Archive for July, 2009
Funny People might not be what you expect
I’m not sure what to make of Funny People, a “serious comedy” from Judd Apatow starring Adam Sandler as a veteran stand-up comic (i.e., Adam Sandler) and Seth Rogen as a novice comic who idolizes him. Then Sandler finds out he has this terminal disease, and that brings the two comics closer together. And then Sandler tries to rekindle a romance with a long-ago crush, played by Leslie Mann, who’s married to some Aussie.
All of which means that this could be three movies in one. If you’ve watched any TV lately, you might have seen more than one preview for this movie. I think there are three: one that emphasizes the stand-up life, one that emphasizes Sandler and Rogen bonding over the former’s impending doom, and one that emphasizes Sandler’s quest to get back with Mann.
Some critics have said this is a comedy with a heart, sort of a departure for Apatow (but with the requisite raunch). It’s said to be overreaching, and if the previews are any indication, I can see why – it’s trying to be several things at once. Imagine if you saw only one of those previews that are floating around. Naturally, you’d think that the preview would be a solid representation of the film, right? So maybe you’d expect a laugh-a-minute jokefest, only to find out that there’s a romance angle (not involving hookers!) and a male-bonding angle.
So all I’m saying is… this could suck bad or be awesome. Sandler’s getting good notices for this (somewhat) serious role, so there’s that.
The Wolf Man postponed ’til 2010
Posted by frothy in News/Rumors on July 29, 2009
The LA Times sez that Benicio del Toro’s The Wolf Man, which had been slated for a November release, will be moved to February 2010. Something about how the new Twilight film was coming out around the same time. Which is dumb, because the people watching one probably aren’t bothering with the other anyway.
463 – Blindness
In the land of the blind, only Julianne Moore can see. A weird malady has spread across an unnamed city that causes “white blindness” in the afflicted. Moore plays the wife of an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who fakes having the disease so that she be quarantined with her husband (and the other early sufferers). The patients quickly learn that they’re on their own and that any attempts to leave the facility will result in their being shot to death. As the only sighted person, Moore literally sees the inmates/patients devolve into misery and must somehow lead a small band of them to the presumed safety of the outside world.
The movie begins rather strongly, as a young man is suddenly blinded while driving on a busy city street. Disoriented, he is helped by a passerby, who takes him home but steals his car. Meanwhile, an ophthamologist’s office begins to fill up with people experiencing this odd blindness, not one of inky blackness but of complete whiteness. The following morning, the doctor wakes up with the same blindness, and the only way Mrs. Eye Doctor can go with him is by pretending she too has the (apparently) infectious disease.
The patients are kept in maximum-security barracks and are given sparse amounts of food that they must dole out to each other. But that’s the extent of their outside help; armed guards surround the buildings and shoot to kill anyone who tries to leave. (Lest they, you know, infect normal people.) So it’s not long before the denizens of one section (ward) decide they want more than their share, and anarchy ensues, which is compounded by nearly everyone’s lack of sight. (The doctor’s wife – everyone’s unnamed – keeps her own condition a secret from everyone except her husband.)
The movie is a metaphor for the hatred within human beings for one another; it seeks to show that when the chips are down, we are just animals, even if we suffer the same indignities, because each of us wishes to be better than the next, to dominate. We are not, the movie argues, a society built solely on equality. It also seeks to show that there are different kinds of blindness: physical blindness, and the blindness of man to the suffering of his fellows.
Although the film is exquisitely well shot – from desolate city streets to the unencumbered chaos within the compound’s walls – it’s alternately slow moving and predictable. It’s easy to see what will happen once the victims are quarantined, and it’s even easier to see that the doctor’s wife will be the one to lead some of them out of the morass. Although Moore is excellent as always (as are Ruffalo, Danny Glover as an eye-patch-wearer, and Alice Braga as a blind hooker), her character seems to be less a victim and accidental leader than a chosen heroine, which runs contrary to the theme of everyday people simply trying to survive without sight. Moore’s character, the only character with sight, is presented as being a good person, but she is very slow to stop what are obviously Very Bad Things being done to the blind.
Aside from the blindness angle, there isn’t much here to separate this film from other personal-disaster films (to differentiate them from natural-disaster films, which would include earthquakes, tidal waves, and tornados), such as movies about plagues (28 Days Later), zombies (Dawn of the Dead), or infectious diseases (Outbreak). The idea that people would turn on each other even though they suffer together is not new; neither is the idea of a society (in this case, an entire city) abandoning those who all have some sort of disease. And because these ideas aren’t new, Blindness isn’t as compelling as it ought to be; the characters are generally one dimensional and unlikeable, so this isn’t even much of a feel-good movie. To tell the truth, it’s a bit of a lifeless downer, although the ending makes up for it a little.
