The Screengrab : Anne Hathaway

DVD Digest for March 24, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This week brings plenty of good news for both 007 fans and lovers of classic Hollywood, and plenty of other goodies besides.

This week’s DVD of the Week is Criterion’s much-awaited release of Francois Truffaut’s The Last Metro. In this 1980 film, Truffaut for the first time addressed explicitly the subject of the French Occupation during World War II, seen here through the prism of a struggling theatre whose Jewish owner is hiding in the basement, leaving his leading-lady wife (played by Catherine Deneuve) to run the day-to-day business. There’s a great deal of intrigue in the film, not only involving a cocky young actor played by Gerard Depardieu, but with any number of Nazi sympathizers, informers, double-crossers, and sneaky Occupation types. But what comes through most clearly on this DVD release (and even more so on the Blu-Ray version) is how gorgeous the film is- how handsomely Truffaut re-created the period without letting the aesthetic concerns overwhelm the narrative ones. Likewise, this may be the most gorgeous Catherine Deneuve was on film- no mean feat, that.

The week’s other major classics release is the third volume of Warner’s Forbidden Hollywood Collection, this one featuring six films from director William Wellman- Other Men’s Women, The Purchase Price, Frisco Jenny, Midnight Mary, Heroes for Sale, and Wild Boys of the Road. Other classics releases this week include: Lemmon and Matthau (but not Randall and Klugman) The Odd Couple Centennial Edition (Paramount); Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief Centennial Edition (Paramount); Lilo & Stitch 2-Disc Big Wave Edition (Disney); the unofficial 007 adventure Never Say Never Again Collector’s Edition (Fox/MGM); and the Fast and the Furious trilogy (Universal, also Blu-Ray), with standard DVDs of the films available separately.

The recent releases for this week are highlighted by: Daniel Craig’s second James Bond opus, Quantum of Solace (Fox/MGM, also Blu-Ray); the animated adjunct to the Watchmen universe, Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter (Warner, also Blu-Ray); John Travolta as a talking dog in Bolt (Disney); and Anne Hathaway in Passengers (Sony, also Blu-Ray).

In TV on DVD news, this week brings: The Venture Bros. Season 3 (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Star Wars: The Clone Wars- A Galaxy Divided (Warner); The Riches Season 2 (Fox); The Life and Times of Tim (Warner); and Big Stan (HBO, also Blu-Ray).

This week’s biggest Blu-Ray only release is James Bond Blu-Ray vol. 3 (Fox/MGM), which includes Goldfinger, Moonraker, and The World Is Not Enough, also available separately. If you’re still looking for more action, you can always pick up The Matrix (Warner). And on the more dramatic side of things, this week finds Paramount release three of its artier films of recent years, A Mighty Heart, The Kite Runner, and Things We Lost in the Fire. I admit I would be more enthusiastic about these releases if they were films I actually liked, but I do like the idea that studios are actually attempting to spotlight more than just loud action movies on Blu-Ray. Hey, it’s a start.

Finally, I leave you with the Synopsis of the Week, this week courtesy of the FUNimation Entertainment release Fruits Basket Box Set. Here it is:

“The Sohma family is cursed; however, this is no ordinary family curse. When a member of the family is embraced by a person of the opposite gender, they transform into an animal of the Chinese Zodiac! The Sohmas have managed to keep the curse private for generations, but when a young girl stumbles upon their secret, life in the Sohma household changes forever. Conflict erupts as zodiac rivals clash in this most unusual household. Young Tohru Honda must promise the secret will remain her own - or face the consequences!”

DVD Digest for March 10, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a handful of the most acclaimed films of 2008, and an animated classic gets released from the Disney vaults again.

This week’s selection of recent releases coming to DVD includes some of 2008’s best-reviewed films, including Sean Penn giving an Oscar-winning performance in Gus Van Sant’s Milk (Universal, also Blu-Ray), Anne Hathaway in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married (Sony, also Blu-Ray), Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York (Sony, also Blu-Ray) [the best film of the year, says I], Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky (Disney), and the Swedish vampire chiller Let the Right One In (Magnolia). Also this week, Jason Statham in Transporter 3 (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray), the real-life blues story Cadillac Records (Sony, also Blu-Ray), Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott in Role Models (Universal, also Blu-Ray), Charlize Theron in the WTO-centric ensemble piece Battle in Seattle (Universal, also Blu-Ray), and finally, one of the worst-received films of 2008, Mark Herman’s Holocaust-themed family movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Disney).

The big news in classic releases this week is the 70th Anniversary “Platinum Edition” of one of Disney’s greatest animated classics, Pinocchio. Also coming to Blu-Ray, the new DVD includes new commentary from Leonard Maltin and others, some newly-unearthed deleted scenes and storyboards, and a bunch of new features for kids and animation buffs alike. Also this week: Richard Gere and Edward Norton in Primal Fear Special Edition (Paramount, also Blu-Ray), and perhaps the least likely “classic” I’ve spotlighted to date, Howard the Duck Special Edition (Universal).

In TV on DVD news, this week brings South Park Season 12 (Paramount, also Blu-Ray) and The Starter Wife Season 1 (Universal).

Finally, the biggest Blu-Ray only release this week is Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997 (Warner), which is great news if you don’t mind paying for two DVDs you’ll probably never watch just so you get DVDs of the Burton Batman movies. Also, where’s Mask of the Phantasm?

Emily Blunt, Copycat

Phil Nugent — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Ella Taylor checks in with Emily Blunt, the twenty-six-year-old English actress who's covered a remarkable stretch of ground since her attention-getting performance as a seductive, callous rich girl who draws a lonely, working-class girl (Natalie Press) into her silken web in 2004's My Summer of Love. As Taylor points out, those with an aversion to stories of star-crossed adolescent lesbian attachments--they probably hate raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, too--had to wait to discover Blunt when her "tightly wound turn as Meryl Streep’s groveling girl Friday all but stole The Devil Wears Prada from Anne Hathaway." (In this sentence, "all but stole" is apparently a nice way of saying, "Oh, was Anne Hathaway in that movie too?") Taylor applauds the actress for her "taste for the offbeat and a fetching lack of vanity when it comes to playing disagreeable women", though Blunt may just have figured out early that, if you start out with looks and charisma, people already want to watch you, and playing someone disagreeable in an offbeat project is likelier to provide them with a reason than reclining in fluff and cooing to show how nice you are. (Her co-star Anne Hathaway may not have figured that out until Jonathan Demme dropped the script for Rachel Getting Married in her lap.)

Blunt will next be seen co-starring with Amy Adams in Sunshine Cleaning. She describes her character there as "hopeless, like a bull in a china shop. She has great potential, but she’s stuck, despite yearning for more than her situation. She wants to know what happened in the past, and no one wants to talk about it. She’s funny and heartbreaking, and I love her curiosity. I’m always drawn to people who are a little off the wall.” The movie, which is about sisters who start a business cleaning up crime scenes, also gives her and Amy Adams the chance to suit up in anti-fumigation outfits that make them look like “a couple of blue condoms.” In her next scheduled releases, she faces such scary challenges as John Malkovich as a magician with a stalled career (in The Great Buck Howard, in which she plays his agent), and the fall release The Wolf Man, in which she plays the love interest of a lycanthropic Benecio Del Toro, if that's not redundant. "“Acting became something I grew accustomed to doing rather than something I’d always desired," says Blunt, who brings to the screen an awesome degree of poise for someone who basically made the leap from school plays to professional acting and bypassed formal training. She told Taylor that, instead, she relies on mannerisms she's copied from people she's met: “I’m combining, so it’s not stealing, it’s research."

Related Stories: Screengrab Clip: Sunshine Cleaning

Better Late Than Never: Phil Nugent's Oscar Predictions

Phil Nugent — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Here at the Screengrab, we happily embrace our responsibility, as movie bloggers, to approach the massive, steaming mountain of Oscar speculation coverage and, having considered it, to grab a shovel and do our part. I personally missed the recent group "Oscar predictions" feature, because I hadn't had the chance to see most of the movies nominated for the major awards. Now that time has passed, I still haven't seen them, but a wino who hangs out by the mall near Columbus Circle briefed me on what he'd heard people saying about them as they were filing out of the Loew's multiplex across from Lincoln Center and running their mouths while he was trying to sleep, and now I think I'm all up to speed. Let's do this thing.

