The Screengrab : no country for old men

Th-Th-That's All Folks! The Best & Worst Endings Of All Time! (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:30:00 GMT

THE GRADUATE (1967)

As I noted in our list of the Top Ten Best Movies Of All Time, The Graduate is pretty close to perfect, right down to its classic finale. All by itself, the climactic rush to the altar made our list of great “race-against-time” scenes, and the sequence where Dustin Hoffman’s character pounds the church window and wields a crucifix against the older generation to rescue his lady love from bland suburban mediocrity still feels cathartic today. But the final moments truly seal the deal in one of the greatest ambiguous fade-outs of all time as Katharine Ross’ Elaine stares at the man she’s chosen, suddenly wondering what exactly comes after “happily ever after,” while Hoffman’s Ben stares straight ahead, the lost expression of the opening scenes returning to his face as he clearly wonders, “Now what?” Considering Charles Webb, the author of the source material, spent the next several decades in cash-strapped obscurity, tending a clinically-depressed lady with painted-on eyebrows named Fred while trying to get a Graduate sequel off the ground, maybe Ben and Elaine had reason to worry. (AO)

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

The ending to Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece continues, forty years after its release, to baffle and intrigue, its post-light-show sights – a white room; Keir Dullea’s astronaut seeing himself, as an elderly man at a table and dying in bed; the monolith’s sudden reappearance – forming a tantalizing riddle. In its final, mesmerizing image of the star-child, 2001 does what no subsequent Kubrick film did, presenting a hopeful vision of the future, one in which man is finally free (at least until the forthcoming dystopia of A Clockwork Orange) of his base animalism. (NS)

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)

Let me first make it clear that I’m very much aware that the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange was originally published with a final chapter that never saw the light of day in the United States until Rolling Stone featured it in a 1987 issue. That’s when I first read it, and at that point I’d already seen the movie approximately 783 times. (Stanley Kubrick claimed he’d never seen the missing chapter before making his film, but he had – he just didn’t like it.) Burgess’ ending finds the cured Alex out for another night on the town with his new droogies. But he’s not really up for it – he’s getting too old for this shit, and entertaining thoughts of domestic bliss. I never felt like I needed to know this about him. “I was cured all right” strikes the right note for me – it doesn’t preclude the possibility of Burgess’ outcome, after all, but if we’re going to give this guy his free will back…well, we better be prepared for anything. It’s hard to imagine that final chapter fitting in cinematically with the world we’ve been immersed in for over two hours, and as Kubrick later demonstrated when working with Stephen King, he was never one to let the author’s intentions get in the way of his own worldview. (SVD)

STROSZEK (1977)

Werner Herzog has never been interested in sticking to convention, and nowhere is this more in evidence than in the strange and wonderful Stroszek. Beginning with a fairly formulaic setup -- a trio of misfits journey to America in search of a new life -- Herzog then proceeds to spin out his story in the most unexpected of ways. After hard times hit, the film courts cliché as the title character (played by Bruno S.) and his elderly pal Clemens Scheitz decide to hold up their bank, but when the bank is closed they rob the neighboring barber shop instead to the tune of a whopping $35 and use it to go shopping before Scheitz gets arrested. From there, it gets even odder. It’s the images that Herzog finds to conclude his tale that make this a classic, as we witness the sight of the stolen tow truck, now set ablaze, driving in circles around the parking lot with nobody at the wheel. So bizarre is the spectacle that it’s easy to miss Bruno climbing onto the ski lift with his shotgun, followed by the sound of the shotgun firing. Then, of course, there’s that dancing chicken, one of the most famous images in Herzog’s entire oeuvre. According to Herzog, the entire crew hated the damn chicken, but it so fascinated him that he felt the need to journey 600 miles from his principal filming location in order to shoot the final scene in the rest stop where the chicken danced. What does it all mean? Herzog, to his credit, leaves it to us to decide. (PC)

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

No Country For Old Men denies audiences the grand gesture and the blood. Strange to say about a film that features a killer who is less a man than a force of nature, but it's true. When Llewelyn first comes upon the scene of the drug shootout, the violence is over. When the bullets finally find Llewelyn, it happens offscreen. When Sheriff Ed Tom Bell stumbles into a potential conflict with Chigurh, the killer has melted away. Carla Jean even dies offscreen. It's a bloody movie, sure, but it studiously avoids giving audiences the easy conclusions that they may want. This is especially true at the end of the movie. Sheriff Bell has retired, giving his wife the peace of mind she wants, and he describes a couple of dreams he had to her. Both feature Bell's father, who he told us in the introduction was sheriff before him. In the first, he's lost money that his father gave him. In the second, his father silently passes him, carrying a fire, and Bell knows he will make a fire to protect and warm him. That's one of the beautiful things about this movie: even as it denies audiences their basest impulses, it gives them something unexpected. Here, the language is one of author Cormac McCarthy's major concerns, the existential quest for a moral code in a fallen world. The Coen brothers like to subvert expectations, and it's fair to say that this jolt of philosophy wasn't at all what audiences were expecting. But it was a far greater gift. (HC)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven & Twelve

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Scott Von Doviak, Paul Clark, Hayden Childs

Great Beginnings: Screengrab's Favorite Opening Scenes Of All Time (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:00:00 GMT

CLIFFHANGER (1993)

Let’s be clear...Cliffhanger is not a good film. Sylvester Stallone is...well, he’s Sylvester Stallone, and John Lithgow only works as a villain when he’s playing a snotty elitist or Dr. Lizardo and not somebody who’s actually meant to scare me. But the primal suspense of the opening sequence above haunts me far more than any number of scenes from much, much better films. Here’s the set-up: Stallone plays Gabe, some kind of extreme mountain ranger who (along with helicopter ace Janine Turner) attempt what should be the routine rescue of their colleague Hal (Michael Rooker) and his cute-as-a-bug girlfriend, Sarah (Michelle Joyner), who’ve managed to get trapped while hiking in the Rocky Mountains -- but then things go horribly awry, and suddenly Gabe and Sarah are stuck hanging from a thin line between two peaks over a vertigo-inducing abyss...and then the line starts to give way...and then Sarah slips and winds up dangling from Gabe’s meaty fingers...and it’s all very suspenseful and routinely pulse-pounding until -- holy shit! -- sweet, innocent Sarah actually falls to her death, screaming all the way...the kind of unexpected gut-punch one rarely encounters in the typical theme-park safety net of most summer thrill rides. The incident is so demoralizing, in fact, that it hangs like a pall over the characters and audience for the rest of the film's running time, adding untenable weight to a ludicrous Die Hard knock-off that can’t support it -- but director Renny Harlin deserves at least some credit for creating such a terrifying, memorable stand-alone reminder of the visceral power of cinema. (AO)

WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (2000)

It’s fairly common in the films of Bela Tarr to find scenes that take place in barrooms. But there’s no scene in Tarr’s filmography -- or anyone else’s, for that matter -- that’s quite like the opening of his 2000 film Werckmeister Harmonies. At the end of another long night, the barkeep kicks out all of his customers, but not before Valuska (Lars Rudolph) demonstrates to the others the way a solar eclipse works by using three of the drunks to portray the sun, the Earth, and the moon. At first, it’s a hilarious bit of imagery, with the sun waving his arms, the Earth lurching around the sun, and the moon circling the Earth at a dizzying pace. However, before long Valuska has a surprise in store for the others, as he stops the moon between the sun and the Earth and proceeds to describe in haunting language what happens when the sun’s rays have been blocked out -- the strange behavior of the animals, the moment of dread felt by the people who witness it, and so on. Of course, Valuska explains, the moment is over as soon as it began, but it’s this moment, and the thoughts of apocalypse it inspires, that sets the tone for the rest of the film. Soon enough, a real brush with the reckoning arrives in town (in the form of a traveling circus and its mysterious whale), causing all hope to disappear, however briefly, from the townspeople. And so, what begins as a strange and hypnotic opening comes to encapsulate the entire film -- practically the definition of a great and important opening scene. (PC)

DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)

Zack Snyder’s loose remake of George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie classic gets progressively less interesting as it goes along, though there’s almost no way his film could have maintained the level of blistering, manic terror delivered by its opening sequence. After finishing her shift at the local hospital, Sarah Polley’s nurse returns to her suburban home and loving husband. Their peaceful domesticity is shattered the following morning, however, when the neighbor’s little girl appears at their bedroom door looking decidedly fleet and hungry. A ferocious attack ensues, followed by Polly’s husband transforming into a crazed cannibal, sparking further mayhem that propels her outside and – as a gorgeously wrought panoramic shot reveals – into mass chaos, her street overrun by zombies and their fleeing, panicking would-be victims. Hopping into her car, she zigzags through the madness, Snyder’s camera situated directly behind her car (or attached to its hood) to heighten the crazed immediacy of the action, which culminates in a thudding car crash that proves an ideal segue into Snyder’s Johnny Cash-scored credit sequence and subsequent mall-set zombiepocalypse saga. (NS)

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

It's the nature of the world that everything you think you understand should be challenged. That no matter how long you live and what sort of times you have seen, the world will always seem stranger and more frightening as you age. You expect wisdom with your years, but time tends to make you complacent instead. No Country For Old Men is a little too insubstantial to qualify for Cormac McCarthy's top shelf, but that doesn't mean that it's devoid of his signature insight into darkness and weakness. The movie hews tightly to the book, but movies are more immersive than books, and it's harder to take a step back from a seemingly wise narrator to ask whether one is actually hearing wisdom or whether it is complacency. When Sheriff Ed Tom Bell tells us from the beginning that he can't understand the way that crime has changed, that he can't be a part of the world because it would put his soul at hazard, the sweep of the movie leads some or even most of the audience to believe that they are supposed to agree with him. And given a choice between Sheriff Bell and the amoral killing machine Anton Chigurh, well, Bell would be the safer choice for your sympathy. Bell is wrong, though, which will be brought to his attention late in the movie. But now we're at the beginning, just Sheriff Bell talking about how time has passed him while the camera lingers over those gorgeous shots of West Texas, so serene they look like still images until the wind blows. And then we're in the police station watching a man calmly murder another, leaving scuff marks on the floor as random and beautiful as the desert grass we just saw. And we're reminded that the desert, like the world around it, is always as full of danger as it is of beauty. That's nothing new. (HC)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Paul Clark, Nick Schager, Hayden Childs

Great Beginnings: Screengrab's Favorite Opening Scenes Of All Time! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Yesterday marked the 100th day of the Obama presidency, which means I’m cautiously starting to believe that Bush is maybe really, actually gone and won’t suddenly pop up again for one last attack like Freddy Krueger at the end of Nightmare On Elm Street.

Cheney and Rove and the rest of the neo-conservative gang are still with us, of course, and the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world certainly didn’t need the full 100 days to determine they were right all along about Obama’s anarchist-fascist-abstract-impressionist agenda.

Most of the rest of America (and the world), meanwhile, thinks the new administration is actually off to a pretty good start -- and while great beginnings don’t always lead to happy endings, they at least give us some...what’s that word again? Oh yeah, HOPE...

...much like the opening sequences in the following movies, which hooked us right from the get-go and made us completely forget about sneaking out of the theater to see what was playing on the next screen over and/or changing channels.

Of course, your pals here at the Screengrab fully appreciate the irony of running this list in light of recent events here in our little corner of the cyber-verse...but, considering that every ending brings with it the possibility of a new beginning, what better time, really, to salute OUR FAVORITE OPENING SCENES OF ALL TIME!!!!!