A final note: The American Council of the Blind said, in deploring the movie, that “blind people do not behave like uncivilized, animalized creatures.” That’s simply a silly statement. Anyone can behave as an uncivilized, animalized creature, particularly if they are treated as animals and quarantined from “normal” society (which was the point of the director, Fernando Meirelles); to believe that blind people are not susceptible to anger, despair, and revenge is to believe that blindness somehow connotes angelic heroism, which is unfair toward blind people as well.
**1/2
The Devil’s Disciple: one-dimensional and hopelessly dated
Posted by frothy in Devil's Disciple (1959) on July 24, 2009
Although it’s based on a classic eponymous by George Bernard Shaw, The Devil’s Disciple is painfully dated, with a screeching performance by Janette Scott as the presumed love interest and a soundtrack that seems to have been lifted from a Disney movie, a wildly inappropriate choice for a Revolutionary War melodrama.
Anthony Anderson (Burt Lancaster) is the minister to a small colonial town that puts up with the constant presence of British troops. When a man is hanged under suspicion of consorting with the rebels, Anderson protests to the British, to no avail. Later that night, the man’s body is stolen from the gallows and brought to Anderson’s church by the man’s son Richard Dudgeon (Kirk Douglas) for a decent burial. The British find out and come to Anderson’s house to arrest him (they find the man’s new grave in the church’s graveyard), but they mistakenly arrest Dudgeon instead, who goes along to protect Anderson from shame and, of course, hanging.
So much about the movie feels inauthentic and forced. Anderson is supposed to be a decent sort, and he wisely leaves town when Dudgeon is captured, because he knows that he’d be hanged as well. This doesn’t sit well with his wife, Mrs. Reverend Anderson (Scott), who for some reason sees her husband as a coward and “no longer my husband.” Woman gives up mightly quickly, doesn’t she? Meanwhile, to no one’s surprise Mrs. Reverend falls for Dudgeon as she visits him in the makeshift prison, awaiting trial. Then the pacifist pastor finds his war muse, all hell breaks loose, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Although Douglas and Lancaster are fine – this was the third of seven films they made together – Scott plays her Mrs. Reverend Anderson as sort of hysteric who can’t make up her mind about anything and never listens to reason. In one scene, she’s trying to alert the reverend about Dudgeon’s capture, especially that the British think they’ve captured Anderson himself. Her blubbering and incoherent shrieking expand a ten-second message into ten minutes. Fast forwarding is a good option to have.
The saving grace for the movie is Sir Laurence Olivier, in a showy role as the man in charge of the garrisoned British troops, General Borgoyne. Olivier’s performance reminds me a lot of Claude Rains’ in Casablanca, a man above everything and yet steeped in everything as well. Here, Borgoyne is reasonable, knowledgable, and above all has a greater grasp of long-term implications than one might expect from a cinema military leader. It’s been said that Olivier was given the role with the support of the two Hollywood icons, Douglas and Lancaster, who wisely took the less-complicated roles for themselves.
And that’s the crux of the movie: it’s uncomplicated. There are moments of high comedy (the rebels keep cutting down trees to prevent the troops from getting through the forest – why the troops aren’t sent out on foot to rout out the three or four snipers is a mystery), and Burgoyne’s snide asides to his second in command are entertaining. Lancaster and Douglas play pretty simple, straightforward roles, and they play them so straight as to be fairly boring. Throw in a madcap, overwrought performance by Scott – who would later have a hit with The Day of the Triffids – and you have the makings for an overrated, dated period piece.
**
Passion of the Christ: sacrificial violence well shot
Posted by frothy in Passion of the Christ (2004) on July 23, 2009
I think it’s fair to say that even if you’re a nonbeliever, even if the Flying Spaghetti Monster is your godfather, you’ll find The Passion of the Christ compelling but painful to watch. Mel Gibson’s controversial take on the final hours of Jesus Christ – from capture to crucifixion – is a grueling ordeal to be endured, although how much it resonates with an individual will likely depend on that individual’s degree of devotion to the faith.