BEST PICTURE: Last year, just as our country was collapsing into economic meltdown and post-imperial despair, one movie stood out for its ability to bring a smile to faces whose owners thought that they would never smile again, to fill the air with the laughter of children, to defy the iron laws of miserable reality and nature itself. That film was, of course, Beverly Hills Chihuahua. It's a lead pipe cinch to win Best Picture this year--or would be, if it were nominated. It isn't, due to a terrible blunder. Because most of the rich and powerful industry figures who select the nominees have very busy schedules, what with all the time they spend entertaining the troops overseas and home schooling their children, they entrust the actual selection process to their servants, asking them to fill out and submit their ballots for them. This year, most of them naturally advised the help to vote for the movie about the rich dogs who visit the slums, and something got lost in the translation, much to the benefit of Danny Boyle's movie, which is apparently about some folks in India. Once the voters recognize this slip-up, Slumdog's chances are sure to plummet.

The Weinstein Company has put a lot of muscle behind The Reader, but the film, which turns on the act of reading, and even announces as much in its title, will not be forgiven by the representatives of the movie business for so brazenly calling attention to, and perhaps seeming to encourage, an alternative method of entertainment. If the company wanted to antagonize the entire industry, why didn't they just make a movie called The Video Pirate Who Cost That Poor Studio Janitor in the Short Film You Just Saw His Daughter's College Fund? One film that might stand to profit from these movies' obvious missteps is Frost Nixon, Ron Howard's fact-based follow-up to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. (The movie stars Michael Sheen, the most talented and British of the countless actor sons, some legitimate and officialy recognized, some not, of Apocalypse Now star Martin Sheen, as Skid Roper, an itinerant washboard musician who wreaks bloody revenge on his former parter, Mojo Nixon, after Nixon dissolves their partnership and abandons him for solo stardom just as poor Skid was beginning to enjoy the earthly pleasures known only to novelty artists making it big on the collegr radio circuit.) But I predict that the Best Picture award will go the The Dark Knight. Since it's not nominated, its win would constitute a shocking and unexpected twist at the end of the evening, and that's just how Batman rolls!

BEST ACTOR: Everyone agrees that this will be a pitched battle between the two leading candidates: Frank Langella, who plays Mojo Nixon in Frost Nixon, and Brad Pitt for his performance as an eighty-year-old baby in the twenty minutes of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that some people saw before they fell asleep or went out for a smoke and forgot to return to the theater. In both cases, it will very likely come down to the two bravura musical numbers performed by the stars. Langella's pitched rendition of "Burn Down the Malls" has become a cult sensation, especially since the Gap built their holiday TV commercials around it, but Pitt set the screen on fire with the spectacular production number in which he dances around his New Orlean orphanage, performing Benjamin Button's Oscar-nominated theme song:

Alakazam and whoa, hot damn!

I'm an eighty-year-old baby!

The devil must have sent me here to freak y'all out,

And no, I don't mean maybe.

Oh, I go in my pants like a baby do

But that's what the old folks do too, woo!

Prayin' every night, God, kill me, please!

I'm an eighty-year-old baby!

The rule of thumb with actors nominated for their performances in singing parts is that their odds greatly improve if they did their own singing. When Jamie Foxx was nominated for Ray a few years ago, the general consensus was that he was badly miscast as Johnny Ray, but Foxx was assured of a win as soon as voters heard his own wrenching performance of "The Little White Cloud That Cried". And while Langella did his own singing, not only was Pitt's singing voice dubbed, but his face was CGI-generated, and his dancing was performed by that old guy who used to appear in the Six Flags commercials. Normally, this would give Langella an edge. But we're probably going to have to give Pitt one of these things eventually, and there may never be another time when a Brad Pitt performance has so little Brad Pitt in it. And since the less Pitt contributes to a Brad Pitt performance the better it's likely to be, I think the Academy will do the right thing and strike now while the iron is hot.

BEST ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway is nominated for her performance in Rachel Getting Married, but as I understand, she doesn't play Rachel. Getting nominated for a movie that has a character's name in the title when you didn't play that character is just confusing. It makes Academy voters' heads swim, and trust me, these people don't need that. Kate Winslet is nominated for The Reader, and we've already discussed what's the matter with that title, and I hear that Winslet actually plays the person who the reader reads to, which...well, see above. Sometimes I don't think people even take these things seriously. Melissa Leo is nominated for Frozen River, which is a peerless example of the kind of performance and movie that wins at the Independent Spirit Awards exactly one day before the same names are read aloud at the Oscars ceremony and a murmur passes through the crowd that goes something like, "I dunno, I think maybe she's from Canada." Meryl Streep is nominated for playing a nun in a film based on an acclaimed Broadway play, and that sure sounds like an Oscar sure shot, as I was saying just the other day to President Ronald Reagan and MTV VJ Martha Quinn as we were playing Ms. Pac-Man and eating Frusen Glädjé washed down with New Coke while wearing our "Frankie Say" T-shirts and waiting to go over and stand in line for the opening of Epcot Center...oh, really? That was all that long ago, huh? Okay, then I guess it'll have to go to Angelina Jolie for The Changeling. It should have hit me immediately that they'll need to do that to make it up to Clint for not nominating him for having had jack shit to do with Gran Torino, especially since watching that movie amounted to spending two hours seeing Eastwood screaming at the voters, "Look at these wrinkles! Listen to this raspy croak of a voice! Y'see this kisser? I'm not gonna be here forever, for God's sakes, don't you get it!?" The nice thing is that now Brad and Angelina will both carry one home, on the same night. It'll probably extend the life of the marriage by a good two years.

BEST DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire. Just the voters' way of saying that they understand that the mix-up about nominating him instead of whoever directed Beverly Hills Chihuahua wasn't his fault and everybody feels bad about any possible embarrassment this whole mess has cost him

THE JEAN HERSHOLT HUMANITARIAN AWARD: This guy.

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

A few weeks back, we here at the Screengrab gave our predictions for this year’s Academy Award nominees in the six major categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporting Actor/Actress, and yours truly won the bragging rights as Top Prognosticator (with 24 correct guesses) with Scott Von Doviak and Paul Clark tying for the steak knives in second place with 22 correct guesses apiece.

But now the play-offs are done and it’s time for the Super Bowl as we make our predictions about the winners in every category (except those weird technical ones Jessica Alba presents in a Denny’s on Sunset before the official ABC-televised Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, February 22nd (8:00 PM Eastern/5:00 PM Pacific)).

If you’d like to play along at home, just submit your own winner predictions in the Comments section below!

And now, without further ado, THE OFFICIAL 2009 SCREENGRAB OSCAR PREDICTIONS!

BEST ACTRESS

And the nominees are...

Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changeling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader

Paul Clark Predicts: Kate Winslet

With six nominations under her belt already, you can’t say she’s not due to win one. Shame that sentiment wasn’t in the air for a better performance.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Kate Winslet

Sorry, Anne and Melissa, you’ll have to wait your turn. (And quit scowling, Angelina.) SAG-winning Meryl’s the spoiler, but I think this is finally Kate’s year.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Angelina Jolie

This has been Kate Winslet’s year in a lot of ways; she laid down two terrific performances in 2008. Unfortunately, the great job she did in The Reader was in service of a truly mediocre and vastly overhyped film. Meryl Streep’s nomination is more or less a formality at this point. Anne Hathaway deserves the gold for her compelling performance in Rachel Getting Married, but it’s likely to go to Angelina Jolie in a role that presses the Academy’s buttons.

Should Win: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Will Win: Angelina Jolie, Changeling

Nick Schager Predicts: Kate Winslet

The Reader is almost a parody of an awards-season prestige pic, but since the Academy usually eats up such faux-serious drivel – and because none of the other actresses seem to have much heat going into the race’s final stretch – count on Winslet to win. And then, if we’re lucky, to accept the statue in her awful Reader old-age make-up.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Melissa Leo

Melissa Leo will be this year's surprise win in a major category. Meryl Streep is nominated mostly for being Meryl Streep, and Kate Winslet winning for playing a Nazi prison camp guard would be too predictable.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Kate Winslet

Voters who didn't actually see The Reader but did see Revolutionary Road will vote for her anyway, so it's like she's nominated for two movies in one.

