2013 Independent Spirit Award Nominations

With the holidays comes awards season. And the Independent Spirit Awards are among my favorites. The show airs on IFC March 1, 2014, the night before the Oscars, and this year will be hosted by funnyman Patton Oswalt (last in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World). You can tell by the links below I've written about some of the nominees, missed a few, and am eagerly anticipating others making it to our neck o' the woods. If I have info on how to see these, it follows each title. (This year I don't expect to be making my OCD list of nominations and wins alphabetized by movie title. I'm glad I was able to catch up enough this week so as to continue the blog at all!)

Feature

12 Years a Slave (DVD estimated February 2014)

All Is Lost (DVD 2/11/14)

Frances Ha (streaming on Netflix now)

Inside Llewyn Davis

Nebraska

Director

Shane Carruth - Upstream Color (streaming on Netflix now)

J.C. Chandor - All Is Lost (DVD 2/11/14)

Steve McQueen - 12 Years a Slave (DVD estimated February 2014)

Jeff Nichols - Mud (DVD on Netflix now)

Alexander Payne - Nebraska

Screenplay

Woody Allen - Blue Jasmine (DVD 1/21/14)

Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke & Richard Linklater - Before Midnight (DVD on Netflix now)

Nicole Holofcener - Enough Said (DVD 1/14/14)

Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber - The Spectacular Now (DVD 1/14/14)

John Ridley - 12 Years a Slave (DVD estimated February 2014)

First Feature

Blue Caprice - Alexandre Moors - director/producer; Kim Jackson, Brian O'Carroll, Isen Robbins, Will Rowbotham, Ron Simons, Aimee Schoof, Stephen Tedeschi - producer

Concussion - Stacie Passon - director; Rose Troche - producer

Fruitvale Station - Ryan Coogler - director; Nina Yang Bongiovi, Forest Whitaker - producers  (DVD 1/14/14)

Una Noche - Lucy Mulloy - director - producer; Sandy Pérez Aguila, Maite Artieda, Daniel Mulloy, Yunior Santiago - producers (DVD 12/24/13)

Wadjda - Haifaa Al Mansour - director; Gerhard Meixner, Roman Paul - producer

First Screenplay

Lake Bell - In a World… (DVD 1/21/14)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Don Jon (DVD 12/31/13)

Bob Nelson - Nebraska

Jill Soloway - Afternoon Delight

Michael Starrbury - The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete

John Cassavetes Award (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)

Computer Chess - Andrew Bujalski, writer/director (streaming on Netflix now)

Crystal Fairy - Sebastiàn Silva, writer/director (streaming on Netflix now)

Museum Hours - Jem Cohen, writer/director

Pit Stop - Yen Tan, writer/director; David Lowery, writer

This is Martin Bonner - Chad Hartigan, writer/director (streaming on Netflix now)

Female Lead

Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine (DVD 1/21/14)

Julie Delpy - Before Midnight (DVD on Netflix now)

Gaby Hoffmann - Crystal Fairy (streaming on Netflix now)

Brie Larson - Short Term 12 (DVD 1/14/14)

Shailene Woodley - The Spectacular Now (DVD 1/14/14)

Male Lead

Bruce Dern - Nebraska

Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave (DVD estimated February 2014)

Oscar Isaac - Inside Llewyn Davis

Michael B. Jordan - Fruitvale Station (DVD 1/14/14)

Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club

Robert Redford - All Is Lost (DVD 2/11/14)

Supporting Female

Melonie Diaz - Fruitvale Station (DVD 1/14/14)

Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine (DVD 1/21/14)

Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave (DVD estimated February 2014)

Yolonda Ross - Go For Sisters

June Squibb - Nebraska

Supporting Male

Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave (DVD estimated February 2014)

Will Forte - Nebraska

James Gandolfini - Enough Said (DVD 1/14/14)

Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club

Keith Stanfield - Short Term 12 (DVD 1/14/14)

Cinematography

Sean Bobbitt - 12 Years a Slave (DVD estimated February 2014)

Benoit Debie - Spring Breakers (DVD on Netflix now)

Bruno Delbonnel - Inside Llewyn Davis

Frank G. DeMarco - All Is Lost (DVD 2/11/14)

Matthias Grunsky - Computer Chess (streaming on Netflix now)