In the movie, Jesus is captured by Roman soldiers in the middle of the night, betrayed by Judas for a small sack of coins. Jesus is put on trial by the high priest, Caiaphas, who deems Jesus guilty of blasphemy and brings him to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for sentencing; instead, Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, who is the ruler of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. Herod thinks Jesus to be nothing more than a fool, so he sends him back to Pilate, who then tells the growing crowd that he will chastise Jesus and then free him.
Thereupon, Jesus is scourged. His back is whipped, creating several searing stripes. Then the Roman soldiers break out the nasty stuff and beat Jesus with spiked implements, rending his flesh. After the torture is stopped (the soliders were merely meant to punish Jesus, not kill him), Pilate speaks to the Jewish crowd. Each year, he (Pilate) releases one prisoner at the choosing of the populace. Now, he asks, he will release either Jesus of Nazareth or Barabbas, a violent murderer. The crowd, egged on by the high priest, choose for Barabbas to be released.
Pilate is reluctant to punish Jesus, because he can find no fault with him. So again he asks the crowd to help him decide the punishment, and the cry comes back – several times – “crucify him!” Jesus, already tortured to the brink of death, must carry his cross to Calvary, although he’s aided by Simon of Cyrene. At the top of the hill, he is graphically nailed to the cross, surrounded by a thief on each side. With a storm about to erupt, the Roman soldiers decide to hurry the process along, and one of them stabs Jesus in the abdomen with his spear (aka the Spear of Destiny). After Jesus has died, he is lowered from the cross by Mary and others.
James Caviezel is almost unrecognizable (what with his face obscured by blood) as Jesus of Nazareth, in one of the most physical roles of anyone’s career. He’s absolutely unforgettable in an excrutiating, thankless role. It’s thankless in that even if he’s the best Jesus in the history of Jesuses, he’ll still be viewed as a blasphemer himself in some sects. But putting aside the notion of portraying a divine (?) character, one can certainly appreciate the – pardon the term – sacrifice he made during filming.
The film is exquistitely shot, with daring closeups of the savior being tortured; cinematographer Caleb Deschanel seems unafraid to show his audience just how much pain Caviezel appeared to be in. The atmosphere in general – from Jesus speaking with his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount to Pilate asking for help in his decision – is earthy and realistic, really putting you right in the thick of the moment.
Understandably, there were plenty of people outraged about this movie and how it seemed to lay Jesus’ arrest, conviction, and crucifixion at the feet of the Jews. I don’t mean to get all scholarly here, because this is a complicated issue that I really am not qualified to discuss. Compare this movie with The Last Temptation of Christ, which also outraged people who saw their savior depicted more humanistically than in previous portrayals, as if he were just one of the gang, and you get the impression that people get mad about these movies because they mess around with one’s ideal of what Jesus Christ was like. In other words, an authentic diary could be unearthed today from the days of Jesus of Nazareth that depicted him as a good guy who wasn’t divine but liked to help people, maybe even drank a bit more than others, and even though it would be authentic (period wise) it wouldn’t be accepted by a large portion of the devout, simply because it conflicts with what they’ve been told for centuries.
The Passion of the Christ is an extremely difficult movie to watch, but its attention to detail and its first-rate cast produce a strongly rewarding experience. Those who are not devout will have a better sense of what is regarded as the final hours of Jesus, a sense that’ll be richer than that from reading about the events in a textbook. Mel Gibson, for all of his wacky beliefs and crazy-man attitude, has crafted a genuinely first-rate film religion film that eschews Hollywood cheesiness completely.
***1/2
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland trailer
Reasons to watch this:
1) It’s Tim freakin Burton!
2) Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter!
3) It’s creepy! Sort of a cross between The Addams Family and Beetlejuice
Reasons not to watch it:
1) It’s a Disney film.
2) It’s even more of a kids film than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was (supposed) to be.
It certainly looks stylish and odd, which is good, but I do wonder if this one will have more new things in it than, say, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which didn’t differ much from its predecessor (other than the lack of songs). With no new perspective (visually and psychologically), what would be the point? Oh, to make money..
The Cheshire Cat looks ridiculous, though.
Give me that old time theater magic
Remember independent movie theaters? You probably don’t, if you’re Generation Y or later. Or even Generation X with a hazy memory. But back before AMCs and Loews dominated the cinema landscape in America, there were smaller, more-independent places, sites that were not beholden to a chain (but were sometimes affiliated with a movie studio). These theaters would house maybe a couple of screens, not the 10-15 you see nowadays. Many of these older theaters are now shuttered.
