The Decade List: Moartea domnului Lăzărescu (2005)

Moartea domnului Lăzărescu [The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu] – dir. Cristi Puiu

Like a hypochondriac’s nightmare as directed by Frederick Wiseman, The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu gruelingly takes its audience through the hellish, final night on earth for Dante Lăzărescu (Ion Fiscuteanu), a lonely alcoholic in his early 60s. Feeling pains in his stomach, he phones an ambulance, which begins a series of hospital misadventures, each of them sending him away due to their overcapacity. By his side the whole time is the poor EMT Mioara (Luminiţa Gheorghiu, a brilliant character actress who also co-starred in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Code Unknown). Part Dante’s Inferno, part Dardenne brothers, part E.R., The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu strangely morphs into the most excruciating comedy of the past decade, though director Cristi Puiu insists that wasn’t his intention. Based partially on an actual case of a dying man who was eventually left on the street by the paramedics after being turned away from several hospitals, the film mainly stemmed from the director’s own bout of hypochondria and anxiety. The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu was the film that began Romania’s surge into the international film world’s consciousness (leading to, among others, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, 12:08 East of Bucharest, Police, Adjective and California Dreamin’, to name a few) and remains the most striking of its national peers.

With: Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminiţa Gheorghiu, Gabriel Spahiu
Screenplay: Cristi Puiu, Răzvan Rădulescu
Cinematography: Andrei Butica, Oleg Mutu
Music: Andreea Paduraru
Country of Origin: Romania
US Distributor: Tartan Films

Premiere: 17 May 2005 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 24 September 2005 (New York Film Festival)

Awards: Un Certain Regard Award (Cannes Film Festival); Audience Award, Best Director, Best Actor – Ion Fiscuteanu, Best Actress - Luminiţa Gheorghiu, Best Romanian Film, FIPRESCI Prize (Transilvania International Film Festival); FIPRESCI Prize: Best Actor – Ion Fiscuteanu (Palm Springs International Film Festival); Golden Swan: Best Actor - Ion Fiscuteanu (Copenhagen International Film Festival); Silver Hugo: Special Jury Prize (Chicago International Film Festival)

The Decade List: Le petit lieutenant (2005)

Le petit lieutenant – dir. Xavier Beauvois

I used to remember hearing people warn others that having sex while on specific illegal drugs (ecstasy and crystal meth, I imagine) is such an amazing experience that it’ll taint the sex you have when not under the influence. I don’t know how true that is, but it’s precisely the feeling I have with regard to HBO’s The Wire. Not that the “crime drama” was ever my cup of tea, the show has forever soured the films I see that bear resemblance to possibly the finest television program… ever. Films like Gone Baby Gone (a crime yarn that was DOA. as a result of starring two actors from the show, Amy Ryan and Michael Kenneth Williams) and Gomorra are victims of that occasionally defied bias (The Class is still really good, even if it mirrors The Wire’s best season). Xavier Beauvois’ Le petit lieutenant falls somewhere in between (films I saw before The Wire are still susceptible).

On one hand, it’s a police procedural flick. Caroline Vaudieu (Nathalie Baye) returns to the police force after taking time off by taking a desk job once her alcoholism spiraled out of control. Antoine Derouère (Jalil Lespert) is the rookie officer Caroline takes under her wing. Starting off with the usual mundane police work, the murder of a Polish immigrant (Arthur Smykiewicz) inspires the sort of police work Antoine anticipated, the Hollywood sort. Beauvois’ emphasis on realism, restraint and slow-burning narrative is what partially defines The Wire. However, where Le petit lieutenant strays from that association and possibly why it still works for me is in characterization. Unlike the makers of The Wire (this isn’t a complaint against the show, mind you), he is fully concerned with the private lives and character make-up of Caroline and Antoine, both fascinatingly rounded individuals skillfully acted by Baye, who won the César for her performance, and Lespert. It’s a small, commendable success in the face of one of my greatest obstacles.