TOUCH OF EVIL (1958)

The mother of all tracking shots opens with a bomb being set -- telling us right away that it will explode in three minutes -- and hidden in the trunk of a ludicrously long and garish vehicle. Then begins the long dance through the streets of Tijuana. The camera pulling ahead of the car, but the car always catching up or passing, always staying in frame. The sound (on the reconstructed version, at least) is disorienting, as passing through the streets of a busy nightlife district can be, with different noises blaring for attention. As soon as they appear, the camera is focused on Janet Leigh and Charlton Heston, paced by the car with the bomb, crossing the numerous obstacles in their path. As they arrive at the border crossing, the film reveals that they are just married, and he is a Mexican policeman (yes, yes, ha ha) known for taking down a drug ring. He laughs it off and, just as the car passes them, moves in to kiss his wife. BOOM! In the next couple of minutes, we'll meet Hank Quinlan, as much a power-mad racist as The Searchers' Ethan Edwards, but far more monstrous and strangely vulnerable. But the rest of the movie belongs to him. Here, at the beginning, the movie belongs to that single unbroken shot that defied the millions of things that could go wrong and introduced most of the major themes, all without breaking a sweat. Astonishing, even now. (HC)

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968)

Three killers are waiting for a train. One of them, his craggy, weather-beaten face a dead ringer for the desert landscape that surrounds them, is distracted by an annoying fly. Water drips onto the hat of another, until enough has accumulated for him to tip the hat to his lips and take a cool drink. The buzzing of the fly and the dripping of the water and the creaky whine of a windmill are the only sounds we hear, until that whine fades into the whistle of the approaching train. Their intended victim has arrived. He plays a harmonica and looks like Charles Bronson. Extreme close-ups give way to the widest of widescreen vistas, the whole of the wild west in one deep focus shot of impending violence. This is how you build suspense, Sergio Leone style. (SVD)

RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

Even exposition can be thrilling when the Coen Brothers are operating at the peak of their powers. Accompanied by the spirited whistling and banjo-plucking of Carter Burwell, Nicolas Cage’s sleepy drawl narrates the tale of an unusual courtship. Recidivist H.I. McDunnough is such a regular at the mug shot station, he becomes smitten with the photographer, a spunky officer named Ed. (Short for Edwina.) Hilarious bite-size vignettes of small-time crime (“I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn’t easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House”), prison life (“When there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand”), parole hearings (“These doors gonna swing wide”) and pitching woo (“I’m walkin’ in here on my knees, Ed”) sketch the unfolding romance, which gives way to trailer park life, the daily grind and the yearning for a critter as the banjo plunges joyfully into Beethoven’s Ninth. Endlessly quotable, relentlessly rewatchable, kinetic as a Bugs Bunny cartoon, this opening sets the stage for one of the zippiest romps in the Coen catalogue. (SVD)

THE PLAYER (1992)

Robert Altman’s cutting Hollywood critique self-consciously strives for Wellesian grandeur in its impressive 8-minute single take opening shot, which makes its homage upfront by having a character overtly reference the Touch of Evil sequence (as well as Bernardo Bertolucci’s sustained tracking shot in The Sheltering Sky) upon which it’s based. Altman uses this bravura scene to firmly establish his major studio milieu and the various, cretinous industry clowns who populate it, mocking the agents, pitch-men and execs who manufacture the country’s celluloid dreams. The shot’s inquisitive, labyrinthine movements subtly suggest the probing survey to come. And Altman’s opening proves a hilariously caustic encapsulation of his story’s modus operandi – to scathingly ridicule the Hollywood machine via the type of dazzling, daring filmmaking that, as evidenced by comments made by the scene’s various dunderheaded players, has little place in a studio system where market-focused creativity-by-committee is the rule. (NS)

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Hayden Childs, Scott Von Doviak, Nick Schager

DVD Digest for April 7, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a recent Oscar winner finally gets the DVD treatment it deserves, and Warner digs deep into their vaults for a slew of new Blu-Ray titles.

This week’s selection of recent movies is headed by a handful of high-profile December releases, including Jim Carrey in Yes Man (Warner, also Blu-Ray), Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt (Disney, also Blu-Ray), the Adam Sandler family vehicle Bedtime Stories (Disney, also Blu-Ray), Keanu Reeves in the remake The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox, also Blu-Ray), and the animated The Tale of Despereaux (Universal, also Blu-Ray). Also this week: Morris Chestnut and Taraji P. Henson in Not Easily Broken (Sony, also Blu-Ray), and the controversial British horror movie Donkey Punch (Magnolia).

Last year, many DVD fans expressed displeasure over the shabby treatment given to the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men, released in a bare-bones edition to capitalize on the movie’s recent Oscar success. This week, Disney hopes to remedy this with the release of a new “Collector’s Edition” in both standard DVD and Blu-Ray. This new upgrade boasts more than five hours of new features, including documentaries, and interviews with the filmmakers, cast and crew. Also this week: a 75th Anniversary Edition of Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra (Universal); Warner’s Pre-Code Hollywood Collection, which includes The Cheat, Merrily We Go to Hell, Hot Saturday, Torch Singer, Murder at the Vanities, and Search for Beauty; the TCM Spotlight: Doris Day Collection (Warner)- includes April in Paris, It’s a Great Feeling, Starlift, Tea for Two, and The Tunnel of Love; and the controversial-in-its-day La Grande Bouffe (E1 Entertainment).

The big Blu-Ray news this week is Warner’s release of nine (mostly dodgy, I must say) new titles in the format. The Warner Blu-Ray releases are: Peter Hyams’ 2010, Steven Seagal in Above the Law, Edward Norton in American History X, The Governator in Collateral Damage; the Rube Goldberg-esque thriller Final Destination; Denzel Washington standing up to the American health care system in John Q, an extended cut of Angelina Jolie in Taking Lives, and the 80s-set Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore rom-com The Wedding Singer. Also this week, a double feature of avian-themed Sony releases: Fly Away Home and Winged Migration.

Finally, the selection was pretty thin for plot synopses, so I wasn’t able to find a suitable Synopsis of the Week. The best I can do is a pretty unbeatable title: Britney Spears: The Return of An Angel. Doesn’t that sound like just about the cheesiest thing ever? Too bad the White Elephant Blogathon is over, because that could’ve made for a fun submission. Oh well- there’s always next year…

"Last House on the Left"'s Garret Dillahunt: The Thinking Man's Ted Bundy?

Phil Nugent — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Garret Dillahunt plays weirdos and monstrous sons of bitches, with the occasional son of God thrown in. He's best known for his work on TV: on the HBO series Deadwood, he killed Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) and then, after he had been brought to justice for that terrible act, the show's creator, David Milch, ordered that he be shaved, have his wardrobe upgraded, and be brought back as a new character, one "Mr. W", who used his time off from his job fronting for a cutthroat capitalist villain to carve up the staff of a whorehouse. Dillahunt also played Jesus on the short-lived The Book of Daniel and currently plays a killer robot on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In movies, he was in No Country for Old Men (as Tommy Lee Jones's deputy) and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, where his character paid the price for Robert Ford's taking so goddamn long to get the assassination carried out. Now he's the chief sadistic rapist-murderer in the remake of Wes Craven's gutbucket classic The Last House on the Left. Under the citcumstances, it seems reasonable that interviewer Choire Sicha would want some reassurances that he isn't the kind of guy who takes his work home with him. "You know," Dillahunt says, "I don't think I am! There wouldn't be much craft in it if you actually become those people. I like feeling like I have some skill."

Then again..."I'm real proud of it," Dillahunt says of Last House, "which is an odd thing to be proud of. I'm proud of this rape-and-pillage movie. There are reasons that I consciously did the thing -- but there's something about that basic story that is speaking to people, and I think did to me when I read the script. And I think it's because the job situation is getting weird, people feel so powerless right now. People feel like they've been raped by -- fill in the blank, the economy, 9/11. Wes Craven last night called 9/11 the ultimate home invasion. Not meaning to be glib -- but that feeling of violation we all had. People are really responding to the film in a visceral way -- and I think it gives them some release. I kind of feel like it will defend itself. Wow, I got so deep there."

As for his TV work, Dillahunt says that he "get[s] recognized more" since he started doing Terminator, because the killer robot is -- "one of the first characters I played that looks like me," adding that "there's a lot of Terminator fans out there, which belies the ratings!" He credits David Milch and Deadwood for "changing the way I view material. . . . What made Deadwood special killed it, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. For anything! And I owe a lot to that experience. Spiritually. Praise the Lord! I do that too. I get embarrassed about waxing on and I cut myself off at the knees. That's a nice little trait there, FYI." Getting cut off at the knees would be the nicest thing he does to his Last House co-star Sari Paxton, but "I've worked with her before. I was happy about that at first. Then I thought maybe it's a bad thing -- you don't do this to friends! But she was so game and tired of playing mermaids..."

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

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

Forget Christmas: for movie geeks, the period from New Year’s Eve to the third week in February is truly the most wonderful time of the year, from the endless Best of Lists and Golden Globes straight through the Saggies and Spirit Awards to the reddest carpet of all...Mama Oscar.

As per recently made-up tradition, the Screengrab will be live-blogging the Academy Awards this coming Sunday...and while we’re on the subject, can we please call a moratorium on bitching about the length of the show? Do sports fans cry every year about the length of the Super Bowl? Do they squeeze all the punt returns into a 65-second medley to streamline the running time? NO! If you’re a sports fan, you want the Super Bowl to last all day. And if you’re NOT a sports fan, then why the hell are you even watching? Just check out the highlights on the news and leave the rest of us in peace, ferchrissakes!

Sorry...just had to vent. And, if you think about it, strong opinions about trivial nonsense is pretty much the lifeblood of Oscar season. Arguments about who deserved to win and who got robbed have livened up the annual ceremony ever since Sunrise totally stole Best Unique and Artistic Production from Chang in 1928.

Sadly, our recent calls to reinstate the Best Unique and Artistic Production category have fallen on deaf ears (sorry, Synechdoche, New York), but there’s plenty more Oscar opining ahead as we here at the Screengrab salute (and condemn) THE BEST (AND WORST) BEST PICTURES OF ALL TIME!

THE BEST:

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

This wasn't supposed to happen. While they might win the occasional token screenplay award (as they did for Fargo), the Coen Brothers were never going to be respectable and mainstream enough to take home the top Oscar honors. Perhaps emboldened by their belated coronation of Martin Scorsese, however, the Academy saw fit to award this dark, ultra-violent neo-noir with the coveted Best Picture prize. Maybe the literary pedigree helped – after all, even Oprah had given her seal of approval to Cormac McCarthy, author of the novel No Country for Old Men. The film is certainly the most faithful adaptation of the book imaginable, and yet it couldn't be anything other than a Coen Brothers movie. Much of McCarthy's story unfolds through the sort of sardonic, deadpan dialogue that's always been right in the Coens' wheelhouse, and the more action-oriented scenes are rendered with such an uncanny grasp of McCarthy's evocative and precise geography, readers of the book may experience severe déjà vu. Javier Bardem, himself an Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor, is a uniquely malevolent presence as the killing machine Chigurh. While there are several suspense sequences destined for the Coens greatest hits reel (notably an attack dog's pursuit of Josh Brolin's doomed Marlboro Man into the Rio Grande, and a deadly game of 'musical rooms' at a rundown motel), in its final lyrical moments, No Country for Old Men transcends genre and lays waste to any notion of the Coens as the sniggering egghead pranksters of cinema.

