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.