The Critic Polls That Really Matter
12/23/2006 10:43:57 AM
The word “wankfest” is getting tossed around among those discussing two of the more notable year-end polls that appeared this past week: Film Comment’s annual Top 20 list, and Indiewire’s Year-End Critics Poll, which is in fact the resurrection of the former Village Voice Year-End Critics Poll, which found itself without a home when that magazine decided to unceremoniously whack film editor Dennis Lim. Full disclosure: I participated in both of these polls, so I’m probably a bit biased. (However, this was only my first year voting in them, and I’d admired them for years beforehand – especially the Voice poll.)
Indiewire’s list was topped by Cristi Puiu’s harrowing three-hour Rumanian hospital epic The Death of Mr. Lazarescu with L'Enfant, The Departed, Inland Empire, Army of Shadows, Three Times, Old Joy, United 93, Children of Men and Half Nelson rounding out the list. David Poland at Movie City News somewhat snidely noted that many of these were films only critics saw. Jeff Wells called it a “thorough tally of what the ultra-studious, vaguely film-nerdish smartypants set feels was the year's best,” adding admiringly, “anyone who calls him/herself a serious film fan needs to mull it over.”
Film Comment’s list had Lazarescu at Number 2, with The Departed at top. The rest wasn’t too different from the Indiewire list: Army of Shadows, L’Enfant, The Queen, Borat, Half Nelson, United 93, Volver, and Inland Empire rounded it out.
Anyway, here are my thoughts, impressions, etc:
1.) Here’s what I kinda love about both of these lists: I can actively recommend almost all of these films. The only one I’m iffy on is Inland Empire, which I found to be a disappointment, but it’s still so ambitious and interesting that I would never discourage anyone from seeing it. Look at, for example, the National Board of Review’s Top Ten: Letters From Iwo Jima, Babel, Blood Diamond, The Departed, The Devil Wears Prada, Flags Of Our Fathers, The History Boys, Little Miss Sunshine, Notes On A Scandal, The Painted Veil. There are at least four movies on that list that I would actively discourage people from seeing. And I’ve yet to see Notes on a Scandal.
2.) Much has been said about how the commentary on the Indiewire poll – which is edited from comments critics send in with their ballots – seems to focus primarily on the negative: ”Babel...is a crime against humanity.” “It is time to admit that Martin Scorsese is more interested in film preservation and history than in making personal studio movies.” Etc. One particularly insane comment posits a war between Pedro Costa’s Collosal Youth and Pedro Almodovar’s Volver, for reasons so silly that it’s clear the real one is that the writer likes the idea of facing two Pedros off one another (WTF???) But by necessity, a critics’ poll that defines itself as an alternative to other, more mundane year-end lists needs some contentiousness of this sort: After all, the films we like we put in our lists and nominate for awards. The comments give us a chance to riff on the films that are conspicuously absent from our lists.
3.) That said, had I had the time to send in my own comments, I’m pretty sure I would have focused much of it on a defense of Miami Vice (my vote for Best Director went to Michael Mann) and on speculation as to why I found myself so often defending films practically everyone else loathed -- Poseidon, Lady in the Water, Wicker Man, to name three. I think something also needs to be said about the Iraq docs. While it’s all well and good that people seem to lump these together (The Ground Truth, Iraq in Fragments, and The War Tapes often show up as just a group on various film critics’ lists), I think that there’s something harmful about that, too: Seeing them as just some cultural trend denies them their artistic uniqueness. (Iraq in Fragments is a film quite high on my list, for example.) Furthermore, it discourages people from seeing them, in a strange way, by giving them the impression that these films are just spinach. In a sense, I guess that’s why the Film Comment and Indiewire polls appearing at the same time is also a good thing: By replicating many of the same films – films which didn’t always get their due recognition from other year-end bodies – they provide a kind of consensus. To put it another way: Any serious film buff who doesn’t now make a serious attempt to at least try and see The Death of Mr. Lazarescu should probably consider handing in their Walter Reade membership.
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Video of the Day 2: Grindhouse, the Real Trailer
12/22/2006 1:30:00 PM
(Apologies in advance for the excess fanboyisms.)
