Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw!

Already, Mike has taken the unofficial lead in our Oscar nominees battle as the Academy released their nine finalists in the category of Best Foreign-Language Film, which shockingly did not include this year's Palme d'Or winner 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (or France's Persepolis). I suppose I thought too much of the Academy that they would allow a film about abortion or an animated film make it the cut. Shame on me.

And... a proposition for a proposition

I'm strongly considering hosting my own blog-a-thon and the topic would have to combine two of my favorite things: sex and cinema. If I proposed such blog-a-thon and set a date for, perhaps, Valentine's Day, would this interest anyone? And would you tell your fellow blogger friends? I have this fear that the Sex and Cinema blog-a-thon would go over as well as a nightmare I used to have where I'd throw a party and no one would show up. Plus, who doesn't like writing about, watching or having sex? Feedback encouraged.

Huevos de oro

So, yeah, those Golden Globes. I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about how they turn out, even more so than for being the first of three cutthroat competitions Mike at Hetero-erotica and I partake in this time of year. I suppose the backlash is already beginning, thanks to their non-ceremony tonight in which two dolts from Access Hollywood (I think?) read off the nominees and (some of the) winners. I'd personally like to thank Marion Cotillard and Julie Christie for putting me ahead of the game and trumping Mike in battle number one, but how about Juno going home empty handed? And Julian Schnabel winning best director? The Globes started the backlash trend by shutting Sean Penn's Into the Wild out of all the major awards (thank God) and have begun to suggest that maybe Hollywood isn't as smitten with Juno as the numbers may suggest. No Country for Old Men, the frontrunner in the best picture race, also lost to Atonement, a film I had suspected would have gotten the backlash long before No Country.

Tonight also marked the day that Mike and I had to turn in our Oscar ballots, better known as Battle #2. The rules were a little different this year. We both got six choices for the big categories: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supp. Actor, Supp. Actress, Original Screenplay and Adapted Screenplay (foreign is such a weird category, and unlike last year, the Academy didn't narrow their choices down to ten). The choices were to be ranked in order of probability, giving the person 6 points for their number 1, 5 for number 2, and so on. In order to make things a bit more interesting, we also threw in a wild card category, in which we could list six picks for any of the categories not mentioned, also in order of probability. It's an effective system if you care to use it or care to waste time being a dork like Mike and I love to do. Being the clueless saps we are, we didn't realize that those Academy Award nominations won't be announced until 23 January, but we decided to finalize our choices tonight anyway. My choices will be in red; Mike's will be in blue. They are as follows:

Best Picture
6 points: No Country for Old Men / No Country for Old Men
5 points: There Will Be Blood / Atonement
4 points: Atonement / The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
3 points: Michael Clayton / There Will Be Blood
2 points: Juno / Michael Clayton
1 point: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly / Juno

Best Director
6p: The Coen Brothers - NCFOM / The Coen Brothers - NCFOM
5p: Paul Thomas Anderson - TWBB / Paul Thomas Anderson - TWWB
4p: Julian Schnabel - TDBATB / Joe Wright - Atonement
3p: Joe Wright - Atonement / Sidney Lumet - BTDKYD
2p: Sidney Lumet - BTDKYD / Julian Schnabel - TDBATB
1p: Tony Gilroy - MC / Sean Penn - ITW

Best Actor
6p: Daniel Day-Lewis - TWBB / Daniel Day-Lewis - TWWB
5p: George Clooney - MC / George Clooney - MC
4p: Viggo Mortensen - EP / Viggo Mortensen - EP
3p: Johnny Depp - ST / Johnny Depp - ST
2p: James McAvoy - Atonement / Ryan Gosling - LATRG
1p: Frank Langella - SOITE / James McAvoy - Atonement

Best Actress
6p: Julie Christie - AFH / Ellen Page - Juno
5p: Marion Cotillard - LVER / Julie Christie - AFH
4p: Ellen Page - Juno / Marion Cotillard - LVER
3p: Keira Knightley - Atonement / Angelina Jolie - AMH
2p: Helena Bonham Carter - ST / Laura Linney - The Savages
1p: Angelina Jolie - AMH / Keira Knightley - Atonement