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS PREDICTION: KATE WINSLET!

Stay tuned for a very special tribute to Heath Ledger and appearances by Amy Adams, Josh Brolin, Peter Gabriel and Alexandre Desplat as the Screengrab 2009 Oscar Special continues!

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Nick Schager, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

In Other Blogs: Oscar Grumbling

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:00:00 GMT

What could be more predictable than the announcement of the Oscar nominees yesterday? Bloggers bitching about said nominations, of course! At Scanners, Jim Emerson has no love for frontrunner Slumdog Millionaire. “Not since Crash -- or possibly Mississippi Burning -- has a movie packaged brutality in slicker, shinier, tighter shrink-wrap. It's asphyxiating. You will never have to worry about what you are supposed to feel and when you are supposed to feel it because the movie will always feed you the answers, then smack you when it's your cue to emote. You can "surrender" completely to the experience (it demands nothing less), and you needn't worry that you will be given an idle moment in which you will be left to feel, or breathe, on your own.”

Dana Stevens and Troy Patterson debate the nominations at Slate. “Scanning the list of nominees, I find myself in the odd position of feeling indignant on behalf of a movie I didn't like much, Revolutionary Road,” Stevens writes. “I don't think I would mind this handsomely mounted yawner getting what amounts to a jumbo-sized dis—Leo not up for best actor, Mendes not up for best director, Justin Haythe not up for best adapted screenplay, the movie itself ignored for best picture—if it weren't for the alarming number of accolades beings heaped on Revolutionary Road's evil twin, The Reader. Everyone knew Kate would get a best-actress nod, and as a five-time loser, she still seems likely to win the category. But it somehow besmirches her honor to be recognized for the execrable Reader (aka Boohoo, I Bonked an Illiterate Nazi).”

The Defamer offers up 5 Plots and Subplots to Watch in This Years’ Oscar Race, including: How much will Harvey Weinstein spend to buy Kate Winslet an Oscar? “The Reader's extraordinary showing this morning owes everything to Harvey's secret formula of marketing, publicity and assiduous word-of-mouth since last fall. But the cash-poor Weinstein Company doesn't stand a chance against Slumdog Millionaire in Picture, Director or Adapted Screenplay, so it comes down to Actress. It's one of the weakest categories of the year, with Winslet facing her stiffest competition probably from Anne Hathaway. Or Harvey can take the nominations — and the advertisement/DVD box copy that accompanies them —- and run. Ha. Right.”

Of course, some are upset about the perceived snub of The Dark Knight, but as Dateline: Hollywood reports, that won’t happen again. “In an move that the director said had nothing to do with this morning's Oscar nominations, Christopher Nolan has announced plans for a Dark Knight sequel that will take place during Nazi era Germany and reveal that Batman is gay and aging backwards.”

Finally, the folks at Funny or Die have noticed something about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that you, too, may have noticed:

The Curious Case of Forrest Gump - watch more funny videos

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

BEST ACTRESS

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

Meryl Streep and her peculiar Livia Soprano accent in Doubt will be a shoe-in, and Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road is nearly as automatic. Anne Hathaway, as one of our commenters put it, acted the shit out of Rachel Getting Married. Cate Blanchett put on old lady makeup for Benjamin Button. That leaves one wild card slot for Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky.

WINNER
Kate Winslet

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Nicole Kidman (Australia)
Keira Knightley (The Duchess)
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (The Reader)

Like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kate Winslet has managed to be in two likely movies this year. She will be nominated for The Reader since it's a Holocaust movie in which she plays a morally dubious character, which easily trumps nineteen-fifties repression. That, and the fact that she wears a sagging old lady suit and appears naked (though not at the same time, thankfully). The unwritten law of the Oscars states that there must be at least one costume drama in one of the more important nominations, so why not Keira Knightley? Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman seems due for a nomination, and the Academy will want to work Australia in there somewhere. If memory serves, frail white women on that continent tend to do well with the Academy. Anne Hathaway will get a nomination for slumming it in Rachel Getting Married when she might have starred in something far glossier. Meryl Streep will be in the mix due to the need to throw Doubt a bone and because her showing up on the carpet every year in crazy cat lady garb makes everybody happy.

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Angelina Jolie (Changeling)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

One might as well send out ballots with Streep’s name pre-printed on them every year, and this year is no exception, with her turn as Doubt’s Sister Aloysius getting lots of attention. Hathaway’s revelatory performance in Jonathan Demme’s family drama should carry its awards-season momentum to an easy nomination and, I predict, a win, in keeping with the long tradition of hot starlets de-glamming in scruffy movies to win Oscar gold (also, she’s pretty great in it). And Winslet, between Revolutionary Road and her so-called “supporting” performance in The Reader, could be the year’s only serious contender for a double nomination. Beyond there, things get fuzzy. Jolie seems like a shoo-in, considering her baity grieving-mom performance, but we said that about last year’s A Mighty Heart too. Still, don’t count out a Clint Eastwood movie. The final spot will likely be a battle between critical darlings Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky), Melissa Leo (Frozen River), Kristin Scott Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long) and longshot Michelle Williams (Wendy and Lucy). I predict that Hawkins takes this one, but Leo’s a strong possibility as well. Finally, if Cate Blanchett in Benjamin Button makes it here, it probably means the voters are over the moon for the film, so if her name is called on nomination day, look for the movie itself to take Best Picture.

WINNER
Anne Hathaway

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Angelina Jolie (Changeling)
Melissa Leo (Frozen River)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

Despite mixed reviews for Doubt, Changeling and Revolutionary Road, industry vet + scenery chewing + SAG Award nominations (squared by Golden Globe nominations) = Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie and Kate Winslet. Meanwhile, on the indie side of the street, much as I would love to see the delightful Sally Hawkins snag a place for Happy-Go-Lucky, it may be a bad sign that (a) she didn’t score a SAG nomination, (b) some people found her character annoying and (c) others may suspect she was only playing herself. Instead, SAG and the Spirit Awards like Melissa Leo for the token “performance in a movie hardly anyone saw” nomination slot, and thus I’ll go with her (even though I'm one of those people who still hasn't seen Frozen River). And in the five-spot, I’m guessing this is the year Anne Hathaway gets invited to the grown-up table (Bride Wars notwithstanding). She’ll definitely get a nomination, and I bet even Meryl Streep votes for her to win.

WINNER
Anne Hathaway

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

NOMINATIONS
Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

Streep gets picked because it’s in the Constitution that she gets nominated once a year. Winslet, one of my very favorite human beings in all the world, is about ten times the talent that Leo DiCaprio is, but they’ll both get named for Revolutionary Road. The wildly overrated Happy-Go-Lucky won’t get anything but this nomination, but Hawkins’ performance is so talked about there’s no way it’ll miss. Hathaway is absolutely riveting in Rachel Getting Married, but I’m predicting Blanchett will take it, despite having zero charisma with Brad Pitt, as an ‘overdue’ award for Benjamin Button. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: The Academy will be confused by Kristin Scott Thomas’ Frenchitude in I’ve Loved You So Long, and she won’t get nominated despite turning in the performance of the year.

WINNER
Cate Blanchett

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
CATE BLANCHETT (TIE), ANNE HATHAWAY, SALLY HAWKINS, ANGELINA JOLIE (TIE), MERYL STREEP, KATE WINSLET

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
ANNE HATHAWAY

Click Here For Part One, Two, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:00:00 GMT

In the wee hours of January 22nd (my birthday by the way – Target gift cards are always appreciated!), the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards will be announced by whichever two actors lost the coin-toss at the 80th Academy Awards ceremony last February. (Apparently the nominations were originally supposed to be announced on January 20th, but apparently there’s some big parade or whatever going on that day.)

Anyway, next to making year-end lists and posting cleavagey shots of Scarlett Johannson, there’s nothing your friends at the Screengrab enjoy more than Oscar predictions.

This year, we’re keeping score...and you (yes, YOU!) can play along at home by posting your predictions (down yonder in the Comments section) for the five nominees in each of the following major categories (along with your long-range guess for the winners of each award): Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress.