Editing

Shane Carruth & David Lowery - Upstream Color (streaming on Netflix now)

Jem Cohen & Marc Vives - Museum Hours

Jennifer Lame - Frances Ha (streaming on Netflix now)

Cindy Lee - Una Noche

Nat Sanders - Short Term 12 (DVD 1/14/14)

Documentary

20 Feet From Stardom - Morgan Neville, director/producer; Gil Friesen & Caitrin Rogers, producers (DVD 1/14/14)

After Tiller - Martha Shane & Lana Wilson, directors/producers

Gideon's Army - Dawn Porter, director/producer; Julie Goldman, producer

The Act of Killing - Joshua Oppenheimer, director/producer; Joram Ten Brink, Christine Cynn, Anne Köhncke, Signe Byrge Sørensen, Michael Uwemedimo, producer

The Square - Jehane Noujaim, director, Karim Amer, producer

International Film

A Touch of Sin (China) - Jia Zhang-Ke, director

Blue Is the Warmest Color (France) - Abdellatif Kechiche, director

Gloria (Chile) - Sebastián Lelio, director

The Great Beauty (Italy) - Paolo Sorrentino, director

The Hunt (Denmark) - Thomas Vinterberg, director (DVD on Netflix now)

Robert Altman Award (Given to one film's director, casting director and its ensemble cast)

Mud  (DVD on Netflix now)

Director: Jeff Nichols

Casting Director: Francine Maisler

Ensemble Cast: Joe Don Baker, Jacob Lofland, Matthew McConaughey, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard, Tye Sheridan, Paul Sparks, Bonnie Sturdivant, Reese Witherspoon

17th Piaget Producers Award

Toby Halbrooks & James M. Johnston

Jacob Jaffke

Andrea Roa

Frederick Thornton

20th Someone to Watch Award

My Sister's Quinceañera - Aaron Douglas Johnston, director

Newlyweeds - Shaka King, director

The Foxy Merkins - Madeline Olnek, director

19th Stella Artois Truer Than Fiction Award

Kalyanee Mam - A River Changes Course

Jason Osder - Let the Fire Burn

Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez - Manakamana

Joe Papp in Five Acts (2010)

This fascinating documentary about the former Joseph Papirovsky was another popular entry in this year's Jewish Film Festival, profiling the producer of New York's free Shakespeare in the Park (starting in 1956), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (1975), The Normal Heart (1985), and much more. With Kevin Kline reciting Shakespeare quotes and footage of Olympia Dukakis, James Earl Jones, Martin Sheen, Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, and others, filmmakers Tracie Holder and Karen Thorsen have a winner. Here's the trailer. I saw it several weeks ago and don't remember the music anymore, but imdb says jazz clarinetist Don Byron composed the music, so here's a fun track of his instrumental work. I don't know when the movie will be out on DVD, but theatre lovers should see it.

Wadjda (2012)

This wonderful ground-breaking movie, the first ever made entirely in Saudi Arabia, directed and written by a woman, is a hopeful story of a 10-year-old free-spirited girl who simply wants a bicycle. But in her country, girls don't ride bikes, they don't run, they don't speak loudly, they don't even appear in public without their black robes and head scarves. Yet Wadjda's scarf seldom stays put, her jeans and Converse sneakers peek out from under her robe, and her best friend is a bike-riding boy. In some countries the title is a translation of The Green Bicycle.

Haifaa Al-Mansour made a documentary, Women Without Shadows (2005), about women's roles in Saudi Arabia, and this is her fiction follow-up. The acting, especially by Waad Mohammed and Reem Abdullah as Wadjda and her mother, respectively, is first-rate. I also liked the music by Max Richter (last blogged in Disconnect). You can stream clips from the soundtrack on the amazon page.

The movie is still making its way around our country (here's a list of theaters, but I know at least one date is incorrect). Save this one to your netflix queue. It'll be worth it. And invite a tween girl who won't mind the subtitles to watch it with you. If you don't believe me, 99% (74 of 75) of rottentomatoes critics loved this, and 90% of audiences.