With: Nathalie Baye, Jalil Lespert, Roschdy Zem, Antoine Chappey, Jacques Perrin, Xavier Beauvois, Bérangère Allaux, Olivier Schneider, Arthur Smykiewicz, Wieslaw Puzio, Jérôme Bertin, Jean Lespert, Annick Le Goff, Mélanie Leray, Yanis Lespert
Screenplay: Cédric Anger, Xavier Beauvois, Guillaume Bréaud, Jean-Eric Troubat
Cinematography: Caroline Champetier
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Cinema Guild

Premiere: 31 August 2005 (Venice Film Festival)
US Premiere: 19 March 2006 (Rendezvous with French Cinema)

Awards: Best Actress – Nathalie Baye (César Awards)

The Decade List: The Proposition (2005)

The Proposition – dir. John Hillcoat

The music of Nick Cave always invoked a world of dark souls, and its scope, from the conceptual Bad Seeds’ album Murder Ballads to tracks like “Lover Man” and “The Mercy Seat,” surely have a taste for the cinematic. That he chose the western as his foray into that world shouldn’t surprise anyone, and for fans of his (myself included), his involvement in the two best westerns of the ‘00s is even less surprising. Between scoring The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford with Warren Ellis, Cave was responsible for writing the screenplay for the better of the two, a brilliant parable of family and vengeance.

Through the western genre, Cave reduces man to its carnal, instinctual beast-like qualities, placed in a godless wasteland of the Australian outback near the end of the nineteenth century. The captain of a British colony (Ray Winstone) gives clemency to Charlie (Guy Pearce), one of a band of outlaws responsible for the rape and murder of a local family, if can lure his older brother (Danny Huston) from hiding in order for justice to be served. Cave and director John Hillcoat establish the defining characteristics of the genre—the scrupulous codes of honor, the separation between civilization and barbarism—with fabulous skill. With uniformly superior performances from Pearce, Winstone, Huston, Emily Watson and John Hurt, The Proposition is both distressing and, at its center beneath the grime and ghastly violence, marvelously humane.

With: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Emily Watson, John Hurt, David Wenham, Noah Taylor, David Gulpilil, Leah Purcell, Richard Wilson, Tom E. Lewis, Tom Budge
Screenplay: Nick Cave
Cinematography: Benoît Delhomme
Music: Nick Cave, Warren Ellis
Country of Origin: Australia/UK
US Distributor: First Look

Premiere: 12 September 2005 (Toronto International Film Festival)
US Premiere: January 2006 (Sundance Film Festival)

Awards: Gucci Prize: for Best Screenplay (Venice Film Festival); Best Cinematography, Best Original Music Score, Best Costume Design – Margot Wilson, Best Production Design – Chris Kennedy (Australian Film Institute Awards)

The Decade List: Cindy: The Doll Is Mine (2005)

Cindy: The Doll Is Mine – dir. Bertrand Bonello

Musician-turned-filmmaker Bertrand Bonello crafted something extraordinary with his short Cindy: The Doll Is Mine, an ode to three of my favorite things: Asia Argento, Blonde Redhead and, especially, Cindy Sherman. As Sherman, Argento plays the dual role of the artist and the model. As the artist, her hair’s cropped short, and she wears a loose, button-down shirt; as the model, she dons a blonde wig and a dress better suited for a poupée. As Cindy the artist arranges Cindy the model around the room, nowhere seems appropriate for what she’s looking for. At one point Cindy the artist asks Cindy the model to stand more feminine, more curvy and seductive. However, it turns out that what’s missing are tears, which Cindy the artist asks, very reluctantly, of her model.

Sherman is thanked in the credits, but beyond that, I don’t know that she had any involvement in the film itself. Bonello’s film offers the most flattering of appreciation to the artist, more than Sherman’s own film directing attempt Office Killer (I have yet to see the doc Guest of Cindy Sherman). Aside from the specifics of the artist though, Cindy: The Doll Is Mine is like an abridged version of Catherine Breillat’s Sex Is Comedy, both fascinating looks into the strife in the process of creating art. Combining two of the most famous collections Sherman has done (the self-portraits and the doll photography), Bonello thankfully avoids the sort of cinematic tricks that might have come from casting Argento as the artist and the model (though that’s absolutely imperative considering the subject) and forges a truly haunting work, which also happens to be one of the finest showcases for the great Asia Argento. You can stream it online via Dailymotion.

With: Asia Argento
Screenplay: Bertrand Bonello
Cinematography: Josée Deshaies
Music: Blonde Redhead
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: N/A

Premiere: 19 May 2005 (Cannes Film Festival)

The Decade List: The Wayward Cloud (2005)

The Wayward Cloud – dir. Tsai Ming-liang

I don’t know if that whole Tsai Ming-liang vs. Hou Hsiao-hsien argument is still a relevant discussion among cinephiles, and I hope it’s not because I’ve never really been able to pick a side on that delicate issue if we’re taking their whole filmographies into consideration. However, while some might disagree, Tsai’s oeuvre of the ‘00s didn’t really live up to the slew of great films he made in the ‘90s (the same can’t be said for Hou). Neither What Time Is It There? nor Goodbye, Dragon Inn affected me the way they did others I know, and I was severely underwhelmed by I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone. However, the shining reminder of why I love Tsai Ming-liang arrived with probably the least popular of his recent outlets, The Wayward Cloud, a singin’-and-dancin’-and-umbrella-twirlin’-watermelon-suckin’ musical about a mute “love affair” between a porn actor (regular Lee Kang-sheng) and a lonely water-bottle collector (regular Chen Shiang-chyi) during a portentous drought in Taiwan.

