Critics' Choice Awards nominees

Award show Thursday January 8 on VH-1.

BEST PICTURE
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
The Wrestler

BEST ACTOR
Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

BEST ACTRESS
Kate Beckinsale - Nothing But the Truth
Cate Blanchett - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey, Jr. - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
James Franco - Milk

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Vera Farmiga - Nothing But the Truth
Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler
Kate Winslet - The Reader

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Milk
Rachel Getting Married

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant - Milk

BEST WRITER (Original or Adapted Screenplay)
Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
Dustin Lance Black - Milk
Peter Morgan - Frost/Nixon
Eric Roth - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley - Doubt

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Wall-E
Waltz With Bashir

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS (Under 21)
Dakota Fanning - The Secret Life of Bees
David Kross - The Reader
Dev Petal - Slumdog Millionaire
Brandon Walters - Australia

BEST ACTION MOVIE
The Dark Knight
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
Quantum of Solace
Wanted

BEST COMEDY
Burn After Reading
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Role Models
Tropic Thunder
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

BEST PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION
John Adams
Recount
Coco Chanel

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
A Christmas Tale
Gomorrah
I've Loved You So Long
Let the Right One In
Mongol
Waltz With Bashir

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
I.O.U.S.A.
Man On Wire
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Standard Operating Procedure
Young At Heart

BEST SONG
"Another Way to Die" - Jack White and Alicia Keys/Jack White - Quantum of
Solace
"Down to Earth" - Peter Gabriel/Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman - Wall-E
"I Thought I Lost You" - Miley Cyrus and John Travolta/Miley Cyrus and
Jeffrey Steele - Bolt
"Jaiho" - Sukhwinder Singh/A.R. Rahman and Gulzar - Slumdog Millionaire
"The Wrestler" - Bruce Springsteen/Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

BEST COMPOSER
Alexandre Desplat - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Clint Eastwood - Changeling
Danny Elfman - Milk
Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard - The Dark Knight
A.R. Rahman - Slumdog Millionaire

The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)

This multi-award-winning (including the Oscar for best documentary) feature is a great companion piece to this year's Milk. Made only 6 years after Milk's assassination, it goes beyond the day of the murders to Dan White's trial, and features interviews with some of the people in Milk's life, as well as reporters who covered him. The muted trumpet in the soundtrack is Mark Isham, who went on to be one of my favorite composers. Now he has 111 credits to date, including the moody music to Trouble in Mind (1985), The Moderns (1988), Short Cuts (1993), and The Cooler (2003). The Castro movie theatre is featured in much of the documentary footage. I was sorry to hear today that Milk is no longer playing there. One would think they could do good business with it.

Frost/Nixon (2008)

We saw Stacy Keach playing Frank Langella's Tony-Award-winning Richard Nixon in the Broadway Across America traveling production of the play earlier this year. It was pretty good, and I didn't really expect to love the movie. But I did. The cast is amazing: Langella (I loved him in Starting Out in the Evening (2007)), Oliver Platt (who is mesmerizing in almost everything he does--some of my faves are the now cancelled Huff from Showtime; one of my food movies, Pieces of April (2003); and the lead in Funny Bones (1995), which also features some wonderful arrangements of Duke Ellington music), Sam Rockwell (Choke (2008), Matchstick Men (2003), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), and many more), and Michael Sheen (Tony Blair in Peter Morgan's Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning screenplay The Queen (2006)) as David Frost. I am a big fan of Morgan's script for The Last King of Scotland (2006), and now he has written both this screenplay and the stage play which preceded it (he seems to have a thing about world leaders). Toby Jones' transformation into Swifty Lazar, like his metamorphosis into Truman Capote in the other Capote movie Infamous (2006), is a show-stopper (for me, anyway). For those who play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, Kevin's in it, too.

Chop Shop (2007) released 2008

This movie has 3 Independent Spirit Award nominations: for the director Ramin Bahrani, who wrote the script and also won last year's Independent Spirit Someone to Watch Award; for the director of photography Michael Simmonds; and for the star, young Alejandro Polanco. The DVD included a trailer for Bahrani's Man Push Cart (2005), which looked good. Chop Shop is about a 12 year old orphan in Queens NY with a strong work ethic: he's smart, he never stops working, and he always counts his money. The cinematography nomination was well deserved: Jack & I commented to each other what a good job he did day and night, with long lens shots, rainstorms, puddles, elevated trains, and Shea Stadium. It does have a slow pace: after about a half hour I turned to Jack and said, "When is something going to happen?" Right around then, something did. Yet we were pulled in to the life of this boy and those around him. Polanco is in just about every scene, and carries the movie effortlessly. He is another one to watch. Without a traditional three-act plot, without flashbacks, we observe a few weeks in the life of a society that I knew little about. I was grateful for the DVD-supplied English captions, which covered the occasional Spanish words as well, because sometimes the mix left the dialogue too quiet for me to hear. Though it's about a 12 year old, it probably is appropriate for older, mature teens and above, due to sexual situations and language.