After the actual nominees are announced, we’ll tally up the points and see which Screengrabber (or Commenter!) had the most accurate predictions, thus earning the top-seed spot going into the full-scale Oscar prediction play-offs.

For the Screengrab’s individual and collective picks, we'll see you after the jump!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Viola Davis (Doubt)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
Debra Winger (Rachel Getting Married)
Kate Winslet (The Reader)

Penelope Cruz is the thinking man's choice for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Kate Winslet will pull double duty for taking it all off in The Reader. Speaking of taking it all off, how about Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler? Viola Davis stole the show with five minutes in Doubt. And how about trying to lure Debra Winger back to full-time work with a nomination for Rachel Getting Married?

WINNER
Cruz, resurrecting the Woody Allen lock on this category from a decade ago.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Amy Adams (Doubt)
Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Beyoncé Knowles (Cadillac Records)
Samantha Morton (Synecdoche, New York)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

There are surprisingly few obvious choices for this one. Penelope Cruz will get nominated for Vicky Cristina Barcelona because it's the first good Woody Allen pic in years and nobody else is going to get any recognition for it. Marisa Tomei is here for playing a stripper, which is the type of thing that leads to nomination, unless of course you are Elizabeth Berkley. Amy Adams seems like another likely contender and Samantha Morton and Beyoncé Knowles, well they don't seem likely at all… I just like the thought of it really.

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Viola Davis (Doubt)
Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
Kate Winslet (The Reader)

Anyone who is familiar with Doubt knows that the character of Mrs. Miller is prime awards bait, and Davis most definitely brought her game to the role. And Cruz’s memorably over-the-top turn as Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s unhinged Maria Elena promises to be the first acting nomination from a Woody Allen film in nearly a decade (while you’re at it, pencil Allen in for his 15th Best Original Screenplay nomination). Winslet looks like she’s on track to rack up nomination #6 and perhaps even #7 this year, and I’m guessing that this’ll be her year to win one. Another name that keeps popping up in the precursor awards is Amy Adams, but do you think that the voters will nominate all four principle actors from a movie they didn’t love enough to nominate for Best Picture? I doubt it. Looking much more likely are one-time Oscar winner Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler, and Taraji P. Henson, whose adorable performance as Benjamin Button’s adoptive mother Queenie is a highlight of a movie that ought to get plenty of Academy attention.

WINNER
Kate Winslet

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Amy Adams (Doubt)
Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Viola Davis (Doubt)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
Debra Winger (Rachel Getting Married)

Why no love for Debra Winger’s blistering mama in Rachel Getting Married? Nobody’s talking up her Academy Award chances and as far as I know, only the Spirit awards have given a nod to one of last year's most memorable performances...but voting emotionally rather than strategically is always a sure way to hemorrhage points in your office Oscar pool (see my prediction snub of Sally Hawkins under Best Actress), so I’ll go with a safe bet for my first choice instead: Penelope Cruz, who’s also going to win (okay, to be honest, this pick is strategic and emotional, since she gave another one of my favorite performances of 2008, raising all surrounding boats on her raging, hormonal tide in Vicky Cristina Barcelona). But if it’s not Cruz, then it’s hard to imagine anyone beating Viola Davis, who was flat-out fantastic in Doubt. (Actually, now that I think about it...scratch Cruz and put me down for Davis: in such a tight race, a single vote could easily tip the balance, and for all I know, that swing vote could be Mia Farrow.) Aside from those two sure things, though, Supporting Actress is always the trickiest of the major categories to predict. Nobody expected Marisa Tomei to win for My Cousin Vinny way back in ‘92, for instance (though nobody was too surprised to see her fall victim to the Best Supporting Actress curse shortly thereafter); still, despite rumors that she’s, um, a bit of a handful to work with, she’s still a Made Guy in the Academy family, and it seems about time for Oscar to welcome her back. As for Amy Adams...well, she's America’s (and Hollywood’s) latest sweetheart, she looks good in red carpet couture and she did nice work in Doubt, so I expect she’ll snag the fourth spot. And finally...ah, what the hell: Winger.

WINNER
Viola Davis

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

Although 2008 got widely (and, I think, somewhat unfairly) smeared as an off year for movies, it was definitely a good year for the kinds of flicks that Oscar voters go for. With plenty of historical epics, ‘message’ pictures, and the kinds of ripe, fruity performances that always rack up AMPAS gold, the year may not have been a great one for the art house crowds, but it should provide the kind of entertainment at the Oscar ceremonies that Hugh Jackman won’t. Forthwith, my predictions for what’ll show up on the ballots in six major categories (the sure-fire lock: that I’ll make a total ass of myself with these picks).

NOMINATIONS
Amy Adams (Doubt)
Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Viola Davis (Doubt)
Amy Ryan (The Changeling)
Kate Winslet (The Reader)

The Academy will nominate a Woody Allen movie, as they do every few years just to get on his nerves, and movie fans will grind their teeth trying to figure out which Amy is which, distracting them from their usual annual confusion over why two actresses from the same movie got the nod. But in the end, Winslet will take home the statue for The Reader, a movie that’s going to get stiffed everywhere but in the acting categories. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Debra Winger’s wonderful turn in Rachel Getting Married will be ignored, because the Academy can only handle so many comeback stories at a time.

WINNER
Kate Winslet

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
AMY ADAMS, PENELOPE CRUZ, VIOLA DAVIS, MARISA TOMEI, KATE WINSLET

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
KATE WINSLET

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Paul Clark, Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Sarah Clyne Sundberg, Scott Von Doviak

The Best of 2008: Leonard Pierce's Picks for the Best Movies of the Year, Part Two

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:45:00 GMT

5. WALL*E (Andrew Stanton, dir.)

Pixar has been on such a roll of late that if they were a single director, they’d be getting mention in the same breath as the golden age greats. But they’re not; they’re an aggregate of many clever, talented folks who make computer-generated cartoons that are at least partly intended for children. I’m not going to argue that this isn’t sometimes a weakness; in WALL*E, the environmental message only seems fitting and appropriate because I happen to agree with it, and the crypto-Objectivism in The Incredibles only bothered me because I don’t. But regardless of the heavy-handedness of the moral, it can’t be denied that WALL*E is flat out the most wonderful film of the year, hopeful and funny and romantic and bittersweet all at the same time, and wrapped up in a package so beautiful to look at you wonder why anyone ever questions the potential of CGI. And if this astounding motion picture spawned an obnoxious marketing empire, one can only shake one’s head and say “Damn kids don’t know how good they’ve got it.”

4. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (Jonathan Demme, dir.)

If you ever want to flummox a music critic, ask him to describe one of his favorite new bands without comparing them to another band. Of course, Rachel Getting Married proves that the same can occasionally be said for movie critics: it seems impossible to talk about without referencing something else. It’s got the dysfunctional family dynamics of Il y a Longtemps Que Je T’aime; the comeback-kid story of The Wrestler; the hateful-misanthrope-as-vehicle-for-joyous-redemption jawn of a Wes Anderson film (only better) and the structure and form of the late Robert Altman’s best work (only different). With all of these elements at play, though, it never seems derivative of anything else, only reminiscent in the best possible way. In the end, Rachel Getting Married is its own film, familiar yet new and impressive, and carried along by some of the finest acting of the year, most especially from Anne Hathaway and Bill Irwin.

3. CHE (Steven Soderbergh, dir.)

Steven Soderbergh keeps on making great movies, and never the same one twice. His latest is getting lots of what child care experts call “good attention” and “bad attention”; it’s certain that Soderbergh intended it that way, with its rigid formal structure, back-spasm-inducing length, difficult tonal shifts, and…oh, yeah, it’s a biopic about one of the most controversial figures of the 20th century. It’s just as hard to figure out how much of the negative reception is due to political and moral judgment of the revolutionary Che Guevara as it is to figure out how much of the positive reception comes from those who valorize him, but taken purely as a movie, Che is hard to beat: it’s formally daring, adventurously directed, risk-taking, well-made, and held together by a powerful performance that shows its subject neither as a heroic rebel or a vicious murderer, but simply as a man so consumed by his cause that he didn’t know what else to do than keep fighting for it.

