I Am DB

September 9, 2011

A Model World

Filed under: Movies,Real Life — DB @ 6:12 pm

Industrial Light & Magic, the pioneering visual effects company formed by George Lucas in 1975 to realize his vision for Star Wars, was located in southern California (Van Nuys) while making that movie. When Lucas reassembled the team for The Empire Strikes Back, he moved the company up the coast, relocating to a campus of non-descript buildings in San Rafael, about a half hour north of San Francisco. The site was on Kerner Boulevard, and all the outdoor signage indicated the buildings as Kerner Optical, Kerner Optical Company or Kerner Company. ILM occupied that location until 2005, when Lucas moved it into a newly constructed facility in San Francisco’s historic Presidio. But certain departments within ILM did not make the move into the city. The model shop had to remain behind, as did the production stages where the physical effects work was shot. The model shop and stage crews usually worked hand-in-hand. The model shop built it, and the stage crew would drown it, blow it up or set it on fire. And then there were the camera engineers and technicians who in many cases designed and constructed the equipment that would allow it all to be captured properly on film.

I’ve heard different reasons as to why these departments remained in San Rafael. It may have been that zoning regulations in the Presidio made it impossible to build a model shop and stages that would meet their respective spatial requirements. Or it may have been that ILM’s management wanted to focus solely on digital effects. Whatever the case, physical production would remain on Kerner.

Before ILM’s move took place, I got to spend four and half years as an employee there. And prior to my hiring in June 2000, I had another experience on Kerner. In 1989, when I was 12 years old, my family came out from the east coast to visit relatives in the Bay Area. Like so many kids of that age and era, I was a huge George Lucas/Steven Spielberg fan. My aunt had a former colleague who worked at Lucasfilm, so she reached out to her and the woman arranged for us to have a private tour at ILM and lunch at Skywalker Ranch.

I remember walking around ILM in awe, carrying my Industrial Light & Magic: The Art of Special Effects coffee table book by my side. The model shop was easily one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. There was Mr. Igo’s pod from Innerspace, and Slimer’s head from Ghostbusters II. The big painting of Vigo the Carpathian from the latter movie hung on one of the walls. There were ships from Star Wars, and I’m pretty sure I remember a clay Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, squashed flat from the scene in Droopy’s Toontown elevator. It was just sitting on a small piece of wood on a table.

No one was around as we made our way through, but then a tall man walked by us and I recognized him immediately from his bio picture in my book. “That’s Steve Gawley!” I said. Gawley, I’d learned from the book, was one of the model shop’s foreman and had been with ILM from its inception. We turned around and chased him down the hall, catching up so I could get his autograph. Was I a massive geek? Yes. But this was the guy who built the model DeLorean for Back to the Future!

Now back to the future for real. At some point after the decision was made to leave the model shop and stage behind when ILM moved into San Francisco, the model shop’s supervisor gathered money from investors and put together a plan to spin the physical production departments off into a separate company. The plan went through, and Kerner Optical was born. The new entity would continue to produce models and physical effects for ILM, but would be available for hire to others as well. And while it seemed a loss to ILM in sentimental terms, the fact that the incredibly talented crew would be able to continue practicing their art and craft was welcome news to all.

Unfortunately, the visual effects business has long faced daunting financial challenges that have resulted in the closing of numerous smaller FX houses, and last week it was announced that Kerner Optical has become the latest casualty. Even sadder is that the end of the company seems to be the result of poor management and behind-the-scenes battles, not lack of interest in their services.

When I was employed at ILM, I never ventured into the model shop. My job had nothing to do with the work being done there, and I felt like I would be intruding. But there were occasional opportunities to see their efforts nonetheless. The stage crew often did outdoor shoots that would attract hordes of employees out to a concrete area known as The Slab. We might watch the filming of a burning windmill for Van Helsing, or the flooding of a pirate ship for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I remember an array of models for the underwater theme park in A.I. Artificial Intelligence lined up for at least a few weeks in the courtyard between two of our buildings. I would walk through them and feel appreciative that models were even being used anymore. And there was Steve Gawley, touching them up.

That may have been as close to the model shop as I ever got during my employment there, but I still recall my 1989 tour and how excited I’d been to meet one of ILM’s original staffers. The book with Gawley’s autograph (among others) remains on my shelf.  It made me sad to think of ILM moving into San Francisco without the model shop and the stages, and I’m sad to hear that the shop doors are closed now. These people created so many years worth of amazing work. I regret that I never got to know any of the crew over there, but I wish them all the best and thank them for their part in a childhood full of movie memories.

August 1, 2011

Cinematic Inspiration

Filed under: Movies,The Daily Show,TV — DB @ 3:54 pm

Last week it was reported that a clip from Ben Affleck’s bank robbery movie The Town was shown in a meeting of House Republicans as a way to rally them in support of John Boehner’s debt ceiling plan. Given the petty, nasty divisiveness that now passes for our political system, the tactic should come as no surprise, nor should it come as a surprise that the move proved amusing fodder for Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and probably other comedians and late night hosts whose shows I didn’t see. The following clips offer The Daily Show‘s take, featuring The Town excerpt in question as well as particularly amusing commentary on the reaction of Democrat Chuck Schumer, as well as Real Time with Bill Maher‘s full reel of Republican motivational clips (a little violent in the beginning, be warned).

Vodpod videos no longer available.

April 14, 2011

There and Back Again…

Filed under: Movies — DB @ 7:38 pm

Okay, I promise that I won’t post every entry in this video blog series, but despite its presence all over the web today, how could I not highlight Peter Jackson’s first video from the set of The Hobbit?

Obviously I was excited about The Hobbit finally becoming reality, but seeing this video has me nostalgic for 2001-2003 and already gives me confidence that the passage of time will not have dulled Jackson’s magic Middle Earth touch. When it was announced some years ago that The Hobbit was going to be filmed but Peter Jackson was not going to direct it – opting only to co-write the script and oversee the film as its producer and creative godfather – I was of course disappointed. Any fan of his Lord of the Rings films would have been. Although Guillermo del Toro was a worthy successor, it just wouldn’t be the same without Jackson in the director’s chair. When, after working on pre-production for two years, del Toro left the project amidst the legal and financial complexities that had ensnared it like Frodo in Shelob’s web, I naturally hoped Jackson would step in himself to direct.