Best Supporting Actor
6p: Javier Bardem - NCFOM / Javier Bardem - NCFOM
5p: Casey Affleck - TAOJJBTCRF / Casey Affleck - TAOJJBTCRF
4p: Philip Seymour Hoffman - CWW / Philip Seymour Hoffman - CWW
3p: Tom Wilkinson - MC / Hal Holbrook - ITW
2p: Hal Holbrook - ITW / Tom Wilkinson - MC
1p: Max Von Sydow - TDBATB / Tommy Lee Jones - NCFOM

Best Supporting Actress
6p: Amy Ryan - GBG / Amy Ryan - GBG
5p: Cate Blanchett - INT / Tilda Swinton - MC
4p: Tilda Swinton - MC / Cate Blanchett - INT
3p: Catherine Keener - ITW / Catherine Keener - ITW
2p: Saoirse Ryan - Atonement / Kelly Macdonald - NCFOM
1p: Vanessa Redgrave - Atonement / Ruby Dee - AG

Best Original Screenplay
6p: Juno / Juno
5p: The Savages / Ratatouille
4p: Michael Clayton / Michael Clayton
3p: Ratatouille / Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
2p: Waitress / The Savages
1p: I'm Not There / Lars and the Real Girl

Best Adapted Screenplay
6p: No Country for Old Men / No Country for Old Men
5p: There Will Be Blood / There Will Be Blood
4p: Atonement / Atonement
3p: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly / Charlie Wilson's War
2p: Charlie Wilson's War / The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
1p: Away from Her / Gone Baby Gone

Wild Card
6p: Ratatouille - Animated Film / Roger Deakins - NCFOM - Cinematography
5p: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days - Foreign Film / Roger Deakins - TWBB - Cinematography
4p: No End in Sight - Documentary / Ratatouille - Animated Film
3p: Janusz Kaminski - TDBATB - Cinematography / No End in Sight - Documentary
2p: Jonny Greenwood - TWBB - Score / Dario Marianelli - Atonement - Score
1p: "Falling Slowly" - Once - Original Song / Jonny Greenwood - TWBB - Score

A New Year's Resolution

In browsing my video store's classics library, I realized that I'm probably about as big of a douche bag as Dane Cook is. I'm shocked at how many important films (and I'm not saying just because a video stores deems a film a 'classic' means anything more than just 'it's old') I haven't seen, and how many terrible, terrible films I have. Perhaps with this weekly "dare-aoke" in which I have to watch a film I'd normally scoff at, I should throw in a film that I'm embarrassed to admit not having seen it (I haven't seen a lot of movies I would like to have due to availability, so I'm referring to films that are readily available to me instead). Here's ten sad examples, and feel free to share your own, as I'm sure I'm not the only sucker out there.

I've seen Marci X, but I haven't seen North by Northwest.
I've seen It's Pat, but I haven't seen Casablanca.
I've seen Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, but I haven't seen Once Upon a Time in the West.
I've seen Jury Duty, but I haven't seen Das Boot.
I've seen Phat Girlz, but I haven't seen Rebecca.
I've seen Batman & Robin, but I haven't seen The Apartment.
I've seen The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps, but I haven't seen Barton Fink.
I've seen Sudden Death, but I haven't seen Nights of Cabiria.
I've seen Exit to Eden, but I haven't seen Tokyo Story.
I've seen Sliver (more than once), but I haven't seen M.

Unfortunately, I could probably go on from there, but you get the picture. Hopefully 2008 will be the rear of eradicating my shameful ignorance.

Dare-aoke: Part 1

Good Luck Chuck - dir. Mark Helfrich - 2007 - USA

Good Luck Chuck is the first in a series of blog posts that I will be making throughout the year, in which I'm dared to watch something that I would never choose to watch on my own. My homegirl Mike over at Hetero-erotica was the man responsible for this horrendous viewing party, where I, at least, got my basement cleaned while enduring Dane Cook's feeble attempt at deriving laughs from stupid viewers. I'm looking at its IMDb page right now and if you want an example of how good Good Luck Chuck is, the first two plot keywords listed are "hit in groin" and "non-statutory female-on-male rape." Ya dig? You probably won't here. The laugh-count hit a whopping zero, and when you multiply that by the numbers of breasts seen in the film.... you still get zero. I wish I had more to say here other than, "surprise! this blows!" but if you've ever seen Dane Cook or Jessica Alba before, you'd spot the redundancy in that statement a mile away. I think what astounds me most is how I can't even picture anyone deriving the least bit of enjoyment out of this, but - really - don't help me out with that. Up next week: Boondock Saints (yeah, yuck).