Cadillac Records (2008)

Donnie said, when I told him I had saved it for Amy, "Ugh, the reviews have been awful." We liked it, Donnie! And she, Jack, and I were glad we saw it on Christmas day. However, it was not what I expected. I thought it was a Beyoncé movie but she didn't appear until an hour had passed of the 1:49 running time.

Cedric the Entertainer, playing Willie Dixon, narrated this picture that followed the friendship and partnership of Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody, Oscar winner for The Pianist (2002), pivotal in Summer of Sam (1999), and, a favorite of mine, Liberty Heights (1999), playing a Jewish boy named Van--all 4 of these, coincidentally, are period pieces) and Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright, who was wonderful as Basquiat (1996) and as Colin Powell in W. (2008) with many other roles in between), and the rise of Chicago's Chess Records from "race records" to "cross-over." Wright, Brody, and Ms. Knowles as Etta James all turned in powerful performances, as did Columbus Short (he played the maligned bespectacled writer on the late great NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) as gold-toothed blues harp phenom Little Walter, Eamonn Walker (he was in HBO's Oz, which I didn't watch, and Duma (2005), which I loved) as Howlin' Wolf, and Gabrielle Union as Waters' wife Geneva. Mos Def played Chuck Berry and Emmanuelle Chriqui (Sloan on HBO's Entourage) was Mrs. Chess (we couldn't decide if she was also the blonde he was dating in the first scene. If you see it after reading this, let me know).

Apparently the historical accuracy is arguable, according to those that post on imdb, but we still had a great time with the music, the cigarettes, and, oh, the cars. Afterwards I told Amy I had a credit on Amazon and asked if I should get the soundtrack of new musicians covering the oldies as played on screen. She wants the oldies. They are goodies.

Doubt (2008)

Wow. This is powerful. Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Meryl Streep are all current and potential nominees for their work in this adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer prize winning play, adapted for the screen and directed by the playwright himself. Shanley, whose only other directing credit was for the uneven but absolutely wonderful Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), won the Oscar for writing the original screenplay for Moonstruck (1988). I had an acquaintance in LA whose claim to infame, for a while, was that he was the reader who had passed on (i.e. turned down) Shanley's Moonstruck script for Tri-Star Pictures. Anyway, Doubt is dark, taking place in a 1964 Catholic school in the Bronx, about a popular priest (Hoffman), who is suspected by two nuns, one the tyrannical principal (Streep) and the other a sweet teacher (Adams), of having more than an innocent friendship with the school's first black student, whose mother is played by Davis. I did not see the play, but in the movie, the weather adds a cinematic effect, frequently setting the tone. Just see it. Big screen is not essential, but the wind and rain (and one other thing) will do more for you in the cinema than in your living room. Read this interesting tidbit (the fifth item on imdb's trivia page) after you have seen it.

babetteflix on netflix

I changed my nickname on netflix today to babetteflix. If anyone is interested in looking at my ratings by number of stars, I have rated over 2000 movies in the 6 years I've been a member. Be aware that my ratings are whimsical and generous (lots of 5 star ratings). But I'm happy to be anyone's friend on netflix. It's anonymous. If you already have my email address, please tell me me your netflix screen name so I will know who YOU are.

critics' picks: NY & LA

Various critics from the New York Times weigh in (registration may be necessary to link).

Kenneth Turan's picks for the Los Angeles Times.

Turn the River (2007) released 2008

This good little movie about a woman pool hustler named Kailey (say KY-lee) has been nominated for an Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for Best Feature Under $500,000 (this year). They used their money wisely. There was only original music, so they didn't have to pay for rights. They shot inside and out in New York (with permits) but kept the camera close, and there were no camera cars (used only for transporting cameras and equipment). Star Famke Janssen did her own driving -- including in Manhattan! Actor Chris Eigeman (from TV's Malcolm in the Middle; TV's It's Like, You Know, which was apparently enjoyed only by me; and Whit Stillman's Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994), and Last Days of Disco (1998); among others) made his directorial debut with this script which he wrote specifically for Janssen, after they met co-starring on the independent movie The Treatment (2006). He has a cameo, blink and you'll miss it, as Mike Simms, one of the pool players in the beginning. I don't usually listen to the director's commentary (though I tend to like it when I do) and learned a few things, such as Janssen's name is pronounced FOM-ka (she's Dutch), and she really does pick all the bits out of her soup when she eats. She was brilliant as a highly conflicted character in the FX series Nip/Tuck a season or two ago, and I also liked her in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998), Love & Sex (2000), and this year's The Wackness. Actors who played her opponents, John Juback and professional pool player Tony Robles, were the technical advisors. They must've been good, because there were no doubles used -- she did ALL of her own shots in the pool scenes, which were filmed in the first 6 days. Do watch the DVD extra called "Final Shot;" it's short. Rip Torn, whose resume as actor has 179 entries on imdb (some of my favorites: One Trick Pony (1980) with Paul Simon, HBO's Larry Sanders Show, Wonder Boys (2000), and both Men in Black (2000 and 2002) movies) went against type as kindly pool hall owner Mr. Quinnette. Matt Ross, who plays Alby in HBO's Big Love, was Kailey's ex-husband, playing it a lot like petulant and suspicious Alby, and young Jaymie Dornan (Bettie's little brother in The Notorious Bettie Page in 2005) was great as their son Gulley; he was 13 when they shot this one. Terry Kinney (whom I know best for TV's thirtysomething, because I didn't watch HBO's Oz, although he was in lots of other things) had a small but pivotal role. And, for certain of my readers, Richard Burst-Lazarus was a production assistant on this movie.