Take the Lumberton Twin Cinema, in Lumberton, New Jersey. It was part of a small strip mall alongside Rte. 38 and had – of course – two screens. I saw the original Star Wars in this theater three times, the first movie I’d ever seen indoors. (Kids, back in the day we had drive-in theaters, where you actually saw the movie from your car!)
More and more of these places are closing down. There was a big push in the 1990s to consolidate theaters, so instead of having several one- or two-screen theaters, chains would buy up the small ones and put in huge ones with many, many screens. Give the folks more choices, the idea was. Only know what? When it’s blockbuster season (i.e., The Summer), you’ll find the same movie on three or four screens at one theater. With staggered start times, the theaters can get more bang for their buck – why show a two-hour movie seven times when you can show it 14 times or more? And this, dear friends, is why blockbusters make so much money for the studios.
I bring all this up for no particular reason other than to point you to this website. Cinema Treasures has over 700 theaters listed, some still active, others defunct since the 1950s. I recommend looking for the theater you grew up attending and checking out some of its history. I don’t see a lot of drive-ins on there, though, such as the famed Atco Drive In in Atco, New Jersey. That’s where I saw such lovable classics as The Love Bug, Buck Rogers, The Shaggy DA, and more.
In fact, paging through the New Jersey theaters, I saw a lot of ones I didn’t know had even been around, as well as many I remember seeing in the listings in the paper that I never got around to visiting. (Mostly because we lived kind of out there in the middle of nowhere and simply went to the closest ones.)
My dream job, at least one of them, would be to own an old theater and show old movies all the time. It’s not practical, but it would be fun. It would be neat! Let’s do it.
What are your theater memories?
462 – Brüno
Bruno is really just a low-rent, low-impact knock-off of Borat, with fewer funny moments and twice the discomfort. Sacha Baron Cohen returns as the titular Austrian gay fashion maven, out to seek his fortune in America but with no idea how. Baron Cohen’s knack for eliciting responses from an unsuspecting public remains unparalleled, but his ambushes produce more discomfort (on the part of the viewer) than laughs.
Bruno is blackballed from the Austrian fashion scene when he attempts to show an outfit made of velcro. Off to America! His Pygmy lover decides not to join him, but his assistant Lutz does, sort of in the same role as Ken Davitian from Borat. Bruno’s escapades include being an extra (failure), creating a celebrity interview show (more failure), trying to create a sex tape with Ron Paul (a full-course meal of failure at Failure Hut), and so on. Bruno desperately wants to be famous, so he tries to glom onto a charitable cause, but he can’t find one sexy enough that hasn’t already been taken. Undaunted, he goes the Madonna-Jolie route and adopts an African child.
I want to pause there, because the subsequent scene is the funniest in the film. On The Richard Bey Show (think a less-classy Jerry Springer), Bruno appears as a single parent. To the shock and horror of the studio audience, Bruno brings out his new infant, whom he’s named O.J. (no joke is too old for Baron Cohen here) and whom he swapped for – yes – an iPod. Gasps of horror from the audience. Bruno is undeterred and presses on, showing pictures of himself with the little boy in – shall we say – interesting situations, such as in a Jacuzzi filled with naked men. And then Child Protection shows up on the set, because if it’s one thing The Richard Bey Show is known for, it’s doing the right thing.
Other scenes include a swingers’ party (as Bruno attempts to go straight), a hunting party (ditto), National Guard barracks, and a meeting with an actual terrorist, Ayman Abu Aita. The latter is to set up a kidnapping of Bruno himself; he thinks that if he’s kidnapped by terrorists, he’ll become famous. He’s right, of course, and by this point in the movie you wish Abu Aita had taken him up on his offer instead of having him escorted from his tent – and the country – for saying that Osama bin Laden looks like a dirty wizard or a homeless Santa. That was amusing, particularly since (I assume) Abu Aita wasn’t in on the joke.
What made Borat so successful wasn’t just the shock factor, it was the honest (if racist) reactions of the so-called everyday Americans. And both needed to be present for true comedy to exist; it’s funny when someone does something shocking that exposes the weakness of another person, isn’t it? But Bruno is not entirely successful in this regard. Because you know Baron Cohen’s modus operandi, you can see where things are going in each scene, meaning you’re looking toward the endgame rather than experiencing the current scene. And although there are some shocking moments, most of them appear in the trailers and commercials for the movie. And a great deal more scenes are simply gross and shock on a merely physical level. (In fact, be warned – there is plenty of frontal male nudity, although the sex scenes are all tastefully blurred.)