But when he finally announced that he would, I found myself feeling worried. I was worried that for whatever reason, Jackson’s heart wasn’t really in it. It seemed like he was agreeing to direct because that was the easiest way to get the movie made at that stage. But I didn’t want him to feel he was forced into it. I didn’t want him to feel he was just going through the motions. My happiness at having him back in charge outweighed my concerns, but there seemed to be a bit of a pall over the project. The troubles Jackson had to endure before production could even start – mainly a contentious battle between acting unions in which The Hobbit was used as a bargaining chip and which nearly led to the films being made outside of New Zealand, not to mention Jackson’s hospitalization for emergency stomach surgery – only created more of a feeling that this whole project was more trouble to Jackson than it was worth. The union issue was of course resolved and Jackson recovered from his surgery and got back to work, and we LOTR fans breathed a sigh of relief when production recently began. And now that it has, hearing Jackson say in this video that he originally didn’t think it was a good idea to try and return to the experience of Lord of the Rings but has since come around completely as production has loomed, well, that’s all I needed. My worry is gone, replaced by full throttle anticipation.

The road goes ever on…to December 2012.

March 7, 2011

Oscars 2010: What Went Down

Filed under: Movies,Oscars,TV — DB @ 10:02 pm
Tags: , ,

Complete List of Winners

Well, that was…interesting.

My commentary on this subject comes late as usual, allowing me the necessary time to re-watch, reflect and comment on every little thing that crossed my mind, but the gist of it won’t be much different than what has already been said in all corners of the Oscar-watching world (though I’ll try saying it more nicely than others may have):

That could’ve been better.

The main reason I always enjoy watching the Oscars is that I actually care who wins. Not just Best Picture and Best Actor, but Best Art Direction and Best Makeup and so on. So I’ll always enjoy the Oscars, even if the show itself isn’t that great. And this year’s show wasn’t so great. It was badly produced, badly directed, blandly written…it was, in fact, the weirdest and yes, the worst Oscars I can remember in my 20+ years of Oscar watching. To be fair, the first year I watched the Oscars was 1987, year of the infamous Rob Lowe-Snow White opening number and the dancing Oscar statuettes. That show may have been worse, but I was 10 years-old and don’t actually remember it well enough to say. Now then…let’s get into it.

THE HOSTS
James Franco and Anne Hathaway are taking a lot of the heat for this, but I’m not going to pile it on. I don’t think they’re the reason the show was bad. We all knew from the beginning that they were odd and inappropriate choices to host, and sure, it could be argued that they should have known as much and therefore deserve the blame for taking on the job. But hey, they’re professional actors who were given a rare and pretty cool-sounding opportunity, so why wouldn’t they go for it? I think they did the best they could with the poor material they were given. Well…maybe Franco didn’t do the best he could, but I’m not sure he knew what the hell to do.

Things started off promising enough. The opening video in which Franco and Hathaway traveled, Inception-style, through some of the Best Picture nominees, aided by Alec Baldwin and Morgan Freeman, was funny. Not hilarious, but funny, even if the insert-host-into-actual-movie-scene has been done a lot by now. I’m not sure why the skit came around to inserting them into a scene from Back to The Future, which would have made sense only if the piece had featured other older movies as well.  But okay, it was early. No big deal. The duo finally made it onto the stage, but right off the bat it didn’t quite feel right. They just didn’t have the natural ease that comes with knowing how to stand on a stage in front of a lot of people and work the crowd. They’re not comedians. Or Wolverine. Their banter was a little awkward, but okay, that’s the natural state of award banter. Still no big deal. They did the requisite joke about being chosen as hosts in an effort to lure a younger audience, as well as the requisite joke about Franco being nominated while Hathaway was not. It all seemed stiff from the outset. The monologue was brief, the jokes weren’t great, and there was little of the typical give-and-take with the nominees and stars in the audience. Last year’s monologue by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin featured too much pointing-to-stars, whereas this year’s featured too little. Check out almost any other recent Oscar show and you’ll find the right balance.

As the night wore on, things did not much improve. Hathaway’s song – an abridged and altered version of “On My Own” from Les Miserables which she sang to Hugh Jackman as a sort of follow-up to the great musical comedy bit they did during his 2008 MC gig – was the best hosting moment of the night. Hathaway’s got some genuine pipes, and this bit hinted at the playfulness that the show needed desperately but which was pretty much nowhere to be found. (Sorry, Franco’s Marilyn Monroe get-up didn’t qualify.) Other than that moment, Hathaway had only her enthusiasm to cling to. And she had that in spades, sometimes going overboard. I like Hathaway and think she’s a really good actress, but as herself she sometimes comes off like that girl in drama club who’s a little too theatrical a little too often. On the other hand, can you blame her for overcompensating, considering how little actual material she was given to work with? Also, was it just me or did she seem to be coming out solo a lot? There seemed to be a lot more of Hathaway than Franco. He was probably backstage studying for class while creating an avant-garde installation for MoMA at the same time that he was concurrently shooting and editing a film exploring the inequities between male and female performers as exemplified by Hathaway’s many costume changes, all the while writing an episode of General Hospital which he would run off to shoot during a commercial break. When Franco did show up, he looked bemused, uncomfortable, uncertain…if he was deliberately playing aloof, it was the wrong way to go. Or he just wasn’t doing it well.  And it’s not like the guy can’t act. Not really sure what was going on there.

But again, I blame the writers and producers for a lot of this. The producers, Don Mischer and Bruce Cohen, made a mistake hiring Franco and Hathaway in the first place, and then gave them little to work with. Hosts need to do more than just introduce people. There were no bits for them to do, no comedy for them…nothing. It was all very puzzling, to say the least.