Certainly, it’s Tsai’s naughtiest film, and I like to think that isn’t the reason why it stood out for me more than What Time Is It There?, which truly is a finer film than this one. But, in the end, The Wayward Cloud pays off in ways you never expect (I avoided using the “climax” as the verb in that sentence). It’s one of those great cinematic moments that defies anyone to rationally explain what it’s conjuring in them. I can’t say that the languid pacing and existential quandaries we’ve come to expect from the director are put to their best use here either, but it all leads to that finale, one should linger in your mind for a really long time, no matter what your disposition might be.

With: Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Shiang-chyi, Lu Yi-Ching, Yang Kuei-Mei, Sumomo Yozakura
Screenplay: Tsai Ming-liang
Cinematography: Liao Pen-jung
Country of Origin: Taiwan/France
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 16 February 2005 (Berlin International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 7 October 2005 (Chicago International Film Festival)

Awards: Outstanding Artistic Achievement – Tsai Ming-liang, FIPRESCI Prize – Competition (Berlin International Film Festival)

The Decade List: The Squid and the Whale (2005)

The Squid and the Whale – dir. Noah Baumbach

Though I’ve often heard Wes Anderson fans name Noah Baumbach as one of the reasons why The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou failed to live up to his previous efforts, Baumbach’s solo endeavor The Squid and the Whale is one of the finer examples of the Sundance lot of American cinema in recent years. Unlike the films of Todd Solondz, the searing, trickle-down cruelty of the middle-class family unit comes in a much subtler package here. It certainly helps that Baumbach’s script is extremely funny on its own and that its humor doesn’t rely solely on venomous attacks on its characters.

Keeping the humor on snappy dialogue, like when Bernard (Jeff Daniels) asks son Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) if he understood that the story his student, played wickedly by Anna Paquin, read aloud in class was “about her cunt” or when Walt tries to impress his sort-of girlfriend Sophie (Halley Feiffer) by describing The Metamorphosis as “Kafkaesque,” allows the less-inclined viewer to overlook the despair and hostility of the Berkman family. Bernard and Joan (Laura Linney) make for hideous parents, so wrapped up in their own professional and sexual aspirations which both serve as a way of one-upping each other. Their own selfishness blinds them from the ways these actions affect their children: Walt, a plagiarist who has morphed his father’s admiration for beautiful women into his own form of misogyny against his girlfriend and especially his mother, and Frank (Owen Kline), whose hatred for his father manifests in drinking by himself and exhibiting maladaptive sexual behavior through compulsively masturbating in school.

Baumbach’s depictions of the New England intellectual set has suffered some misfires in the latter Margot at the Wedding and even his much-beloved Kicking & Screaming, but with The Squid and the Whale, everything congeals perfectly. While the film does suffer mildly from lacking a pinpointed focus, a common plight among other American independent films which typically fail as a result, The Squid and the Whale benefits from avoiding the acerbity that’s too common in films about unlikeable people.

With: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, Anna Paquin, William Baldwin, Halley Feiffer, Ken Leung
Screenplay: Noah Baumbach
Cinematography: Robert D. Yeoman
Music: Britta Phillips, Dean Wareham
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Premiere: January 2005 (Sundance Film Festival)

Awards: Directing Award, Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award (Sundance Film Festival)

The Decade List: Le temps qui reste (2005)

Le temps qui reste [Time to Leave] – dir. François Ozon

Fans of François Ozon, once dubbed the garçon terrible of French cinema in the late ‘90s, seem to diminish with each passing film. Though few will argue that the year 2000 marked the highest point of his career (with Under the Sand and Water Drops on Burning Rocks both bowing in that year), I haven’t fallen off the bandwagon, despite a number of reservations I have toward his two most widely-seen films, 8 Women [8 femmes] and Swimming Pool, both blissfully entertaining but severely lacking beneath their polished veneer. Ozon’s thematic sequel to Under the Sand, Le temps qui reste (correctly translated as The Time That Remains), shares the same traits that bothered me about 8 Women and Swimming Pool, but they feel like less of a disguise here.