The River is what they call the last card revealed in a poker game; the one with the most fate, according to the director.

Role Models (2008)

A bit of profane fluff with lots of music references (after you see the movie, check out this post by another blogger. To do so before would spoil it). Jon had asked me for a suggestion a few weeks ago -- something to see that wouldn't be bloody nor depressing. This was something we planned to see and he reported it was a couple of entertaining hours. Jack & I agree. We laughed every couple of minutes. Paul Rudd is good at petulant (and so many other things, e.g. The Shape of Things (2003) and Knocked Up (2007)), and Jane Lynch is great at playing cheerful-with-a-shady-past, as she did in A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006). Christopher Mintz-Plasse, as Augie Farks (which name is worse? Poor kid) is still doing McLovin from Superbad (2007), and 12 year old Bobb'e J. Thompson has great comic timing as the foul-mouthed other kid. Yeah, it's predictable, but fun.

London Film Critics Circle and Screen Actors' Guild nominations

Slumdog Millionaire got six more nominations today, and Hunger, Happy-Go-Lucky, and Frost/Nixon got five each from the Brits. SAG gave Doubt five, Milk four, and two for Kate Winslet. Coming up, the updated awards/nominations list, sorted by movie.

download movie scripts!

I just happened on this website, RopeOfSilicon, which offers links from which to download pdf files of potential Oscar nominated or winning scripts. Could be fun! Also good for folks like me, with less than optimal hearing, who saw the movies in a theatre and may have missed lines here or there.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Before I saw it, I thought this would be easy to write. It was supposed to be a feel-good crowd pleaser about Jamal (Dev Patel), a kid from the slums of Mumbai, who played the Hindi version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire to get a girl. The good news: he survived his awful life. The bad news: there was some ugly stuff. The movie was very, very good, but not always easy to take. And, even though much of it showed Jamal and his brother as children (those actors are wonderful, too), and they had some good times, this is definitely not for kids. The ending was great, including the final credit sequence, and director Danny Boyle is piling up awards and nominations. The screenwriter Simon Beaufoy based his script on a novel with a clever premise (Q & A by Vikas Swarup) and Boyle came on because he loved Beaufoy's The Full Monty (1997). Irrfan Khan, who was so good in The Namesake (2006), played the Police Inspector and was the only actor I had ever seen before. Nonetheless, it's easy to write that you should definitely see this.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007) released 2008

Using imdb.com as my primary reference for this blog I see more and more inconsistencies in the year attributed to a movie and its release. Possibly that's because I no longer live in one of the 10 biggest cities in the country, but it is also probably due to the vagaries of film distribution in general. This one was released in our second tier metro area yesterday and I enjoyed it at 5:15 in the campus-area theatre with one other (anonymous) viewer. It's a quiet, slow movie, like a New Yorker short story. Actor Henry O, as the Chinese Mr. Shi, stands like the letter S, with his hunched back, sunken chest, and trousers pulled up over his belly like Martin Short's Ed Grimley. The resemblance (to the manic character from SCTV and Saturday Night Live) ends there. Mr. Shi is thoughtful and a quick study, taking notes in his little book, as he tries to get along in his daughter's adopted Spokane. I like director Wayne Wang's previous work: Smoke (1995) with Harvey Keitel as part of a great ensemble; Chinese Box (1997) with Jeremy Irons, Gong Li, and Maggie Cheung; even Last Holiday (2006), a predictable chick flick with Queen Latifah. I never saw The Joy Luck Club (1993) all the way through, but always liked the bits I saw while channel surfing, especially the part where the Anglo man unknowingly insults his mother-in-law at the feast. There's lots of food in this as well (much of it going to waste). Co-star Feihong Yu as daughter Yilan was in Joy Luck Club, and gives a thoughtful performance here as well. This is an American film, but most of it is in Mandarin with English subtitles, and some of it is in Mandarin and Persian with none (Mr. Shi befriends an Iranian immigrant and they have conversations, speaking in their own languages and translating what they can). Wang's cinematographer on 4 of his 18 films (not this one) was the Iranian-born Amir Mokri, my film school colleague, of whom I think whenever I see the word Slumdog (I'll be seeing that movie tomorrow). Amir used to refer to himself and his fellow cinematography students as "schlepdogs." Anyway, this is slow; it may be too slow, depending on your mood. I checked my watch when the pivotal scene occurred, it was about an hour into the 83 minute film! Not too slow for me, though. It inspired pleasant memories of my dear departed Warren, who was also smart, helpful, friendly, and a quick study.