THE AWARDS
-The first big prize of the night was Best Supporting Actress, and in the curious absence of last year’s Best Supporting Actor Christoph Waltz, the Academy brought out screen legend Kirk Douglas to present the award. It wasn’t pretty. At 94 years old, Douglas still seems pretty sharp, but he kept making jokes that made no sense (Hugh Jackman is laughing at him? Colin Firth isn’t laughing at him?) There was a total non sequiter that found him pretending to fight over his cane with the random young guy who was standing with him onstage. Then, after opening the envelope, he kept delaying the announcement of the winner. Did he think he was being funny? I mean, it was funny…but in a painful, awkward way that makes you want to cover your eyes. Why even have him there to present this particular award? It’s not like there was a theme of Hollywood icons presenting in other categories. That would somewhat go against the stated desire to draw a younger audience to the show, wouldn’t it? Most of today’s teens probably don’t even know who Michael Douglas is, let alone Kirk. His presence wasn’t a logical fit with the show at all. The Oscars are one of the few awards shows all season long where the presenter actually reads the nominee names themselves, rather than the task being handled by some anonymous voice, yet they didn’t have Douglas read the nominees. Why not? He barely shut up while he was there, so why couldn’t he read the names himself? Were the producers worried that people wouldn’t be able to understand him? Hearing-impaired actress Marlee Matlin did it when she presented Best Actor in 1987 (to Michael Douglas, in fact). It just stood out against the rest of the presentations, and highlighted the oddity of him being there. When he finally did announce the winner, it was Melissa Leo, and thrilled for her though I was, her “is this really happening” schtick was a little overdone, and wasn’t helped by Douglas continuing to insert himself in the moment as she accepted her award. The whole thing was just uncomfortable.

-As expected, Aaron Sorkin took the Best Adapted Screenplay award for The Social Network, and kudos to Sorkin for calmly continuing with his speech and ignoring that the orchestra was obnoxiously trying to play him off. I don’t know what their problem was. He hadn’t even been talking that long before they chimed in, and here they had an eloquent, grateful and humorous guy who has a way with words, so why no let him give his speech? Dicks. (Not really the orchestra’s fault; the show director is to blame, and that job was held by co-producer Mischer. )

-In another win for The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross took Best Original Score. It was the one bold choice the Academy made all night (a deserving win, though I would have preferred Inception). But you gotta love that they gave an Oscar to Reznor, the guy who sang “I want to fuck you like an animal.”

-Don’t worry Randy Newman, you were good television. One of the bright spots of the show, in fact.

-If you’ve read my previous Oscar commentaries this season, you probably know that Tom Hooper’s Best Director win is a disappointment to me. It seems that every year, at least one Oscar needs to be given out that can go into the books as one of the all-time bad choices, and Hooper’s win is the one this year. My annoyance was heightened by the look on his face when Kathryn Bigelow said his name. See for yourself at the 1:30 mark, and tell me you don’t kinda want to punch him. (If you think he actually deserved the award, maybe it doesn’t bother you. But I wanted to punch him.) I will, however, give him kudos for his speech, which was gracious and included a nice story about how he came to direct the movie. Still, I’ll never understand how he won this award.

(By the way Academy, here’s one way you can bring your show into the modern era and maybe even cater to some of those younger viewers: let them embed your clips on their blogs instead of making them leave and view them on YouTube).

-Two years ago, each acting award was presented by five previous winners of that same award, each one saluting a current nominee. Last year, an attempt to do something similar by having a past co-star address each nominee stumbled a bit. This year was better than last, with the presentation of Best Actor and Best Actress being done solely by last year’s winners Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock, respectively, still speaking to each nominee directly. But where was the love for the Supporting nominees? Just like last year, they were treated like second-class citizens while the extra love was given to the leads. Why is the Academy messing with the hierarchy? If you delineate between actors, it just means everyone else gets shoved further down the food chain. Pretty soon the sound and visual effects artists won’t even be allowed in the building.

THE PRODUCTION: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD
The Good:
You know…there was so much bad and weird that we should really start there, and come back around to the good in an effort to end on a positive note.

The Bad and the Weird:
-The first awards of the evening, presented by Tom Hanks, were for Cinematography and Art Direction. With imagery from Gone With the Wind and Titanic employed to striking effect – the projections grandly filling the proscenium arch – Hanks made the connection between Best Picture winners that had also won the two awards he was giving out. It was an odd way to frame the presentation, since there was no guarantee that the winning movies would go on to win the night’s Best Picture award (and in fact, neither did; Cinematography went to Inception, while Art Direction went to Alice in Wonderland). The evoking of Gone With the Wind and Titanic suggested that the show might incorporate Oscar winning classics as a theme, but the idea turned out to be half-baked. The only other films referenced in such a direct way were Shrek and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and while there’s nothing wrong with those, they aren’t exactly reaching back into the Oscar history books. How about incorporating some older spectacles, like Lawrence of Arabia or 2001: A Space Odyssey?  Maybe The Wizard of Oz or Mary Poppins?

There were a few jumps back in time, but not using specific movies. Presenting the two screenwriting awards, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem appeared as white-tuxedoed waiters in a replica of Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel, where the earliest Academy Award ceremonies were held. Later, a special podium was wheeled out and 18-time Oscar host Bob Hope was projected there to give the audience a glimpse of what it might have been like in the room when Hope hosted. Both segments were nice pieces of nostalgia, but the Roosevelt Hotel bit didn’t quite gel with the rest of the show, and the Bob Hope gimmick was kind of unsettling since it alternated between actual jokes as they’d been spoken by Hope and someone impersonating Hope to comment on the ceremony at hand and introduce the next presenters. It was done affectionately, and so wasn’t as offensive as Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner or John Wayne hawking Coors Beer, but it still felt odd.

Bottom line: the theme for the show, such as it was, didn’t really come off.