Le temps qui reste, 8 Women and Swimming Pool all follow closely to their own genre allusions; more than its predecessor, Le temps qui reste pays tribute to melodrama, a genre which Ozon has always toiled with in smaller doses. In the film, Ozon gives himself completely over to the idea, dislodging the tongue-in-cheek sensibilities of his previous flirtations with his Sirkian tendencies. While much of the film relies on artifice, I sense a peculiar, refreshing honesty in what Ozon’s trying to do.

While he situates an attractive gay male in central role, a position often held for women in the genre, Ozon doesn’t set his sights on redefining or updating the genre. While spotted with bits of superficiality (Melvil Poupaud seems to get more handsome the closer he gets to death), the moments of beautiful clarity truly resonate. From the point early in the film when Romain (Poupaud) discovers he’s a few months away from death as a result of a spreading tumor, the film follows his grief process through the designed closures Romain concocts for the people closest to him, some successful, others not. For his unhappy, older sister Sophie (Louise-Anne Hippeau) and his younger, German boyfriend (Christian Sengewald), Romain uses his remaining time to sabotage these relationships, while finding a solitary comfort in his grandmother (Jeanne Moreau), the person in the film he finds the closest bond, both in personality and in approximation to death.

While Ozon does strive on some level to avoid overt sentimentality, it’s more accurate to say that he keeps his drama on a low flame. I hope my friend Tom doesn’t mind, but he highlighted one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about Le temps qui reste in an e-mail exchange earlier this year. He said, “Ozon's formal restraint may have suited his subject matter, but… I thought a showier technique wouldn't be so much inappropriate as less bland.” Perhaps it’s in Le temps qui reste’s blandness that I find the “honesty” I think Ozon is producing. In keeping the film on the subtle(r) side, Ozon delivers a number of rich moments, especially when Moreau is onscreen, that the showiness he painted 8 Women and Swimming Pool with would have only clouded. Le temps qui reste isn’t a grand triumph for the director, but it’s one that has always lingered for me, whether I can successfully defend my feelings or not (likely the latter).

With: Melvil Poupaud, Jeanne Moreau, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Daniel Duval, Marie Rivière, Louise-Anne Hippeau, Christian Sengewald, Henri Le Lorme, Walter Pagano, Ugo Soussan Trabelsi
Screenplay: François Ozon
Cinematography: Jeanne Lapoirie
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 16 May 2005 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 14 July 2006

The Decade List: The Descent (2005)

The Descent – dir. Neil Marshall

Although it has little in the way of competition, The Descent is hands down the decade’s best English-language horror film. More than the “boo” scares or nausea-inducing gore of its peers, Neil Marshall extends The Descent beyond those easy tricks (not to say the film doesn’t have a pair of cheap startles or gross-out effects). A creature feature at heart, The Descent’s real “beauty” is the claustrophobic nightmare Marshall designs around his heroines. Female genitalia analogies aside, the cave, into which the six thrill-seeking gals descend, becomes the malevolent villain, equipped with darkness, daunting cliffs of unknown depth, miniscule crevices of questionable stability and the capacity to destroy its own exits and entrances. That blind, human-looking monsters dwell within it seems like one of its lesser deterrents.

Marshall knows what most horror directors should by now: gore alone won’t disturb your audience. By the time The Descent made its way to the US (with a dumb, but ultimately inoffensive add-on at the end), people were already gearing up for the third installment of the Saw series. The Descent certainly has a bit of disgusting flesh and organ eating, but he recognizes that true horror is made up of more than just an edible spleen. Truly, the most lip-biting, nails-in-the-palms sequences are when the girls have to climb across the ceiling of a pit to get across or when one graphically injures herself after tumbling through one of the cave’s many abysses.

Most of the characters are expendable, except for the Sissy Spacek-looking Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and the excursion organizer Juno (Natalie Mendoza), but this doesn't make the deaths any less disturbing, even if it was easy to predict that the first to perish would be the overzealous lesbian-in-denial. The monsters do provide one or two moments of fear for the audience, specifically the first time the girls see one (which was stupidly shown in the TV spots), but it’s the frenzied action of the girls’ retaliation that’s more ruthless and exciting that the monsters themselves. Marshall knows that fear rests in the unknown, so editor Jon Harris cuts the action sequences rapidly to a point of raucous frenzy. This may not have worked in Batman Begins, but it does here. Keep your benzodiazepines handy, because The Descent is the sort of grueling film experience most of us have only heard tale of.