THE LAST EMPEROR (1987)

In truth, The Last Emperor is kind of a silly movie: its take on China's 20th century political landscape is kind of vacuous and unenlightening, and it centers around an appropriately blank protagonist played by a totally undistinguished actor who seems to have been cast only because his last name, almost too conveniently, was "Lone." But it's also an apex of Bernardo Bertolucci's unhinged formalism (or, more accurately, of Vittorio Storaro's insane but effective color schemes), and as a lush, consistently gorgeous aesthetic exercise, it's pretty untoppable. If the Academy wanted pretty and inoffensively political, at least they got one out of two.

THE DEER HUNTER (1978)

Michael Cimino’s reputation was so tarnished by the epic financial and critical failure of 1980’s (unjustly vilified) Heaven’s Gate that it’s almost impossible to watch his preceding film, 1978’s The Deer Hunter, without thinking about the once-promising director’s impending fall from grace. Purely on its own merits, however, Cimino’s Best Picture winner holds up remarkably well as a marriage of New Hollywood authenticity and Old Hollywood scope, and as a portrait of not only the Vietnam War’s toll on those who fought it, but of war’s careless misuse of human life, the latter point epitomized by the iconic Russian Roulette finale involving Christopher Walken’s battle-scarred vet. Shot by Vilmos Zsigmond with a haunting, melancholic loveliness that’s at odds with much of the material’s harrowing grimness, Cimino’s film (partially indebted to the work of Visconti) plays like a messy, sprawling novel, intimately evoking its characters’ Russian heritage and Pennsylvania steel town roots, poignantly utilizing rituals and ceremonies to express their bonds of love and friendship, and ably casting its tale as emblematic of America’s post-Vietnam moral and emotional disarray.

OLIVER! (1968)

This adaptation of Lionel Bart's stage musical version of Oliver Twist is one of those Oscar winners that isn't especially well-remembered these days and may be regarded as a fluky choice at best, which is unfair. It represents a late show of mastery by the great British director Carol Reed, who had suffered through a lousy decade since his last successful production, the 1959 Our Man in Havana. Working with a first-rate cast that includes Ron Moody as Fagin, Shani Wallis as Nancy, and non-singing (thank God) Oliver Reed as Bill Sikes, Carol Reed managed to use the rather undistinguished musical as a way to create a stylized version of the Dickens story, utilizing the energy and wit of the performers and his own cinematic brio to compensate for the limitations of Bart's songs. The movie also has its place in history for marking the last moment when Hollywood felt comfortable declaring that an all-ages movie was the best of the year; the next year, the Best Picture award would go to the adults-only Midnight Cowboy.

THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI (1957)

There’s a case to be made that David Lean’s early, more modestly sized efforts were superior to his later epics, though if the legendary auteur ultimately sacrificed emotional and dramatic tautness in favor of marathon distension, it occurred at some point after 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai, a peerless example of larger-than-life filmmaking. As the British military commander who, in a Japanese POW camp during WWII, spearheads the construction of a bridge that his British compatriots plan on destroying, Alec Guinness brilliantly personifies the destructive folly of pride. His army officer, determined to complete the bridge as a means of proving British cultural/political supremacy, is opposed by Sessue Hayakawa’s Japanese colonel, driven to break his Western prisoners’ spirits and terrified that the British will humiliate his own men (and nation) by successfully completing their bridge-building task. Their one-on-one conflict is enlivened, rather than dwarfed, by Lean’s grand direction, culminating in a finale that’s memorable not just for its scale, but for the unforgettable look of sudden awareness, and regret, on Guinness’ face.

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

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Vadim Rizov, Nick Schager, Phil Nugent

DVD (Mini-)Digest for December 23, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Christmas is just two days away, and for you last-minute shoppers, the studios are unloading several of their late summer and early fall releases to fill out an otherwise slow DVD week.

The most notable of the bunch is Burn After Reading (Universal, also Blu-Ray), the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. Much more comedic than its feted predecessor, Burn has a no less bleak view of human nature. Consequently, despite the many laughs the film has to offer, the film is much more disquieting upon reflection than one might guess while watching it. But even if you’re just in the mood for entertainment, you should still be able to relish the game performances, especially those given by Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt’s unspeakable hair, and the priceless double act of J.K. Simmons and David (Sledge Hammer!) Rasche.

This week’s other releases include Anna Faris doing what she does best in The House Bunny (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Meg Ryan, Annette Bening and friends in The Women (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Steve Coogan taking comic aim at both Shakespeare and the alleged sexiness of Jesus in Hamlet 2 (Universal); and the fashionably unhinged Julianne Moore in Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace (Weinstein).

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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Wall Street Meltdown Boosts Dark Knight’s Oscar Hopes

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Another unforeseen aspect of the financial crisis has been dubbed “The Oscar Recession” by former Radar magazine editor Willa Paskin. Writing for The Daily Beast, Paskin makes the case that the economic slowdown “is changing the dynamics of the Oscar race, and narrowing the Best Picture field. Since full-fledged Oscar campaigns can break the bank, some studios are pushing potential Academy Award into 2009, taking them out of the running. Paramount’s The Soloist, an uplifting tale of a schizo, homeless violinist, and Weinstein’s The Road, an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s soul-crushing apocalypse novel, have both been pushed back to next year.”

Paskin makes the somewhat more dubious claim that “an unusually high number of films are also being released late in the season, which means they may not have time to build the word-of-mouth momentum to clinch votes,” citing Revolutionary Road, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Gran Torino, among others. In fact, this happens every year: a certain number of Oscar contenders open very late in the year, often only in New York and LA (for qualification purposes), before slowly rolling out nationwide. (For example, 2004 Best Picture winner Million Dollar Baby opened in limited release on December 15, 2004 and didn’t go into wide release until January 28, 2005.)

Nevertheless, Paskin has a point: The Dark Knight would seem to have a better shot at the top honors than anyone would have imagined before its release. Critical acclaim is part of the reason, but as with Wall Street, it’s the bottom line that counts. “The Dark Knight is exactly the kind of film that may help the Academy itself, which makes revenue off the Oscar telecast, weather the financial crisis. Ratings for the tinsel town extravaganza tend to correlate with the popularity of the films nominated. Last year 32 million Americans tuned in to see indie No Country for Old Men win in the least watched awards ceremony ever. In 1998, 55.3 million people watched all-time box office champ Titanic triumph in the most watched awards ceremony ever. Dark Knight, easily the highest grossing film of the year, could be a corrective to last year’s poor showing, hugely boosting the ratings.”

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Forgotten Films: "American Perfekt" (1997) and "Diamond Men" (2001)

Phil Nugent — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

The addition of Robert Forster to the cast of Heroes may not be enough to save the faded series, but it'll keep us from deleting it from our DVR for a while. We admit it, we love this guy, almost as much as Quentin Tarantino does. (We'd be willing to consider the possibility that we love him even more than Tarantino does, but let's face it: presuming that you might love something even as much as Tarantino does is a risky thing to do.) It was, of course, QT who put Forster back on the radar in 1987 by giving him the best role of his career as the sage but seducable bail bondsman Max Cherry and tucking his performance into a movie, Jackie Brown, that actually got booked into theaters. But there are other people who were rooting for the man, and a year before Jackie Brown, Forster played the male lead in a smart, quirky little neo-noir called American Perfekt that bypassed theaters but caught a lot of people's attention when it made it to cable. The movie, written and directed by Paul Chart, is a sinister-edged road movie about a criminal psychiatrist (Forster) who decides to take some personal time and conduct an experiment in which he decides to leave all important decisions to the flip of a coin. Inevitably, the decisions come to include matters of life and death. Perfekt has its own weird vein of dark humor and a clutch of striking performances by the kind of actors who ought to be carrying big movies on a regular basis but have become more likely to find themselves playing third fiddle in a remake of Basic Instinct (such as David Thewlis) or getting a role on The Sopranos only to be replaced by another actress after your first short scene has hit the airwaves (such as Fairuza Balk). Balk enters the picture after Forster's first road partner, Amanda Plummer, has Mysteriously Disappeared. The movie has slowly established itself an Internet cult, some of whose members got very excited, and in some cases indignant, when the coin-flip business turned up in No Country for Old Men. Presumably all these people had never heard of Two-Face and subsequently died of massive heart attacks while watching The Dark Knight.

Perfekt gives the viewer a choice taste of Forster at his most affable and untrustworthy. After his Oscar-nominated turn in Jackie Brown, more filmmakers started seeking Forster out with hopes of tapping the vulnerable, world-worn quality that Tarantino showcased so well. The best of these films may be Diamond Men, a gentle little charmer written and directed by Dan Cohen. (This film did actually make it into theaters. Unfortunately, it opened a couple of weeks after September 11, 2001, which was not a great time for small, underpublicized movies.) It too is a road movie: Forster plays Eddie, a widowed salesman for a jewelry company who spends his life tooling from one loyal customer to the next in the Pennsylvania area he has built up over the years. After a heart attack, he's saddled with a younger, brasher partner (Donnie Wahlberg), ostensibly because the company's insurance carrier will no longer let him serve as sole custodian of the merchandise in transit, though you'd have to be dumber than Eddie's boss thinks he is not to recognize that his real function is to teach the ropes to his future replacement before being shoved out the door. And if you don't expect the Wahlberg character to begin to warm to the older guy and care more about him than about his own career future, you must not have seen many movies. But Dan Cohen worked in the diamond trade himself, taking over his father's business after his death, and the movie has the kind of affectionate feeling for and detailed knowledge of a way of life that can give a picture like this enough individuality to transcend its own formula. Eventually, Eddie find romance with Bess Armstrong, as a middle-aged New Age Buddhist ex-hooker. I remember a stretch there in the 1980s when Bess Armstrong's face seemed like a hard thing to avoid if you wanted to watch TV or go to the movies; Diamond Men was just about the first time I'd seen or thought of her since they canceled My So-Called Life, and I don't think I've seen or thought about her since, but the sheer weirdness of her role here must have gotten to her, because she's rather appealing once you abandon the idea that she's going to attack Eddie with an icepick that she keeps under a pillow. Then again, she probably benefited from being partnered with Forster. Both these movies incorporate the special quality that has helped keep Forster's career alive even though it may have made him seem like less of a bet for superstardom than other actors whose reserves of charisma made them seem unapproachable: he just seems like really good company, whether you're in the movie with him or watching him in the audience. Like a lot of great character actors, he makes being fun to watch seem like a lost art.

Is High Definition Killing the Magic?

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:15:00 GMT

It seems like only a few years ago that the bloody horrors of the high-definition DVD format wars pitted brother against brother and traumatized a generation of couch potatoes. But really, it was only a few months ago that HD-DVD, now as forgotten a cultural phenomenon as Crystal Pepsi, was finally defeated at the hands of Blu-Ray. Now, with movie fans the world over having only one new delivery vector on which to spend their excess cash, it is the grim moment that we must face the casualties of that war, and the biggest may be movie magic itself.

At least, that's according to Guardian film blogger Phelim O'Neill, who's been doing a bit of soul-searching as regards the desirablilty of seeing literally everything that Blu-Ray can show us. A common complaint amongst hi-def enthusiasts is that the medium plays havoc on old movies; in the pre-CGI days of low-tech theatrical special effects, sets, makeup, and camera trickery were often spared from being too obvious by the fact that the camera generally didn't catch it all. In high definition, every paper-thin wall, every pasteboard mock-up, every wig and every guy wire is apparent to even the laziest viewer.

But that's not O'Neill's beef. His complaint involves modern movies, where incompetently executed CGI can look far phonier than the back-lot studio sets of yesteryear; where "any surface with even a slight kick to it reveals camera crews, bystanders, movie equipment"; and where "important plotlines and revelations go unnoticed as you spend minutes staring at the fabric of costumes, the wallpaper". Movies, he argues, were never meant to be a mirror to reality; they were always meant to be a hazy, diffused fantasy, and the more realistic they become, the more they lose the special qualities of unreality that make them such a successful artform.