Nobel Son (2007) released 2008

This is worth seeing if only for Alan Rickman's (all the Harry Potter movies, Sweeney Todd (2007), Sense and Sensibility (1995), and, the movie that started him off, Truly Madly Deeply (1990), though it was not his first) deliciously detestable Professor Eli Michaelson. I didn't realize when I saw it that director/co-writer Randall Miller and his co-writer Jody Savin had the same jobs on the delightful Bottle Shock (2008), also featuring Rickman and Bill Pullman. This one is playing now, despite its 2007 completion year. The son, Barkley, is played by Bryan Greenberg (Prime (2005)), the creepy guy is Shawn Hatosy (whom I will always remember as the poor prep school kid in Outside Providence (1999) but who was also creepy in Alpha Dog (2006)), and the luscious ladies are the talented Mary Steenburgen (dozens of credits, my favorites being Life as a House (2001) and What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)) and Eliza Dushku (she was in Bottle Shock, too, but to me she'll always be the gymnast-turned-cheerleader in the tween hit Bring It On (2000)--sorry, I never saw a frame of Buffy), one of whom is sane, one not. This is hard to follow, not exactly chronological. I went with 2 friends to a matinee at the mall theatre yesterday, and, since we were by ourselves, we talked ("Huh? When is it now? Is it before? After?"). But it all works out rather nicely in the end. There is a gruesome bloody thing right in the beginning, so be prepared to look away if that's what you do (I put my hand up to cover the middle of the screen so I can see the edges and know when it's cutting away). But he cuts back to the gore way too many times. So to speak.

WALL-E (2008)

When I told Susanne in September I had started writing a blog about movies, she asked, "Have you seen Wall-E?" I told her I had not and she replied, "Well!" turning away dismissively. I finally watched it the other day on a netflix DVD. Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about, but animation isn't really my genre, although I did like The Incredibles (2004). 

Wall-E is about the titular little anthropomorphic trash compactor who lives on post-apocalyptic Earth. The apocalypse in this case was caused by so much garbage that all the humans were forced to flee. Wall-E spends his days making cubes out of the trash, looking at things that interest him, and bringing some of them to his lair to play with later. These include a videotape of Hello Dolly (1969), which opens the movie. Then he falls in love with an egg-shaped droid named Eve and follows her back to the mothership. 

Yeah, it's charming, but Best Picture of the Year? I'm getting a real attitude about this one. I liked very much the Apple computer jokes, e.g. when he reboots himself, he plays the musical chord that a Mac makes (FYI: that sound is called Sosumi, because when Apple Computer asked Apple Records years ago if they could use the same name, the latter said OK, as long as the former didn't get into the music business, and that's why they named that sound So Sue Me. Now, however, although Paul MacCartney is on board with Apple's iTunes, Ringo and John's and George's heirs, not so much). 

Wall-E's eyes do resemble the robot's from Short Circuit (1986), but the movie owes more to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), including a dangerous computer, long sequences with no dialogue, and a zero-gravity space ballet. I didn't hate it, and if I had a kid who would like this sort of thing (and would not be scared of the perils which our hero must endure), I wouldn't mind taking such kid to see it. Jeff Garlin and Fred Willard were fun. It could also start some educational discussions about trash, sedentary lifestyles, and deceptive appearances. But Best Picture? Really?

2008 Golden Globe Award nominees

Awards season continues. Much information on nominees can be found at the LA Times. This just in:

MOTION PICTURE CATEGORIES

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
"Frost/Nixon"
"The Reader"
"Revolutionary Road"
"Slumdog Millionaire"

BEST MOTION PICTURE, MUSICAL OR COMEDY

"Burn After Reading"
"Happy-Go-Lucky"
"In Bruges"
"Mamma Mia!"
"Vicky Christina Barcelona"

FOREIGN LANGUAGE PICTURE

"Baader Meinhof Complex"
"Everlasting Moments"
"Gomorrah"
"I've Loved You So Long"
"Waltz With Bashir"

BEST DIRECTOR

Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Stephen Daldry, "The Reader"
David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"
Sam Mendes, "Revolutionary Road"

BEST DRAMATIC ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio, "Revolutionary Road"
Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon"
Sean Penn, "Milk"
Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"

BEST DRAMATIC ACTRESS

Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"
Angelina Jolie, "Changeling"
Meryl Streep, "Doubt"
Kristin Scott Thomas, "I've Loved You So Long"
Kate Winslet, "Revolutionary Road"

BEST ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Javier Bardem, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Colin Farrel, "In Bruges"
James Franco, "Pineapple Express"
Brendan Gleeson, "In Bruges"
Dustin Hoffman, "Last Chance Harvey"

BEST ACTRESS, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

Rebecca Hall, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Frances McDormand, "Burn After Reading"
Meryl Streep, "Mamma Mia!"
Emma Thompson, "Last Chance Harvey"