I’ll probably spend the remaining days of October looking at the some of the decade’s best offerings in the horror genre, which started over the weekend with Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears. If you want to play Decade List horror movie catch-up before Halloween, I’ve already covered Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others, Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day and Marina de Van’s In My Skin [Dans ma peau]. Expect the film adorning the header of my site next.

With: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder, MyAnna Burning, Nora-Jane Noone, Oliver Milburn, Molly Kayll
Screenplay: Neil Marshall
Cinematography: Sam McCurdy
Music: David Julyan
Country of Origin: UK
US Distributor: Lionsgate

Premiere: 11 March 2005 (Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Films)
US Premiere: January 2006 (Sundance Film Festival)

Awards: Best Director, Best Technical Achievement – Jon Harris, editor (British Independent Film Awards)

The Decade List: Odete (2005)

Odete [Two Drifters] - d. João Pedro Rodrigues

Though his first attempt at consternating his audience, the Pasolini-inspired O Fantasma, wasn't a grand success, João Pedro Rodrigues' Odete hit the mark a lot harder than its predecessor. Released in the US as Two Drifters, the film is an exuberant and decidedly Eurotrashy take on obsession which takes joy in nullifying the romanticized, politically-correct trends in contemporary queer cinema. The central figure of Odete is a handsome twenty-one year old boy named Pedro (João Carreira), who dies in the opening scene in a bloody car crash. As the film's catalyst, his death affects both his cherished boyfriend Rui (Nuno Gil) and a woman he’s never met named Odete (Ana Cristina de Oliveira). Rodrigues presents Rui and Pedro's relationship mockingly, magnifying their cheeseball displays of affection as they exchange one-year anniversary rings, engraved with "Two Drifters," a nod to Breakfast at Tiffany's. They’re an agonizingly perfect couple, in the most extreme sense - in the sense that, in this world, they cannot thrive.

When Pedro perishes, the "Moon River" dries up, and "two drifters" takes on a separate meaning, referring instead to the grief-stricken Rui and the tall, beautiful and emotionally unstable Odete, who uses the Pedro's death as a way of coping with her own boyfriend's (Carloto Cotta) departure. Their drifting is wiped clean of its previously embellished sentimentality as the two empty souls wander through their lives like emotionally-stricken zombies, without the strength to move past their own infatuation.

For Rui, Odete is a mystery; despite living in the same building, they first meet after Pedro's passing when Odete starts claiming to be pregnant with Pedro's baby. This leads Rui to believe she might be the reincarnation of his lover. She’s not, and we know this, but the film presents a number of mythical situations, all of which would have made sense had the film existed in that fantasy world Rui and Pedro seemed to be inhabiting in the opening scene. For a portion of the film, we don’t really know whether Odete is lying or not about her pregnancy. Rodrigues doesn’t allow this misinterpretation to stay for long, as his film is about two tortured young people holding onto the desire of lost happiness. For Odete, Rui functions like as a way to erase “Odete” and assume the role of Pedro, a person who, unlike "Odete," is loved deeply.

Odete is a fascinating film, denying expected conventions and narrative structure in favor of exploring complex and strange emotional responses to grief and loneliness. Perhaps certain elements in the film don't really work, but when a director takes risks like Rodrigues does, some ventures will inevitably fail. And more often than not, I'm more inclined to forgive when ambition is high.

With: Ana Cristina de Oliveira, Nuno Gil, João Carreira, Teresa Madruga, Carloto Cotta
Screenplay: Paulo Rebelo, João Pedro Rodrigues
Cinematography: Rui Poças
Music: Olivier Bombarda
Country of Origin: Portugal
US Distributor: Strand Releasing

Premiere: 18 May 2005 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 23 June 2006 (New York City)

Awards: Cinémas de Recherche - Special Mention (Cannes Film Festival)

The Decade List: Awards (2005)

For the sake of not going on a tirade about you-know-what, I'll just leave the awards section without any commentary. So here it is.

Cannes, held 11-22 May 2005

Palme d'Or: L'enfant [d. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne]
Grand Prix: Broken Flowers [d. Jim Jarmusch]
Prix du jury: Shanghai Dreams [d. Wang Xiaoshuai]
Best Director: Michael Haneke - Caché
Best Actor: Tommy Lee Jones - The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Best Actress: Hana Laszlo - Free Zone
Best Screenplay: Guillaume Arriaga - The Three Burials of Mesquiades Estrada
Technical Grand Prize: (tie) Leslie Shatz - Last Days (for the sound design); Robert Rodriguez - Sin City (for the visual shaping)
Camera d'Or: (tie) Me and You and Everyone We Know [d. Miranda July], The Forsaken Land [d. Vimukthi Jayasundara]