"I watched the standard DVD of No Country for Old Men, then saw Tommy Lee Jones again in the Blu-Ray of In the Valley of Elah, two films made in the same year," O'Neill writes. "In the first, Jones looked merely craggy; in the second, it was as if putrefaction had set in." While we're sure that Jones wouldn't take kindly to being the poster child for not looking too closely at people, it's become increasingly hard to deny that the enhancements of high-definition can be a mixed blessing; as O'Neill says, how are you supposed to know what to look at when everything looks so good?

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Screengrab Fall Preview: Scott Von Doviak’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

We’ve reached that part of the summer when Rainn Wilson comedies and films by Fred Durst are considered top new releases, so it must be time to look ahead to the fall. Traditionally this is the movie season for Oscar contenders and challenging indie fare, so let’s put away the robots and superhero tights and play a little 3 Up, 3 Down. (Feel free to weigh in with your own picks, my fellow Screengrabbers – if you dare.)

3 UP

1. Burn After Reading – No Country for Old Men was a return to form for the Coens, and we’re all happy they finally got their Oscars. But it’s been a while since we’ve had a pure shot of that Coen Brothers feeling. No Country was adapted from a Cormac McCarthy novel, The Ladykillers was a remake, and Intolerable Cruelty originated with other writers. Based on the trailer, Burn After Reading looks like a return to the inventive goofiness of The Big Lebowski and O Brother Where Art Thou?, which puts it right in my wheelhouse.

2. The Road – Speaking of Cormac McCarthy, the second adaptation of his work in as many years in due in November. The grim post-apocalyptic tale is brought to the screen by John Hillcoat, director of The Proposition, a western that certainly counts McCarthy’s Blood Meridian among its influences. Viggo Mortenson has the lead, and the supporting cast includes Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, Garrett Dillahunt and The Wire’s Omar himself, Michael K. Williams.

3. Synecdoche, New York – Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut didn’t exactly wow most critics at Cannes, but the guy hasn’t let me down yet. (Well, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind didn’t really do it for me, but I’ll blame Sam Rockwell for that.) Even if it doesn’t really work, the premise – which has theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman building a replica of New York in a warehouse – should provide more of the Kauf’s trademark reality-bending weirdness.

3 DOWN

1. The Day the Earth Stood Still – Unnecessary remake of a sci-fi classic, with Keanu Reeves as an alien? The first time I saw this trailer, I thought it was a fake. The second time, I just said “No thanks.”

2. Twilight – I understand I’m not the target demographic for this “y.a.” phenomenon, but I still resent the fact that it’s in my face everywhere I go these days, and that’s only going to get worse as the release of this adaptation approaches.

3. The Women – This has got to be the uber-chick flick of the year: Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Bette Midler and Debra Messing in a remake of the George Cukor classic. If I grow a vagina between now and when it comes out, maybe I’ll reconsider.

WILD CARD

Oliver Stone’s W. This can’t possibly be any good, can it? And yet I can’t wait to see it. We might be looking at a train wreck for the ages here.

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Take Five: Bring On the Bad Guys

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

As you may have heard unless you've just gotten back from an alternate dimension with no public relations industry, The Dark Knight opens this weekend, and even our resident skeptic Scott Von Doviak is hailing Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker as one of the pinnacles of big-screen malevolance. Batman is the perfect illustration of the principle that a hero is only as good as his villains; the Clown Prince of Crime is the outstanding member of an unforgettable rogue's gallery that throws the lonely heroism of Bruce Wayne into sharp relief by illustrating the other facets of his personality and demonstrating how terrible he might have been had he not taken the path of righteousness. Indeed, there are any number of genres, from true crime to film noir to serial thrillers to even Shakespearean tragedy, that prove that a story is only as strong as its most detestable character. Crime, as the man once said, is only a left-handed form of human endeavor, and for every enigmatic nihilist like the Joker who simply wants to watch the world burn, there's a figure whose vileness and evil are the result of a good man gone just a little bit bad. If your showing of The Dark Knight is sold out, here's five movies featuring some of our favorite big-screen villains to tide you over until you get to hear Ledger's deadly cackle for yourself.

THE STEPFATHER (1987)

These days, Terry O'Quinn is best known for his portrayal of John Locke, the mysteriously healed castaway from Lost who can be both hero and villain as he attempts to forge a mystical connection with the island. But 20 years ago, when the veteran stage actor first came to the attention of the moviegoing public, it was in this smart little thriller about a man so obsessed with having the perfect family that he was willing to kill to get it. His face an affable blank, O'Quinn goes about his father-knows-best routine with barely a harsh word for anything, until something goes wrong. That's when the devil inside him comes up, and he moves quickly from tearing up his tool room to butchering his whole family. O'Quinn's tightly controlled performance here is what makes the movie, and his quiet intensity is what makes it so devastatingly effective when he temporarily forgets the careful fiction he's made of his life and asks, with genuine confusion, "Who am I here?" -- before remembering, and delivering the news to his new wife in an especially brutal way.

THE MINUS MAN (1999)

Though a flawed movie, The Minus Man -- directed by Hampton Fancher, best known for penning the screenplay to Blade Runner -- is also a compelling one, thanks to the strong performance by Owen Wilson as the main character, Vann Siegert. Turning the usual serial killer narrative on its head, The Minus Man presents Siegert as a kind, handome, likable young man who wants to put down roots, to fit in, to be somebody -- but most of all, to help people. The problem is, he thinks that most people are so miserable that the best way to help them is to kill them (gently, of course, with a fast, painless poison). So decent is this mass murderer that his own conscience has to step in occasionally and remind him that what he's doing is wrong, in the person of two imaginary FBI agents who torment him. And so convincing is Wilson in making Vann a likable figure that more than once, the viewer finds himself wishing they would just go away and leave the poor boy alone.

THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984)

Great villains don't always have to be grim, sinister, humorless killing machines. Sometimes, as in this delightful neo-pulp sci-fi musical comedy, they can be goofy, pompous, overblown killing machines with the worst fake Italian accents since Chico Marx. Dr. Emilio Lizardo, the nefarious Red Lectroid living in the body of a long-dead rocket scientist, is played in the film by John Lithgow, who hams it up like there's no tomorrow. He sticks electrodes on his toungue, he tortures helpless women with honey, he gives plagiarized inspirational speeches to his handful of followers, and he deliberately mispronounces the names of his underlings -- and he has a hell of a time doing it. Dressed up in cobbled-together bits and pieces of a dozen pulp archetypes, Lithgow gets support from a colossal cast of veteran character actors, including Dan Hedeya, Christopher Lloyd and Vincent Schiavelli, but he outshines them all, investing each one of his often hilarious lines with hooty gravitas.

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

Some critics found the character of Anton Chigurh in the Coen Brothers' masterful adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel to be so over-the-top as to read like a cartoonish supervillain. Others, though, found the understated psychopath, played by a preternaturaly detached Javier Bardem in one of the big screen's most memorable haircuts, to carry surprising depth for someone described by another character in the film as "the ultimate bad-ass". The most compelling thing about Chigurh is that, while everyone else perceives him as totally insane, his madness has the impenetrable integrity of the lunatic. To himself, his actions make perfect sense, and the more time we spend around his insanity, the more we begin to understand it: in the chilling scene near the movie's end where he pays a visit to the tragedy-stricken Carla Jean, we know that he's playing his own deranged interpretation of fair with her, and the terror we feel as the tension mounts comes from the fact that we know and she doesn't.

ROCKY III (1982)

Made at the exact moment in time that the Rocky franchise was becoming a laughable self-parody, but Mr. T had yet to do the same, Rocky III, while more or less a disaster in its second half and filled with hokey, ridiculous moments, does manage to give us some of the most thrilling scenes in the series. Why? Because it also gives us the greatest villain in the series: the brutal, granite-hard, contemptous Clubber Lang, a street-fighting brawler who has nothing but loathing for the soft celebrity smooth-talker that Stallone's Rocky Balboa has become. Patterned partly after the young George Foreman, Clubber Lang is a monster in the ring who lives to destroy his opponents and has developed a line of trash-talk so electrifying that it sends the gregarious Rocky into a rage while providing the most quotable dialogue in the whole Rocky series. And though he never showed himself capable of doing more than he does here, Mr. T is stunning: his hostile, spitting hatred of everyone but himself is so exciting to watch that for the film's first hour, it's hard to take your eyes off him.

First Look at Oliver Stone’s Capra-esque Bush Bio

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:30:00 GMT

The new issue of Entertainment Weekly provides our first peek at Josh Brolin as George W. Bush and Elizabeth Banks as First Lady Laura Bush. It does not give us a gander at Dick Cheney, as that part has yet to be cast even though Oliver Stone’s W (or possibly dub-ya) is set to go before the cameras in less than two weeks. “Stone denies rumors that Robert Duvall turned down Cheney. And he won't comment on reports that he's talking to Paul Giamatti about the part.” From John Adams to Dick Cheney? That’s a depressing commentary in itself.

It’s quite a startling transformation for Josh Brolin, from the Marlboro Man of No Country for Old Men to the “Cowboy President.” (It may be an equally startling transformation for Elizabeth Banks, but I don’t think I could have picked her out of a lineup before this.) “When Oliver approached me about George Bush my initial reaction was 'Why would I want to do that?” says an entirely sensible Brolin. “But Oliver pointed out certain similarities I had with the character. We both have well-known fathers. We both grew up in the country. We both have strong mothers.”

As for why Stone is making this movie at all, the auteur gasses thusly: “I think history is going to be very tough on him. But that doesn't mean he isn't a great story. It's almost Capra-esque, the story of a guy who had very limited talents in life, except for the ability to sell himself. The fact that he had to overcome the shadow of his father and the weight of his family name — you have to admire his tenacity. There's almost an Andy Griffith quality to him, from A Face in the Crowd. If Fitzgerald were alive today, he might be writing about him. He's sort of a reverse Gatsby.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Stone movie without controversy, particularly in matters of historical accuracy, but the director is having none of it. “I'm tired of defending the accuracy of my movies. I'm past that now. JFK was a case to be proven, Nixon was a penetrating biography of a complex and dark man. But I'm not bound by those strictures anymore. Bush is not a complex and dark man, so it's different. This movie can be funnier because Bush is funny. He's awkward and goofy and makes faces all the time. He's not your average president. So let's have some fun with it. What are they going to do? 'Discredit' me again?”

We’ll all get the chance, maybe sooner than expected. Stone is hoping to have the movie in theaters before Election Day.

List-o-Mania Addendum: The Bleakest Movie Endings

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:30:00 GMT

I’ve been alerted to a list we missed in last week’s roundup, so in the interest of equal time, please direct your attention to the REEL Addict’s Top 15 Bleakest Film Endings. But tread lightly, spoiler-phobes, because as you may have deduced, the list does reveal the endings to 15 films, some of which you may not have seen. In fact, I won’t even reveal any of the titles until after the jump (although I guess that picture is kind of a giveaway, huh?).

As regular Screengrab readers may recall, I’ve already determined that the title of bleakest movie ending of all time belongs to Beneath the Planet of the Apes. But perhaps the REEL Addict found it hard to take that one seriously, so he goes with a perfectly acceptable alternative in Chinatown. “The girl dies, the bad guy wins, and all the efforts of our hero to solve the case go for nothing. ‘Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.’” Well, gee, when you put it that way, I guess I can go along with it. Second place goes to Requiem for a Dream, and I have to disagree: the ending meant the movie was over and I could leave the theater, which I found a greatly uplifting experience. You can check the rest out for yourself, along with a selection of clips. My favorite is the finale of No Country for Old Men; I saw the movie twice, and I don’t recall the Burger King appearing over Tommy Lee Jones’ shoulder during his final monologue, but hey – YouTube don’t lie.