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Jack and I loved this HBO movie based on the memoir of Liberace's boy toy Scott Thorson. Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are terrific and all 11 Primetime Emmy Awards are well deserved. Douglas (now 71, last blogged in Haywire) is believable as Liberace at 57 and Damon (now 43, most recently in Elysium), well, no one thinks he's 17 at the beginning of the movie, as Thorson was when he met the star in 1977, but his character's innocence and naïveté is well portrayed. Great support by Scott Bakula (The Informant! by the same director, and the sadly-cancelled series Men of a Certain Age, among others), Rob Lowe (some of my favorites: The Outsiders (1983), The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), About Last Night… (1986), Bad Influence (1990), and though I didn't see his 84 episodes of The West Wing, I saw and liked his 78 in Brothers & Sisters, his 5 in Californication, and his ongoing contribution to Parks and Recreation--LIT-trilly), and Debbie Reynolds (her Oscar nomination was for The Unsinkable Molly Brown and I enjoyed, among others, Singin' in the Rain (1952), Divorce American Style (1967), Mother (1996), and In & Out (1997)) almost unrecognizable as Liberace's mother with a Polish accent.

Although the excellent psycho-thriller Side Effects (sorry, I was on a blog break when I should have written more than two sentences about it) was supposed to be director Steven Soderbergh's last picture when it was released in February of this year, Behind the Candelabra came out in May, and he is, according to imdb, now in pre-production on a TV mini-series scheduled for sometime next year.

Check it out on cable or DVD for the story, the acting, the history (the times that were paradoxically both swinging and homophobic), the sets, costumes, makeup, and music--both the score written by Marvin Hamlisch just before his death last year (the movie is dedicated to him) and the songs.

Prisoners (2013)

This gripping thriller about a father desperate to find his disappeared daughter has already earned Hugh Jackman Supporting Actor of the Year at the Hollywood Film Festival. Jake Gyllenhaal is also no slouch as the detective trying to solve the case even as Jackman constantly acts out. Gyllenhaal was last blogged in End of Watch and I profiled Jackman in Les Misérables. Good support is provided by Maria Bello (most recently in The Company Men), Terrence Howard (covered toward the end of The Company You Keep), Viola Davis (last mentioned in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), Melissa Leo (profiled in The Fighter), and Paul Dano (just in 12 years a Slave).

Like the last picture directed by Denis Villeneuve, Incendies, there's a twist at the end. Jack said afterwards he saw it coming. I had no idea. The script is the second for Aaron Guzikowski.  The music, by Jóhann Jóhansson, is scary stuff. You can stream it track by track on youtube, starting with #1.

With violence that caused me to shield my eyes, this is no chick flick; in fact, it's John's favorite movie of the year and he makes fun of chick flicks--you know, the ones with too much talking and not enough hitting. Rottentomatoes critics average 81% and audiences 88, so if this is your thing, you won't be disappointed. You should find it playing locally, since it's #22 at the box office after 10 weeks of release.

The Zigzag Kid (Nono, het Zigzag Kind - 2012)

The full house at the Jewish Film Festival was utterly charmed by Nono--a 12 year old Dutch boy, his search to learn more about the mother who died when he was one, and his goal of becoming an inspector (detective) like his father, all in the last two days before his bar mitzvah. With plenty of humor, a Henry Mancini-style score, and some wonderful picture cars, this movie is entertaining for everyone who can read subtitles, from middle-schoolers on up. The only actor familiar to us in the US will be Isabella Rossellini (no longer best known as the daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, she has a long list of credits, my favorites of which include White Nights (1985), Blue Velvet (1986), Siesta (1987), Wild at Heart (1990), Big Night (1996), Roger Dodger (2002), Infamous (2006), Two Lovers, and the animated My Dog Tulip), who plays a famous singer. I'm pretty sure she does her own singing. The music, by Thomas de Prins, can be previewed on the album's amazon page. Directed and written by Vincent Bal (he's Belgian), based on the book by Israeli writer David Grossman, this is highly recommended. Save it to your netflix queue, as it hasn't been released here yet.

Captain Phillips (2013)

Tom Hanks is fantastic as the skipper of a cargo ship captain hijacked by Somali pirates. Based on a true story, this is heart-pounding and vomit-inducing (more on the latter in a moment). Hanks (last blogged in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) may not get an Oscar nomination for this but his last scene moved me to tears. Newcomer of the year would be Barkhad Abdi as the main pirate. He had never acted before, nor had the others who play his fellow gang members.

