Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project (2007)

John Landis (Animal House, Blues Brothers, etc.) produced, directed, and introduced this tribute. It must have been nice to document a career that had so much existing film and video. Landis then shot a fairly recent Vegas appearance. Many actors and comedians commented on Rickles' long and hilarious career, interspersed with clips and interviews with the man himself. Note to certain of my readers: Harry Goins was remembered lovingly for a few minutes in the middle. No mention of Harry's mother, Dorothy (nor his aunt, Audrey). Rickles' patient wife, proud mother, manager, musical director, and band were in it, and the elite of Hollywood and Vegas blew cigarette smoke, told gags, and reminisced about mean old Don.

2008 British Independent Film Award nominees

To be awarded Sunday November 30 in London.

Best British Independent Film:
• "Hunger"
• "In Bruges"
• "Man on Wire"
• "Slumdog Millionaire"
• "Somers Town"
Best Director:
• Mark Herman, "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"
• Steve McQueen, "Hunger"
• Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
• Shane Meadows, "Somers Town"
• Garth Jennings, "Son of Rambow"
The Douglas Hickox Award/Best Debut Director:
• James Watkins, "Eden Lake"
• Rupert Wyatt, "The Escapist"
• Steve McQueen, "Hunger"
• Martin McDonagh, "In Bruges"
• Eran Creevy, "Shifty"
Best Screenplay:
• Enda Walsh and Steve McQueen, "Hunger"
• Martin McDonagh, "In Bruges"
• Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
• Paul Fraser, "Somers Town"
• Garth Jennings, "Son of Rambow"
Best Actress
• Vera Farmiga, "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"
• Samantha Morton, "The Daisy Chain"
• Keira Knightley, "The Duchess"
• Kelly Reilly, "Eden Lake"
• Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Best Actor:
• Michael Fassbender, "Hunger"
• Colin Farrell, "In Bruges"
• Brendan Gleeson, "In Bruges"
• Riz Ahmed, "Shifty"
• Thomas Turgoose, "Somers Town"
Best Supporting Actress:
• Emma Thompson, "Brideshead Revisited"
• Hayley Atwell, "The Duchess"
• Kristin Scott Thomas, "Easy Virtue"
• Sienna Miller, "The Edge of Love"
• Alexis Zegerman, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Best Supporting Actor:
• Ralph Fiennes, "The Duchess"
• Eddie Marsan, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
• Liam Cunningham, "Hunger"
• Ralph Fiennes, " In Bruges"
• Daniel Mays, "Shifty"
Most Promising Newcomer:
• Asa Butterfield, "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas"
• Dev Patel, "Slumdog Millionaire"
• Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, "Slumdog Millionaire"
• Bill Milner, "Son of Rambow"
• Will Poulter, "Son of Rambow"
Best Achievement in Production:
• "The Daisy Chain"
• "The Escapist"
• "Hush"
• "Shifty"
• "Telstar"
Raindance Award:
• "Clubbed"
• "Flick"
• "One Day Removals"
• "Zebra Crossings"
Best Technical Achievement:
• Wardrobe: Michael O'Connor, "The Duchess"
• Cinematography: Sean Bobbitt, "Hunger"
• Editing: Jon Gregory, "In Bruges"
• Music: Harry Escott and Molly Nyman, "Shifty"
• Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Best Documentary:
• "A Complete History of My Sexual Failures"
• "Derek"
• "Man on Wire"
• "Of Time and The City"
• "Three Miles North of Molkom"
Best British Short:
• "Alex And Her Arse Truck"
• "Gone Fishing"
• "Love Does Grow On Trees"
• "Red Sands"
• "Soft"
Best Foreign Film:
• "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
• "Gomorrah"
• "I've Loved You So Long"
• "Persepolis"
• "Waltz With Bashir"
The Richard Harris Award (for outstanding contribution to British Film): David Thewlis

The Variety Award: Michael Sheen

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006)