3 Honorary Awards

I kind of rushed myself to get the 1st Annual Fin de cinema Film Awards published that I forgot three very important awards to bestow. My apologies to the recipients.

The John Malkovich Award: Michelle Monaghan - Gone Baby Gone

The John Malkovich Award goes to the outstandingly bad/forgettable/annoying performance in an otherwise decent film. I'm kind of stretching the word "decent" for Gone Baby Gone, but Michelle Monaghan was so exceptional in being more of a set piece than an actor that I couldn't have her go home empty-handed. She literally cowers opposite every single actor in the movie (Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman, Amy Ryan, Ed Harris) to the point that makes the audience question why she's even there in the first place. She's the "love interest" whose purpose only comes late in the film, and by that time, you've forgotten why you should even care what she has to say, or how her opinion would affect Casey Affleck.

Runners-Up: David Strathairn - The Bourne Ultimatum; Brad Pitt - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [for being another example of Casey Affleck's performance rendering another actor's absolutely forgettable]

The Teaching Mrs. Tingle Award: Catherine Keener - Into the Wild

The Teaching Mrs. Tingle Award goes to the actor who manages to still retain their usual "fabulousness" despite working under the conditions of a shitty movie (read: Helen Mirren). Into the Wild sucks. I've bitched and moaned about it for months now. Catherine Keener is radiant in just about everything she does (as long as it's not playing a stock character in a stock movie like The Interpreter). In Into the Wild, she manages to hit a home-run every time she's onscreen, which for the laboring runningtime certainly isn't enough. What's also remarkable about Keener's performance here is that she isn't condemned to her usual role of ice queen cunt, which admittedly she does wonderfully. Her performance is probably the only authentic moment of Into the Wild, even though more people are leaning toward Hal Holbrook.

Runners-Up: Marion Cotillard - La Vie en rose; Tea Leoni - You Kill Me [It really pains me to say that, but it's true]; Margot Martindale - Paris je t'aime

The Best (And, Therefore, Gayest) Idea for a Broadway Musical: Xanadu

All this talk in my comment forum about Xanadu reminded me, "how could I forget to shamelessly include Xanadu as an award recipiant this year?" Certain films, like Xanadu, exude time-frame, so giving it an award for 2007 is perfectly acceptable in my book. Thankfully, for those who would disagree, there's validity to its inclusion: it was the surprising hit of the Broadway season this year. A lot of people were surprised, but not me. When I found out that they were still going to use such songs as "Suddenly" and the rousing closing-number "Xanadu," I knew they had a hit-in-the-making, even if the film itself never took off when it hit theatres. I'm sure the Electric Light Orchestra music is probably sadly missing from the production, but I've got to hand it to Broadway for adapting a Hollywood film in dire need of a revival, because, well, Broadway is about as fresh out of ideas as Hollywood is.

List #5: The First Annual Fin de cinema Film Awards

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Ready? Okay!

I have no idea what the Critics Choice Awards are, except that I saw commercials for them all weekend when I was watching the I Love New York 2 marathon (yeah... spare me your grief). Well, they apparently named No Country for Old Men and the Coens as best film and director. In fact, most of their trophies went to the expected winners, though I read that the publicity-whore Diablo Cody is getting a lot of backlash from the Hollywood community for just about everything she's been doing (read: whoring). I won't be sorry to see her go home empty-handed come Oscar night. You can find the rest of the winners at this link from MovieCityNews.com.

Frown-y Face?