Paul Greengrass (I didn't see his Oscar-nominated turn in United 93 (2006) (five years was too soon after 9/11 for me) but I did see at least one of his two Bourne sequels (2004 and 07)) keeps the action moving from a script adapted by Billy Ray (wrote/directed Shattered Glass (2003), and wrote the first Hunger Games (2012) (didn't see it) and State of Play) from the memoir by Rich Phillips and Stephan Talty.

And movement was my big problem. My regular readers know of my unfortunate affliction with motion picture motion sickness (MPMS). The camera never stopped moving, even before anyone boarded a boat. I was really uncomfortable and had to look away or close my eyes many times (perhaps I wept not only at Hanks' performance but with joy that it was over after 2 hours 14 minutes). It ended eight hours ago and I'm still not right. Those with my problem can see it on DVD in mid-January--still before the Oscars. Others should probably see it now. 94% reviewers and 93 from audiences on rottentomatoes.

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

This is a tour de force for the ever-evolving Matthew McConaughey as a 1980s AIDS patient working the system to survive. Jared Leto is also terrific as his cross-dressing cohort. McConaughey (last in Mud) gives us the complete transformation of the based-on-real-life Ron Woodroof, starting with the actor's loss of almost 40 pounds to play the emaciated part, and his character's maturing from a womanizing homophobic SOB to one who cares for others with his shared disease. Leto (what I've seen of his work is unforgettable: Winona Ryder's boyfriend in Girl, Interrupted (1999), the lead Harry Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000), and one of the scary guys in Panic Room (2000)) lost 30 pounds himself and dons big-hair wigs, eyeshadow, platforms, miniskirts, and other garb of the fashion-backward 1980s to inhabit the desperate Rayon.

French-Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée (The Young Victoria) ably helms from a script by Craig Borten (his first) and Melisa Wallack (her third but she's new to me). No composer is listed, but the album (including a song from Leto's band Thirty Seconds to Mars) will benefit AIDS research.

Jack and I are thinking this is Oscar bait for McConaughey. Don't just listen to us--reviewers on rottentomatoes average 95% and audiences 93!

About Time (2013)

We didn't hate this fluffy story of a young man, his time travels, his love, and his family. Domhnall Gleeson (last blogged in Anna Karenina, he's the son of veteran Irish actor Brendan Gleeson) is sweet as the lead, Rachel MacAdams (most recently in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) also good as his love interest, and Bill Nighy (last in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) his usual dry self as the father who also has the time-bending gene. Tom Hollander (last in Hanna) has a cameo as a director we loved to hate. Director/writer Richard Curtis (covered in Pirate Radio) is forever billed as the director of Love, Actually, and this has that same tone: a little chick-flicky, but not by any means excruciatingly so. We saw an advance screening on vacation in Florida four weeks ago, so maybe it's been edited since then.

The composer is Nick Laird-Clowes (to stream some tracks search for Nick Laird on soundcloud), but it's mostly songs. Critics are lukewarm, averaging 68% to audiences' 85 on rottentomatoes. Definitely not a must-see, but a pleasant couple of hours for date night.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

This dreamy tale of two young adults in love and in trouble has deserved the several awards it has won. Casey Affleck (last blogged in Tower Heist) and Rooney Mara (before Side Effects I wrote about her in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) are well cast as the outlaw and his lady, with support from Ben Foster (most recently in The Messenger) and Keith Carradine (covered in Cowboys & Aliens) as the lawmen. Director/writer David Lowery is new to me, as is composer Daniel Hart, whose very cool soundtrack can be streamed here. Bradford Young (Pariah) won the Sundance Cinematography award for his beautiful photography. I don't think this one is as jumpy as Pariah, but, frankly, I don't remember, because Jack and I saw it over ten weeks ago. It will be released on DVD this coming December 7.

Fun trivia: the wording of the title is the director's misquotation from song lyrics and has no actual meaning. Somehow it fits with the 1970s Texas setting. Rottentomatoes reviewers average 82% and audiences 70 so you may want to watch this.