2. WENDY AND LUCY (Kelly Reichardt, dir.)

There have been a number of exceptionally well-done documentaries in recent years about ordinary people dangling from the precipice of financial ruin in economically uncertain times, but successful narrative films dealing with the same subject have been few and far between. That’s largely because it’s hard to approach the topic in fiction without becoming didactic, maudlin, or treacly – and those challenges are certainly, and perilously, evident in Kelly Reichardt’s story about a young woman in brutally limited circumstances who loses her beloved dog while pursuing a slender chance at a decent job. But the miraculous thing about Wendy and Lucy is that it toes that line from its first frame to its last without ever tumbling down and making a mess of itself. That’s a testament to the top-notch script, the surprisingly deep direction, and the beautiful performance by lead actress Michelle Williams. No one could ever have predicted that an heir to the Italian neo-realist tradition would emerge in 2008 from America’s Pacific Northwest; that it happened is one of the year’s greatest surprises.

1. SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK (Charlie Kaufman, dir.)

There are so many things that could have gone wrong with Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut. I first heard him talk about his desire to direct way back in 2004, when I interviewed him for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and when Synechdoche, New York was finally announced, I was full of dread. The video stores of America are choked with mediocre-to-bad movies by talented writers who decided what they really wanted to do was direct. I needn’t have worried: Synechdoche, New York is easily my favorite film of the year. Kaufman approached directing with the same meticulous, self-searching approach that he does writing, and the result is nothing short of astounding. The best movies, for me, are the ones that seem to completely rewire my head – that are so profound and well-crafted that they redefine my basic approach to their subject, form or content. Charlie Kaufman accomplishes that his first time out of the gate, and that’s the mark of a major talent.

ALMOST MADE IT: The Strangers, Doubt, Iron Man, The Wrestler, Bigger Stronger Faster*.

DIDN'T SEE THEM: Entre les Murs (The Class), Standard Operating Procedure, Lat den Ratte Komme In (Let the Right One In), Dear Zachary: A Letter To His Son About His Father, Trouble the Water, Full Battle Rattle, Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge (Flight of the Red Balloon).

PERFORMANCES OF THE YEAR: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler; Bill Irwin, Rachel Getting Married; Kristin Scott Thomas, Il y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime; Viola Davis, Doubt.

MADE IN 2007, BUT GREAT IN 2008: 4 Luni 3 Saptamani si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days); Paranoid Park; My Winnipeg; Une Vielle Maitress (The Last Mistress); Auf der Anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven); Encounters at the End of the World; Chop Shop.

OVERRATED: Waltz with Bashir; In Bruges; Happy-Go-Lucky; Slumdog Millionaire; Kung Fu Panda.

Click for Part One

Andrew Osborne's Top Ten Movies of 2008 (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:47:00 GMT

So, by the end of first quarter 2008, I’d seen exactly one memorably list-worthy movie (see #7) and figured it was just gonna be one of those low tide kinda years after a pretty strong 2007 (Knocked Up, Juno, The King of Kong, Gone Baby Gone, Hell On Wheels, Zodiac, 2 Days In Paris, etcetera). And yet, looking back over the past twelve months, I have to admit, to paraphrase Charlie Brown, it wasn’t such a bad little tree, with a lot of perfectly enjoyable (if not terribly memorable) films, as well as a number of...

WILDCARDS: (potentially list-worthy movies unseen by moi in 2008): Man On Wire, Encounters at the End of the World, Waltz with Bashir, Trouble the Water, Let the Right One In, Revolutionary Road, Gran Torino

And now, the Top 10 I did see...

1. YOUNG@HEART

Usually, the top of my Top Ten list is something I’d be happy to watch again at the drop of a hat, but I suspect I’ll never, ever sit through Young@Heart again: the first time was wrenching (and memorable) enough. My wife and I saw the film at the Harvard Square Loews with my Dad, who’s been in AARP territory for quite a while now, and a theater half full of strangers. For the first thirty minutes or so, Stephen Walker’s documentary about feisty senior citizens singing ironic hipster doofus perennials like “I Wanna Be Sedated” and “Staying Alive” was a hoot...and then the first lovable oldster died. And then another, and another, like some horror movie of age we’re all trapped in, and suddenly every single person in the theater was getting smacked right in the kisser with the harsh realities of mortality, and nearly all of us were openly sobbing. Yet for all that, the film is never mawkish: the chorus members are presented as a platoon of happy warriors, singing at the top of their lungs as they march into the shadow of the valley of death, fighting tooth and nail for every last drop of joy they can squeeze out of life, even as their comrades fall around them. As I said before in my 2008 half-time wrap-up, I try not to judge people based on their personal tastes when it comes to movies, but if you can sit through the Young@Heartster’s performance of Coldplay’s “Fix You” (punctuated by the rasp and click of the soloist’s respirator) without a lump in your throat, you may need to check your own pulse.

2. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY

While not as powerful or memorable as Young@Heart, Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky was an equally heartfelt (and far less harrowing) film-going experience, with a similar theme (not to mention a timely one, given the world’s collective George W. Bush hangover): get busy living or get busy dying. Yes, life can be tough and full of injustice and, yes, it’s easy to be aloof and snarky and negative about it, but whether or not that makes anything better (for yourself or anyone else) is the question Leigh tackles here. Underpaid elementary school teacher Poppy (the infectiously great Sally Hawkins) is a relentlessly cheery optimist, the sort of person easily dismissed as a shallow, annoying bubblehead...in fact, one guy I know found the character so irritating he ditched the film after fifteen minutes. But then Poppy encounters her polar opposite, a seething mass of bitterness (embodied in a visceral performance by Eddie Marsan) whose dismal, head-full-of-spiders malevolence provides the necessary contrast to show the true strength and value of Hawkins’ irrepressible sunbeam, raising questions (and suspense) about which of the two worldviews will ultimately triumph.

3. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Like my fellow Screengrabber Scott Von Doviak, I didn’t expect this Jonathan Demme curiosity to wind up on my Best of 2008 list. Watching it the first time, it seemed unfocused and self-indulgent with its meandering Altman-wannabe pace, its self-consciously eccentric diversity and its melodramatic Lifetime-esque family drama. Yet because of its unusual construction, Rachel Getting Married feels now like a memory of an actual wedding I attended rather than just a movie I watched, adding extra punch to my recollections of the infrequent but correspondingly vivid moments of drama like the blistering showdown between Anne Hathaway’s loose cannon recovering addict Kym (a.k.a. Shiva the Destroyer) and her mother (Debra Winger...damn!) –- though even if Demme hadn’t gotten all artsy with the structure, Hathaway’s mesmerizing performance alone would have been worth the price of admission.

4. FROST/NIXON

Ron Howard’s cinematic adaptation of the acclaimed Peter Morgan play is what I call a “guys-in-suits” movie (one of my favorite genres) where formidable, top-level professionals like Howard, Morgan, Frank Langella (recreating his Tony-winning stage performance as Nixon) and the reliably great Michael Sheen (as Frost) focus their collective talents on a film about formidable, top-level professionals (like the real Frost and Nixon), sparring and strategizing and walking quickly down hallways and corridors rattling off witty bon mots and dense bits of jargon in the midst of high-stakes negotiations and race-against-time showdowns. Some critics have noted the actual historic impact of the Frost/Nixon interviews wasn’t really all that monumental, but the film charts high on my list as an entertaining poker tournament between two fascinating characters (with extra points for Toby Jones’ hilarious cameo as super-agent Swifty Lazar).

5. MILK

Sometimes timing is everything. In twenty years, critics will still be praising Sean Penn’s amazing transformation from scowling, self-important killjoy movie star into sweet, gawky force-of-nature gay activist Harvey Milk, but hopefully by 2028 this film will seem like just another well-made but otherwise run-of-the-mill “issue” film about an issue that’s no longer really an issue. But here in 2008, in the wake of the Proposition 8 disgrace, Milk is still, sadly, very much of the moment, and even for some progressives, the casual man-on-man kissing and romance between Penn’s character and his lovers (James Franco and Diego Luna) is a rare enough sight to give pause. From a historical standpoint, I was horrified to learn that Dan White (well captured by Josh Brolin in a chilling “mundanity of evil” performance) could murder Harvey Milk and the freakin’ mayor of a major American city in cold blood and get just seven years in prison on a manslaughter rap...that fact, combined with the anti-gay slanders of the McCain/Palin campaign (and, really, every Republican campaign in recent memory), the controversy over Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural and the sense of communion at the packed house screenings of Milk during its opening weekend are just some of the reasons Gus Van Sant’s good movie feels like such a great and important one now.