Barack Obama and Brad Pitt: Separated at Birth?

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Genealogists have uncovered some startling connections between our current crop of presidential candidates and everyone’s favorite celebrity couple – and for all we know, they’ve given Oliver Stone some casting ideas for a future project.

According to the Associated Press, the good people at the New England Historic Genealogical Society have determined that Barack Obama is a distant cousin of Brad Pitt, while Hillary Rodham Clinton and Angelina Jolie are “ninth cousins.” But that’s not all! “Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.”

This should give Stone plenty to work with should he ever get around to making a movie about the 2008 presidential campaign. Meanwhile, the JFK and Nixon helmer is at work on his latest meticulously researched and thoroughly accurate biopic, this one called simply W. Yes, it’s the inspiring story of George W. Bush, starring No Country for Old Men cowboy Josh Brolin as the current president. Entertainment Weekly reports that Elizabeth Banks (Zack and Miri Make a Porno) has been cast as first lady Laura Bush in what the director describes, presumably with a straight face, as “a fair and accurate portrait, focused on things like his relationship with his father, President George H.W. Bush, his wild younger days, and his conversion to Christianity.”

The Dude Abides: Ten Years of "Lebowski"

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:30:00 GMT

The Coen Brothers may have just enjoyed the greatest commercial, critical and Oscar success of their career with No Country for Old Men, but it will never be their most beloved movie. That would be the decidedly offbeat comedy released to general box office indifference ten years ago this month: The Big Lebowski.

As one of seven Americans to not only see Lebowski during its original theatrical run but to love it immediately, I've always been both baffled and delighted by the movie's ascension to the top of the "most quoted" heap, let alone its Star Trek-like success in the realm of fan conventions. Writing in Entertainment Weekly, Dude-alike Clark Collins offers his own perspective of the cult of Lebowski. "Ten years ago, I too was an unmarried, beer-gutted, long-haired, crappy-car-owning, Bob Dylan-loving hippie type. Moreover, like the Dude, I wasn't technically employed… I didn't appreciate being compared to the Dude. I was not some feckless, zonked-out waster. I was writing a novel — or I would be, just as soon as I finished putting my Dylan records in chronological order. Moreover, and it almost physically hurts to admit this, I didn't think the film was very funny at the time. I thought it was kind of stupid. Many seemed to agree. Critical reaction to the The Big Lebowski was mixed, and the film grossed just $17 million domestically, significantly less than the Coens' previous movie Fargo."

Like so many others, however, Collins was won over by repeated viewings of Lebowski on DVD. Not everyone went as far as Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt, who launched the "1st Annual Big Lebowski What-Have-You Fest" in 2002, but as Collins notes, there can be unforeseen advantages to being intimately familiar with the Dude and his ways. "Knowledge of the movie can even help your employment prospects. One of my friends actually got hired for a job after noting that there seemed to be ‘a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous' involved in the position. (His interviewer turned out to be a fellow fan of the movie.)"

Those wishing to celebrate a decade of Dudeness have several options. You can pick up a copy of the book I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski, and What Have You, which Russell and Shuffit have written with Bill Green and Ben Peskoe. Los Angeles residents can catch an anniversary screening on March 29 at the Egyptian. And the Alamo Drafthouse will be screening the movie on March 28 at the Dart Bowl in Austin; admission gets you a free game, shoes and even a complimentary White Russian. (The 28th is a Friday, by the way, so no need to worry if you don't roll on Shabbos.)

DVD Digest for March 11, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week finds the recently-anointed Best Picture Oscar winner coming to DVD, as well as some long-overlooked genre offerings, adrift of sea of junk both old and new. In other words, sort of like every week here at DVD Digest.

DVD of the week: What else could it be but No Country for Old Men (Buena Vista, also Blu-Ray)? The film's DVD contains some interesting-looking featurette, including a making-of with the Coens, but the primary reason I'm including it here is because when a legitimately great film is honored with the Best Picture Oscar, it's a cause for celebration. Say what you will about the falling fortunes of the Academy Awards, but the Oscar name still means something to people, and the award should bring No Country a bigger home-viewing audience than it would have had otherwise. Yes, I realize there will almost certainly be a super-deluxe edition of the film in six months or so, one which will hopefully include an Easter egg of Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go. But especially in a relatively slow week for DVD (no major box sets, no Criterions), I'd say the arrival of No Country in home-viewing form constitutes an event.

In other new releases, this week brings Paramount's tiresomely overhyped Bee Movie; Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche in Dan in Real Life (Buena Vista, also Blu-Ray); the John Woo-wannabe Hitman (Fox, also Blu-Ray); August Rush (Warner, also Blu-Ray); the misbegotten Caine/Law/Branagh remake of Sleuth; last summer's largely forgotten updating of Nancy Drew (Warner); and the anime DVD Appleseed Ex Machina (Warner, also Blu-Ray).

On the classics front, the week's big news is the three new titles in Fox's ever-growing selection of film noir on DVD: Ginger Rogers in Black Widow, Jeanne Crain in Dangerous Passage, and Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda in Otto Preminger's Daisy Kenyon. Daisy Kenyon in particular has enjoyed a critical resurgence during the past year, and I'm eager to check it out now that it's finally available again. Other titles of note include the Al Pacino double feature of ...And Justice For All and Bobby Deerfield (both Sony), and a new special edition of Gattaca (Sony, also Blu-Ray). The week's Blu-Ray-only releases include Dogma (Sony), I, Robot (Fox), and Independence Day (Fox).

Finally, David Huddleston offers his condolences to the following HD-DVD releases:

Bee Movie (Paramount)
In the Valley of Elah (Warner)
Michael Clayton (Warner)
Fletch (Universal)

I don't know about you, but $20 seems a lot to pay for what will likely be used as a Fletch drink coaster in a few months' time. Although if you use it to hold your Bloody Mary while you eat a steak sandwich and a steak sandwich, perhaps it'll be worth it to you.

Indie Box-Office Roundup: Weekend of February 29-March 2

Paul Clark — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:00:00 GMT

As I predicted in last week's column, arthouse audiences turned out in droves to catch The Counterfeiters (Sony Pictures Classics), Stefan Ruzowitzky's recent Oscar-winner for Best Foreign-Language Film. Currently in its second week of release, The Counterfeiters tops this week's Indie Box-Office Roundup with in an average of $10,295 per screen in 18 venues, following a strong second-place finish in its opening weekend.

The weekend's top new release was Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop (Koch Lorber), bringing in $8,745 on a single screen, followed by last week's champ, Jacques Rivette's The Duchess of Langeais, which kept on rockin' at $7,059 per screen after expanding its release to three locations. Rounding out the top five were (stop me if you've heard this before) Sony Pictures Classics' The Band's Visit and Focus Features' In Bruges, the latter expanding to 232 screens nationwide.

Also of note was the release of Chicago 10 (Roadside Attractions), the highest-ranking documentary of the weekend at #6. And let's not overlook the Oscar bump for Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, which found its way back into the top 10 after a nearly three-month absence following an expansion to more than 2,000 screens. Take that, Juno! ¿Quien es mas macho?

Top 10, Weekend of February 29-March 2:
1. The Counterfeiters [Sony Pictures Classics] ($10,295 per screen)
2. Chop Shop [Koch Lorber Films] ($8,745)
3. The Duchess Of Langeais [IFC Films] ($7,059)
4. The Band's Visit [Sony Pictures Classics] ($4,553)
5. In Bruges [Focus Features] ($3,342)
6. Chicago 10 [Roadside Attractions] ($3,052)
7. The Unforeseen [Cinema Guild] ($2,496)
8. Caramel [Roadside Attractions] ($2,300)
9. The Year My Parents Went On Vacation [City Lights Pictures Releasing] ($2,121)
10. No Country For Old Men [Miramax] ($2,020)

Source: IndieWire.

In Other Blogs: Blazing Saddles and Venture Brothers

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Black History Month ends today, as does Black History Mumf at Big Media Vandalism. Before wrapping things up, Odienator takes a long look at an expected subject: Blazing Saddles, “a film so politically incorrect it should come with a surgeon general's warning for the easily offended. The film is full of racist language, Black jokes, Jewish jokes, gay slurs, religious blasphemy and cruelty to both animals and old ladies. There are at least three jokes about rape, two jokes about improper use of cattle (one of which I've already counted in the rape jokes) , and one joke about implied masturbation between a cowboy and his bathing boss.” Not that he has a problem with that. “I've a rule about comedy which states that nothing is offensive to me so long as it's funny. Luckily, Saddles is hilarious, but every joke is a powderkeg of potential offense.”

Today also represents the official end to the 2007 awards season, as the Screengrab’s own Paul Clark unveils the big winner of the 2nd Annual Muriel Awards at Silly Hats Only. The Golden Muriel for Best Film goes to No Country For Old Men, edging out There Will Be Blood and Zodiac.

At the House Next Door, Vadim Rizov brings us up to speed on the “"Rendez-Vous with French Cinema" series at Lincoln Center. His highlight is actress Mia Hansen-Løve's directorial debut All Is Forgiven, which he says “is so resolutely modest that it took me a while to realize what I was seeing was closer to Yi Yi than another purposefully small-scale festival movie. The style may be hermetic, but all the better to keep the plot away from the melodrama it would've turned into in lesser hands. There's heroin addiction here, destroyed marriages, abandoned children and all kinds of casual emotional damage—but it never feels like one damn thing after another, just a truthful look into the lives of adults fighting problems they should've resolved well before marriage and their potential march to serenity.”

And finally, Cinematical is taking a stand: The Venture Brothers need a feature film. As Monika Bartyzel writes, “the show's structure is much more ideal for a feature film. It's an animated adventure. There's no need to scheme up a way to make it cinematic, because the meat is right there. They've already faced aged prostitutes, the Bermuda triangle, tag sales for super-villains, mummies, Ünderland, space, and even dating. Take any frontier, any situation really, and you could slide the Ventures into it.”

Grumbling About Mumbling: Philip Seymour Hoffman and Other Mushmouths

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Ever since Frank Sinatra christened Marlon Brando "Mumbles" on the set of Guys and Dolls, inarticulate and incomprehensible speech has been a mainstay of American cinema, particularly among Method actors. David Jenkins of The Guardian has had enough, and it's Philip Seymour Hoffman who has pushed him to the breaking point.

Jenkins' snippy piece begins: "So there they are, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Albert Finney, emoting like nobody's business after they've buried the woman who was, respectively, their mother and their wife, in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. There's a silence, and then Hoffman speaks — whereupon Finney slaps him. It's clearly a crucial moment, this explosion of violence, but I've yet to talk to anyone who could hear what Hoffman actually said."

Jenkins goes on to bemoan the mushmouthed stylings of the cast of Charlie Wilson's War (including Hoffman again), Miami Vice (with non-American Colin Farrell cited as a prime offender) and even There Will Be Blood. (He lets the Coens off the hook, noting critic Anne Billson's explanation for the clarity of speech in No Country for Old Men: "The Coen brothers are famously proud of their dialogue, so they make sure you can hear it."

The piece traces screen mumbling back to Brando, of course, but also pins some of the blame on Robert Altman for his trademark overlapping dialogue. It's a little hard to believe that nearly forty years after MASH critics and filmmakers could still be uptight about Altman's brilliant cacophonies, but Sexy Beast producer Hercules Bellville agrees. "I've got no problems with 1940s films; then only Peter Lorre had a strange accent. Now there are all sorts of odd accents and dialects, and the colloquial is often rapid and slurred. But technically, there's no reason for it."