-The stage was once again used to great effect for the Best Original Score presentation, which found the orchestra projected in silhouette behind the screen and the layers of the proscenium lit up in bright colors while the musicians played a medley of classic movie music from Star Wars, E.T., Lawrence of Arabia and West Side Story (as well as the famous THX sound effect). But while the orchestra proceeded to play selections from the nominated scores, accompanied by a montage of clips from each film, someone in the booth cut away to a crew member leading presenters Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman to a different part of the stage. Why would you do that? It was just one of many terrible cutaways throughout the show. While Oprah Winfrey was on stage making a nice point about the power and importance of documentary films, there was a cut to Joel Coen, scratching his ear and looking around like he dropped something. Who was running the booth?!? It’s like someone let their 12 year-old kid come in and direct the show. Actually, I take that back. I directed some cable access TV when I was 12, and I knew better then to cut away to something like that.

Moreover, did you notice how random the reaction shots of the audience were? Usually there are frequent glimpses of movie stars reacting to the jokes or presentations. Here, it was like director Mischer went out of his way not to show celebrities. I lost count of how many medium shots capturing a sea of unrecognizable faces in the middle of the auditorium we were treated to instead of the movie stars that most people are actually tuned in to see. All respect to recent Academy president Sid Ganis, who I saw at least three times, but I suspect people would prefer a cutaway to Halle Berry or Mark Ruffalo. Did anyone notice there was not a single shot of Natalie Portman all night until the Best Actress presentation came around? Not one shot of the star of the moment – a beautiful, pregnant actress who was the favorite to win one of the night’s top awards. Get your hands on any past Oscarcast and tell me when you’ve seen the likes of that. Forget it, I’ll save you the time: you haven’t seen the likes of that, because it doesn’t happen, because any moron can tell you that the when you have a bunch of movie stars sitting in room full of TV cameras it’s pretty much understood that you actually show some of them.

-Lest we think that Hathaway and Franco had the market on awkwardness cornered, there was plenty to go around. What was going on with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis during their presentation of the Animation awards? I liked Timberlake’s opening joke, hesitantly announcing to the audience that he’s actually the mysterious, never-seen graffiti artist Banksy, one of the evening’s nominees for directing Best Documentary contender Exit Through the Gift Shop. But the joke died when Kunis had no real retort, and throughout the rest of their presentation they seemed to either be sharing a private joke or dealing with an incomplete script. After pretending to use his iPhone to decorate the stage with a backdrop of Shrek‘s The Kingdom of Far Far Away, Kunis told him that he missed a spot. Then he stared at her for too long a beat, then she laughed, then he feigned being flustered and began announcing the nominees while we tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

-In a presentation similar to the one for Cinematography and Art Direction, Best Makeup and Best Costume Design were lumped together for no other reason than that both awards had once gone to Best Picture winner The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. One of that film’s stars, Cate Blanchett, did the honors, though the connection between the awards was even more tenuous this time since none of the Makeup nominees were among the Best Picture contenders.

Also, for what it’s worth, smarter Oscar producers would have had Blanchett present the award for Best Supporting Actor, instead of Reese Witherspoon. For whatever reason, Blanchett was not at the Oscars the year after she won Best Supporting Actress, and so was unable to carry on the tradition of the previous year’s winner presenting the award to the opposite sex the following year. Blanchett has still never presented an acting award, so given that last year’s winner Mo’Nique was unable to attend this year, it would have been the ideal time for Blanchett to get her chance of presenting to a fellow actor.

-The presentation of Best Original Song included a random “man on the street” segment of people on Hollywood Boulevard talking about their favorite songs from movies. Where did that come from? Who cares what some tourist from Nebraska thinks? If you’re going to do a segment like that, find a way to make it funny. Remember Chris Rock’s hosting gig in 2004, which featured a taped segment of Rock interviewing patrons of a Magic Johnson Theatre (all African-American, except for Albert Brooks)? That’s how it’s done. I wish I could find that clip online. So good. Anyway, this segment was yet another WTF moment. That goofball couple singing “Beauty and the Beast” to each other was just horrible. And on top of that, the interviews weren’t even filmed well! The camera was way too close to the subjects, the shots were badly framed…and then after all these average Joe’s off the street, suddenly there’s President Obama in the White House, commenting on his favorite movie song. Seriously, who put this thing together?!? Awful.

-The actual performances of the nominated songs were not without their problems either. Randy Newman was up first, battling poor sound quality (through no fault of his own, I’m sure) and clumsy staging. It was just Newman at the piano, belting out the tune, yet he was set so far back on the stage. There was a circular platform right in the center, nice and close to the audience. Why couldn’t the piano have been placed there, to create a little more intimacy? Later on, Gwyneth Paltrow performed her song from Country Strong, and while she’s proven she can sing, she didn’t look or sound all that great this time around. As for the song from 127 Hours, it’s a pretty but unconventional song that doesn’t really lend itself to a live performance.

-Following the interviews for Best Original Song, another misfire came with a joke introduced by Franco and Hathaway in which auto-tuning was applied to scenes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, Toy Story 3, The Social Network and Twilight: Eclipse. A joke like this might play fittingly at the MTV Movie Awards or Broadcast Film Critics Awards, but this is the big leagues. You can do better.

-As has been the case in recent years, the In Memoriam segment, acknowledging the passing of Academy members during the past year, was accompanied by a live song performance, this time by Celine Dion (I’m surprised the Academy didn’t go for Willow Smith). However, unlike in previous years, the names of behind-the-scenes folks who weren’t necessarily familiar to most viewers flashed by without any examples of their work. Usually, the photo of the person or live footage of them is shown alongside a poster, clip or title font of a famous movie or two that they worked on, to provide some context. Not this time, meaning that most people watching the show – even those in the audience, I’d wager – had no idea who many of the people were. How hard is it to get these little things right? Had Don Mischer or Bruce Cohen ever watched the Oscars before? (I know Bruce Cohen has, because he won an Oscar for producing American Beauty.)

-As of last year, honorary awards are no longer given out on Oscar night, but are instead presented at the Governor’s Ball, a special ceremony held a few months earlier. This year, honorary awards went to actor Eli Wallach, director Jean-Luc Godard and film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow, while Francis Ford Coppola was given the Irving G. Thalberg Award. (Click here for video highlights from the ceremony.) It would be nice if the television audience was at least treated to a few moments from the Governor’s Ball, just as the Sci-Tech Awards are briefly covered each year. Instead, Coppola, Wallach and Brownlow were trotted onto the stage (Godard did not attend either ceremony) to stand awkwardly while the audience gave them a deserved standing ovation. Yet another poorly conceived moment in the show. Next year, show us some clips from the private reception and then have the recipients stand up in the audience or from special balcony seats and give a wave. That’s what happened last year, and that’s how it should go. They’ll still get their standing O, and it will feel much more natural.

-When it came time for Best Picture, clips from the 10 nominees played in a montage which used Colin Firth’s climactic radio address from The King’s Speech as a through-line. Some people felt this showed favoritism toward Speech, but I thought it was just a nice connective tissue. Didn’t bother me. What did bother me was that the montage cycled back through most of the nominees two or three times before a single clip of Toy Story 3 was shown. A big deal? No, of course not. (None of this crap is a big deal. It’s the friggin’ Oscars, not cancer research). But it was further evidence of the sloppiness that ran through the entire show. Who put that reel together? How hard is it to feature all 10 nominees once before going back and showing each one again?

-Speaking of Best Picture, couldn’t they have found someone else besides Steven Spielberg to present it? Don’t get me wrong – I loves me some Steven Spielberg. But he’s presented Best Picture three times in the last decade (and while we’re keeping score, Michael Douglas, Tom Hanks, and Jack Nicholson have each done it twice). How about having Kirk Douglas do that award? Or Francis Ford Coppola, who was there for his Thalberg win anyway? How about trying to get the retired Gene Hackman to come out and present it? There are more than a few people left in the movie business with the stature to make them worthy Best Picture presenters. Can we get a little more creative?

-Whatever the producers intended as the theme of the Oscar show, “Awkward!” proved to be the actual theme of the night, and the final moments of the show didn’t disappoint on that front. I found it a little hokey when cute kids from Staten Island’s PS22 flooded the stage to sing “Over the Rainbow,” but okay, kids are sweet and what a thrill it was for them and fine, I’ll go with it. But then all the evening’s winners walked out on stage behind the students, ambling about in a scattered assembly, some swaying and joining the song, others just standing there, all clutching their Oscars. Why, I ask you? Why?

-The show’s schizophrenia included its slate of presenters not really being ideal choices for that oh-so-desirable youth audience. Hilary Swank, Oprah Winfrey, Nicole Kidman and Tom Hanks (and again, Kirk Douglas) are not who the kids want to see. And that’s fine, because the show shouldn’t be catering to kids. These are the kind of people who should be at the Academy Awards, so the producers and Academy executives need to start acknowledging that and stop trying to turn the Oscars into something it will never be by trying to cater to an audience that will never care.

The Good, Take 2:
-Okay, I promised we’d come back around to some of the show’s good moments, so let’s get to those. Shouldn’t take long. It may have been a bizarre show, but it certainly wasn’t without its pleasures, some of which I’ve already mentioned and one of which – or four of which – were the acting winners. Although Firth, Portman, Bale and Leo were the favorites and had already won many awards throughout the season, I was no less pleased to see them emerge victorious here. For me, there’s still something special about seeing people win the Oscar, no matter how many other trophies they collect in the months and weeks prior. I’m especially thrilled for Bale and Leo, if only because my confidence in their wins was a bit shaken at this late point in the season. It was also pretty cool that Bale and Portman both began their careers as child actors. I think they were both 13 when they starred in their breakout movies, Empire of the Sun and The Professional, respectively. Both exhibited huge talent even in those early roles, and as we watched them grow up on screen we knew it was only a matter of time before they got their Oscars. Nice to see that promise fulfilled.

-The duos of Helen Mirren and Russell Brand and then Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law were among the few presenters who earned a laugh, though each pair was onstage only briefly. Cate Blanchett scored a great moment as well, when she was reading the nominees for Best Makeup and followed the clip of Benicio del Toro’s transformation in The Wolfman with the impromptu, sincere quip, “That’s gross.” The award did go to The Wolfman, and was shared by makeup legend Rick Baker and Dave Elsey. I liked Elsey’s comment, “It was always my ambition to lose an Oscar one day to Rick Baker. This is better.”

-I also appreciated 73 year-old Original Screenplay winner David Seidler’s comment, “My father always said to me I would be a late bloomer.”

-The enthusiastic speech from Best Live Action Short director Luke Matheny demonstrated that sometimes the best or funniest moments come from unlikely sources. The first thing people probably noticed as Matheny made his way down the aisle was his mass of tangled black hair that could easily have been housing a collection of bird eggs, and his first comment upon reaching the microphone was that he should have gotten a haircut. His short speech was a charmer, as he thanked his mother for providing craft services on his film and paid sweet tribute to his girlfriend.

-One of the highlights of the night was the surprise appearance of Billy Crystal, who walked out to an enthusiastic standing ovation. Was that purely out of affection for one of Oscar’s all-time great hosts, or more because the audience was desperate by that point in the evening for someone who knew how to do the job? Hope Franco and Hathaway didn’t take it the wrong way. Billy was there to introduce the aforementioned Bob Hope bit. He did a few jokes and instantly breathed life into a ceremony that was sorely in need of it.

-Although I already questioned Steven Spielberg’s appearance as Best Picture presenter, I did love what he said when he came out. “Well in a moment, one of these ten movies will join a list that includes On The Waterfront, Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather and The Deer Hunter. The other nine will join a list that includes The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, The Graduate and Raging Bull.” There was enthusiastic applause as he continued, “Either way, congratulations, you’re all in very good company.” It was a wonderful way to frame the award, and a nice reminder that it really doesn’t matter what wins the Oscar. Great work stands the test of time, and the ultimate winners are the audiences who get to enjoy them. (Still doesn’t take the sting away when the wrong thing wins, but oh well.)

-Okay, I’m sorry, I know this is supposed to be The Good section, but thinking about Mirren, Brand, Downey Jr., Law and Crystal just makes me wonder, where was the comedy? If ever there was an Oscar show that needed an infusion of Jack Black and Will Ferrell singing a song, or Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson playfully arguing, this was it.

THE DRESSES
Thank god for beautiful women and their frocks, because this Oscarcast needed all the push-ups it could get. I’m no Joan Rivers or Mr. Blackwell, but for me, the winners of the night were Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lawrence, Marisa Tomei, Reese Witherspoon, Amy Adams and Scarlett Johansson. Thank you ladies, for doing your part to help the show.

FINAL THOUGHTS
The takeaway for me from this year’s Oscar show, and it seems like we go through this every year, is that both the Academy and TV critics and viewing audience need to accept that Oscar night should be an evening for celebrating filmmakers first and foremost, and a television show second…while still making it the best television show it can be. That means the Academy needs to stop making decisions based on a desire to get higher ratings, and the at-home audience needs to get over it if they don’t care about any but the top few awards. Everyone, even cinematographers, art directors, visual effects artists and sound designers should be given their moment to speak without being cut off (though yes, they should be encouraged ahead of time to try and avoid reading lists of names, as Randy Newman references in the clip above). The Oscars weren’t created to satisfy the public; they were created to honor achievements in filmmaking. Public interest after the first awards in 1929 led to the ceremony being broadcast on the radio, and eventually television, but us movie fans who want to be included should remember that we are invited guests. Think the show is boring? Don’t care who wins Best Film Editing? Then don’t watch. These days, you can go online the next day and find video of the acceptance speeches by the actors. If that’s all you care about, then don’t subject yourself to the whole three-plus-hour presentation.

On the flip side, the Academy has to accept that the Oscars aren’t the Super Bowl. (They’re my Super Bowl, but I’m abnormal.) They aren’t going to score Super Bowl-level ratings. There may have been a time when they did, but things have changed. The media landscape is overstuffed with information and options. The movie landscape, specifically, is more fragmented as well, with many more movies released each year and the true “event movie” now a rarity. Gone with the wind are the days when the movies the public went to see en masse were the same movies that were of high enough quality artistically to be top Oscar contenders. Now such movies – Titanic, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, Inception – are few and far between, while Oscar is more likely to shine on smaller films, indie films – Secrets & Lies, The Pianist, The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech. The kind of films that studios hesitate to finance, and the kind of films that don’t ring up billions in ticket sales or entice the large viewership to the Oscarcast that the Academy would like to see.

But there are still millions of viewers who tune into the Oscars, so as I said earlier, stop cheapening the show by trying to attract a demographic that, by and large, isn’t interested. The Oscars celebrate a certain kind and caliber of movie, and most younger people aren’t interested in those movies. The Oscars may be a bit stodgy, a bit old fashioned, but that’s part of their appeal. So focus on creating a show that truly celebrates the nominees and winners, and be comfortable enough to recognize what the Oscars have always been and should continue to be. Then, once you’ve done that, do all that you can to make the show entertaining to the audience – in the room and at home. Hire comedians or skilled comic actors to host it. Write good material and get charismatic presenters (not every movie star is as captivating in reality as they are when playing a character). Hire a competent director to run the booth. Continue making attempts to shake it up, but don’t lose sight of tradition. The acting presentations from the 2008 ceremony – which I mentioned earlier –  is the perfect example. Some liked it, some didn’t, but it was a new idea that still colored inside the lines.

My final note to the Academy: I am available to consult, produce, write or direct. Call me.

March 1, 2011

Twenty Films I’m Looking Forward to in 2011

Filed under: Movies — DB @ 9:54 pm
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Well now that the Oscars are done (my commentary is forthcoming) and we can finally put 2010’s movies to bed, it’s time to look ahead to what 2011 has to offer…and with the release of one of these films now less than a week away, it’s not a moment too soon. As always, this list is based on the films I know about at this point, and there are even more that I’m looking forward to than I had room to include here. I’m sorry, for instance, that I didn’t list either of the two movies Steven Spielberg is directing this year, but what can I say?  Neither War Horse nor The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (both due for release days apart in December) are all that compelling to me at this stage. But I shouldn’t feel like too undevoted a Spielberg fan, as he is definitely connected to one of my top choices. Anyway, here goes…

20. MARGARET – Kenneth Lonergan’s debut film as a writer/director was 2000’s You Can Count On Me, a very good movie that earned a Best Actress nomination for Laura Linney, a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Lonergan and introduced moviegoers to Mark Ruffalo (in a role that should have been Oscar nominated as well). Lonergan was nominated again as a co-writer on 2002’s Gangs of New York. So expectations were high when he began production in 2005 on his second effort as a writer/director, Margaret, starring Ruffalo, Anna Paquin and Matt Damon. That’s right…2005. Turns out the film became bogged down in creative and legal quagmires, as detailed by the Los Angeles Times two years ago. Last summer it was reported that Margaret would finally be released this year. That’s the last I heard, so I don’t know if it’s still on track or not. Curiosity factor lands it on my list. After all that time and all the entanglements, can a good movie emerge? I hope we’ll get to find out. (Fall…maybe)

19. TAKE THIS WALTZ – There may be no more intriguing a match of director and actor this year than Sarah Polley and Seth Rogen. Polley is the young actress, writer and director behind the quiet, mature 2007 film Away From Her, about a couple dealing with the wife’s slide into Alzheimer’s. It earned Oscar nominations for Julie Christie and for Polley’s adapted screenplay. And Rogen, well, we more readily associate him with the hilariously crude tomfoolery of Judd Apatow films than the more indie, dramatic leanings of Polley (although she did go commercial as star of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake). Not knowing the tone of the film, said to be a love triangle involving two guys and girl, it’s hard to say whether Polley or Rogen is the one stepping farther into unfamiliar territory. The fact that Sarah Silverman co-stars might suggest more of a comedy, but the main female role actually belongs to Michelle Williams, so…wow…this is quite the fascinating line-up of talent.  (Fall)

18. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO – I have yet to get swept up in the literary phenomenon of Stieg Larsson’s Milennium Trilogy. I haven’t read the books, nor seen the Swedish films that launched actress Noomi Rapace to international stardom. But the American version is directed by David Fincher, so…’nuff said. Rooney Mara, who made a strong impression on Fincher as Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend in the opening scene of The Social Network, takes on the role of hacker Lisbeth Salander, with other key parts filled by Daniel Craig, Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgaard and Christopher Plummer. (December)