Venice, held 31 August-10 September 2005

Golden Lion: Brokeback Mountain [d. Ang Lee]
Grand Special Jury Prize: Mary [d. Abel Ferrara]
Best Director: Philippe Garrel - Les amants réguliers (Regular Lovers)
Best Actor: David Strathairn - Good Night, and Good Luck.
Best Actress: Giovanna Mezzogiorno - La bestia nel cuore (Don't Tell)
Best Screenplay: George Clooney, Grant Heslov - Good Night, and Good Luck.
Career Golden Lion: Manoel de Oliveira, Stanley Donen


Toronto, held 8-17 September 2005

People's Choice Award: Tsotsi [d. Gavin Hood]
Discovery Award: Look Both Ways [d. Sarah Watt]
Best Canadian Feature: C.R.A.Z.Y. [d. Jean-Marc Vallée]


Berlin, held 10-20 February 2005

Golden Bear: U-Carmen [d. Mark Dornford-May]
Best Director: Marc Rothermund - Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl: The Last Days)
Best Actor: Lou Taylor Pucci - Thumbsucker
Best Actress: Julie Jentsch - Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage
Jury Grand Prix: Peacock [d. Gu Changwei]
Outstanding Artistic Achievment: The Wayward Cloud [d. Tsai Ming-liang]
Honorary Golden Bear: Fernando Fernán Gómez, Im Kwon-taek
Teddy (Feature): Un año sin amor (A Year Without Love) [d. Anahí Berneri]
Teddy (Documentary): Katzenball [d. Veronika Minder]


Sundance, held 20-30 January 2005

Grand Jury Prize (Dramatic): Forty Shades of Blue [d. Ira Sachs]
Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema): O Herói (The Hero) [d. Zézé Gamboa]
Grand Jury Prize (Documentary): Why We Fight [d. Eugene Jarecki]
Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema Documentary): Shape of the Moon [d. Leonard Retel Helmrich]
Director (Dramatic): Noah Baumbach - The Squid and the Whale
Director (Documentary): Jeff Feuerzeig - The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Special Jury Prize (Dramatic): (tie) Rian Johnson - Brick; Miranda July - Me and You and Everyone We Know (for originality of vision); Amy Adams - Junebug; Lou Taylor Pucci - Thumbsucker (for their performances)
Special Jury Prize (World Cinema): (tie) Jorge Gaggero - Cama adentro (Live-In Maid); Maren Ade - Der Wald vor Iauter Bäumen (The Forest for the Trees)
Special Jury Prize (Documentary): (tie) Jessica Sanders - After Innocence; Geoffrey Richman, Conor O'Neill - Murderball (for the editing)
Special Jury Prize (World Cinema Documentary): (tie) Simone Bitton - Mur (Wall); Sean McAllister - The Liberace of Baghdad
Cinematography (Dramatic): Amy Vincent - Hustle & Flow
Cinematography (Documentary): Gary Griffin - The Education of Shelby Knox
Audience Award (Dramatic): Hustle & Flow [d. Craig Brewer]
Audience Award (Documentary): Murderball [d. Henry Alex Rubin, Dana Adam Shapiro]
Audience Award (World Cinema): Brødre (Brothers) [d. Susanne Bier]
Audience Award (World Cinema Documentary): Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire [d. Peter Raymont]


Academy Awards, held 5 March 2006

Best Picture: Crash [d. Paul Haggis]
Best Director: Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
Best Supporting Actor: George Clooney - Syriana
Best Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz - The Constant Gardener
Best Original Screenplay: Paul Haggis, Robert Moresco - Crash
Best Adapted Screenplay: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana - Brokeback Mountain
Best Cinematography: Dion Beebe - Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Documentary: La marche de l'empereur (March of the Penguins) [d. Luc Jacquet]
Best Foreign Film: Tsotsi [d. Gavin Hood]
Animated Feature: Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [d. Steve Box, Nick Park]
Honorary Award: Robert Altman


BAFTAs, held 19 February 2006

Best Film: Brokeback Mountain [d. Ang Lee]
Best Director: Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Best British Film: Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [d. Steve Box, Nick Park]
Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
Best Supporting Actor: Jake Gyllenhaal - Brokeback Mountain
Best Supporting Actress: Thandie Newton - Crash
Best Original Screenplay: Paul Haggis, Robert Moresco - Crash
Best Adapted Screenplay: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana - Brokeback Mountain
Best Cinematography: Dion Beebe - Memoirs of a Geisha
Film Not in the English Language: De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) [d. Jacques Audiard]