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Tom Cruise, "Tropic Thunder"
Robert Downey, Jr., "Tropic Thunder"
Ralph Fiennes, "The Duchess"
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Doubt"
Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams, "Doubt"
Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Viola Davis, "Doubt"
Marisa Tomei, "The Wrestler"
Kate Winslet, "The Reader"

ANIMATED FILM

"Bolt"
"Kung Fu Panda"
"Wall-E"

SCREENPLAY

Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
David Hare, "The Reader"
Peter Morgan, "Frost/Nixon"
Eric Roth, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
John Patrick Shanley, "Doubt"

ORIGINAL SCORE

Alexandre Desplat, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Clint Eastwood, "Changeling"
James Newton Howard, "Defiance"
Hans Zimmer, "Frost/Nixon"
A.R. Rahman, "Slumdog Millionaire"

SONG

"Down to Earth" (performed by Peter Gabriel, written by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman), "Wall-E"
"Gran Torino" (performed by Clint Eastwood), "Gran Torino"
"I Thought I Lost You" (performed Miley Cyrus and John Travolta, written by Miley Cyrus and Jeffrey Steele), "Bolt"
"Once in a Lifetime," (performed by Beyonce), "Cadillac Records"
"The Wrestler" (performed by Bruce Springsteen, written by Bruce Springsteen), "The Wrestler"

TELEVISION CATEGORIES

DRAMATIC TV SERIES

"Dexter"
"House M.D."
"In Treatment"
"Mad Men"
"True Blood"

BEST ACTOR, TV DRAMA

Gabriel Byrne, "In Treatment"
Michael C. Hall, "Dexter"
Jon Hamm, "Mad Men"
Hugh Laurie, "House M.D."
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, "The Tudors"

BEST ACTRESS, TV DRAMA

Sally Field, "Brothers & Sisters"
Mariska Hargitay, "Law & Order: SVU"
January Jones, "Mad Men"
Anna Paquin, "True Blood"
Kyra Sedgwick, "The Closer"

TV SERIES, MUSICAL OR COMEDY

"Californication"
"Entourage"
"The Office"
"30 Rock"
"Weeds"

BEST ACTOR, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock"
Steve Carell, "The Office"
Kevin Connolly, "Entourage"
David Duchovny, "Californication"
Tony Shalhoub, "Monk"

BEST ACTRESS, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Christina Applegate, "Samantha Who?"
America Ferrera, "Ugly Betty"
Tina Fey, "30 Rock"
Debra Messing, "The Starter Wife"
Mary-Louise Parker, "Weeds"

BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

"Cranford"
"Bernard & Doris"
"John Adams"
"A Raisin in the Sun"
"Recount"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Judi Dench, "Cranford"
Laura Linney, "John Adams"
Catherine Keener, "An American Crime"
Shirley MacLaine, "Coco Chanel"
Susan Sarandon, "Bernard & Doris"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Ralph Fiennes, "Bernard and Doris"
Paul Giammatti, "John Adams"
Kevin Spacey, "Recount"
Keifer Sutherland, "24: Redemption"
Tom Wilkinson, "Recount"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Eileen Atkins, "Cranford"
Laura Dern, "Recount"
Melissa George, "In Treatment"
Rachel Griffiths, "Brothers & Sisters"
Dianne Wiest, "In Treatment"

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Neil Patrick Harris, "How I Met Your Mother"
Denis Leary, "Recount"
Jeremy Piven, "Entourage"
Blair Underwood, "In Treatment"
Tom Wilkinson, "John Adams"

CECIL B. DEMILLE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Steven Spielberg

Milk (2008)

As expected, Milk delivers. If it's not in a theatre near you this week, just wait. I had seen the trailer a few dozen times and knew the movie was going to be powerful. No, I have not seen the documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)--maybe after Oscar season. One of the many things that impressed me about Milk was the body language. Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, and Diego Luna walked, moved their hands, and sat in chairs in character. Their voices were softer, their smiles winsome. Penn, who beautifully conveyed Milk's optimism and perseverance, has won a pile of awards, for acting in Mystic River (2003), 21 Grams (2003), I Am Sam (2001), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and Dead Man Walking (1995), and for directing Into the Wild (2007), which starred Hirsch (Alpha Dog (2006), Lords of Dogtown (2005), and a favorite of mine, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)) in a great performance. Despite the distracting (and correct for 70s fashion) enormous eyeglasses, Hirsch was convincing as hustler-turned activist Cleve Jones. The very busy Josh Brolin (this year's W., last year's American Gangster, In the Valley of Elah, Grindhouse, and No Country for Old Men) was a scary Dan White, and James Franco keeps demonstrating more and more versatility from his stoner roots (Freaks & Geeks in 1999 to Pineapple Express (2008)) to teen heart throb (haven't seen 'em) to best friend turned nemesis in the Spiderman series to Milk's sweet boyfriend Scott Smith. I'm an Alison Pill fan (Dan in Real Life (2007), Pieces of April (2003), and especially 2006's brilliant-but-cancelled TV show The Book of Daniel) and wish she had had more to do as Anne Kronenberg, but there was a lot going on. The movie had just the right amount of documentary footage mixed into the portrayals, and faded the photos of the actors into those of the people they played at the end. From 1972-74 I was in my 20s living in the San Francisco Bay area, so it was fun seeing some of the sights of that time, including all those mops of curly hair. Interesting trivia: writer Dustin Lance Black grew up as a Mormon and was a writer on HBO's Big Love.