Blue Is the Warmest Color (La vie d'Adéle - 2013)

This smokin' hot (NC-17) story of a French girl discovering her lesbian sexuality has lots to recommend it but brevity is not one of its virtues. It could easily have been trimmed by an hour, even without cutting a moment of the graphic sex scenes, and would still have been over two hours in length. The two main actresses, Adéle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, are quite amazing in their intensity. Exarchopoulos (new to me) plays the lead, whose name was changed from Clementine to Adéle because the director used footage of the actress as herself in which she was called by her own name, with gusto. Seydoux (whose chameleon abilities I mentioned in Farewell My Queen) transforms herself yet again to a "tomboy"(that's what Adéle's high school classmates call her) with no makeup and blue hair. Apparently, after winning the top prize, the Palme d'Or, at Cannes earlier this year and cuddling onstage with their director/co-writer Abdellatif Kechiche (The Secret of the Grain) when both actresses were co-awarded the prize for the first time ever, they turned around and turned on him, saying they were exploited and bullied into making the sex scenes, and some crew members backed them up (here's more detail with no spoilers). I don't think they'll be working with him again.

Kechiche and Ghalia Lacroix (has written with this director twice before and this is her fourth film editing job) adapted the screenplay from Julie Maroh's graphic novel, Le Bleu Est une Couleur Chaude, which literally translates to "Blue Is a Warm Color," but was translated by the publishers to Blue Is the Warmest Color, then the movie's French title means Adele's Life, once again dubbed warmest for English speakers. You can look at a few pages in English on the amazon page.

No named composer is in the end credits but I counted 23 songs today, only five of which are listed on imdb. On youtube there are a few video and music clips, including a sanitized version of the longest sex scene.

NC-17 often scares people off, not Jack and me. This is beautiful, moody, did I mention sexy? But be forewarned that it is entirely shot with handheld cameras and so induces motion picture motion sickness (MPMS), somewhat mitigated by the letterboxed subtitles but increased by the sheer length of the picture. Sit in the last row.

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Impeccably acted, beautifully shot, hauntingly scored, and dreadfully disturbing, this story of a free man of color kidnapped and sold into slavery is Oscar bait and reminds us never to forget the atrocities committed on our own shores some 150 years ago. The remarkable Chiwetel Ejiofor (last blogged in Salt) stars as Solomon Northup, a real man who wrote the book about his own experiences on which this is based. Lupita Nyong'o makes a spectacular feature debut as the unforgettable Patsey. Some of the notable slave-owners are Michael Fassbender (last in Prometheus), Benedict Cumberbatch (most recently in Star Trek: Into Darkness), Sarah Paulson (Mud), and Paul Dano (Looper) as a hired hand. Brad Pitt (Moneyball) has pretty good billing for three scenes late in the movie, albeit pivotal ones. That's probably because he co-produced. The poster has nine stars top billed. The last two are Paul Giamatti and Alfre Woodard with one scene each. I wish I had noticed the cameos by Quvenzhané Wallis (Oscar-nominated for Beasts of the Southern Wild) as young Margaret Northup--if she had any lines I don't recall--and Dwight Henry, who played her father in Beasts, as Uncle Abram--didn't spot him either.

When I wrote about British director Steve McQueen for his last movie Shame, I said "his next one looks interesting," and linked to the imdb page for this one. We predict some Academy action added to his existing 29 wins and 30 nominations. John Ridley (wrote the story for David O. Russell's script in Three Kings (1999) and TV shows both comedy and action, among other projects, including a Jimi Hendrix project coming out later) adapted Northup's book.

The lovely soundtrack is purportedly by Hans Zimmer (The Lone Ranger) but an album hasn't been released, even on youtube (here is a ten minute compilation which may or may not be from this movie). In fact, the "official soundtrack," "curated by John Legend" and available for streaming here, contains less than four minutes by Zimmer! Composer Nicholas Britell is credited with many more tracks.

Unlike the director of photography Sean Bobbitt's last picture, The Place Beyond the Pines, this one probably won't give you motion sickness--Jack and I sat in the back of a fairly small theatre just to be safe. But there are many dark and low-contrast scenes so we do recommend watching this on a big screen, not at home later on video. If you can stomach the violence (I was able to block most of it with my hand), you'll surely want to see it before the Oscars March 2, 2014. In case you don't trust my word on this, critics are averaging 96% and audiences 94 on rottentomatoes.