17. J. EDGAR – Leonardo DiCaprio teams up with director Clint Eastwood to play the famed FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in this biopic written by Milk Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black. I don’t actually know if the movie is scheduled for release this year; it just began production in early February. But given the efficiency with which Eastwood shoots and edits, he’s probably handing his final cut into he studio right around now. Alright, maybe not that fast, but a 2011 release seems likely. Eastwood’s last two outings – Invictus and Gran Torino – left me underwhelmed. But with DiCaprio in another strong central role, heading an ensemble that includes Judi Dench, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas and The Social Network‘s breakout star Armie Hammer, this could be Eastwood’s return to form. (Fall/Winter)

16. RANGO – We’ve entered an era where the lines between live-action and animated films have become increasingly blurred. The Star Wars prequels found actors performing on stages against greenscreens, their environments digitally constructed around them, while Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron and Peter Jackson have led pioneering work in motion capture technology (with some results more successful than others). Now we’re seeing directors who’ve traditionally worked in one medium cross over to the other. Pixar’s Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird are working on their live-action feature debuts, and now Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski follows Wes Anderson into the world of animation. Rango tells of a lizard (voiced by Johnny Depp) who finds himself in an Old West town. How or why that happens I don’t know, but the animation looks great and early glimpses suggest a quirky, unique animated adventure. As you can see from the video below, the buzz has been building. (March)

15. HANNA – Popular film has gifted us many trends over the years: body-switching movies, erupting volcano movies, asteroid movies…and now we seem to be in the midst of a new trend: young girls killing the shit out of everyone in sight. Last year gave us the hilarious, hyperviolent Kick-Ass, a movie which was nearly stolen by pint-sized Chloe Grace Moretz as the blissfully homicidal Hit Girl. This year brings Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, but far more intriguing to me is Hanna, re-teaming director Joe Wright with his Oscar nominated Atonement star Saorise Ronan as a deadly tween on a mission…or something. I don’t know exactly, but it looks pretty damn cool based on the trailer. Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana also star. As it happens, Ronan will stick with this trend in the upcoming Violet & Daisy, playing another teenage assassin alongside Alexis Bledel and Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini. Girls just wanna have fun…by tearing your fucking head off. (April)

14. THE BEAVER – I know that I’m supposed to be completely disgusted by Mel Gibson these days, but I’m not. His personal demons are his personal demons, and I hope he works through them. As long as he doesn’t beat, maim, rape or kill, then it’s all just sticks and stones. Or not. I don’t know. The guy is a good actor, a good filmmaker and I still look forward to his work. The Beaver, directed by Gibson’s close friend and Maverick co-star Jodie Foster, centers on a man whose life is falling apart and who is so depressed that he can only communicate by using a beaver hand puppet. Sounds wonderfully weird. Early buzz on the film (which was filmed before The Great Meltdown of 2010), and Gibson’s performance in particular, is strong. And it certainly sounds like an original. Before Foster came along, the script was featured on the 2008 Black List, a Hollywood executive’s annual scroll of the best unproduced screenplays kicking around the industry. (Incidentally, Take This Waltz appeared on 2009’s list). Frankly, I can’t wait to see what Gibson does with this role. (May)

13. THE TREE OF LIFE – I know…we’ve been here before. This is the third year that Terrence Malick’s “new” film, featuring Sean Penn and Brad Pitt, has appeared on my list, but this time it’s really, really coming out. I swear. It has a poster, a trailer, a release date…everything an actual movie coming to a theater near you is expected to have. I don’t know too much more about it than I did the past two years; the trailer is somewhat cryptic, teasing a story as epic as the cosmos and as intimate as the relationships between fathers and sons. So what took so long? Apparently it got caught in limbo when there was a shake-up at the studio originally set to distribute it. Fox Searchlight picked it up last September, but decided to hold off on releasing it until they could market it properly, with the care warranted by a Malick movie. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the director was still tinkering away on it all that time. But believe it or not, he’s already shooting his next film – his fastest turnaround ever. So look for that one to show up on this list next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. (May)

12. WIN WIN – I don’t know much about the premise of Thomas McCarthy’s third film as writer/director, but the fact that it’s written and directed by Thomas McCarthy is good enough to place it on my list. He’s given us The Station Agent and The Visitor, both of which are simple, unique and wonderfully acted. His newest stars Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan and Bobby Canavale. How can you lose? (April)

11. SOURCE CODE – One of 2009’s best cinematic surprises was Moon, the feature directing debut of David Bowie scion Duncan Jones. His follow-up finds him sticking with a sci-fi premise but significantly ramping up the action. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier tasked with reliving an 8-minute period prior to a train crash over and over again until he can determine who is responsible for setting the bomb that caused the derailment. Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan and Jeffrey Wright co-star…but for me, Jones is the one to watch. (April)

10. THE DESCENDANTS – Hard to believe, but Alexander Payne hasn’t directed a feature film since 2004’s Sideways (he did contribute one of the best segments to the anthology film Paris J’Taime, and has kept busy with other projects). How nice it will be to have him back. His leading man this time around is George Clooney, and the actor’s impeccable eye for material makes his team-up with Payne all the more tantalizing. I don’t know much about the story (that’s quite a pattern, isn’t it?), but I’m further excited by the casting of Judy Greer and Matthew Lillard. Payne has shown a gift for matching actors to material, and has done so with people both on and off the A-list. He gave Virginia Madsen and Thomas Haden Church career-resurrecting roles in Sideways, so I’m crossing my fingers that Greer, a great actress whose long resume includes Adaptation, Arrested Development and many films and TV shows that aren’t as good as she is in them, will finally have a role rich enough to bring her the level of attention she deserves. And Lillard is usually seen as an over-the-top goofball in not-so-great movies, so I can’t wait to see if Payne can reign him in and show us another side of him. (Fall/Winter)