One of the main plot points was an anti-gay initiative, Proposition 6, in 1978. One cannot help but see the parallel to 2008's Prop 8, which unfortunately overturned gay marriage in California last month, and is now being appealed to the California Supreme Court. Would the vote on Prop 8 have come out differently if Milk had been released in October instead of December? Thursday on NPR, there was a story on All Things Considered about race, gay rights, and Prop 8. As I am white and straight, I can only channel Rodney King and wish that we would all just get along.

2008 Euro Film Awards

Read the Variety article here.

FILM
"Gomorrah," Matteo Garrone (Italy)

DIRECTOR
Matteo Garrone, "Gomorrah" (Italy)

ACTOR
Toni Servillo, "Gomorrah" (Italy), "Il Divo" (Italy-France)

ACTRESS
Kristin Scott Thomas, "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime" (I've Loved You So Long) (France-Germany)

SCREENWRITER
Maurizio Braucci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni di Gregorio, Matteo Garrone, Massimo Gaudioso, Roberto Saviano, "Gomorrah" (Italy)

CARLO DI PALMA CINEMATOGRAPHER AWARD
Marco Onorato for "Gomorrah" (Italy)

PRIX D'EXCELLENCE
Magdalena Biedrzycka for costume design, "Katyn" (Poland)

COMPOSER
Max Richter for "Waltz With Bashir" (Israel-France-Germany)

DISCOVERY AWARD
"Hunger," Steve McQueen (U.K.)

FIPRESCI CRITICS' AWARD
Abdellatif Kechiche, "La Graine et le mullet" (The Secret of the Grain) (France)

PIX ARTE DOCUMENTARY
"Rene," Helena Trestikova (Czech Republic)

PRIX UIP SHORT FILM
"Frankie," Darren Thornton (Ireland)

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Judi Dench

ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD CINEMA
Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring, Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg

PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," David Yates (U.S.-U.K.)

2008 National Board of Review winners

We're in Oscar season now, and these winners will affect if not predict Oscar nominations and winners. Some of these have not yet been released but you have probably seen trailers for them. I have started sorting the awards by movie and will post it soon.

The board, founded in 1909 in New York City, determines the awards by a vote of 125 plus members composed of academics, film experts and students in New York.

Film: Slumdog Millionaire
Director: David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Actor: Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Actress: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, Milk
Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Foreign Language Film: Mongol
Documentary: Man On Wire
Animated Feature: Wall-E
Ensemble Cast: Doubt
Breakthrough Performance by an Actor: Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Breakthrough Performance by an Actress: Viola Davis, Doubt
Directorial Debut: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
Original Screenplay: Nick Schenk, Gran Torino
Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Spotlight Award: Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
The BVLGARI Award for NBR Freedom of Expression: Trumbo

Top Ten Films

Burn After Reading
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Gran Torino
Milk
Wall-E
The Wrestler

Top Five Foreign Language Films

Edge Of Heaven
Let The Right One In
Roman de Gare]
A Secret
Waltz With Bashir

Top Five Documentary Films

American Teen
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Dear Zachary
Encounters At The End Of The World
Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired

William K. Everson Film History Award:
Molly Haskell And Andrew Sarris

2008 IFP Gotham Awards

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Now I don't have to immediately put these on my netflix list because here are my notes on the world wide web!

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Winner: Sita Sings the Blues (director/producer Nina Paley)
Other nominees: Afterschool (Antonio Campos, director; Josh Mond, Sean Durkin, producers), Meadowlark (Taylor Greeson, producer/director), The New Year Parade (Tom Quinn, director; Steve Beal, Tom Quinn, producers), Wellness (Jake Mahaffy, director; Jake Mahaffy, Jeff Clark, producers).

Breakthrough Director
Winner: Lance Hammer (Ballast)
Other nominees: Antonio Campos (Afterschool), Dennis Dortch (A Good Day to Be Black & Sexy), Barry Jenkins (Medicine for Melancholy), Alex Rivera (Sleep Dealer)

Best Ensemble Cast
Winner: tie, Synecdoche, New York (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Hope Davis, Tom Noonan) & Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz )
Other nominees: Ballast (Micheal J. Smith, Sr., JimMyron Ross, Tarra Riggs, Johnny McPhail), Rachel Getting Married (Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin, Tunde Adebimpe, Mather Zickel, Anna Deavere Smith, Anisa George, Debra Winger), The Visitor (Richard Jenkins, Hiam Abbas, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira)

Breakthrough Actor
Winner: Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Other nominees: Pedro Castaneda (August Evening), Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married), Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Alejandro Polanco (Chop Shop), Micheal J. Smith, Sr. (Ballast)