There was something that screened at Comic Con some months ago, which we put up at the time as the trailer for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse. As brain-explodingly awesome as that was, it wasn’t really an official teaser trailer – for starters, it consisted primarily of (pants-crappingly awesome) footage from only Rodriguez’s segment of the two-part-film. This, on the other hand, is the real thing. And, we’re happy to report, it is still jizz-dissolvingly awesome.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8206#8206 |
Forgotten News Items: McKellen, Huston, Apatow
12/22/2006 12:30:00 PM
Larry Gross’s only slightly tongue-in-cheek “Three Underreported News Stories of 2006” columnfor Movie City News is worth reading. I’m not sure the “Judd Apatow is on a roll” thing is underreported: If so, how come I was able to immediately recognize Apatow’s photo? But he does point out two other things I’ve been thinking about:
1.) Man, Ian McKellen is in a lot of successful films: The Rings trilogy, The Da Vinci Code, the X-Men films. If Flushed Away had been a bigger hit, the guy would be on a Harrison Ford-style roll.
2.) Danny Huston keeps appearing in good roles in interesting movies, including The Proposition, Children of Men, and Marie Antoinette. In Gross’s words, “He's the actor whose appearance in the credits is overwhelming proof the movie has some creative interest or ambition, or that the persons involved in casting the movie are on to some things.” I know some people will disagree, but I totally agree.
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Actors Directing: Banderas, Madonna
12/22/2006 11:30:00 AM
- Antonio Banderas's second film as a director, El Camino de los Ingleses (which has been translated as Summer Rain, even though the title translates as something decidedly different), has been selected for the Berlin Film Festival. “Set in Banderas' hometown of Malaga in the 1970s, when the helmer was growing up, Rain turns on a group of adolescent friends discovering sex and often disillusionment, especially with their parents.” It’s also screening at Sundance. Could it be good? It’s already opened in Spain, and is doing well there.
- Here’s some interesting news that will no doubt induce some chuckles: Madonna might be thinking of directing the boxing film Blade to the Heat, based on the legendary real life boxing match between Emile Griffith and Benny Paret, in which “an angry Griffith, taunted by Paret, won in a barrage of punches and seriously injured Paret - leaving him in a coma which he died from ten days later.” The fight was also covered in the documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8204#8204 |
Video of the Day 1: Black Snake Moan Trailer
12/22/2006 10:30:00 AM
Not sure how long it'll be up, so we're puttin' it up early: Here's the leaked trailer for Craig Brewer's Black Snake Moan, featuring Samuel L. Jackson as a bluesman trying to cure Christina Ricci of her sex addiction by chaining her to a radiator.
(Hat tip: Big Screen Little Screen.)
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Morning Deal Report: Paypal Boots Gallo, Judge Boots Michael Moore Suit, World Boots Baby Jesus
12/22/2006 10:00:00 AM
- Vincent Gallo has been kicked off Paypal, after attempting to use the service to receive payments for selling his body and his semen. (Read our item on it here.) In his words: “They are really fascists. They should breathe some death gas or something…For them to say they have some sort of moral regard for their clients is incredible - they're a penny-pinching, conniving company.”
- The $35 million lawsuit brought against Michael Moore by an Iraq War veteran who claimed the documentarian-provocateur used his image without permission in Fahrenheit 9/11 has been dismissed by a judge in Massachusetts. “The film showed Iraq war veteran Sgt. Peter Damon, who had lost his right arm near the shoulder and much of his left arm, lying in a hospital gurney at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Maryland, saying that he feels pain but that pain-killers given him ‘take a lot of the edge’ off of it. The video clip was originally used by NBC Nightly News for a story about medical treatment for veterans.”
- The Nativity Story is doing slightly better at the US box office than initially thought after its soft opening – and may even break even, with Christmas approaching. It is, however, tanking overseas.
- Forgot to note this earlier. When the San Diego critics announced their awards yesterday (Letters from Iwo Jima won Best Picture, for anyone keeping score), the acting winners were refreshingly different: Sure, Helen Mirren won for The Queen – but Ken Takakura won Best Actor for Zhang Yimou’s Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, Best Supporting Actor went to Ray Winstone for The Proposition and Best Supporting Actress went to Lili Taylor for Factotum. All well deserved, btw.
- Hector Babenco's drama El Pasado (The Past), starring Gael Garcia Bernal as “a thirtysomething guy whose life falls apart after he breaks up with his girlfriend” (jesus, is that like the most done idea ever or what?) has been picked up for distribution by 20th Century Fox in Latin America.