Click Here For Part Two

Ever-Mysterious National Board of Review's Year-End Awards

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Before any of the critics’ associations weigh in with their year-end awards, the National Board of Review releases its annual awards announcement and Top 10 list. While this organization certainly has an official-sounding name, questions remain about the legitimacy of the group, which was actually founded as a censorship board in 1909. In response to a reader question, Roger Ebert once wrote, “I have never met anyone who has met a member of the National Board of Review. The director John Boormann recently told me that he attended one of their award banquets at the Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and met several other award winners. There was a celebrity host to hand out the prizes. ‘After I got back home,’ he mused, ‘I realized that I had not met a single person claiming to be a member of the National Board of Review.’”

Be that as it may, the NBR’s list is taken seriously each year as a bellwether of the upcoming critics’ prizes and other awards, so we hereby dutifully present their top honors:

BEST PICTURE: Slumdog Millionaire
BEST DIRECTOR: David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
BEST ACTOR: Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
BEST ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Josh Brolin, Milk
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

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

Trailer Review: Bride Wars

Paul Clark — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

If Rachel Getting Married taught us anything, it’s that Anne Hathaway can be an acting force under the right circumstances. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Bride Wars is the best vehicle to capitalize on the goodwill she’s gotten from Jonathan Demme’s film. Part of the problem is the tendency displayed by a sadly high number of women to become so obsessed with the details of their weddings- a tendency that’s partially fed by the dream weddings found in movies such as this one- that they lose sight of what the ceremony itself really means. Call me crazy, but I just don’t find the premise of a pair of dueling bridezillas funny. But back to Hathaway- perhaps she should take a look at her costar, Kate Hudson, to see how being typecast in romantic comedies can shanghai a once-promising career. It’s not too late to find a different and more interesting path, Anne- I hope you’ll choose wisely.

2008 Gotham Awards & 2009 Spirit Nominations Announced

Andrew Osborne — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Yes, it's that magical time of year again: Oscar pre-season. True, we've still got a few more weeks of 2008 releases to go (including the obligatory one-week L.A. runs for last minute Academy Awards consideration), but in the same way baseball fans start frothing at the mouth in anticipation when the equipment trucks roll down to Florida for Spring Training, so, too, do the red carpet geeks amongst us jump for joy at the first sign of envelopes opening.

And, indeed, last night in New York City, the Independent Feature Project rolled out their annual Gotham Awards ceremomy, paying tribute to director Courtney Hunt's Frozen River as Best Feature, with Lance Hammer winning the Best Breakthrough Director Award for his film Ballast. Best Documentary went to Trouble the Water (directed by Tia Lessin & Carl Deal), while the Best Ensemble Performance Award went to both the casts of Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Synecdoche, New York (which blew my mind by having Samantha Morton and Emily Watson play the same character, thus further diminishing my already shaky capacity for telling the actresses apart). Rounding out the Gothams was the Breakthrough Actor Award, which went to Melissa Leo for her performance in Frozen River, and Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You, taken by Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues.

But, even better, Oscar's laid-back, pot-smoking kid sister, the Spirit Awards, announced nominations for the ceremony that will take place live on the IFC Channel at 5PM EST on February 21st, 2009 (and will hopefully not have Rainn Wilson as host again). Mmm...plaudits!

THE 2009 SPIRIT AWARD NOMINATIONS

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"

Thursday Poll for November 13, 2007

Paul Clark — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

With a little more than two months left until Oscar nominations are announced, who stands the best chance of being nominated from the movies that have already gotten released? If the predictions of Screengrab’s readership hold any water (and we like to think they do), then Anne Hathaway should be very happy come nomination day. Once best known as the star of the Princess Diaries franchise (and later as the girl who gets topless in the otherwise regrettable Havoc), Hathaway’s revelatory lead performance in Jonathan Demme’s near-masterpiece Rachel Getting Married has made a real impression on our readers, nearly half of whom voted for it in last week’s poll. In second place was eternal paparazzi-magnet Angelina Jolie in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, followed by The Jenkins for his performance in this spring’s word-of-mouth hit The Visitor. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the scant 7% of the vote received by Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, if only because a decade ago she would’ve been practically a shoo-in to get nominated, given Woody Allen’s awards prowess during the nineties.

This week, we presented our list of our favorite 007 movies. Now we leave it to you- which of our top five choices leaves you the most shaken… or stirred?

Which of these 007 movies is your favorite? | BuzzDash polls

As always, the comments section is open. See you next week!

Morning Deal Report: Another Wedding for Anne Hathaway

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Rachel Getting Married is only now reaching theaters, but Anne Hathaway is already heading for the altar again. Hathaway will star in The Fiance for Warner Bros. She’ll play “a woman who cancels wedding plans and breaks up with her seemingly perfect fiance so she can try to figure out who she really is. Her meddling parents try to patch things up between the pair, making it impossible for her to move on,” Variety reports.

Naomi Watts will star as the real-life woman who “famously called President Bill Clinton a ‘weenie’”. No, it’s not The Hillary Clinton Story. It’s My Name is Jody Williams, the true story of “a strong-willed teacher working for a temporary employment agency who left her life in Washington to pursue an unlikely career in global activism. Almost a decade and a half later, Williams was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for leading an international campaign to eradicate land mines,” says The Hollywood Reporter.

Can I interest you in a movie about five people trying to kill Ashton Kutcher? Then get in line for Five Killers, in which Kutcher “will play a former hit man whose life is turned upside down because someone from his past has paid a group of killers to bump him off,” per Variety.

Related:
Anne Hathaway in Wonderland
The Top 25 Leading Ladies of All Time

Morning Deal Report: Anne Hathaway in Wonderland

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

You probably already know that Tim Burton is directing Alice in Wonderland for Disney, and you most likely wouldn’t be terribly surprised to learn that Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are attached (as the Mad Hatter and Red Queen, respectively). Now Burton has found his White Queen, and it’s Rachel Getting Married star Anne Hathaway. “The White Queen needs Alice to slay a creature known as the Bandersnatch,” The Hollywood Reporter reminds us. Ah, but who is frumious enough to play the Bandersnatch? We’re putting our money on Christopher Walken.

It turns out that October brings not only baseball’s playoffs, but really bad ideas for baseball movies. (I’m still haunted by the image of Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore dancing on the field when the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series.) Now we learn that Kevin Costner and Ron Shelton are cooking up a sequel to Bull Durham. Our first thought is that Costner and Tim Robbins are a little old to pass for baseball players (even older than some of the current Yankees), but according to this UPI report (via the New York Post), a solution has been found. “Real-life couple and Durham co-stars Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, who played a pitcher and a baseball groupie respectively in the first installment, are also expected to return for the second film. This time around, they will play the married owners of a Major League Baseball team Costner's character manages, the Post said.”

Tennis, anyone? Frank DeFord’s novel Big Bill is coming to the big screen. It’s based on the true story of tennis legend Bill Tilden, who “dominated tennis in the 1920s, winning six straight U.S. Open singles titles and becoming the first American to win Wimbledon. He was also a contract bridge champ, musicologist, novelist, playwright and actor. On the other side of the ledger, Tilden was famously self-destructive, going to jail twice for sexual misbehavior with teenage boys and dying penniless,” says Variety. Sounds like the feel-good sports story of the year.

Related:
When Good Directors Go Bad: Planet of the Apes (Tim Burton)
Hathaway Hotness, Rourke Smackdowns Head Venice Comp Lineup

In Other Blogs: Canadian Edition

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:30:00 GMT

Many luminaries from the film blogosphere attended the Toronto International Film Festival this week. (I would have gone, but I don’t speak Canadian.) Spoutblog chatted with Paris, Not France director Adria Petty to find out the story behind those cancelled screenings. “I’ll just tell you the truth,” she said. “The truth is that we just didn’t want the film pirated. There’s a lot of people involved in the film that own it or financed it. It was in a lot of different camps and different layers. And basically, at the end of the day, instead of having the whole thing canceled or pulled because of all these greedy or annoying people, Paris and I, who wanted the film to screen at Toronto and were honored by it, we were like, look let’s just do it once in one big theater. And then we put the night vision goggles in one time––because everybody is like, who pays for the night vision?”