European Film Awards, held 3 December 2005

Best Film: Caché [d. Michael Haneke]
Best Director: Michael Haneke - Caché
Best Actor: Daniel Auteuil - Caché
Best Actress: Julia Jentsch - Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl: The Last Days)
Best Cinematography: Franz Lustig - Don't Come Knocking
Best Screenplay: Hany Abu-Assad, Bero Beyer - Paradise Now
Best Documentary: Un dragon dans les eaux pures du Caucase (The Pipeline Next Door) [d. Nino Kirtadze]
Discovery: Anklaget (Accused) [d. Jacob Thuesen]
Screen International: Good Night, and Good Luck. [d. George Clooney]
Audience Award (Actor): Orlando Bloom - Kingdom of Heaven
Audience Award (Actress): Julia Jentsch - Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage
Audience Award (Director): Marc Rothemund - Sophie Scholl: Die letzten Tage
Life Achievement Award: Sean Connery


Independent Spirit, held 4 March 2006

Best Feature: Brokeback Mountain [d. Ang Lee]
Best First Feature: Crash [d. Paul Haggis]
Best Director: Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Best Male Lead: Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Best Female Lead: Felicity Huffman - Transamerica
Best Supporting Male: Matt Dillon - Crash
Best Supporting Female: Amy Adams - Junebug
Best Screenplay: Dan Futterman - Capote
Best First Screenplay: Duncan Tucker - Transamerica
Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit - Good Night, and Good Luck.
Best Documentary: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room [d. Alex Gibney]
Best Foreign Film: Paradise Now [d. Hany Abu-Assad]
John Cassavetes Award (for features made for under $500,000): Conventioneers [d. Mora Stephens]
Someone to Watch Award: Neill Dela Llana, Ian Gamazon - Cavite


Golden Globes, held 16 January 2006

Picture (Drama): Brokeback Mountain [d. Ang Lee]
Picture (Comedy/Musical): Walk the Line [d. James Mangold]
Director: Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain
Actor (D): Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Actress (D): Felicity Huffman - Transamerica
Actor (M/C): Joaquin Phoenix - Walk the Line
Actress (M/C): Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
Supporting Actor: George Clooney - Syriana
Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz - The Constant Gardener
Screenplay: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana - Brokeback Mountain
Foreign Film: Paradise Now [d. Hany Abu-Assad]
Cecil B. DeMille Award: Anthony Hopkins


Césars Awards, held 25 February 2006

Best Film (Meilleur film): De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) [d. Jacques Audiard]
Best Director (Meilleur réalisateur): Jacques Audiard - De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté
Best Actor (Meilleur acteur): Michel Bouquet - Le promeneur du champ de Mars (The Last Mitterrand)
Best Actress (Meilleure actrice): Nathalie Baye - Le petit lieutenant
Best Supporting Actor (Meilleur acteur dans un second rôle): Niels Arestrup - De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté
Best Supporting Actress (Meilleure actrice dans un second rôle): Cécile De France - Les poupées russes (Russian Dolls)
Most Promising Actor (Meilleur espoir masculin): Louis Garrel - Les amants réguliers (Regular Lovers)
Most Promising Actress (Meilleur espoir féminin): Linh Dan Pham - De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté
Best Original Screenplay (Meilleur scénario original): Radu Mihăileanu, Alain-Michel Blanc - Va, vis et deviens (Live and Become)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Meilleur scénario adaptation): Jacques Audiard, Tonino Benacquista - De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté
Best Cinematography (Meilleure photographie): Stéphane Fontaine - De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté
Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger): Million Dollar Baby [d. Clint Eastwood]
Best First Film (Meilleur premier film): Darwin's Nightmare [d. Hubert Sauper]
Honorary César: Hugh Grant, Pierre Richard


Razzies, given 4 March 2006

Worst Film: Dirty Love [d. John Mallory Asher]
Worst Director: John Mallory Asher - Dirty Love
Worst Actor: Rob Schneider - Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
Worst Actress: Jenny McCarthy - Dirty Love
Worst Supporting Actor: Hayden Christensen - Star Wars: Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith
Worst Supporting Actress: Paris Hilton - House of Wax
Worst Screenplay: Jenny McCarthy - Dirty Love
Worst Remake/Sequel: Son of the Mask [d. Lawrence Guterman]

The Decade List: Shadowboxer (2005)

Shadowboxer - dir. Lee Daniels

[Edited from an earlier post; I made unnecessary paragraph breaks to accommodate more screencaps from this beauty. Also, if anyone would be interested in, maybe, a live-blog of this film, holler my way!]