These guys are way too uptight; after all, it's not as if American audiences have never had trouble deciphering British speech, and you don't hear us complaining. To quote Benicio Del Toro in The Usual Suspects, "Gbaughg thfllwoogha schwfjflhaw."

Indie Box-Office Roundup: Weekend of February 22-24, 2008

Paul Clark — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:00:00 GMT

One of the pleasures of doing the weekly Indie Box-Office Roundup is that there are more surprises to be had with this top ten than with the top-grossing films overall. For example, I never thought I'd live to type the following six words: "Jacques Rivette, domestic box-office champ." Naturally, we're talking per-screen average rather than overall gross, but still — wow. Rivette's latest film, The Duchess of Langeais (IFC Films), took in a per-screen average of $11,126 on two screens over the past weekend. What makes this weekend's haul even more of a surprise is that Rivette's last film, L'Histoire de Marie et Julien was snubbed altogether by American distributors as being "too uncommercial." As a long-standing Rivette fan, I'm happy to see that others are responding as positively to his new work as I did. I don't expect it to stay on top, but I'll enjoy its reign while it lasts.

Coming in a strong second was Sunday night's Best Foreign-Language Film winner, Stefan Ruzowitzky's The Counterfeiters (Sony Pictures Classics). In its first weekend in American theatres, the film brought in an average of $10,939 per screen on eight screens. Expect the film's totals to soar next weekend, as Oscar-watchers turn out to see what all the fuss is about.

Sitting at #3 and #4 were last week's top two, The Band's Visit (Sony Pictures Classics) and In Bruges (Focus Features), followed by the weekend's top documentary, A Man Named Pearl (Shadow Distribution). Also worth mentioning is 9th-place film La Traviata (Emerging Pictures), a limited-engagement performance of Verdi's opera. It's hard to gauge how the opera's attendance compares to the other titles in this week's top ten, since although many cities are showing the movie fewer times than their other titles, tickets generally sell for upwards of $20.

Next weekend should see a bump for the Oscar-winners still in release, not just The Counterfeiters but also Best Documentary Feature winner Taxi to the Dark Side, and to a certain extent No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood.

Top 10, Weekend of February 22-24:
1. The Duchess Of Langeais [IFC Films] ($11,126 per screen)
2. The Counterfeiters [Sony Pictures Classics] ($10,939)
3. The Band's Visit [Sony Pictures Classics] ($4,908)
4. In Bruges [Focus Features] ($4,530)
5. A Man Named Pearl [Shadow Distribution] ($3,308)
6. Still Life [New Yorker] ($2,933)
7. Undoing [Indican Pictures] ($2,897)
8. George A. Romero's Diary Of The Dead [Third Rail Releasing] ($2,540)
9. La Traviata [Emerging Pictures] ($2,503)
10. The Year My Parents Went On Vacation [City Lights Pictures Releasing] ($2,485)

Source: IndieWire.

Paul Clark (Kinda) Liveblogs the Oscars

Paul Clark — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:30:00 GMT

Well, it's that time of year again, and unlike last year, I'll actually be posting here as the night goes on. While it's difficult to me to actually "live-blog" because my computer faces away from the television, I'll try to post something over every commercial break. Let's see how this goes. Hopefully I'll at least be more coherent than Harry Knowles usually is, but you never know.

4:30 PM- Just for the record, here's my complete list of predictions, so I won't be able to weasel my way out of them later and declare my predictive powers to be any more awesome than they actually are:

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem
Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton
Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Best Original Screenplay: Juno
Best Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men
Best Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Best Art Direction: There Will Be Blood (winner: Sweeney Todd)
Best Cinematography: There Will Be Blood
Best Costume Design: Atonement (winner: Elizabeth)
Best Documentary Feature: No End in Sight (winner: Taxi to the Dark Side)
Best Documentary Short Subject: Sari's Mother (winner: Freeheld)
Best Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Best Foreign Language Film: The Counterfeiters
Best Makeup: La Vie en Rose
Best Original Score: Atonement
Best Original Song: "Falling Slowly," Once
Best Animated Short: Peter and the Wolf
Best Live-Action Short: Tanghi Argentini (winner: The Mozart of Pickpockets)
Best Sound Editing: The Bourne Ultimatum
Best Sound Mixing: No Country for Old Men (winner: The Bourne Ultimatum)
Best Visual Effects: Transformers (winner: Golden Compass)

How will I fare? Stay tuned...

Preshow- Oh, great. Regis is hosting. Better than Joan and Melissa at least.

8:05- Cotillard is so hot. Just wanted to get that out there.

8:06- Host lady to Travolta: "You're not wearing a dress in honor of HAIRSPRAY." Come on, he's not Trey Parker.

8:08- Bardem: "seeking money AND revenge?" All right, did you SEE the movie?

8:10- How many times is Regis going to say "what's wrong with these people?"

8:13- Wow, Mickey Rooney's still alive, and more Yoda-like than ever.

8:13- JUNO: "the little movie that could." Way to go, Fox Searchlight marketing team.

8:23- Uh-oh, there's Hilary Swank. Nobody tell Nathaniel, OK? "People say you can play any kind of role." OK, WHAT? It's Hilary Swank, not Meryl Streep.

8:27- Remember this for next year, ABC- fewer random stars, more Bill Conti.

8:29- XAVIER Bardem? Come on, Regis, you've had time to practice your pronunciations.

8:30- FYI, I'll be boldfacing all the predictions I get right, in case you're keeping score at home.

8:33- Maybe they should hire Arnold to transport the Oscars every year. Would've saved them a big headache back in 2000.

8:34- Jack's next to Javier Bardem. Mothers, lock up your daughters...

8:36- "Oscar-nominated psychopathic killer movies." Wow, a Dorothy Hamill reference. You definitely don't get this from Whoopi.

8:38- NORBIT- "too often the Academy ignores movies that aren't good." OK, Oscar director, where's the Rick Baker cutaway shot? That's just sloppy, buds.

8:40- A stripper named Olympia Dukakis- forget Chigurh and Plainview, that's the most disturbing image we'll get tonight.

8:42- Spike Lee likes the black President joke. You're doing well, Jon.

8:44- Costume Design- I miss the models they had last year. Much better than the diagrams. Gah... ELIZABETH? Lots of costumes, but to what end? At least she kept it short.

8:51- Some of those production numbers are frightening, but none so much as accompanying the montage with Celine Dion. Classy wrap-up with Chaplin though.

8:53- Carell/Hathaway- must we really play the GET SMART theme? Hathaway's pretty smoking though. And Carell's clueless schtick still works. Yes... first correct prediction of the night. Go RATATOUILLE. Fun story too- Brad Bird is so cool.

8:57- Cutting from Heigl to Keri Russell? Is this a pregnancy-movie-themed edit? Yeesh. Also, settle down Heigl. But hey, LA VIE EN ROSE won. Go me. At least it wasn't frickin' NORBIT.

9:01- First song nominee- "Happy Working Song", quite possibly the first Oscar-nominated song with the lyric about scrubbing a toilet. Adams is a charmer, but did we really need to nominate 5 songs this year? 3 ENCHANTED songs seems like a lot of padding in my opinion. At least there's no production number behind her.

9:09- Stop trying so hard to be funny, Rock Dwayne. Yikes... THE GOLDEN COMPASS? Granted, it's the least terrible of the five movies, but the effects weren't all that stellar, except of course for the polar bear ripping the other polar bear's jaw off. That was awesome.

9:12- That's two bum predictions in a row for me. SWEENEY TODD sort of deserves it too though, so I won't complain.

9:14- Yes, Cate's awesome. But why not mention her cameo in HOT FUZZ?

9:17- Much as I love Casey Affleck's performance, this is the wrong category for him... Bardem- what other scene would they have picked? Hoffman, likewise... wow, that's a lot of applause for Holbrook. Could an upset happen? Nope, guess not. Also, I'm guessing Wilkinson will have an Oscar within the next decade. Nice quick speech, Bardem. Too bad most native English-speaking winners can't keep it that brief.

9:24- At least wasting our time with fake montages is more entertaining than wasting our time with real montages. Also, Pee Wee!

9:26- Holy crap, who's responsible for such prosaic and literal-minded lyrics? The little girl's good though, even if she does sound like she's auditioning for Teenage Idol. Still, this better not beat "Falling Slowly".

9:30- Sweet, it's Owen Wilson. He could use some more practice reading the TelePrompter though. Ick... THE MOZART OF PICKPOCKETS won. Probably the least of the nominees, at least in my estimation.

9:32- Wait, BEE MOVIE? Couldn't they afford RATATOUILLE? The bees montage was pretty amusing though. Go MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI! OK, PETER AND THE WOLF wins. I predicted this, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.

9:36- Alan Arkin rules. Nice little speech there- don't know if he wrote it, but he made it his own. Hope you were watching folks, you've just watched Ruby Dee's entire performance in AMERICAN GANGSTER. And wow, it must've been tough to find a non-foulmouthed scene for Amy Ryan. Yesssssssss... Tilda wins. Righteous. She's so cool. Much better speeches this year all around, I'd say.

9:45- "The always fantastic Jessica Alba." Unless she's trying to act, that is. At least she's only presenting the Sci-Tech awards, fitting since I'm not entirely convinced she's not a special effects creation herself.

9:47- Brolin, you were robbed bud. At least you got a Muriel Award this year. Pretty obviously, it goes to the Coens. We'll be seeing plenty of them tonight, methinks. "We've only adapted Homer and Cormac McCarthy." Nice.

9:50- Hey, there's Sid Ganis. Time to get myself a drink. Wait, MICHAEL BAY's in the Academy? That explains so much.

9:53- This was a pretty fun production number in the movie, but it's really not that great a song. Chenoweth actually sounds quite a bit like Amy Adams, although she's a more polished singer to be sure. All these dancers look kind of dumb outside the context of the movie, I gotta say.

10:02- Angelina Jolie baby jokes never get old. Right? RIGHT???

10:03- Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill- awesome. Way to liven up the Sound Editing category. I'm calling BOURNE for this one, but who knows? Damn, I got it. How about that? And see, these are the people who should be getting flustered, not the professional actors.

10:06- Oh sweet, "Halle" and "Dame Judi" are doing the Sound Mixing category too. I'm guessing this'll be NO COUNTRY, although maybe Kevin O'Connell might get finally get his for TRANSFORMERS. Nope, this one's BOURNE too. Cool, I guess. And nice shirt, buddy.

10:10- Wait, Best Actress already? Go Carice Van Houten! Oh, never mind. Whitaker's gotten much better at public speaking since last year. Look at Cate cringe- she knows how terrible the movie is. But it's not like she'd say no. Christie, always classy. And you know what would be awesome? If they could use a Cotillard clip where we hear her real voice for more than a second. Wow, Cate was pretty happy about Cotillard winning. And since I predicted her, so am I. I mean, just look at her up there- she's glowing. Only question is whether an American can take home Best Actor, since otherwise the foreign actors are sweeping.

10:19- This commercial lead-in was brought to you by Wii.

10:20- Farrell presents "Falling Slowly." Because, you see, he's Irish, and the movie's Irish, so why not? Sounds good though. Also, nice music shop motif in the background with the guitars and all. At least there aren't any slow-motion dancers. But why the orchestra?

10:24- Come on Jack, try a little harder to sell what's been written for you. You're an actor, right?

10:26- Best Picture montage- yikes, some of these HURT. I won't even say which ones, you know the ones you hate.