9. CARNAGE – Roman Polanski’s follow-up to last year’s gem The Ghost Writer is this adaptation of 2009’s Tony-winning Best Play, God of Carnage. The dark comedy is about two couples who meet to discuss a fight between their school-aged children, but prove as the night goes on to be not much more than children themselves. Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly will play one couple, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz the other. That’s one damn awesome cast, though I can’t help feel a bit of disappointment that the original Broadway quartet wasn’t tapped for the film. After all, we’re talking Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden (who won a Tony for her role; all four were nominated). That’s not exactly a slate of no-names. But then, the Broadway cast weren’t the originals either. The play ran in London prior to arriving in New York, and featured Ralph Fiennes and Janet McTeer. Despite the revolving door of performers, we’re surely in for a treat with Foster, Winslet, Waltz and Reilly tearing up the meaty script, adapted by Polanksi and the play’s author Yasmina Reza. (Fall/Winter)

8. THE IDES OF MARCH – In addition to his starring role in The Descendants, George Clooney steps back behind the camera this year as well, and may just have another Good Night and Good Luck on his hands with this story, based on the play Farragut North, about a dirty political campaign. (Is there any other kind?) I’m not sure if the film is a satire or straight-up drama, but whatever it is, this cast has me sold: Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Marisa Tomei, Paul Giamatti and Evan Rachel Wood. (October)

7. MONEYBALL – Here we have an adaptation of a book by The Blind Side author Michael Lewis, recounting how the Oakland A’s used unconventional statistics to put together a competitive team despite a significantly smaller budget than big spenders like the Yankees. That may not sound like gripping cinema, but neither did The Social Network…and like that film, this one boasts a script by Aaron Sorkin (re-writing a draft by Steven Zaillian). Ready for another killer cast? How about Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman (again), Robin Wright, and going against-the-grain, Jonah Hill and Parks and Recreation‘s Chris Pratt? Capping off the roster is director Bennett Miller, who made 2005’s stunning Capote but has been MIA ever since. With a talent line-up like that, the bases are clearly loaded. (September)

6. CONTAGION – No one enjoys catching a virus, but catching a good virus movie can be an entirely different proposition. There’s the slightly cheesy but highly enjoyable Dustin Hoffman flick Outbreak; HBO’s And the Band Played On is a great detective story about the early days of the AIDS epidemic; and post-apocalyptic tales like 28 Days Later, I Am Legend and 12 Monkeys all have a virus to thank for nearly wiping out mankind. So okay, Contagion doesn’t exactly cover new ground. But with Steven Soderbergh in the director’s chair and Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne all on the hunt, it’s ground I’ll be happy to tread. Soderbergh is shooting the film in 3D…which makes it the first movie since Avatar that I actually want to see in 3D. (October)

5. YOUNG ADULT – Four years after collaborating on Juno, director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody reteam with the story of an author who returns to her hometown and pursues an ex-boyfriend, now married with children. Charlize Theron stars, along with Patton Oswalt and go-to handsome guy Patrick Wilson. Reitman has emerged as one of the brightest storytellers in Hollywood, which makes anything he’s doing worth getting excited about. (Fall/Winter)

4. SUPER 8 – As someone who came of age in the Age of Spielberg – the suburban adventures of Close Encounters, E.T., Poltergeist, The Goonies and Gremlins fueling my imagination – the notion of J.J. Abrams writing and directing a film that pays homage to Spielberg’s 70’s and 80’s classics kinda makes me giddy. In many ways, Abrams is the second coming of Spielberg. He shares the youthful and infectious enthusiasm for movie magic, his work balances sentimental with scary (without going too far in either direction), he’s great at staging action, he draws good work from child actors…and he just pretty much rules. With Spielberg onboard as executive producer, and a trailer indicating that Abrams is clearly on the right track (which is more than can be said for the clip’s freighter train), I’m pumped for a smart summer movie that promises both a sense of discovery and taste of the wonderfully familiar. (June)

3. THE MUPPETS – Like the movies of Steven Spielberg, The Muppets were a major part of my childhood. And as I’ve never really grown up, they remain a source of serious joy. So when I heard a few years ago that Jason Segel was plotting to bring them back to the big screen, it was like music to my ears…if the music in question was a psychadelic, hard rockin’ jam by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Segel stars in the film, which he co-wrote with his Forgetting Sarah Marshall collaborator Nicholas Stoller. Flight of the Conchords director James Bobin is at the helm, and Segel is joined by Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and in keeping with Muppet tradition, a slew of big name guest stars. (November)

2. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART II – I had my usual issues with Part I of the final installment of Harry’s journey, but all in all I thought it was one of the best entries in the series. I’m sure I’ll have my issues with this grand finale as well (I’m already concerned by shots in the trailer that suggest Harry and Voldemort’s showdown takes place in isolation, rather than surrounded by their respective followers as it does in the book). But the final film has arguably the best cinematic potential of all the books, because its centerpiece will be the epic Battle of Hogwarts. An opportunity like this is one where, for as much as J.K. Rowling was able to accomplish on the page, the screen can just do so much more. I expect the filmmakers will draw out the battle, add details and generally go for broke. But I think more than anything, I’m looking to see how the filmmakers handle a chapter from the book called “The Prince’s Tale,” in which we finally learn the many hidden truths about Severus Snape. Alan Rickman, this is your moment. I know you won’t let me down. (July)

1. HUGO CABRET – Martin Scorsese’s career has covered a wide variety of ground, and after all this time the director is still exploring new territory…in this case, a children’s book. The Invention of Hugo Cabret is described by its author Brian Selznick, in a letter on the book’s Amazon.com page, as a story of “Paris in the 1930’s, a thief, a broken machine, a strange girl, a mean old man, and the secrets that tie them all together.” As usual, Scorsese has assembled a terrific cast, featuring Ben Kingsley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ray Winstone. Most intriguingly, the director makes his first foray into 3D filmmaking to bring the book’s acclaimed pictures to life. I haven’t bought into the recent 3D explosion, but when filmmakers like Scorsese (and Steven Soderbergh, as mentioned above) embrace the technology, I’m eager to witness the results. (November)

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