I can't really defend or explain why... but Gregg Araki's Smiley Face got to me. Sure, it was probably the worst follow-up Araki could have had after Mysterious Skin, and yeah, it sounds really awful (a pseudo-actress accidentally eats her roommate's pot brownies only to embark on an outrageous journey to pay off her dealer, make sure her electricity doesn't get turned off, go to an audition, and return a copy of the Communist Manifesto to its rightful owner). A fellow Araki-fan-slash-friend-of-mine said, bluntly, "this movie was for all those critics who'd always suspected all Araki was ever doing was making stupid teen movies. Here you go!" In Anna Farris, Araki found probably the most charming lead he could... and, shit, I just don't know how to convince anyone that it's worth their time, especially Araki fans, but it sure was worth mine.

MIA List Update

It's officially 2008, and of the surplus of titles I listed for MIA in 2008 on Region 1 disc, only nine have so far been announced. I also noticed that I included the films Mother Joan of the Angels and Amos Gitai's Promised Land on the list even though they had already been released in the US (albeit by lousy studios, Polart and Sisu, respectively). The titles you can cross off the list are as follows:

I Live in Fear - dir. Akira Kurosawa - Eclipse/Criterion
Le bonheur - dir. Agnès Varda - Criterion
She's Gotta Have It - dir. Spike Lee - MGM
Détective - dir. Jean-Luc Godard - Lionsgate
Passion - dir. Godard - Lionsgate
Hélas pour moi - dir. Godard - Lionsgate
Fiorile - dir. the Taviani brothers - Koch Lorber
The Kingdom 2 - dir. Lars von Trier, Morten Arnfred - Koch Lorber
Lost Highway - dir. David Lynch - Universal

If you have a region-free player, a couple other titles have been announced for Region 2, including Alain Resnais' Je t'aime, je t'aime (08/01), Jacques Rivette's L'amour par terre (25/02), Victor Sjostrom's The Phantom Carriage (11/02), and Nagisa Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth, retitled Naked Youth in the UK (25/02)

Erections and what to do with them

The Weinstein Company released the 2-disc Indie Sex collection this past Tuesday which features three hour-or-so long specials from IFC with filmmakers, critics and actors discussing the history of sexuality on the screen. I can save you the trouble of watching it by informing you that it's precisely nothing new or eye-opening and perhaps better addressed in films like This Film Is Not Yet Rated or Inside Deep Throat, to name a few. Jami Bernard manages to make a few interesting points, and of course, Shortbus and Hedwig director John Cameron Mitchell is always on board to take any opportunity to let you know how groundbreaking of a filmmaker he is in the realms of sexuality. Curiously, IFC decided to interview a bunch of other folk whose contributions to cinema or even sexuality in cinema are slight at best. Shadowboxer director Lee Daniels and The Quiet and But I'm a Cheerleader director Jamie Babbit are on hand for no apparent reason, not to mention actress Piper Perabo, who seems uncomfortable during the whole interview process. In fact, burlesque dancer Dita Von Tresse, who has no physical relationship to cinema, makes for a much more game interviewee than most. And Peter Sarsgaard is also on board to assure you that all the gay sex he's had onscreen has never slipped into his personal life. Hm.

If you really must indulge your curiosity, the best part of the collection comes on the second disc, which includes a half-hour segment on Sex Taboos, which features wonderful commentary from The Sweet Hereafter director Atom Egoyan, one of the few people with a direct relationship to cinema who appears to have something to actually say about it. The segment is really only worth watching for the much improved crop of talking heads which also includes Allison Anders and the always-reliable John Waters, though the segment itself places most of its importance on Blue Velvet and Crash and not many others. There's also some deleted footage which asks the interviewees a series of questions in which you'll find out that the first sex Ally Sheedy ever saw onscreen came from the film Cabaret and that Rosanna Arquette is finished taking her top off unless Bernardo Bertolucci comes knocking at her door.

Koch Lorber in March/April

Koch Lorber has announced both their March and April DVD releases. On 4 March, they will release En la cama from Chile which takes place almost entirely in a bed and Radiant City, a documentary about suburbia. In April, they will release three films from the Taviani brothers (Padre Padrone): Fiorile, Kaos, and Night of the Shooting Stars. The first two films will make their debut on R1 disc, while the latter will be a new transfer update from the former MGM release.