10:29- Best Editing. I bet BOURNE, but I'm hoping for NO COUNTRY, just to see what'll happen. Alas, Roderick Jaynes' Oscar will have to wait.

10:32- Nice jab at IMDb, Jon. And holy NECKLACE, Nicole! Cool montage for Robert Boyle- pretty impressive filmography, I gotta say, and looking darn good for 98. I hadn't even heard who had gotten the honorary award, but now that I know I must say they've made a fine choice.

10:43- Holy crap, I forgot Andrzej Wajda's new film was up for Best Foreign-Language Film. And of course the WWII movie wins. Yeesh, that was easy.

10:47- Oh Jesus, THIS song? Boooooooooo-ring. Didn't they have a "Blame Canada"-style spoof song they could've nominated? It would've livened things up, that's for sure. And they say this guy's name is John McLaughlin? I was sort of hoping it'd be the dude from The McLaughlin Group instead of yet another sensitive, blandly hunky singer. If this song beats "Falling Slowly" I'm throwing my shoes at my television. So if the liveblogging stops abruptly, you'll know why.

10:50- This is one of your favorite categories, Travolta? Funny, it's one of my least favorites, since they usually pick sentimental junk. Naturally, I will except "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp." WHEW, thank GOD. I was afraid I'd have to use my next Screengrab paycheck to replace my TV.

10:57- A propos of absolutely nothing- I like Stewart well enough, but am I the only one who'd welcome an Oscar ceremony hosted by "Halle" and "Dame Judi"?

10:58- Wow, Stewart just invited Marketa Irglova back to finish her speech. Extremely classy of him. I sort of take back what I just said about Halle and Dame Judi.

11:00- OK Cameron, have you seen SUNRISE? Doesn't sound like it. Almost all these cinematography nominations are awesome- THERE WILL BE BLOOD takes it. Sorry Deakins. And way to recognize everybody else.

11:03- "Two time Academy Award nominee Hilary Swank"- somewhere, Annette Bening cringes.

11:07- Why can't they put the necrology in chronological order by the dates they passed away? By saving the "biggest name" for last, it's like they're making a value judgment on whose death is most notable. For example, I like Heath Ledger, but how is career more worthy of remembrance than Ousmane Sembene? Just a thought.

11:10- This category sucks without THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Predicting ATONEMENT, rooting for RATATOUILLE. And ATONEMENT it is. Wow, I'm actually doing pretty darn well tonight.

11:13- See, we can't bring the soldiers home, or they'd have to come up with a different gimmicky Oscar presentation. The winner is... FREEHELD, about homosexual soldiers. Had I known that I would've predicted that instead of going with the cutest-sounding name.

11:17- I've only seen two of these- SICKO and NO END IN SIGHT. NO END IN SIGHT is the better of the two, but LAKE OF FIRE blows them both away. So does THE KING OF KONG, for that matter. Of course, can you imagine the documentary branch honoring a movie about video games? Well, looks like I'm wrong here too- TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE takes the award.

11:25- Harrison Ford walks onstage to Indiana Jones theme- too obvious? WAKE UP, HARRISON! Wait, think he's drunk? Please MICHAEL CLAYTON... Please MICHAEL CLAYTON... nope, JUNO. Well, that's a point for me in the Oscar contest anyway. Grumble grumble... also, that tattoo is super-classy. I bet Tom Hanks has one just like it.

11:32- Helen Mirren just said "cojones"- she's awesome. Awesome pick for the Day-Lewis clip- powerful and bravura but not the "milkshake" bit everyone knows by heart. Who's that with Viggo? And of course Day-Lewis wins. What else is there to say but "DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINAGE"!!!!!!!!! "The handsomest bludgeon in town"- well put, man. I wonder what he'll be doing next?

11:44- What if the Coens DIDN'T win??? Guess we'll never find out. Whew... I could listen to the Coen brothers talk all day. Some part of me wants to see "Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go" included on the NO COUNTRY DVD.

11:46- Should be NO COUNTRY. Would be awesome if it was THERE WILL BE BLOOD as well, but I doubt it. As I suspected... NO COUNTRY it is. Now we get more of the Coens onstage, which is fine by me. And hey, it's not even midnight yet! Rudin: "with the opportunity for making movies comes the responsibility of making them good." Someone please relay this message to Joel Schumacher.

Well, everything turned out more or less as expected- a solid Oscar ceremony for a year when the very possibility of a ceremony was long in doubt. Good job keeping it moving along, while still finding time to bring back Marketa Irglova, a truly gracious move by Stewart and probably the highlight of the night for me.

No big surprises, but also no bad surprises, and I'll take that. Looks like I got 17 out of 24 categories right. Hope you did as well or better, unless of course you're in the same Oscar pool I'm in this year.

Hope you've enjoyed reading. Sorry I wasn't funnier. Good night.

What’s in an Edit?

John Constantine — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:07:00 GMT

Sure, we’re obsessed with movies, but not all of us are well-versed in the delicate art of actually making one. While we’ve all cultivated our opinions on what makes for good acting or directing, how many movie lovers understand what makes for great editing? Slate has an excellent video up today with editor Mark Helfrich examining this year’s Academy Award Best Editing nominees. Helfrich explains in digestible layman terms what’s so special about the way No Country for Old Men, The Bourne Ultimatum, There Will Be Blood, Into the Wild, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly are cut together. It’s particularly interesting to hear that Into the Wild’s editing shaped the movie far beyond what the script called for, owing all of its non-linear presentation to Jay Cassidy’s work in the editing room. Check it out below.

Screengrab Bets the Oscars: Phil's Picks

Phil Nugent — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Let's make sure we're on the same page on this: if you bet money, household chores, or bragging rights on anything you're about to read in this post, you are out of your mind, and while I pity you, I will not admit in a court of law to ever having met you. I got off the Oscar train when I was eight years old and Sissy Spacek didn't win for Carrie; to have continued our relationship beyond that point would have been madness, madness! I claim no inside knowledge or deep understanding of how they decide these things, and the only thing I could tell you about the winners of recent years is that Jennifer Hudson won last year for Dreamgirls. (How do I know this? I was talking to someone on the phone when it was announced, and the woman I was talking to happened to have her TV set on. When Hudson's name was called out, the woman screamed. It turned out that it was a joyous scream, but until she calmed down enough to tell me what the hell was going on, my best guess was that she had just noticed that her couch was on fire.) Anyway, the only thing more completely charmless than the Oscars may be the ugly spectacle of a writer bragging about how little he cares about what he's paid to weigh in on, so now that we've just established that my opinion in this area counts for about as much as hair styling tips from Paul Wolfowitz, here goes:

BEST SCREENPLAY:

Diablo Cody takes Best Original for Juno because the voters have actually heard her name — it's not like, having come across it once, you can get it out of your head without laser surgery — and Paul Thomas Anderson takes it for Best Adaptation for There Will Be Blood, because that's what you get when you make a great movie but you aren't going to get Best Picture and the Best Director prize already taken.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Apparently this is going to go to Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There, partly because Blanchett is also nominated for a Best Actress award that she is not getting to get and nominating her twice in one year without giving her anything would just seem silly. A good and sound bit of reasoning, and so I will of course reject it. And not only because I don't get the universally accepted logic by which this is agreed to be a "supporting" performance. Who the hell is she supposed to be supporting? The term ought to mean something other than "Big name actor in a role that is frequently off-screen." She's definitely the unquestioned star of her section of the movie, and while I didn't put a stop watch on it, I'll bet that she has as much screen time as any of the other Dylans. And if it turns out that Richard Gere, say, has a little more actual screen time, I'm not sure that the editor did him a favor by it. Until persuaded otherwise, I shall remain convinced that Blanchett's placement in this category is part of some conspiracy to screw over Amy Ryan, who wouldn't win anyway, because you only win an Oscar for playing a character as skanky as her Gone Baby Gone character if the Academy has already seen you in a bunch of glamour-puss roles and so knew for sure that you were acting. It's a moot point anyway, because I boldly predict that the winner will be Ruby Dee, because she has had a long and distinguished career, because she is 83 years old, because her late husband, Ossie Davis, is much missed, and because even though she didn't have much of a role in American Gangster, she did get to slap Denzel Washington, and he needed slapping.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Hal Holbrook has had a long and distinguished career and is now the same age as Ruby Dee, so if she doesn't win in her category, his chances automatically go up by 50%. But I really don't see it happening. Philip Seymour Hoffman gives the best performance in this category — he's a stone hoot in Charlie Wilson's War, which marks a rare example of an actor giving the Academy three different performances to select for nomination and the Academy choosing the right one. I'd think he had a real chance if it weren't for the fact that he already won not too long ago for Best Actor for Capote, which makes Javier Bardem the needier candidate. Bardem's trigger-happy, unstoppable psycho in a much-discussed hairstyle gave audiences all the fun of watching a Batman villain ply his trade, but it's in an officially certified, critically approved serious film with a literary pedigree, and for this he will be the recipient of much gratitude from voters whose wives dragged them to Atonement. He's already won more than a few awards for this performance, and he'll be throwing one more on the pile.

BEST ACTRESS:

Julie Christie in a lock. Next?

BEST ACTOR:

The conventional wisdom seems to be that this one belongs to Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood. I think that George Clooney has a shot for Michael Clayton, which is the kind of hard-hitting, tough-minded, yet still glamorous-looking movie that Hollywood wishes and expects America to take to its bosom. (Clooney looks worn-down and dissipated in it, and a gorgeous-looking man looking as much like hell as he can is the most glamorous thing in the world.) Some would argue that Clooney himself gave the award to Day-Lewis at a recent Newsweek-sponsored gathering where he serenaded his shy British colleague by saying that all actors "bow low to this motherfucker." Indeed, the whole of the media has been going wild these last couple of months about Day-Lewis's position as the great screen actor of our time. I do not disagree. But I happen to be one of those suspicious types who, when I hear conservative pundits on Fox News go on and on about how fearsome a candidate Barack Obama would be against a Republican challenger in November, and how they think that any Republican would just chew Hillary Clinton up and spit her out, I can't help thinking, Okay, would they say that out loud if they really believed it? Hasn't anyone ever heard the one about wanting to be thrown in the brier patch? So, on this baseless idiot notion, I have just decided the media have been building Day-Lewis up in preparation for the shocking upset to come when Clooney takes the prize. Remember, you read it here first! Unless I'm wrong, in which case you can just forget that I said anything.

BEST DIRECTOR:

The Coens, for No Country for Old Men, in a bigger lock than Julie Christie.

BEST PICTURE:

The big pictures here are obviously No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, and I think they're going to cancel each other out. Both are impressive, violent movies that actually alienate as many potential voters as they attract. For the same reasons that I think George Clooney is an attractive candidate for Best Actor, his movie, Michael Clayton, has the smell of a loser to it. So the contrarian, can't-we-all-just-get-alone vote will go to putting either Juno or Atonement over the top. After it won at the Golden Globes, I thought that Atonement, with its period romance and literary prestige, was a shoo-in, but since then I have shifted over to favoring Juno, partly because I got bored with my previous position, partly because Juno is this year's Little Miss Sunshine, and Little Miss Sunshine lost last year. That means that the partisans of indie-flavored whimsy will be harder-driving this year. Also, it came out later in the year than Little Miss Sunshine, and is lucky in its timing: I calculate that the backlash against the backlash against Juno is now on a rising wave and will crest in time for the awards Sunday. It will flatten out the next morning and the papers will be full of "What were we thinking" pieces for the next two weeks.