Bruno is a bit of a disappointment, given the viral success of Borat, but how could have it not been? Baron Cohen depended largely on the naivete of his victims in the first one, and too many people saw it for Bruno to have much of a chance. Because even if the victims didn’t know what was coming, the audience sure does.
Bruno: **1/2
461 – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Posted by frothy in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on July 18, 2009
The Harry Potter franchise, like its youthful cast, continues to get darker, seriouser, and more mature. In this sixth entry, Harry has to deal not only with Death Eaters and He Who Shall Not Be Named (coughVoldemortcough) but also teenage hormones, which seem banal to us old folks but rather consume the entirety of the demographic audience’s existence.
But it’s a testament to director Peter Yates and writer Steve Kloves that the so-called down-time scenes aren’t dull; in fact, they’re invigorating, sweet, sincere looks at teenage life, which is sort of difficult to do when you’re middle aged.
One aspect of Harry Potter that’s always held a tremendous amount of appeal for me is in how the whole kids-growing-up experience is so detailed and authentic. The portrayal of teen angst on film is no easy task, particularly by grownups, who presumably haven’t been angsty in a decade or two.
To be sure, the movie is darker than any of its predecessors, just as with the books. As the stories have progressed, the issues Harry faces increase in intensity and maturity – as his beloved Professor Dumbledore says, he must once again ask too much of his young charge. But for a change, the adults in Harry’s world are beginning to treat him more like an adult and less like a pestering child. They share secrets with him, seek his counsel, and trust him to do heavy lifting – that is, they don’t shunt him off to the corner while they fight bad guys themselves. (Of course, this is partly out of necessity, as so many of the good guys are being picked off.) But the frivolity and child-like wonder of the earlier films is now long gone, as the filmmakers (correctly, really) assume that the audience is well familiar with the characters and the storylines. Less time is spent on exposition and introducing us to strange new creatures (mermaids, dragons, etc.).
The plot: Voldemort, freed at the end of the fifth film, is assembling his Death Eaters, who attack London. Meanwhile, Dumbledore has asked Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) to return to the school as the Potions teacher. Dumbledore wants to gain access to an old memory of Slughorn that may hold the key to Voldemort’s plans, and Harry (naturally) is asked to get that memory from the reluctant teacher. Meanwhile, Hermione likes Ron but doesn’t want to admit it. Ron falls for a clingy Lavender Brown, and Harry has eyes for Ron’s sister, Ginny. The kids are at that age – in the fifth film, we saw hormonal hints, but more from the girls’ side of things, and here the score is evened up a tad. The thing is, though, as much as those of us far removed from our teen years are not interested in teen issues, Yates and Kloves make the relationships and interactions so spot-on honest that we can’t help but get swept away in the sentiments.
On an individual level, your heart really goes out to all three young leads. We’ve all been down their paths, but there’s something about the performances – throughout the series – of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson that compels you to see things on their terms, to feel their hearts soar and sink with each emotional twist. You can see the connection between Hermione and Ron, which has been developing for five years now, beginning to blossom before the characters are even aware. You just know that Harry likes Ginny and can see the conflict in his mind – on the one hand, Ron’s his best friend, and on the other, Ginny is Ron’s sister. These battles these conflicts foment aren’t fought in clear view; they’re done with quite a bit of subtlety in a movie franchise that’s also known for wild special effects. And that’s a huge compliment.
The entire cast is outstanding, giving us a sort of old-shoe comfortability with their work here, but I wanted to point out the crazed, perfectly over-the-top work of Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, the most insane of all the Death Eaters, the witch who killed Harry’s godfather, Sirius. Bonham Carter is devilish, part Bride of Frankenstein and part, I dunno, Aileen Wuornos. She’s hissably evil, as they say, but she’s never hammy. Broadbent is also a welcome addition as Slughorn, vulnerable, pompous, a bit grandstanding, a gadfly of students (he likes to “collect” portraits of the best ones). A students’ groupie, really. Slughorn is pivotal in unlocking Voldemort’s secret. Alan Rickman, again back as the nebulously moral Severus Snape, offers a delicious, multilayered performance that keeps you guessing throughout the entire movie.
The movie features some of the best cinematography and sets in the series, too. Hogwarts is shown at times, as is The Three Broomsticks at Hogsmeade, but Harry and Dumbledore also travel to a distant cave, and there’s a Quidditch match (hooray!), and the Weasley twins have now – having left Hogwarts in a blaze of glory at the end of the fifth film – opened their own shop at the now-dilapitaded Diagon Alley.