My iTunes library and my iPod are loaded with NPR podcasts that are beginning to pile up. Over the summer I listened to a 2007 episode of film critic Elvis Mitchell's The Treatment (KCRW in Santa Monica) in which he interviewed actor Jeff Garlin (best known as Larry David's pal on Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO). This movie is Garlin's feature film directorial debut (he directed one episode of Curb), and he also wrote and starred. He said Larry David was appalled that the title ended with a preposition, but everyone who heard the title laughed, so Garlin stuck with it. I watched the DVD yesterday with a Chicago native, who was tickled by all the Chicago location shots. Garlin's character, James Aaron, a member of the Chicago improv troupe Second City, is looking for love. It's absolutely delightful. Sarah Silverman tones down her usual vulgarity (a bit), Bonnie Hunt is good, and Mina Kolb is endearing as James' mother. That's Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson's voice) as the convenience store clerk, director Paul Mazursky as the sleazy producer, Dakota's little sister Elle Fanning as the "niece," and SNL alum Tim Kazurinsky as Bill Bjango. Check it out.

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

This made me think of a New Yorker short story, plunking the reader, er, viewer down into the middle of some action and leaving off at an equally arbitrary point. There wasn't a clear cut story line like most movies, but then, Mike Leigh wrote and directed this (and many others, including the brilliant Vera Drake, Topsy Turvy, and Secrets & Lies). He likes to let his actors improvise in order to help him finish the script; this was evident, especially in an early sequence when our heroine Poppy (Sally Hawkins) returned home from a night of pub-hopping with her roommate, one of her sisters, and another friend. The scene helped to establish her cheerful, childlike character (so different from Hawkins' somber Anne Elliott in the Masterpiece Theatre production of Persuasion in 2007).

One could say the movie was about Poppy taking driving lessons, but there were other sub-plots (I particularly liked the dancing one but wanted to know who was the chanting guy in a later scene and why was she there with him?). Towards the end of the movie Poppy's relentless jokiness started to wear on me, but many were captivated by her optimism the entire time. Eddie Marsan, as the tightly wound driving instructor, was very good and has been nominated for a British Independent Film Award as well as Hawkins (see my next post for the complete list). Special mention must be made of her neon wardrobe, described in the New Yorker as "carnival clothes."

Evan Almighty (2007)

While riding the stationary bike yesterday I saw the last 20 minutes of this movie about a modern-day Noah. It contained my favorite part: the flood. My second favorite part was the cast and crew dancing during the closing credits (including in front of the blue screens used for special effects). My third favorite part was when God (Morgan Freeman) shows Evan (Steve Carell) how the valley used to look before it was populated. But I remember enjoying all of this movie as well as its prequel, People's Choice Award winner, Bruce Almighty (2003) with Jim Carrey. Sometime last year I saw a documentary on TV about how the makers of Evan Almighty (at $175 million the most expensive comedy ever at that time--I don't know if there is a new winner now) strove to reduce its carbon footprint by planting trees, recycling wood from sets, and more. So now I like it even better!

Body of Lies (2008)

Some of my favorite Ridley Scott-directed movies were Blade Runner (1982), Thelma & Louise (1991), Matchstick Men (2003), and American Gangster (2007). In 1982 I moved from the east coast to the west to attend film school, and watched 1-2 movies every day, or so it seemed, when not working on my own projects. Blade Runner's bleak and foggy vision of a future LA hit close to (my new) home and made a deep impression. One of these days I will rent the Director's Cut and see if I still find it brilliant. Everybody knows Thelma & Louise and American Gangster, I would suppose, but Nicholas Cage's twitchy con man in Matchstick Men makes me smile just remembering him and I am a big Sam Rockwell fan (see my post on Choke) (Alison Lohman was great, too).