Best Documentary
Winner: Trouble the Water (Tia Lessin & Carl Deal, producers/directors)
Other nominees: Chris & Don: A Love Story (Guido Santi & Tina Mascara, directors; Julia Scott, Tina Mascara, Guido Santi, James White, producers), Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog, director; Henry Kaiser, producer), Man on Wire (James Marsh, director; Simon Chinn, producer), Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Marina Zenovich, director; Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Lila Yacoub, Marina Zenovich, producers)

Best Feature
Frozen River (Courtney Hunt, director; Heather Rae, Chip Hourihan, producers)
Other nominees: Ballast (Lance Hammer, director; Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh, producers), Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, director; Anthony Bregman, Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, Sidney Kimmel, producers), The Visitor (Tom McCarthy, director; Mary Jane Skalski, Michael London, producers), The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, director; Scott Franklin, Darren Aronofsky, producers)

Charlotte Sometimes (2002)

My netflix queue has 166 movies in it today. They love me because I pay my monthly bill and turn over maybe 4 per month. This one won the Audience award at the South by Southwest Film Festival and was nominated for 2 Independent Spirit Awards (for actress Jacqueline Kim and for the ensemble). Sometimes I take notes when I watch the awards show or read the nominees, sometimes I put movies in my queue on the laptop while I'm watching and then have to trust my reasons months later. This is a quiet little movie with good performances, moody music, some sex, and nice LA-area locations (Glendale and Los Feliz, I think). There's a scene where the 4 main characters are posing for a picture and one of them says, "Look Asian!" which is funny anyway, but also because the surnames of those cast members are Korean (Kim), Chinese (Eugenia Yuan), Japanese (Michael Idemoto), and Anglo (Matt Westmore). Writer/director Eric Byler is Chinese-American, and won the Special Jury Award at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival for the so-called sequel to this, Tre (2006) ("so-called" because there isn't one shared cast member). I have to admit that I didn't figure out who Charlotte was until 75 of the 85 minutes had passed. I wasn't giving it my full attention, I guess (now you will guess much faster than I did). I was also distracted by the Spanish subtitles. I had been trying to turn on closed captions, and selected "Spanish subtitles." On this DVD there is no turning back once you go Español. And there are no closed captions. When they are saying, "Come on," the translation is "Vamanos."

The Visitor (2007) released in 2008

This has so many indie nominations in 2008 I want to bring you up to speed. Richard Jenkins (the dead dad in HBO's Six Feet Under as well as many other understated and underappreciated roles--I particularly liked him as the cop, Josh Brolin's gay partner, in the fabulously funny Flirting With Disaster (1996)) finally got to star as a widowed college professor who has been invisible so long that having a real emotion is difficult. When he enters his long-unoccupied NYC apartment he finds a couple, who are Syrian and Senegalese respectively, squatting there. Jenkins carries the movie with the able help of his supporting cast and wonderful music: the score by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek plus music by others.

The Wackness (2008)

We saw this one day last summer when we were mostly caught up and we didn't expect much from it. But it was really good, starring Ben Kingsley (obviously Oscar winner for Gandhi (1982), and House of Sand and Fog (2003), Sexy Beast (2000), and HBO's Mrs. Harris (2005), among his best work) as a pot-smoking psychiatrist and Josh Peck (of Nickelodeon's Drake & Josh) as the teenage dealer he befriends. When Amy told me that the Nickelodeon actor had been chubby, it didn't surprise me, because the kid in this movie, who is slim, had the awkwardness of a fat kid about him, which served him well in the role (even without the roll). He resembles Rob Morrow (TV's Northern Exposure and Numb3rs) so much they should be cast as relatives. Also starring Olivia Thirlby (the friend in Juno (2007)) who has 8 releases (!) scheduled before the end of 2009, if imdb is to be believed.

2009 nominees for Independent Spirit Awards

The ceremony will be Saturday February 21, 2009 on IFC-TV (and repeated for a week or so after). I had watched about 1/3 of last year's telecast and was saving it for Jack when my DVR crashed and I lost the rest, but enjoyed the hilarious Rainn Wilson skits and unexpected singers. The shows are always good, and include lots of comedy.

Interesting that there is some overlap between these and the LA Times' list for potential Oscar contenders.

Best Feature
"Ballast" Producers: Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh
"Frozen River" Producers: Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae
"Rachel Getting Married" Producers: Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, Marc Platt
"Wendy and Lucy" Producers: Larry Fessenden, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani
"The Wrestler" Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin

Best Director
Ramin Bahrani, "Chop Shop"
Jonathan Demme, "Rachel Getting Married"
Lance Hammer, "Ballast"
Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"
Thomas McCarthy, "The Visitor"

Best First Feature
"Afterschool" Director: Antonio Campos, Producers: Sean Durkin, Josh Mond
"Medicine for Melancholy" Director: Barry Jenkins, Producer: Justin Barber
"Sangre de Mi Sangre" Director: Christopher Zalla, Producers: Per Melita, Benjamin Odell
"Sleep Dealer" Director: Alex Rivera, Producer: Anthony Bregman
"Synecdoche, New York" Director: Charlie Kaufman, Producers: Anthony Bregman, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Sidney Kimmel

John Cassavetes Award (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)
"In Search of a Midnight Kiss" Writer/Director: Alex Holdridge, Producers: Seth Caplan and Scoot McNairy
"Prince of Broadway" Director: Sean Baker, Writers: Sean Baker, Darren Dean, Producer: Darren Dean
"The Signal" Writer/Directors: David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry, Producers: Jacob Gentry and Alexander Motiagh
"Take Out" Writer/Directors/Producers: Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou
"Turn the River" Writer/Director: Chris Eigeman, Producer: Ami Armstrong

Best First Screenplay
Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
Lance Hammer, "Ballast"
Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"
Jonathan Levine, "The Wackness"
Jenny Lumet, "Rachel Getting Married"

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, "Sugar"
Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York"
Howard A. Rodman, "Savage Grace"
Christopher Zalla, "Sangre de Mi Sangre"

Best Female Lead
Summer Bishil, "Towelhead"
Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"
Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"
Tarra Riggs, "Ballast"
Michelle Williams, "Wendy and Lucy"

Best Male Lead
Javier Bardem, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"
Sean Penn, "Milk"
Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker"
Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"

Best Supporting Female
Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Rosemarie DeWitt, "Rachel Getting Married"
Rosie Perez, "The Take"
Misty Upham, "Frozen River"
Debra Winger, "Rachel Getting Married"

Best Supporting Male
James Franco, "Milk"
Anthony Mackie, "The Hurt Locker"
Charlie McDermott, "Frozen River"
JimMyron Ross, "Ballast"
Haaz Sleiman, "The Visitor"

Best Cinematography
Maryse Alberti, "The Wrestler"
Lol Crowley, "Ballast"
James Laxton, "Medicine for Melancholy"
Harris Savides, "Milk"
Michael Simmonds, "Chop Shop"

Best Documentary
"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)" Director: Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
"Encounters at the End of the World" Director: Werner Herzog
"Man on Wire" Director: James Marsh
"The Order of Myths" Director: Margaret Brown
"Up the Yangtze" Director: Yang Chung

Best Foreign Film
"The Class" (France) Director: Laurent Cantet
"Gomorrah" (Italy) Director: Matteo Garrone
"Hunger" (UK/Ireland) Director: Steve McQueen
"Secret of the Grain" (France) Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
"Silent Light" (Mexico/France/Netherlands/Germany) Director: Carlos Reygadas

Robert Altman Award (Given to one film's director, casting director and ensemble cast)
"Synecdoche, New York"
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Casting Director: Jeanne McCarthy
Ensemble Cast: Hope Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Tom Noonan, Dianne Wiest, Michelle Williams

Someone to Watch Award
Barry Jenkins, "Medicine for Melancholy"
Nina Paley, "Sita Sings the Blues"
Lynn Shelton, "My Effortless Brilliance"

Truer Than Fiction Award
Margaret Brown, "The Order of Myths"
Sacha Gervasi, "Anvil! The Story of Anvil"
Darius Marder, "Loot"

Producers Award
Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy, "Treeless Mountain" and "I'll Come Running"
Jason Orans, "Goodbye Solo" and "Year of the Fish"
Heather Rae, "Frozen River" and "Ibid"

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

I have been editing and thinking about the post for this for 11 days and tonight I had the bright idea of deleting it and reposting my draft with today's date but I forgot to copy the text first. Argh. So here goes, a fresh start (maybe with a little less of my usual OCD detail). Many critics have called Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut a masterpiece, but they have all said they didn't quite get it and need to see it again. I liked it a lot, but will probably wait for the DVD for re-viewing. Kaufman bent time and reality as the screenwriter of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Adaptation (2002), and Being John Malkovich (1999), as well as entertaining (me, at least) with the Chuck Barris story Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002). This movie begins in Schenectedy (which rhymes with synecdoche--sin-ECK-doe-kee, Skin-ECK-ta-dee--see my post on Changeling for a definition), where depressed Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Oscar winner for Capote (2005)) is directing a stage production of Death of a Salesman. He has a mean wife Adele (Catherine Keener, who was nominated for Capote (2005)) and a cute daughter Olive (Sadie Goldstein, the brat in Little Children (2006)). They move to New York City, where most of the movie takes place, and Caden begins directing a play-that-never-ends about himself, where scenes play out after they have occurred in his life, featuring doppelgangers of the characters.

Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Time is not linear and some details do not make sense. For example, there's a house that is always on fire but never burns down (Jack says that "The woods are burning" is an oft-repeated line from Death of a Salesman). Wonderful actresses dominate the movie: Keener, Goldstein, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson, and Dianne Wiest. Hoffman's performance reminds me of the desperate character he played in the twisted Todd Solondz movie Happiness (1998) and the whole doppelganger conceit owes something to Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997). Somebody on Wikipedia thinks he/she has the whole thing figured out (and has published lots of spoilers). There are plenty of laughs in this, but mostly from schadenfreude.