You cannot be bored with this film. Yates’ pacing is top notch, as he slows the movie down only when necessary – i.e., to build drama or inject humor. Things move at a breakneck speed, just as in the book, and everything is so perfectly laid out that you don’t even realize they’ve slowed down. If you’re a guy you’ll assume the romance will be pointless and dumb and just filler, but I assure you it’s none of those. Despite all your efforts, your heart will break a couple of times in this movie, once for those in and out of love, and once for the big secret near the end of the movie.
A final word about the adaptation itself. It has been a little while since I read the book, but I don’t think they took out too much that should have remained, if any. The movie is two and a half hours long, after all, and the books got progressively longer. There are a couple of extended scenes that are missing from the movie, but there’s good reason: One is a battle scene from the end of the book; this was cut because the next book also contains a huge battle scene, and the producers wanted to avoid having the two films look too similar. The other scene, rumor has it, will appear at the beginning of the next film.
All in all, Harry Potter’s sixth adventure is possibly the best of them all. Stunning sets are complemented by achingly real acting by not only Britain’s most decorated but also by the youthful main cast. I saw this in a theater full of teenagers whom, I had feared, wouldn’t keep quiet for the movie. They did keep quiet except when the script told them to cheer and gasp and jump in fright. (This is an intense PG-rated film.) The movie was so well received that people cheered when the credits came up, which is not something you see often nowadays. The ending – not in the book – is sweet, portentous, bittersweet, and elegant.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: ***1/2
460 – What Just Happened
Posted by frothy in What Just Happened on July 15, 2009
What Just Happened is not a sly, knowing look at the seedy underbelly of the Hollywood system so much as it’s a snarky, muddled insider look at manipulation and officiousness that still manages to be dull and pointless. Robert DeNiro is a washed-up producer who has to handle an ex wife (Robin Wright Penn), a rebel director (Michael Wincott), a ruthless studio head (Catherine Keener), and a bearded Bruce Willis. It doesn’t really matter.
No, really, none of it matters. If you’re really, really into movies and how they’re made, you might find something to like in here, but the average fan is going to be bored to death. There’s nothing normal people can relate to here, and all the subterfuge and machinations just look like Hollywood breaking its own arm to pat its own self on its own back. This is a self-aggrandizing, self-promoting pile of pudding. Hollywood insiders themselves would probably think, “Oh, that is so true!” but for the rest of us, it’s like watching home movies of someone else’s family. Someone you don’t know, like maybe the people who moved into your house after you moved away. After a couple minutes of watching their infant pour cereal on the cat, you’re ready to leave, aren’t you?
DeNiro has done far better, certainly (sadly, far worse as well). Sean Penn plays himself, and he doesn’t mess it up even once. Willis plays himself as well, but he’s horrible at it. Keener makes a very good exec, though.
Someone should get Barry Levinson to quit making inside-Hollywood movies. At least Wag the Dog had some political undercurrent going, making it intelligent and watchable. This is just vanity.
*1/2
Holy Chaplin! Twice as many Best Picture nominees?
As you may have heard, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences has decided to increase the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten. Yes, ten! That’s almost twice as many as five!
Why? Ostensibly to get more viewers for the annual Oscars telecast. I guess if you really liked a movie but it wasn’t nominated, you’re not going to bother watching the Oscars. So now twice as many movies will be able to claim a nomination. Which is how they did it back in the old days, but the difference then was that studios released far more films than they do now. Essentially, we now have fewer films but the same number of nominees, yielding a high ratio of noms to releases.
The other reason, though, is more directly greed related. A movie that has been nominated for Best Picture can be marketed as such and would likely be chosen by an average moviegoer over a movie that hasn’t been nominated for Best Picture. So now twice as many films will have this advantage, even if they’re not all that good.
Because let’s face it – there aren’t always five damn good movies every year, let alone ten. So why now? Because a lot of people were mad that The Dark Knight and WALL*E were not Best Picture nominees last year. Now, some may say they weren’t nominated because there were five better films, and others may it was because those two movies were too popular, whatever that means. Me, I say it’s because neither one was all that great, but I’m in the minority.
So what’s this mean going forward? It means that someday – maybe even next year – we’ll come to the end of an Oscars telecast, and of the ten Best Picture nominees only three or four will be “critically acclaimed” – the others will be movies that made $300 million worldwide. So this strikes me as a crass, avaricious decision that can’t help but bear bitter fruit in the future.
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