Anyway, Body of Lies opens with satellite images of the earth, zooming in on our story, making me wish I had that camera attached to my computer. The cinematography and use of computer technology were fabulous, maybe worth the price of admission, but... Early fight scenes had cartoonish blood spatter, fooling me into thinking I wouldn't need to block the center of the screen with my hand to protect my delicate sensibilities from the gore. Nope. As Leonardo Di Caprio's character endured trial after tribulation, Scott threw in a few really ugly details I did not want to see. Leo and Russell Crowe both did good jobs as the lean, mean, undercover machine and the fat (!) bureaucrat, respectively (Crowe was eating in many scenes). Gladiator (2001), also a (Ridley) Scott Free Production starring Oscar winner Crowe, kept all the violence cartoonish, like a graphic novel, and I could keep my hands in my lap. No such luck here. The handsome Jordanian official, Hani, was played by Mark Strong, who played a different sort of cad in the previously-blogged Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (I would not have recognized him without looking him up. What a difference a David Niven mustache makes). Marc Streitenfeld's middle-Eastern-inspired score was divine (I am downloading the soundtrack from iTunes as I type), and I know I saw the names of orchestrators Bruce Fowler, his wife Yvette Moriarty, and his brother Walt Fowler in the music credits, but this movie isn't listed on Bruce's long imdb resume. Music, Locations, and Cinematography 5 stars, Special effects 4 stars, Acting 3-1/2 stars. But I checked my watch with increasing frequency during the second half.

Religulous (2008)

If you think you're going to like a movie whose title combines the words RELIGION and RIDICULOUS, you will love this. If you already like Bill Maher (star, writer and producer of Religulous), you will love this. If you laughed hysterically at Borat (2006) (also directed by Larry Charles), you will love this. If you're a Michael Moore fan, you will love this. Jack and I fall into all those categories, and we loved it. If you fall into none of them, don't say I didn't warn you. Bill Maher travels the world and interviews and annoys people of all faiths. He throws in asides and jokes to the camera while keeping his manners. There are additional gags in the form of subtitles decrying what the interviewers are saying, great clips, even a soundtrack joke (I heard the classical guitar notes and pondered for several minutes before realizing it was the Oscar winning theme from Brokeback Mountain (2005)). Maher gets refreshingly personal and includes footage of his sister and octogenarian mother. Stay until the end of the credits--there is a bonus.

Atonement (2007), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)

Nicole Hollander, the author of Sylvia (my favorite cartoon since the 1980s) will be in town tomorrow. Before hearing her speak, I looked up her website and she has a blog with only a few posts. On Sunday April 13, 2008, she wrote about these 3 movies on her blog (links below). Warning: she is a spoiler, giving away most of the plot points in her hilarious descriptions. Check out her website as well at nicolehollander.com.

Atonement was popular, and was nominated for 4 Oscars. It won only for Original Score. I agree with Hollander that James McAvoy is sexy and that Keira Knightley's boniness is unattractive and distracting in that green silk backless number, in her wet dress with many undergarments, and in her 1930s bathing costume. This week Keira is on the cover of some magazine proclaiming, "I am not anorexic!" Uh huh. The sets, locations, and wardrobe were worth the price of admission, as was that score, but it did drag. Nominee Saoirse Ronan was wonderful as anxious Briony (and her theme music perfect!). She will be starring in the adaptation of the even-more depressing book, The Lovely Bones, next year. Speaking of book adaptations, Ian McEwan's original novel of Atonement was better, but I do like Hollander's suggestion of how to change it. If you have already read the book or seen the movie (or don't mind finding out everything before you do), read Hollander's take at "Atonement, a Really Long Movie."

I felt better about Mrs. Palfrey than Hollander did. Of course it was a fantasy. Joan Plowright does the dowager (after Debbie Does Dallas) like no other, and I thought the story about the lonely old woman's friendship with the kind young man was sweet. She's entitled to her vote, and I to mine. Here's Hollander's savage review: "Miss Palfrey Falls Hard."

Miss Pettigrew--loved it. Recommended it to many at the time. Luscious sets and costumes, and Lee Pace (the Piemaker in Pushing Daisies) was yummy as usual. Some, like Hollander's companion, might find it a bit syrupy. Hollander gives away the ending but praises it in "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day."

