, "The Hurt Locker"

Charlie McDermott, "Frozen River"

JimMyron Ross, "Ballast"

Haaz Sleiman, "The Visitor"

Best Cinematography

Maryse Alberti, "The Wrestler"
Lol Crowley, "Ballast"

James Laxton, "Medicine for Melancholy"

Harris Savides, "Milk"

Michael Simmonds, "Chop Shop"

Best Documentary

"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)"
Director: Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
"Encounters at the End of the World"
Director: Werner Herzog

"Man on Wire"
Director: James Marsh

"The Order of Myths"
Director: Margaret Brown

"Up the Yangtze"
Director: Yang Chung

Best Foreign Film

"The Class" (France)
Director: Laurent Cantet
"Gomorrah" (Italy)
Director: Matteo Garrone

"Hunger" (UK/Ireland)
Director: Steve McQueen

"Secret of the Grain" (France)
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

"Silent Light" (Mexico/France/Netherlands/Germany)
Director: Carlos Reygadas

Robert Altman Award (Given to one film's director, casting director and ensemble cast)

"Synecdoche, New York"
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Casting Director: Jeanne McCarthy
Ensemble Cast: Hope Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Tom Noonan, Dianne Wiest, Michelle Williams

Someone to Watch Award

Barry Jenkins, "Medicine for Melancholy"
Nina Paley, "Sita Sings the Blues"

Lynn Shelton, "My Effortless Brilliance"

Truer Than Fiction Award

Margaret Brown, "The Order of Myths"
Sacha Gervasi, "Anvil! The Story of Anvil"

Darius Marder, "Loot"

Producers Award

Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy, "Treeless Mountain" and "I'll Come Running"
Jason Orans, "Goodbye Solo" and "Year of the Fish"

Heather Rae, "Frozen River" and "Ibid"

Oscar Launch: The Silly Season Commences

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

As the days of 2008 dwindle down to a precious few, the year-end think-pieces, Oscar prognostications and meta “we’re not really prognosticating, but rather ironically commenting on the ridiculous awards process” articles proliferate at an alarming rate. How to keep up? How to ensure that you’re familiar with not only the consensus Academy Award front-runners, but also the reasons they have been anointed, while more worthy efforts have been snubbed? Now more than ever you need to the Screengrab, where we consume and digest this information, then regurgitate the salient points in tasty bite-size increments.

We begin with The New York Times, where David Carr calls himself The Carpetbagger, an alias that lends him the aura of being above it all while he’s actually wallowing in it. “Against the backdrop of a historic presidential election and a vortex of economic dysfunction, the burgeoning Oscar season seems even sillier than usual,” Carr harrumphs. “After all, who really cares about the throwdown for best supporting actor at a time when the citizenry seems poised for a run on its own banks?” With that out of the way, he proceeds to handicap the horse race thusly: “This year, by the Bagger’s count, seven or eight films have a shot at best picture. The consensus, in no particular order — well, O.K., in a little bit of a hierarchy — includes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Revolutionary Road, Milk, Doubt and The Reader. And a surprise may be waiting in the wings: Clint Eastwood, a durable crush object of the Academy, has a habit of swinging out of the trees late in the game, as he did two years ago with Letters From Iwo Jima, so keep an eye on Gran Torino.” This all seems commonsensical enough, although to my eyes The Changeling looks more Oscar-y than the “get off my lawn” movie. I guess Gran Torino has the advantage of not having already flopped, however.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Steven Zeitchik wonders if indie film awards have become redundant. “The indie film movement sprang up as a reaction to mainstream Hollywood, so its awards should do the same. It's also good. The awards business may be awash in star and industry back-scratching, but in the Spirits and Gothams, a category of writers, directors and producers have trophy shows to call their own. But there's one thing these awards didn't count on as they forged their contrarian mission: They'd become too successful. Indie movies are now such a part of the awards mainstream that they regularly trump studio movies… the downside is that the shows now no longer seem like a necessary antidote to the Academy Awards; they seem like the Academy Awards lite.” Zeitchik suggest setting a ceiling of a $10 million budget and making previous Oscar winners ineligible for consideration for “indie” awards. Methinks the horse is already out of that particular barn; adopting these stringent guidelines is the best way to make these awards disappear entirely.

Dan Zak of The Washington Post would like the Oscars to lighten up. “In February, the Oscar for Best Picture went to No Country for Old Men, a highbrow slasher movie, the bleakest contender to take the top prize since -- well, since the year before, when The Departed won. Further cementing the notion that bleak movies get made in order to strike gold, three out of four acting Oscars were given to people who played villains: Daniel Day-Lewis as the monstrous oilman in the nihilistic There Will Be Blood; Tilda Swinton as the sniveling attorney in Michael Clayton, a movie in which every person has mortgaged his soul; and Javier Bardem as the dead-eyed killer Anton Chigurh, who cattle-gunned the entire cast of No Country save for Tommy Lee Jones, whose character ended the movie on a note of despair, not death. This year, that might count as a happy ending. Big movies have tent-poled 2008 with a tarp of cruelty. No resolution, no absolution. Just the raw misery of the human condition. Buh-leak. We expect this of fringe foreign films, the confounding subgenre of torture porn, and most documentaries, but not the biggest hits and highest-praised movies of the year.” How to cure this case of the bleaks? Why, the recession might just be the ticket! Expect an onslaught of inoffensive feel-good movies, which is good news for everyone except those of us who find the likes of Beverly Hills Chihuahua infinitely more depressing than any Cormac McCarthy adaptation.

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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.