Screengrab Bets the Oscars: Paul's Picks

Paul Clark — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:00:00 GMT

All right, Screengrab regulars. You've no doubt taken a gander at the Oscar predictions from Leonard Pierce and Scott Von Doviak, which if nothing else have demonstrated that Screengrab's sense of humor remains intact. Now have a gander at — well, I was going to say the REAL predictions, but since you've already seen my nomination predictions, I can't in good conscience make such a grandiose claim. But Leonard has sent out a call, and I have no choice but to answer it.

Here goes nothing. . .

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan has been racking up critics' awards, but I think Hollywood insiders could be turned off by her unpleasant character. Saoirse Ronan might have had a shot with a bigger Atonement groundswell, but I don't see it happening now. Ruby Dee, SAG Award or no, should be happy just to be nominated. This brings us to Cate Blanchett as not-quite-Dylan, and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton. This is Blanchett's to lose. . . or would be had she not won just three years ago. The performance — more than a stunt — is might impressive, but I think Swinton sneaks in for the upset here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Bardem's still the one to beat here, friend-o. If anyone beats him, it'll be Grand Old Actor Hal Holbrook, although his chances would've been better had Into the Wild gotten a Best Picture nomination.

BEST ACTRESS: Leonard and Scott are all about Christie, but I think this is a closer race than they're predicting. Juno lives and dies by Ellen Page's performance, but the voters might find her too young to get behind. I'm going out on a limb and predicting Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, though any of these three could take home the Oscar.

BEST ACTOR: You know, had Sweeney Todd made any money at the box office, this could have been Johnny Depp's year. But as it is, Daniel Day-Lewis is untouchable, and anyone who denies it is a bastard from a basket.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Much as I'd love to see a Ratatouille upset, this race comes down the Hollywood veteran vs. the feisty newcomer. Good as the Michael Clayton screenplay is, this award almost always goes to the most show-offy screenplay, which this year is almost certainly Juno. Add in a Hollywood-friendly backstory and Diablo Cody's sudden ubiquity, and you've got an Oscar waiting to happen.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: There Will Be Blood is a masterpiece, but it's more of a directorial and acting showcase than a triumph of screenwriting. Atonement has all the ingredients of an Oscar-bait literary adaptation, but will have to make do with a few technical awards. Which means No Country for Old Men will bring the Coen brothers their second Oscar to date — or third, should the film win Best Editing.

BEST DIRECTOR: Of the nominated directors, the Coens are the Oscar veterans, and are well-liked in the industry. How else to explain an out-of-nowhere screenplay nomination for O Brother, Where Art Thou? back in the day. If anyone has a shot, it's Paul Thomas Anderson, but don't bet on it. Even if there's an upset for Best Picture, when it comes to this category, you can't stop what's coming.

BEST PICTURE: No Country is the favorite here, partly because nobody can seem to agree on what might upset it. I'm still predicting No Country to take this prize, but allow me to float my theory for a possible spoiler: Michael Clayton. Think about it — it's both a thriller and a serious drama, starring an immensely popular movie star and a supporting cast full of familiar and talented character actors. The film contains a lot of appeal for the actor-heavy voting body, especially when you consider that it earned three acting nominations this year while no other film received more than one. If the voting members of the Academy choose to forego the darkness of No Country for something more Hollywood, count on this (more so than Juno, which skews too young and feels too lightweight to be Best Picture material) to be their alternative of choice. Could be worse — at least it's not Crash.

Screengrab Bets The Oscars: Scott’s Picks

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:30:00 GMT

My colleague Mr. Leonard Pierce has thrown down the gauntlet, so now it’s up to me to pick it up and swat him about the face with it. Don’t get me wrong, Leonard is a good friend and well-meaning individual, but he is also a very crazy person with some very crazy Oscar picks. If you want to win your office pool, you need to stick with me.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Here we go by the double nomination rule. There is no chance Cate Blanchett will win for her lead role in Elizabeth II: Electric Boogaloo, so her performance as Bob Dylan…er, excuse me, Jude Quinn should bring home the gold this year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

There is no safer bet this year than Javier Bardem winning for his chilling turn in No Country for Old Men. Let’s just hope he remembers to thank his hairdresser.

BEST ACTRESS:

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t know anything about Away from Her or Julie Christie’s performance in it. I do know she’s already won a bunch of awards for it, however, and I don’t see any reason for that to change now.

BEST ACTOR:

Daniel Day-Lewis will drink George Clooney’s milkshake! He will drink it up!

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Atonement is a prestige literary adaptation, but I’m not sensing any momentum (or Atonementum, if you will). There Will Be Blood is adapted from the first part of a book nobody has read. Cormac McCarthy is the big name here, and even if No Country for Old Men isn’t his most acclaimed work, there’s no denying it was adapted about as well as could be imagined; it’s my pick.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

The backlash to the Juno backlash will begin once Diablo Cody takes home this award, followed shortly by the backlash to the backlash backlash.

BEST DIRECTOR:

I don’t see any candidates strong enough to take this one away from the Coens. They look like the grand old men of cinema next to P.T. Anderson, and the remaining nominees are horses ranging from dark (Gilroy) to darkest (Reitman).

BEST PICTURE:

Don’t make me use the term Atonementum again. The big enchilada is going home with No Country for Old Men.

Afternoon Deal Report: Coens to Adapt Chabon's "Yiddish Policemen"

Peter Smith — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:10:00 GMT

Joel and Ethan Coen have two or three original projects in the pipeline (Burn After Reading, A Serious Man and Hail Caesar), but apparently the mainstream success of No Country for Old Men (okay, the Coens have never really lacked mainstream recognition, but with its literary pedigree, No Country is certainly the most prestige-y thing they've ever done) has spurred them towards more adaptations. Scott Rudin has just hired them to adapt Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. (Rudin also has an adaptation of Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier and Clay in the works, written by Chabon himself.) As someone who liked No Country well-enough but missed the Coens' usual irreverance in the midst of all that apocalyptic atmosphere, I'm sort of sad to see them moving towards adaptations. Their original voice is one of the best things they have. Thoughts, readers?

Marisa Tomei will star with Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky's next movie, The Wrestler, about an '80s pro-wrestler. Sadly, this is not the Macho Man Randy Savage biopic we've all been waiting for.

After a protracted scuffle with Peter Jackson over the division of the spoils of his Lord of the Rings adaptations, New Line has now evoked the legal wrath of J. R. R. Tolkien's estate. In other lawsuit news, the co-writer of The Passion of the Christ is suing Mel Gibson for misleading him about the film's budget. Drive out those moneychangers, Mel.

Screengrab Bets The Oscars: Leonard's Picks

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:30:00 GMT

With the 80th annual Academy Awards less than two weeks away, and with the WGA strike apparently near its end (assuring that there actually will be an Oscar ceremony, and not just a handful of star-struck entertainment journalists trying to figure out who the TelePrompTer works), it's time for us here at the Screengrab to suck it up. It's time for us to do what every other film writer in the world, self-respecting or otherwise, is doing, and lay down our picks for the big to-do. Since I've always had a knack for making a jackass out of myself on the internet, I'll be the first: under the cut, you'll find my picks for who deserves to take home a statuette come Oscar night in eigh different categories, and who's going to walk away with the gold, regardless of merit. Over the next thirteen days, I'm hoping my Screengrab colleagues will join me in this endeavor, and then, come March, at least one of us can strut around talking about how smart we are.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

There's a fine crowd of candidates this time around, and it's hard to pick a winner — there's no obvious failings just as there's no obvious standouts. All told, Cate Blanchett should win for her turn as Dylan in I'm Not There, but I'm predicting it will actually end up in the hands of Amy Ryan for the surprising Gone Baby Gone.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

If, as I'm predicting, the Coen Brothers are shut out again this year, that means even more that Javier Bardem should win for his performance as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. However, given his spate of terrific roles towards the end of the year, I'm predicting it will go to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Charlie Wilson's War.

BEST ACTRESS:

Ellen Page surely deserves recognition for the breakout performance she delivered in Juno, and there's a slight possibility she'll get it. However, I think the Academy will go the other direction — since Hal Holbrook won't be getting an old-timer's award, Julie Christie will take home the gold for the little-seen Away from Her.

BEST ACTOR:

Although there's an off chance that George Clooney will take home the gold, I'm picking Daniel Day-Lewis' colossal performance in There Will Be Blood as both my should-win and will-win. Past performance and academy voting patterns be damned: it's a towering, masterful job of acting that carries the entire movie.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Traditionally, the screenplay categories are the thanks-for-playing awards for the year's best movies, but which for whatever reason aren't going to get one of the big awards. As such, it's a dead heat between No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, and my money's on Paul Thomas Anderson this year.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

If ever there are a sold-gold, lead-pipe lock in the history of solid-gold, lead-pipe locks, it's Diablo Cody winning Oscar gold this year for Juno. Bet the farm on it.

BEST DIRECTOR:

For filmmakers as talented and distinctive as the Coen Brothers never to have won an Oscar is a crime, but this isn't their Departed year. They'll be shut out again, though, leaving open the question of who gets it. P.T. Anderson seems obvious, but I'm gonna say this is a divisive year and Tony Gilroy takes it for Michael Clayton.

BEST PICTURE:

If Juno wins, the very balance of nature will be forever thrown askew. No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are the most deserving, but are perceived as overly nihilistic and grim. Michael Clayton could be the winner by default, but I think it'll go to Atonement, the very definition of an Academy prestige picture.

“Freaky Little People”: The Coens Burn On

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:30:00 GMT

The red carpet continues to roll out for Joel and Ethan Coen en route to Oscar night. On January 27th, the brothers convened in Hollywood for a three-part Q &A on the crafts of No Country for Old Men, moderated by Spike Jonze. On the first panel, dedicated to cinematography, the Coens were joined by Roger Deakins, who has lensed all of their movies since 1991’s Barton Fink. They discuss the Coens’ detailed storyboards, their shorthand manner of communication, and the difficulty of shooting the early morning sequence in which Josh Brolin's Moss is discovered at the crime scene and chased into the Rio Grande, which was pieced together from footage that could only be shot within a few minutes of dawn and dusk. The second panel shifts focus to sound editing and mixing, with Oscar nominees Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland sitting in, and the third covers production design with Jess Gonchor. Although moderator Jonze often comes off like a character from a Saturday Night Live sketch about a nervous high school AV club president, it’s a fascinating glimpse into the Coens’ working methods, and all of it can be viewed on the No Country website.

Not content to rest on their laurels, however, the brothers are already looking ahead. In an interview with the L.A. Times, the Coens dismiss the idea that an Oscar coronation will turn them into the grand old men of cinema. “Our movies are too outside of the mainstream," says Joel. “This is the biggest-grossing movie we've ever had. [No Country has grossed over $50 million at the box office, the first Coen movie to cross that mark.] And even at that, it doesn't approach the kind of business and influence, in terms of people's perception of American culture, that big, Hollywood studio movies do.” Or as Ethan puts it, “We ain't leadin' anything, buddy.”

Next up for the brothers is Burn After Reading, a sort of spy tale written specifically for a ground of actors the Coens wanted to work with, including George Clooney, Brad Pitt and John Malkovitch. “All the characters in Burn After Reading are numskulls,” says Joel, “which Malkovich had no problem with; Clooney has never had a problem with…Brad was initially taken aback. He's very funny in the movie. He grew to love it as much as George does. Each character is dumber than the next. But they're all lovable.”

Other irons in the fire include Hail, Caesar!, described by Joel as the third part of the George Clooney “Numskull Trilogy," and A Serious Man, “about a Jewish community in the Midwest in 1967.” Joel describes the latter as “a domestic drama.” Sure. And Fargo was a true story.