Lust and Caution; or the Anxieties of a New Year

I’ll be the first to admit I’m overzealous when it comes to making an end-of-the-year list. As awful as it sounds, I usually hate going to the movie theatres. The seats are uncomfortable, the people are rude, I have to sit through commercials beforehand, I hate when people eat during movies, and I’ve become accustomed to seeing films in the comfort of my own home and on my own time schedule. With that said, I never get to see all the films I want to see before the year comes to a close and yet still feel the need to post a list of the best and worst of each year around or before the ball drops in Times Square. In reality, this doesn’t do me or the films justice, as I can never examine their lasting effects on me, particularly when the best of each year usually comes near its end. The music list got me thinking. 2007 began with a lot of new, excellent albums from established musicians (Interpol, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, and what not), and I had already convinced myself that I was going to be fully prepared to make a music list this year, a first for me. By the time December rolled around, I’d discovered maybe two new artists who released music this year and the albums of all the artists mentioned above (except PJ Harvey) had long been out of rotation on my iPod. Studios are always afraid that their early-year releases will get forgotten come award season, and it’s a legitimate fear, because how many films are released in a year that you’re going to remember nine months later? When you see as many as I do, not a whole lot are going to make the cut.

With 2008 now in full-swing, I’m not as concerned about my 2007 list or even the impending 2008 list (I’m pretty sure Rambo will top it though, I’m telling you now), but instead, I’m realizing now that this whole fucking nameless decade is going to end in two short years. I don’t know where the time went, nor do I care wasting more of it by pondering that question, but with 2010 on the horizon, how am I going to decide what were the best films of the decade? What films will best exemplify this subjective division of time? I can say with absolute certainty that none of the films that have thus far won the Best Picture Academy Award will, but will the choices be easy to make? Certainly, one can have their personal favorites of any given decade. Matthew Bright’s Freeway could have come out during any given decade and I’m sure that it would rank as a top ten favorite of whatever timeframe you put it. But, the best? It’s not.

I want films that have memorably shaken me, to the point in which their power only grows upon reflection. For that I can only think of a few films. Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl will certainly fall high on the list; of that I can assure you. Lars von Trier’s Dogville has a good shot, and so does Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher. I’ve come to an unofficial declaration that the only films that even need to be remembered are the ones that, at simultaneous moments, angered one viewer that was sitting right next to someone who was absolutely enthralled (I’m not referring to the one smart person who accidentally stumbled onto a screening of Delta Farce). Was this the case with Fellini’s La Dolce vita or Bergman’s Persona, two films that I would easily rank among the best of the 60s? Does it matter if they did? I don’t think it does. I would probably throw Antonioni’s L’Eclisse on that list from one of the most lucrative periods of cinema, and I know that pissed people off… but that alone doesn’t justify its placement. If I were to throw out title names now for a proposed list, you could add Mutual Appreciation, Morvern Callar, and Talk to Her to the others.

I think I’m just expressing my love-hate relationship with cinema right now. I exhausted myself with end-of-the-year hoopla, only to have worn out my excitement for film in general (this occurs every couple of months or so)… or maybe it’s even my love-hate relationship with list making. As strongly as I felt about my top 3 (No Country for Old Men, Grindhouse and Black Book), I’m having second (and third and fourth) thoughts about There Will Be Blood, which placed 9 on the final version. Could it actually be the best film of 2007, only to make the eventual best of the decade list over the films I chose above it in this given year? It’s probably the most audience-dividing, afterthought-demanding film I saw all year. And, I’m still torn, because I’d still rather see Carice van Houten topless and getting shit poured on her or Rose McGowan killing zombies with her machine-gun leg. And, yes, even Javier Bardem bringing destiny in the form of grisly death to scattered Texas individuals.

One other thing that keeps bothering me is my reasons for keeping up this blog. I look back at a lot of what I’ve said, and on some of it, I’ve changed my mind, and in other instances, outright disagreed with my own damned self. As for the film reviewing, what am I really providing in structured, glorified plot synopsis and fleeting critique? I’m also not even sure that anyone reads that crap.

I think 2008 will bring about a reassessment of priority and, most importantly, what my purpose is in the examination of cinema. Or even what I’m looking for. Or even what any of it means to me. So for all this mumbling, I wish you a happy, inflective, introspective new year.