- Contrary to popular belief, the Hollywood Reporter suggests that American audiences are becoming more comfortable with subtitles.
- James Cameron describes his next narrative film, Avatar…and it becomes very clear, very quickly that it’s going to take a very long time for him to make it.
- In case you were wondering what language Borat is actually speaking when he speaks “Kazakh”…it’s fluent Hebrew. And that’s only one reason why the movie’s a hit in Israel.
- In honor of the release of Curse of the Golden Flower, Christopher Bonet of IFC.com offers an interesting tribute to/survey of Gong Li’s career.
- They’re still threatening to make that Sex and the City movie. Please, kill me now.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8203#8203 |
Video of the Day 2: Parisienne People, by David Lynch
12/21/2006 4:30:00 PM
This is what happens when you let David Lynch direct a cigarette commercial.
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The Woodman Cometh
12/21/2006 3:30:00 PM
The Reeler has done a blow-out special feature on Woody Allen, timed to coincide with the massive Woody Allen retro at New York’s Film Forum. All sorts of goodies here: Quotes from major film and cultural figures about Allen’s influence. (Neil LaBute: "Manhattan isn't just great, it's the kind of movie that makes you wish you'd made it. No, I'll go further still: Manhattan makes you wish you were a better person." James Toback: “I would say my favorite moment of any Woody Allen film is my performance in Alice.”) An assessment of Allen as an actor. And, my favorite, a touching story about growing up on the Upper East Side under the filmmaker’s influence. There’s more, too. Check it all out here.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8188#8188 |
Afternoon Update, Retired Action Hero Department
12/21/2006 2:30:00 PM
- Jason Bateman may be starring with Will Smith and Charlize Theron in Peter Berg’s quirky superhero flick Tonight, He Comes, about an alcoholic, down on his luck superhero who tries to repair his bad public image with the help of a corporate public relations consultant. Smith will play the superhero, Bateman will play the PR guy.
- Chris Klein, Jake Busey and Limp Bizkit singer Fred Durst will star in Jason Wiles' dark comedy Play Dead, about “a former TV action hero in dire need of a comeback [who] winds up snowbound in a remote Nevada town run by scary meth dealers” and is then “forced to reunite with his former co-stars...to save himself and the terrorized townsfolk.”
- Among the actors voicing characters in the upcoming CG Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flick TMNT will be Patrick Stewart, Zhang Zityi, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Chris Evans, and Kevin Smith. The Turtles themselves, however, will be voiced by unknowns.
- Rocky Balboa opened well on Wednesday, reportedly taking in around $6 million, not bad for a non-holiday mid-week premiere.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8181#8181 |
Controversy of the Week 2: DGA Vs. the World
12/21/2006 1:00:00 PM
So the big news yesterday had to do with the DGA declaring that, despite everyone in Hollywood believing otherwise, that there was never a rule against sending screeners of films to their members for awards consideration. As a result, DreamWorks got some 13,400 DVDs of Dreamgirls ready to send. But after the DGA declared that there was no such prohibition, things got a little hairy.
Here’s how Variety put it:
“In the years of awards campaigns, no studio has ever sent out screeners to DGA members. Reps at all the studios were flummoxed this week by the guild's insistence that it had never denied permission, and by the guild's haphazard handling of events in the past few days.
“The confusion began Dec. 8 when Paramount asked the DGA if it could send out screeners of the Bill Condon-directed ‘Dreamgirls.’ Someone at the DGA said yes on Dec. 15, so the studio ordered more DVDs, presumably thousands of them.
“The ‘Dreamgirls’ screeners were ready to ship when the studio learned the DGA was rescinding its permission.”
That’s a little too basic. I think David Poland put it a bit more bluntly and clearly:
”After an afternoon of being yelled at by Oscar consultants, Marcel Giacusa and Tim Webber [of the DGA] spent the morning being yelled at by studio executives, member directors and others and… VOILA!”
Basically, the DGA fucked up big time – for what reason, time will only tell – and is now apologizing for it. And they say screeners will be allowed next Oscar season. So start getting those copies of Hot Fuzz ready.
Permalink : http://www.nerve.com/nerveblog/screengrabblog.aspx?id=107e8179#8179 |