Good Dick (2008)

One of the things that's fun about writing this blog is that it reminds me of other movies I have seen and liked. Imbd says that John Ritter played a straight man pretending to be gay in the TV show Three's Company in the 70s, and his son Jason Ritter played a gay man pretending to be straight in Happy Endings (2005). That one was great, written and directed by Don Roos, who had the same duties on the even better The Opposite of Sex (1998). Jason Ritter was quite good in this weird movie, written/directed by and co-starring his girlfriend Marianna Palka. The characters were strange and dysfunctional, and viewers were left guessing about a number of things at the end. One of the video store clerks, Martin Starr, looked familiar to me: he was in Superbad and Knocked Up. He didn't have a lot to do in any of the three. Good Dick won the New Director award in Palka's native Scotland at the Edinburgh Film Festival (she moved to New York at age 16, so apparently she had a good dialect coach). I can't really make a blanket recommendation on this one because it was so quirky. We liked it, though (I also liked the LA locations, including the video store next to the Nuart), and Jack loved the opening song, Big Boots, by Hello Stranger. There was no one else in the theatre with us on a sunny fall afternoon.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008)

The trailer enticed us, and, unlike many who posted on on imdb, Jack & I liked this farce. Englishman Simon Pegg, who wrote and starred in both Shaun of the Dead (2004), which I didn't see, and Run Fat Boy Run (2007), which we both liked very much, plays a Fat Boy-type character again: Sidney Young, an awkward loser trying to make it in a glossy city. Pegg did not write this one: How to Lose Friends is based on a memoir by Toby Young, a Brit who worked at Vanity Fair in New York for editor Graydon Carter. Here, Jeff Bridges plays Clayton Harding, editor of Sharps magazine, Kirsten Dunst the normal co-worker, Danny Huston the sleazy department chief, Gillian Anderson the conniving publicist, and Thandie Newton, who co-starred in Fat Boy, has a cameo as herself at a Hollywood party that goes terribly wrong. Too bad they couldn't also get Hank Azaria for this one, as he was seriously funny in Fat Boy. I'll admit How to Lose Friends was a little uneven, but definitely worth seeing. Apparently the strippergram scene really happened in Toby Young's life. As the credits rolled and the other 12 people in the theatre got up to leave, as they (not we) do here in the hinterlands, a faux-trailer appeared on the left side of the screen, and stopped the exodus. Very funny stuff. If you rent this, don't turn it off before you see that part.

W. (2008)

Jack & I wanted this to be meaner. Unfortunately for us, most of the best gaffes were in the trailer. Josh Brolin did really sink his teeth into the role and the rest of the first-rate cast did very well, except Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice with a sneer, a strange tooth prosthesis, and very few lines. James Cromwell, who looked the least like his character (Bush Sr.) of any of them, gave a powerful performance and the too-short scenes with Ellen Burstyn as Barbara were great. We were so eager to see this that we went opening day, and it's worth your time, but maybe not worth changing your plans for it. The advantage of changing our plans was that we went to a theatre outside of our usual rotation, and enjoyed comfortable seats and a near-perfect screen. Oliver Stone gave us his dependable high production quality which was shown to good advantage at this place, only a few years old. At 2 hours 9 minutes, it wasn't short, but W. left out so much we felt a little cheated. There was a slight bonus at the very end, after the credits. It's just a graphic, but we appreciated it.

Blindness (2008)