In this Toronto dispatch, Green Cine Daily asks the musical question: “Does postmodernism have a future?...Without a doubt, this year's grand test case for the future viability of any form of large-scale political cinema, if not for outsized American auteur cinema in general, is Steven Soderbergh's Che. Divided into two full-length films, each slightly over two hours, Che could be the ultimate sinkhole for our day, a giant leftist vacuum into which someone's money vanished without a trace. How can this film even exist, and who is its presumed audience? To Soderbergh's credit, there seems to have been little consideration of this question. I would like to be able to weigh in passionately on the debate around Che, but the sad truth is, there's little onscreen to justify passions in either direction.”

At Scanners, Jim Emerson applauds our Canadian oppressors. “One difference between Canadians and Europeans: They are not into power-tripping you at the entrance to movie theaters. I arrived too late (about ten minutes before starting time) for the one and only press/industry screening of Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker yesterday…Then word came that no more seats could be found. Some of us (the Americans and Canadians) were saddened and disappointed and frustrated. Others (those with European accents, though it is possible they were Quebecois) were indignant. They waved their passes and accused the theater staff of ignoring them or cheating them in some way….Finally, a staffer had to explain: There. Were. No. More. Seats. She was not trying to cheat people out of seeing the Kathryn Bigelow movie. She was not attempting to wield arbitrary authority over a gaggle of eager festivalgoers in order to make herself feel powerful and important. She was doing her job and telling the truth: The theater was full.”

Slant supplies its own Canadian content with a look at Adoration. “A characteristically masterful welter of bad vibrations, Atom Egoyan's latest finds the director back in Canadian Traumaland after his Hollywood sojourn in Where the Truth Lies. Keyed to the characters' sense of lingering grief, the narrative unfurls as a time-hopping maze of action and consequence—its deftness and delicacy shame Arriaga's tawdry temporal gymnastics in The Burning Plain. A button-pushing essay by a high-schooler (Devon Bostick) gives the absence-riddled film its center: Turning an article about a failed terrorist plot into a faux-eulogy to his dead parents, the boy uncorks a reservoir of sorrow that brings together his uncle (a surprisingly excellent Scott Speedman), teacher (Egoyan axiom Arsinée Kanjian), and other members of the community… Moody, gliding filmmaking and ripples of quizzical humor save it from being a lugubrious game of therapeutic musical chairs.

And in List-o-Mania, PopMatters offers the Top Ten Things I Loved About TIFF 08, including the return of Debra Winger. “She was only in about four scenes of Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, but in her scant screen time, she conducted a master class in scene-stealing as the mother of the title character and Anne Hathaway’s noxious Kym. Yes, it may be the ‘mother’ role, but Winger is understatedly elegant, and rock-solid. Here’s to hoping this high-profile release gains her some traction on the awards circuit, in tandem with Hathaway. It’s a small, quietly fuming turn that should be lauded for its poetic simplicity.”

Trailer Review: Rachel Getting Married

Paul Clark — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:00:00 GMT

For years, Anne Hathaway has been attempting to make the transition from Disney-family princess roles to full-blown adult stardom. But despite a handful of much-appreciated topless scenes in Havoc and Brokeback Mountain, it hasn’t quite happened yet. I suppose part of the problem is that Hathaway’s roles have been less showy than her costars’, resulting in them getting the lion’s share of the attention. But this time, Hathaway’s not taking any chances, playing a recovering addict whose erratic behavior throws something of a monkey wrench into the wedding of her sister. However, in spite of this quirky setup, I’ve got high hopes for Rachel Getting Married, with director Jonathan Demme making a long-overdue return to off-kilter comedy, and the presence of the sorely-missed Debra Winger in the pivotal role of Hathaway’s tough-love mom, a part she ought to turn into something more than a long-suffering cliché. Plus it’s in the Competition lineup at Venice, which is enough of an endorsement for me.

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: July 26-August 1, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The weekend is here and you could probably find something to do outside, like go to the beach or the dog track, but we both know it’s way too hot out there. For your own safety, I implore you to stay home, crank up the air conditioner and relax with a fruity drink and the finest Screengrab posts of the week.

You know us, always finding diamonds in the dung, like the Top Ten Great Scenes From Not-So-Great Movies (Parts One, Two and Three)

We got up close and personal with Sean Connery and Melissa Leo, but kept a safe distance from Shigeo Tokuda, the Godzilla of geriatric porn.

We bucked the trends and chose to pay some attention to that arthouse curiosity The Dark Knight – including the top 10 reasons it isn’t as good as you think and the foolish editorials comparing Batman and Bush.

We wondered who was goofier – Jon Voight or George Lucas? Then we wondered why Tim Burton had to remake Planet of the Apes.

We looked back to Around the World in 80 Days and ahead to Body of Lies, W and the next Harry Potter.

We checked out the Venice Film Festival lineup (not to mention Anne Hathaway)

And some would say we nuked the fridge.

Hathaway Hotness, Rourke Smackdowns Head Venice Comp Lineup

Paul Clark — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Today brought the announcement of the Competition lineup for next month’s 65th annual Venice International Film Festival. Among the highest-profile American titles in the lineup was the upcoming Jonathan Demme film, Rachel Getting Married (starring the lovely Anne Hathaway, pictured at right) and the sorely-missed Debra Winger. Another intriguing title is The Wrestler, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Mickey Rourke, no doubt eager to try out a new sport after his abortive boxing career. Of course, if you’re looking for something really great, a solid bet would be the latest film by animation master Hayao Miyazaki, entitled Ponyo on Cliff by the Sea, also in Competition.

Other filmmakers of note in Competition include: Takeshi Kitano (Achilles and the Tortoise), Barbet Schroeder (Inju, la Bete dans l’ombre), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Mamoru Oshii (The Sky Crawlers), Werner Schroeter (Nuit de Chien), and Ferzan Oztepek (Un giorno perfetto). Then there’s the directorial debut of Babel screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, entitled The Burning Plain. Expect a trio of interlocking stores and plenty of tortured, writerly multi-culti coincidence.

Here’s the full Competition slate:

Darren Aronofsky- The Wrestler
Guillermo Arriaga- The Burning Plain
Pupi Avati- Il papà di Giovanna
Marco Bechis- BirdWatchers
Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic- L’Autre
Kathryn Bigelow- Hurt Locker
Pappi Corsicato- Il seme della discordia
Jonathan Demme- Rachel Getting Married
Haile Gerima- Teza
Aleksey German Jr.- Bumažnyj soldat (Paper Soldier)
Semih Kaplanoglu- Süt
Takeshi Kitano- Akires to kame (Achilles and the Tortoise)
Hayao Miyazaki- Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on Cliff by the Sea)
Amir Naderi- Vegas: Based on a True Story
Mamoru Oshii- The Sky Crawlers
Ferzan Özpetek- Un giorno perfetto
Christian Petzold- Jerichow
Barbet Schroeder- Inju, la Bête dans l’ombre
Werner Schroeter- Nuit de chien
Tariq Teguia- Gabbla (Inland)
YU Lik-wai- Dangkou (Plastic City)

Strangely enough, this year’s Out of Competition selections are more impressive-looking overall than the titles that are actually competing. Playing outside of competition are new films from the likes of Abbas Kiarostami (Shirin, starring Juliette Binoche), Claire Denis (35 Rhums), Agnes Varda (Les Plages d’Agnes), a new version of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s La Rabbia, and short films by Manoel de Oliveira (Do Visivel ao Invisivel) and Jia Zhang-ke (Cry Me a River). Also, there’s a little movie called Burn After Reading by a pair of filmmaking brothers. Didn’t catch their names, I’m afraid.

The 65th Annual Venice International Film Festival runs from August 27 through September 6. Click here for more information.