Shadowboxer is the sort of complete disaster that certainly doesn't come around very often. Even when they do, they seldom come in a way that could fool the most passive viewer into looking past the utter absurdity of the entire production. Shadowboxer doesn't ever crack that smile you're waiting for, and this is to its credit... or, more accurately, to our enjoyment (though Bradford did remind me that Vanessa Ferlito is watching Valley of the Dolls in all its camp glory when Helen Mirren walks into her room... it's even the scene where Susan Hayward sings "I'll Plant My Own Tree"). That his latest film, Precious, has been getting so many raves (even with Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and Sherri Shepherd in the cast) this year makes me wonder if Shadowboxer was just a ruse.

The always-wonderful (even here) Mirren plays Rose, a cold assassin dying of cancer on her final mission with partner/lover Mikey (Cuba Gooding Jr., and yes, you read that correctly). Things don't work out as planned when Rose reclaims the compassion that's been missing in her life as she decides to deliver her hit's baby, instead of killing her. Yes, Mirren and her gun manage to scare the water right out of the pregnant Vickie (Ferlito, who probably kicked herself after thinking this would be her breakout role), and like a pro, Mirren gets that baby right out. Rose, Mikey, Vickie and the baby go into seclusion, forming a strange family alliance away from Vickie's crazy husband (Stephen Dorff), the one that hired the hit on her. Explaining what happens plot-wise in Shadowboxer is not where you find the magic; the unintentional marvel of Shadowboxer presents itself in the revoltingly gaudy and hysterically absurd ornaments that string the film together.

The most noticeable head-scratcher of Shadowboxer is its casting. One can only assume that Lee Daniels called in a few favors and threw those favors together any way he could. In addition to the coupling of Mirren and Gooding, he also pairs Joseph Gordon-Levitt with Mo'Nique. Somehow he also asks us to suspend disbelief in accepting Gordon-Levitt as a doctor and Mo'Nique as the crack-head nurse who put him through medical school. Dorff is expectedly awful as a hot head, but the real gem of this casting is Macy Gray as Vickie's sassy, alcoholic best friend Neisha. Gray, a one-hit wonder with a gravel voice, fully assumes her role in a way that makes you think she stumbled drunk onto the set, threw herself into the film, and miraculously ended up in the final cut. But you would be oh-so-wrong in that assumption, as Daniels blindly thinks that her character is actually essential to the film. She’s absolutely not, and that’s why she works so well here.

One can’t help but wonder if Daniels actually read the screenplay by first-time writer William Lipz, let alone questioned anything that happens within the pages. Who the fuck is Stephen Dorff’s character supposed to be? It’s never explained, nor is it explained why he shoves a broken pool stick up a guy’s ass, wants to kill his wife, or decides to go full-frontal in one of the most gratuitous nude scenes I’ve seen in a while. Why is Mo’Nique a crackhead, and why would someone cast a woman of her size as one? Unless, I suppose, she recently picked up the habit.

I can appreciate films that have no raison d'être, but films that naïvely assume they're important (coughCrashcough) really churn my stomach. Thankfully, Shadowboxer is so blissfully unnecessary, unimportant, misguided, and incoherent that I have no shame in saying it was one of the more pleasurable film experiences I’d had in a while. A friend of mine and I decided the most telling example of Shadowboxer’s perplexing appeal is a scene in which Cuba Gooding Jr. offers to buy Macy Gray a drink. She insists upon five drinks and turns to the only other person in the bar (extras are expensive) who happens to be the most toe-up nasty tranny Daniels could find and asks if she wants a drink as well. I could do my best Macy Gray impersonation, but that wouldn’t get the full effect.

And I don't even have the time to mention Cuba in drag or the zebra. One can’t help but admire Helen Mirren for emerging from this abysmal failure unscathed as she did in Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Donned in Vivienne Westwood, she still manages to be just as wonderful here as she’s ever been. Don’t let Mirren (or the lushly uneven cinematography, or straight-faced tone) fool you, Shadowboxer is a train wreck all its own, so astoundingly wrong in every way that we may have to ask Nomi Malone to pass on her crown.

With: Helen Mirren, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Vanessa Ferlito, Stephen Dorff, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mo'Nique, Macy Gray
Screenplay: William Lipz
Cinematography: M. David Mullen
Music: Mario Grigorov
Country of Origin: USA
US Distributor: Code Black Entertainment

Premiere: 9 September 2005 (Toronto International Film Festival)
US Premiere: 21 July 2006