Now, THIS is a movie! Bleak and scary, with little respite from hopelessness, this fable drags you into its world. (Don't bring the kids nor your troubles from home.) The cinematography, by César Charlone (who also collaborated with director Fernando Meirelles on City of God and The Constant Gardener), the editing, and, one would presume, the director's vision, combine to give a surrealistic look that I recommend you see on the biggest screen you can. It features an international ensemble cast in an unnamed city which I think is mostly São Paolo, Brazil (the director's home) though locations are also listed as Montevideo, Uruguay (the cinematographer's home), Toronto, and Guelph, Canada. Screenplay writer Don McKellar shows up in the first sequence and makes a difference throughout. So many production companies (13) were listed in the opening I was sure we'd have a new Producers Plethora Prize, but 15 is no longer a winner. I mentioned Diva (1981) in my earlier review of Roman de Gare. I loved Diva for many reasons, including imaginative cinematography comparable to Blindness, but one more reason was its use of source music. In Diva, the stolen recording of the opera singer would fill the theatre before being scaled back to reveal that a character was playing a tape in his car. In Blindness, Danny Glover's character played a song on his radio, and it was uplifting for me as well as the characters on the screen. Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Gael Garcìa Bernal, and Maury Chaykin head the cast of this top-notch, difficult movie.

Miracle at St. Anna (2008)

In my Vicky Cristina Barcelona post I called it a "Woody Allen joint," and Stephany asked me what that meant. It's not part of the body nor something wrapped in thin paper. It's a reference to Spike Lee, who calls his movies "Spike Lee joints." This St. Anna joint is LONG, 2 hours and 40 minutes. Jack and I had to plan way ahead to see a weekend matinee with our busy schedules. We both found plenty of scenes that could have been trimmed, especially the battles, and the trudge on the beach at the very end. The movie has "bookends," starting and ending with scenes set in 1983, with all the rest in 1944. The cinematography and locations were gorgeous, and the acting good, but oh, I hate those bloody battle scenes (yes, I avoided Saving Private Ryan (1998), which was even longer, clocking in at 2:50). I have not seen every Spike Lee joint, but here are some of my favorites: Bamboozled (2000) was racist, offensive, and side-splitting; Inside Man (2006), the bank caper, was brilliant (apparently there is a sequel in the works); She Hate Me (2004) is about a straight guy selling his sperm to rich lesbians; 25th Hour (2002), with Ed Norton on the brink right after 9/11, was very good; and, of course, Do the Right Thing (1989) and Malcolm X (1992) are not just for fans.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)

Amy is home for a few days and this movie was a planned activity for us. She thought she would like it better but I thought it was very cute. Jodi had wondered if it was a "teeny-bopper" movie. In my family, the mom liked it and the teen thought it was just OK (maybe repeated viewings will change her opinion). Lots of fun music, Juno-style opening credits, some potty humor, nice kids vs. mean kids, and a coming-of-age-in-New-York-story all wrapped up in one night. Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad, etc) is still playing the same character. Aaron Yoo, supporting character from Rocket Science (2007, about the stuttering debater), 21, and The Wackness (both 2008), has shown more range, playing mean, nice, straight, and gay. He has 4 movies in post-production and 1 in pre-.

Flash of Genius (2008)

Greg Kinnear does tortured so well. His character in As Good as it Gets (1997) was more tortured than the one in Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and this one, Bob Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wipers, is more like the latter. A professor who tinkered in the basement of his Detroit home, Kearns brought all of his 6 children in on the project. I agree with the movietickets.com critics who called it "slow," but I enjoyed it. This is short because I have three posts to publish today before I forget everything. Now I see why people stop blogging. We get behind!

Battle in Seattle (2007)

Playing now, despite its 2007 release date, this work of fiction combines documentary footage from the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle with staged scenes, some shot on location. Don't sit too close--the old stuff is cropped for TV. Nice ensemble work. Woody Harrelson, particularly, shows some character development, and Martin Henderson is moving as Jay, arguably the leading man. André Benjamin (better known as a musician), Connie Nielsen, Michelle Rodriguez (Lost-first season), Jennifer Carpenter (Dexter's little sister on Showtime's Dexter), and Charlize Theron (director Stuart Townsend's girlfriend) all turn in good performances. Full of violence and loss, so don't go if you need to escape your troubles, though some of the characters were happy when it was over. The last shot of the movie is the exterior of the Cinerama theatre in Seattle, where we saw The Dark Knight.

And, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new winner of the Producers Plethora Prize with 19 producers (previous winner: Grace is Gone (2007) with 17), including co-'s and associates.