Chick Hits: The Girl Power Top Ten

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

After the big screen edition of Sex & The City exceeded the low expectations of industry gurus who were shocked...shocked...to discover that people were actually interested in a movie about, y'know, gurlz, Missy Schwartz wrote a depressingly familiar story for Entertainment Weekly: “It was an unqualified triumph...one the industry observed in a stunned, slack-jawed state. As the weekend rolled to a close, news outlets filed their reports with words like unexpected, surprising, and shocking. ‘What do you know?’ they all seemed to be saying. ‘Women go to the movies!’”

And if Sex and the City 2 (or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 or Mama Mia!) or any other female-centric movie succeeds in the near future, Hollywood will be surprised all over again, and Entertainment Weekly and other publications will run similar articles about the American movie-going public’s "unexpected," "surprising" and "shocking" desire for strong female characters...a desire Hollywood will more or less continue to ignore as it continues its relentless pursuit of teenage boys, no matter how many Speed Racers crash and burn along the way.

Because, after all, many studio execs are just overgrown boys themselves. They dig gadgets, explosions and special effects, and CGI creations are easy to control and merchandise. Female-centered movies tend to rely on well-written screenplays, relatable characters, nuanced direction and...yecccch...feelings: all the things most studio execs pretend to champion but secretly hate.

But we here at The Screengrab aren’t afraid to get in touch with our feminine sides as we raise our Cosmos to these Top Ten “chick hits”: films that put their empowered female characters front and center (without resorting to stripper poles OR big gauzy Prince Charming/Bridezilla wedding porn).

THELMA AND LOUISE (1991)

Okay, so I’m not sure how empowering it is to drive off a cliff in real life, but this Ridley Scott film (based on an iconic script by wunderkind, zeitgeist-tapping Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri) caused a sensation upon its release by (A) objectifying Brad Pitt as a hunky slab of beefcake (thus electrifying and pretty much launching his career) and (B) allowing Susan Sarandon’s Louise to gun down the scumbag who was raping Geena Davis’ Thelma (and later blow up the truck of a leering male chauvinist pig) without even feeling all that bad about it, just like any number of male actors in any number of male-centric revenge fantasies...except in films like Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Taxi Driver, etc., the male heroes didn’t have to die in the end to satisfy Hays Code-style notions of karmic retribution for stepping outside the lines of acceptable social conduct. Still, the film’s outlaw motif energized female audiences by (melo)dramatizing the common stereotypical perception of men as either (a) dangerous assholes or (b) hapless boobs while providing enough action and sex to attract audiences of every gender.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006)

There’s a beloved feminist koan that goes something like this: ruthless, aggressive men who go after what they want are called winners, while ruthless, aggressive women are called bitches. Of course, most thinking people realize that ruthless, aggressive men are actually called assholes...and it’s the universal, gender-blind nature of the eternally confusing success vs. happiness equation faced by Anne Hathaway’s aspiring fashionista “Andy” Sachs that helped to make the film version of The Devil Wears Prada a $300 million dollar monster hit. And, let’s see...two seconds of Googling and...yep! There’s a TMZ article from 2006 with a, shall we say, certain familiar ring to it: “Blah blah blah, female-centered film exceeded all expectations...yadda-yadda-yadda...industry analysts surprised,” etc., etc. etc. As Meryl Streep’s formidable Gordon Gekko-in-stilettos magazine mogul Miranda Priestly might say to those industry Suits who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the existence of fifty percent of their audience, “Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”

BRING IT ON (2000)

This broadly played late-summer sleeper is actually packing a lot of heavy metaphorical lumber for a teen flick about a cheerleading competition. Kirsten Dunst is the new head of the Toros, who cheer for the (rich, white) Rancho Carne High School in Los Angeles; they're gearing up for the national championships, which they've won the past six years with the spectacular routines provided by departing team leader Big Red. But when a new girl with a gymnastics background and an attitude -- Eliza Dushku, who was too cool for Buffy the Vampire Slayer's school -- joins the squad, she has unsettling news. It turns out that Big Red was stealing her plays from the fly girls who cheer for the (black, poor) East Compton Clovers, thus making the Toros the cheerleading equivalent of Pat Boone to the Clovers' Little Richard. Dunst actually does her best to rationalize this cultural parasitism rather than destroy her cheerleading institution overnight, but the situation becomes intolerable after the Clovers attend a Toros game and mock their blonde plagiarists by performing the stolen moves in the stands. In the end, both teams attend the finals and show that they can use their brains and talents to compete honorably on the field of battle. There is, however, one scene that shows that contemporary standards of empowerment may be thornier, and weirder, than is commonly acknowledged. Dunst offers the Clovers, who have been prevented from attending the national competition by financial hardship, the chance to come by talking her father into getting his company to sponsor them, but the head Clover (Gabrielle Union) contemptuously rejects the offer, telling Dunst that they don't need her charity; they'll raise the money themselves, their own way. Their own way turns out to be going on an "Oprah"-like TV show and raising contributions by guilt-tripping viewers with their tale of woe. I guess it's honest labor and not charity if it helps "Oprah" kill an hour.

JACKIE BROWN (1997)

Such '70s blaxploitation films as Coffy and Foxy Brown may have made Pam Grier a cult star, but it was always a degraded form of stardom, and not just because the movies were cheap genre knockoffs; she may have had the chance to show that she could hold the camera and kick ass in the final reel, but she still also had to get her top ripped off before being raped by guys who looked like the Ku Klux Klan's answer to Uncle Fester, while being called things like "this big-jugged jigaboo." Jackie Brown catches up with Grier more than twenty years down the road, when she's at an age when Hollywood regards actresses as disposable. It's not a great age to be a flight attendant, either, which is why Jackie is working for a low-grade Mexican airline and acting as a courier for Los Angeles-based gun dealer Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson). Both Ordell and the federal agents setting up a case against him regard Jackie as a pawn who can easily be taken out of play at any moment. But -- and here's the key difference between this and Grier's '70s vehicles -- the movie respects her. The way she looks through Tarantino's lens, you sort of picture the camera shuffling its feet nervously as it tries to work up the nerve to ask her if she's been seeing anybody lately. And so Ordell, whose fearsomeness would cut him a lot more ice in a different Tarantino movie, is reduced to a comic figure; for all his bluster and firepower, his assumption that the middle-aged black woman with the low-paying job must be a bit player (which Jackie will use against him, and against the feds, too), makes him ridiculous. The only man in the movie who can see Jackie for what she is remains Robert Forster's bail bondsman Max Cherry, who, unlike the film's younger, strutting cocks, lacks the ego and capacity for self-deception that might get in the way of his seeing clearly what's in front of him. Tarantino included a riff (borrowed from Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes) on the arrogance of Superman in the second Kill Bill film, and Jackie Brown is in some ways a black, female Superman fantasy, except that Jackie doesn't have to put on a pair of eyeglasses to trick the dull-witted into thinking she's no match for them.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)

Long before Joss Whedon was a small-screen institution, he was just a fresh-faced young script doctor with a dream. That dream was to create a richly detailed fantasy world featuring nubile teenage girls. Sure, you’re saying: how does that make him any different than millions of other guys? Here’s how: his nubile teenage girls kicked ass. And not just any ass, but demonic vampire ass! Within a decade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer would find its way onto television and prove a major cult hit, giving the country a brand new definition of girl power and adding an entirely new dimension to teen angst as Buffy Summers and her Scoobies battled monsters and bloodsuckers at Sunnydale High. But it all started with this low-budget big-screen number. Whedon, once he’d decided he was a highbrow auteur, more or less disavowed the Buffy movie, but in many ways, it holds up a lot better than people give it credit for: it doesn’t take itself so deadly serious, it has tons of terrific comic turns from Paul Reubens and Stephen Root in supporting roles, and while Kristy Swanson’s Buffy may not carry the emotional weight that Sarah Michelle Gellar’s did, she looks mighty fine in a half-shirt, and she furthers the cause of female empowerment the way only a vampire slayer can. She’s rough, she’s tough, and she maintains her keen fashion sense: what could be more feminine than that?

Click here for Part Two!

Related Posts: Girl DisemPowering: Nine Films That Didn't Do Feminism Any Favors (Part One & Part Two)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce