The Screengrab : brad pitt

Screengrab’s Five to Watch at Cannes

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Greetings from the Croisette on the beautiful French Riviera! The entire Screengrab gang has convened over croissants and café au lait at Le Grande Bleu, and we’re hashing over our picks to click for the fabulous festival kicking off with tonight’s screening of the opening night film, Up. Wait until the crew back at Nerve headquarters gets a look at these expense reports!

OK, so we’re not actually in France. But why should a little technicality like that prevent us from bringing you the best in Cannes coverage? Or at least linking to the best in Cannes coverage, which we’ll do when we launch our daily Cannes Roundup tomorrow. For now, here’s a look at five movies I’d be sure to check out if I actually were on the Riviera instead of sitting at my desk in my underwear.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Maybe Death Proof wasn’t all you dreamed it would be, and Brad Pitt’s cracker accent may not fill you with all the confidence in the world, and it’s just possible I’m describing myself here. Still, I have enough good will stored up for Quentin Tarantino as a filmmaker (if not as a personality) that I can’t help but be excited for his World War II epic, bad spelling and all.

TAKING WOODSTOCK

“It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, the El Monaco…When Elliot hears that a neighbouring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much needed business for the motel.” Ang Lee’s take on the ‘70s (The Ice Storm) worked out pretty well, so let’s see what he can do with the ‘60s.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

Granted, Terry Gilliam’s track record of late has not been stellar. He couldn’t get Don Quixote off the ground, The Brothers Grimm was underwhelming, and I already regret leaving Tideland off my top ten list of the worst movies ever. But judging from the brief clips above, Imaginarium has more of an early Gilliam feel, and the curiosity factor of Heath Ledger’s last ever (partial) performance is definitely a draw. Plus: Tom Waits as the Devil!

PANIQUE AU VILLAGE (A TOWN CALLED PANIC)

I’d never heard of this Belgian film before this morning, but the description certainly intrigues. “Animated plastic toys like Cowboy, Indian and Horse have problems, too. Cowboy and Indian's plan to surprise Horse with a homemade birthday gift backfires when they destroy his house instead. Surreal adventures take over as the trio travel to the center of the earth, trek across frozen tundra and discover a parallel underwater universe where pointy-headed (and dishonest!) creatures live. Each speedy character is voiced -- and animated -- as if their very air contains both amphetamines and laughing gas.”

ANTICHRIST

“A grieving couple retreat to ’Eden’, their isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse...” Hey, I’m always up for a good ol’ scary cabin-in-the-woods movie, and with Lars Von Trier at the helm, this one is sure to either terrify or infuriate – or more likely, both.

The Screengrab's Top Ten Worst...Movies...Ever!!!! (Part Ten)

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Andrew Osborne's Top Ten Worst Movies Ever

1. WIRED (1989)
2. SHOWGIRLS (1995)
3. THE LAST MOVIE (1971)

Even the worst movies at least attempt to be...y’know, movies. And by “movies,” I mean human behavior consciously recorded with a motion picture camera for the purpose of entertaining or engaging other humans...even if said “movie” is just a random series of unrelated images that are cool to look at when you’re stoned. Sadly, Dennis Hopper couldn’t even attract potheads (potheads!!!) with this legendary debacle, one of the films that helped to end the 1970s American film renaissance with its extreme, boring crappiness. I attempted to get through it once, and as far as I can tell, Hopper just accidentally left a camera running during a wild weekend in Peru . My in-laws’ old home movies are at least 17 times more interesting, relatable and dramatic, and cost about a million dollars less to produce.

4. REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)

So...NONE of this movie’s fans ever saw Trainspotting? And the rave reviews and cult following were for...what, exactly? The daring, controversial idea that...gasp...drug addiction is bad? The hokey, sub-MTV visuals? The cartoonish, one-dimensional characters? The sneering condescension towards poor, sad, lonely people? Oh, I know, it must be the achingly self-conscious, utterly humorless pretension! I mean what is the point of this exercise in grim hopelessness, exactly? The characters are just as pathetic (and DULL!) when they're sober as when they're fucked-up -- they never even seem to get any pleasure out of their drugs of choice -- and there's no solution or alternative to all their misery. It's like the art film equivalent of a Friday the 13th movie: you meet some paper-thin characters with one trait each (one's sulky, one's pouty, one's black and one just wants to fit into an old red dress) and then wait for them to get knocked off, since it's the only interesting thing that's likely to happen. (And, excuse me, but wouldn't a trained medical doctor dealing with a pill-addicted middle-aged woman try, I dunno, placing her into a 12-step program or something before zapping 50,000 volts into her frontal lobe? Ooh...but that wouldn't be EDGY!)

5. FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1991)

I just double-checked the Internet Movie Database to confirm that, yes, here was the exact moment Lucifer ate Steve Martin’s soul. This movie represents an entire genre of cynical, deeply mediocre capitalist pig comedies -- most of them directed by Nora Ephron, though Bride was in fact directed by Charles “I Love Trouble” Shyer, who earns his place on my shit list for kicking off the current My Super Sweet 16 era of American horribleness by promoting the notion that you’re a terrible father if you don’t mortage your house and go deep into debt to buy your spoiled bitch daughter a bunch of ridiculously expensive shit nobody in the world really needs.

6. BLOODSUCKING FREAKS (1976)

It’s not that I have a problem with bloody movies or depictions of violence or even tortuous cinematic ultra-violence...but when blood, torture and suffering is the whole point of the exercise, I tend to get depressed...and then just bored and aggravated. I mean, hey, I got no beef with 2000 Maniacs or A Clockwork Orange or the various days and nights of the living dead or even Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Michael Madsen lopping off the cop’s ear in Reservoir Dogs? Fine. Running down innocent bystanders in Grand Theft Auto? Sign me up. And porn of the sexual variety? Ahem. But explain to me again why I’m supposed to watch a sobbing woman scream and scream as her teeth are yanked out and a drill is shoved into her brain for minutes on end? Oh, right...because I’m a friggin' sociopath who digs torture porn, and Bloodsucking Freaks was the first sad example I ever saw.

7. THE MEXICAN (2001)

Many bad movies are dull, annoying and profoundly unentertaining, but the truly heinous ones go that extra mile into the realm of the downright philosophically offensive. I'm not even especially P.C., but at the time of its release, The Mexican was the most blatantly racist movie I'd seen since The Phantom Menace (see below)...and that's not even the worst part: what the hell were Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt and Tony Soprano doing in this crap? With all their 2001 A-list clout, they chose to do THIS...exactly the type of Hollywood diarrhea that prevents far, far better projects from ever seeing the light of day.

8. BREAKING THE WAVES (1996)
9. LAST DAYS (2005)

Sooooooooooooooooo boooooooooooooooooorrrrriiiiinnnnngggg...

10. THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999)

I was a hardcore Star Wars geek from the second that Imperial Star Destroyer first flew over my head at the Westgate Cinema in Brockton, Massachusetts way back in 1977...and 22 years later, long after I should have known better, I stood in line outside Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California for untold hours to get myself into one of the first screenings of The Phantom Menace. Once inside, the atmosphere was like a carnival love-fest of excitement, with beach balls bouncing around the theater while the faithful screamed and ululated in joyful anticipation. And then...Binks.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight & Nine

Contributor: Andrew Osborne

Soderbergh: “Everybody on Television Looks Like They're in Porn”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

The Guardian catches up with the hardest working man in show business, Steven Soderbergh, to chat about The Girlfriend Experience and the upcoming Moneyball. Screening the former at the Tribeca Film Festival, Soderbergh describes the low-budget Experience as “a very myopic view of a very small cross-section of people who are doing a certain thing in October of 2008.” The movie, which centers on a high-end escort played by porn star Sasha Grey, has the director seeing the world in XXX-ray vision.

"Porn is beyond everywhere now," he says. "Everybody on television looks like they're in porn, you know? I mean, the people that give you the news every day look like porn actors. The degree of coiffing that's going on is kind of disturbing." But Soderbergh insists his film offers something you just can’t get from Anal Cavity Search 6. "With Sasha, you can within seconds see her do anything you can imagine with her clothes off," Soderbergh acknowledges. "What you can't see is what it's like to be her boyfriend, to hang out with her and be emotionally intimate with her. So my whole theory is that's the fantasy for those who've been double-clicking – that they want to spend 77 minutes being her boyfriend."

Soderbergh populated the film with non-actors playing characters very similar to themselves, and that practice will continue with Moneyball, adapted from Michael Lewis’s nonfiction account of the Oakland A’s front office strategies. Although Brad Pitt will star as general manager Billy Beane, "at least 50-60% of the film is going to be populated by real people playing themselves," Soderbergh says. ("There are a lot of very nervous people at Sony right now," he adds.)

All that and The Informant, too; the whistleblower story starring Matt Damon will open this fall. And then there’s the 3-D Cleopatra musical in the works. "What's going to happen is that at a certain point I will just stop. I don't have, like, two speeds. I'll just stop."

New Tarantino Film Begins Advancing on Newsstands

Phil Nugent — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

The May issue of Vanity Fair includes a whole, long scene from the screenplay of Quentin Tarantino's Enghlawerious Bass Turdz, or whatever the hell it's called. The excerpt is not available online, presumably because the Internet is not yet capable of sustaining its awesomeness. I don't want to entirely spoil it for you, since I know you're going to want to run right down to the newsstand as soon as you get your pants on, but I'll tell you this: it's got a Nazi in it. It also has a French farmer, so the Nazi will have somebody to point his dialogue at. The dialogue goes on a bit, in that QT way; it takes the two combatants half the scene to phony up a reason for them to speaking in English, as multiplex audiences in the United States tend to prefer. But once they get done, it has been made clear that, in this World War II picture, the Nazis are the bad guys, which isn't necessarily something you could have guessed from the trailer.

Don't get me wrong; I like Tarantino. I even put his half of Grindhouse on my ten best list for that year, which I think makes me the official Tarantino booster in these parts, unless we're already at that point where the correct term is "Tarantino apologist." However, that trailer, which somebody here has probably already filed a review of, does look like a cross between a psychotic eight-year-old's big-budget adaptation of a Sgt. Rock comic, which is something that I thought Schwarzenegger's political career had spared us from getting, and the Hitler movie of Mel Brooks's dreams. Everything about it, starting with that goddamn title, gives off an ominous whiff of sheer goofiness, which is a constant factor in QT's work but one that he, at his best, tends to push against a little instead of wallowing in it like a pig in shit. Anyway, if you want to start prepping for it, the VF website does have a brief photo slideshow of the stars. It confirms that Diane Kruger is of great benefit to any clothes of any era that she deigns to wear, and that this is one of those Brad Pitt movies in which Brad thinks he's supposed to act, so he does that thing where he contorts his features into funny expressions to help us make the imaginative leap it takes to think he's somebody else. One of these days somebody is going to sneak up behind him and yell "Boo!" and his face will stick that way, and won't Angelina be surprised when he comes home from work. That's when Billy Bob makes his move.

Screengrab Predicts Summer 2009: Honorable Mention (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:00:00 GMT

In Parts One & Two of this list, we presented The Screengrab’s consensus picks for the Top 5 Hits of Summer 2009.

Herewith, our individual picks and honorable mentions...

Andrew:

Top 5

1. Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince
2. Star Trek
3. Angels & Demons
4. ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS (July 1)

C’mon, now...who don’t like Scrat? You’re telling me that, given the choice between a tried and true animated franchise and Ed Asner, kids aren’t going to choose dinosaurs?

5. JULIE & JULIA (August 7)

I can’t think of a better film to fill this summer’s Meryl Streep niche than an actual Meryl Streep film...especially one that fulfills that other great summer blockbuster counter-programming niche: foodie films. All that plus Amy Adams, and I’m about 1000 times more likely to see this than Transformers...and I’m a dude. Add my wife, her mother, my mother, my Dad getting dragged along and all the other wives, mothers, mothers-in-law, dudes getting dragged along and PBS geeks out there, and we’re talking serious sleeper hit potential.

Scott:
1. Star Trek
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
4. Up
5. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (May 1)

Oddly enough, that leaked online release and the accompanying early reviews may have been the best thing that could have happened to Ol’ Razor Fingers. (That’s what the kids are calling him these days, right?) All the hubbub generated by that kerfuffle qualifies as what we in the business call “free publicity.”

Nick:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Star Trek
4. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN (May 22)

Audiences loved the 2006 original, and this sequel retains the core conceit while adding Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart. As the first family film of the summer, and one that – unlike the following week’s Up – comes with a built-in audience, it should be huge.

5. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (July 17)

A buzzed-about festival hit, this indie rom-com starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel will likely garner glowing reviews on its way to becoming the Little Date Film That Could for the under-30 crowd.

Paul:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
3. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (May 1)

Sure, there’s the incomplete pirated version that’s floating around on the Web as we speak, but how many people have actually watched it? Wolverine should be one of the summer’s biggest hits for two reasons. For one thing, there’s the enduring popularity of the X-Men films (each has become one of the top five grossers of its respective summer), and the fact that if any X-Men character could open his own adventure, it’s Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. But don’t overlook the film’s release date either -- by opening on May 1, Wolverine is the first blockbuster of the summer, which virtually guarantees it a monster opening weekend, with solid weekends to follow if it catches on like Iron Man did last year. Add in the fact that this weekend has been especially kind to comic book movies, and how can it possibly lose?
4. Angels & Demons
5. Up

Bubbling under:

Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian and Ice Age- in an attempt to add a few tentpole releases to their slate, Fox has moved two of their more bankable franchises to the summer. It’s a risky move for them considering the greater competition during the summer season, but both movies (particularly Ice Age) should do good business in the often lucrative family market before getting shoved aside by higher-profile youth-oriented blockbusters (Up and Harry Potter, respectively).

The Hangover- summer comedies have a hit-and-miss record, but the ones that tend to do the most business are guy-friendly movies like Wedding Crashers and Talladega Nights. Based on the crowd reaction to the trailer that played before my screening of Observe and Report, The Hangover should play well with this crowd, and could prove to be the summer’s biggest sleeper.

The Ugly Truth- last year’s Sex and the City movie took the wind out of the wisdom that “chick flicks” can’t compete in the male-centric summer movie market. With only a handful of female-friendly releases in the pipeline, look for this Katharine Heigl/Gerard Butler romantic comedy to stand the best chance of becoming a hit.

G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra- two years ago, Transformers, another toy/cartoon franchise from the eighties, became a blockbuster. G.I. Joe may not scare up Transformers business, but it should do well with that same crowd.

Julie and Julia- after a summer full of movies that skew younger, older audiences should eat up Nora Ephron’s latest, with Meryl Streep as the late, great Julia Child.

Inglourious Basterds- if Brad Pitt can bring in a $130 million gross for a three-hour movie in which he ages backwards, he should be able to do at least that much business for a WWII action movie, especially one from Quentin Tarantino.

The Limits of Control- I don’t honestly believe that Jim Jarmusch’s latest will do much business. I’m just stoked that he’s got a new movie coming out, and I’m pretty sure it’ll be awesome.

Click Here For The Hits (Part One & Two), The Bombs (Part Three), The Toss-Ups (Part Four) and The Honorable Mentions (Part Six)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Scott Von Doviak, Nick Schager, Paul Clark

Screengrab Predicts Summer 2009: The Toss-Ups (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:30:00 GMT

So, now that you’ve seen our consensus picks for the Top 5 Hits & the Top 5 Bombs of Summer 2009, here are the films that we didn’t know quite what to do with...

Andrew:

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (August 21)

This one hits theaters closer to Labor Day (and the start of the “quality” awards-bait season) than Memorial Day -- assuming QT actually finishes his grindhouse WW2 epic on time -- and the theaters it hits will probably be art houses rather than multiplexes, where nobody will be expecting the confusingly titled Basterds to rack up Pulp Fiction-esque "national sensation" numbers...but Tarantino’s latest seems like quite the odd duck nonetheless, with a promised ultra-violence sensibility that may have trouble finding its artsy splatter audience even WITH all the ass-kicking Jews and Brad Pitt’s funny southern accent.

BRÜNO (June 10)

Oh, sure...Borat was a national sensation, and the annoying guy in your office still says, “Niiice!” on a daily basis. But I’m guessing it was a lot easier for most Americans to feel “in” on the joke when Sacha Baron Cohen was making fun of them funny furriners than it will be to laugh at their own homophobic prejudices or their own knee-jerk PC responses to the heterosexual Cohen’s flouncing, mincing gay character. But then again, you know what they say about that whole “no such thing as bad publicity” thing...

Nick:

1) Public Enemies, because Michael Mann has yet to make an out-and-out summer blockbuster.

2) UP, because eagerness for Pixar’s latest has been especially muted.

3) Angels & Demons, because The Da Vinci Code craze seems to have subsided.

4) Julie & Julia, because its August release date implies that the studio thinks it has more limited appeal than Meryl Streep’s The Devil Wears Prada or Mamma Mia!

5) The Ugly Truth, because even though it’s the summer’s chief rom-com, it’s hard to imagine Katherine Heigl continuing to be a serious box-office draw.

Paul:

Drag Me to Hell- Sam Raimi fans are pumped for his return to horror, but will anyone else care? Will this be the film that finally lifts the box-office curse on summer horror movies?

Terminator Salvation- is there life for Terminator after Arnold? Will people pay to see the movie when they can just as easily watch the Terminator TV series at home? And can Christian Bale still reel in audiences now that his profanity-filled tirade has been heard by millions?

The Taking of Pelham 123- in a summer full of epic effects-driven movies, can audiences be bothered with an old-school hostage-negotiation thriller? And will MGM release a super-sweet new DVD edition of the original film just in time for the remake? Because they really should.

Year One- will a high-concept caveman comedy, even one starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, play in this age of improvisational laffers? And will there be zug-zug like in Caveman?

Public Enemies- is Johnny Depp really the box office draw Hollywood thinks he is after the Pirates trilogy? Can Michael Mann become bankable again after the subpar returns for Miami Vice? And in this era of Grand Theft Auto, will ticket buyers get excited for a fedoras-and-tommy-guns gangster shoot’em’up?

Bruno- can the least funny character from Da Ali G Show actually carry a film? Will people flock to laugh at the strange misadventures of a flamingly gay Austrian, or will they be scared off by the homosexuality factor?

Bandslam- is Vanessa Anne Hudgens still a draw even when she isn’t starring in High School Musicals? Will tween-friendly fare still do solid box office even during the summer movie season?

Taking Woodstock- is the August 14 release date occasioned by the 40th anniversary of Woodstock simply a symbolic gesture, or will nostalgia for the Summer of Love turn this into an unexpected late-summer hit?

Click Here For The Hits (Parts One & Two), The Bombs (Part Three) and The Honorable Mentions (Parts Five & Six)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Paul Clark

Morning Deal Report: David O. Russell and Christian Bale Get in the Ring

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

In recent weeks we’ve told you about two David O. Russell projects in the works, The Silver Linings Playbook and Aaron and Sarah. Now there’s a third, and this one is scheduled to go ahead first: The Fighter, with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. “Pic tells the story of Boston fighter 'Irish' Mickey Ward and how he was helped to the world lightweight championship by half-brother Dicky Eklund. Eklund once decked Sugar Ray Leonard and went the distance against the boxing legend before forfeiting his career to drugs and crime,” Variety reports. But who cares about the plot? Russell and Bale on the same set! Alert TMZ!

Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of Moneyball is coming together. Steve Zaillian has rewritten the screenplay and Demetri Martin has been cast as Paul DePodesta, the Robin to Billy Beane’s Batman in the Oakland A’s front office. (Brad Pitt has already been cast as Beane.) “Martin, a rising actor and comedian, headlines Comedy Central's Important Things With Demetri Martin, which sees him wearing actor, writer, composer and executive producer hats. Last year, he scored a role in Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, an ensemble drama starring Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch and Jeffrey Dean Morgan,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Columbia Pictures is moving quickly on the follow-up to Angels and Demons. “Author Dan Brown has announced that his next installment in the Da Vinci Code series will be The Lost Symbol, which Doubleday will publish in the U.S. and Canada on Sept. 15…Sony has the rights to the Robert Langdon character, which gives the studio the right to negotiate a deal for the new title. The studio will be bullish,” Variety assures.

Related:
Christian Bale Goes Apeshit
Soderbergh Plays Moneyball

The Best & Worst Get Rich Quick Schemes In Cinema History! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:00:00 GMT

President Obama is two weeks away from the end of his first 100 days as Commander-In-Chief, and it’s been a wild ride so far, what with all the pirates, puppies and Queen-touching...but naturally, the administration’s main focus has been moving heaven and earth to ensure that nothing will prevent Bank of America executives from receiving my tax money while they charge me 24% interest on my credit card debt, thus ensuring I’ll never be able to afford any of the hundreds of empty, overpriced luxury condos in my neighborhood...because, as we all know, if the day ever comes when bankers and real estate developers make less than a zillion percent profit every second of the day, no matter how badly or unethically they run their businesses, then the terrorists win! (Or something like that...frankly, I’m just happy gas isn’t four dollars a gallon anymore. Hooray, bad economy!)

Anyway, the point is, now that Bernie Madoff has all the world’s money buried in a treasure chest somewhere on Skull Island, Americans have finally realized that money can’t buy happiness, and at long last we’re no longer trying to keep up with the Joneses, but instead living within our means, valuing the simple pleasures of life and judging people on their character, rather than the size of their wallets or the labels on their clothes.

Nah, just kidding: in truth, we’re all still cheating on our taxes, begging for bailouts and building bigger and better Ponzi schemes, because in the words of Danny Devito’s crooked fence in David Mamet’s Heist, “Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.” And so, in that altruistic spirit, your pals here at the Screengrab hereby present our very own economic stimulus package: THE BEST & WORST GET RICH QUICK SCHEMES IN CINEMA HISTORY!

OFFICE SPACE (1999)

By the time Mike Judge’s half-brilliant Office Space gets around to its get-rich-quick scheme, its best moments are behind it. It starts out so well, with the story of a chronically bored office drone (Ron Livingston) who finds himself – after an accidental dose of post-hypnotic suggestion – completely incapable of giving a shit about his job. This is Office Space at its best, a note-perfect satire of cubicle life enlightened hugely by the appearance of a character who upends the whole idea of consequence and thus makes for some of the most viciously barbed gags of its day. Once it gets around to Livingston and his colleagues hatching a Superman III-inspired, computer-aided plan to steal millions by shaving half-pennies off of every transaction, it becomes more or less a goofy caper comedy, which, while well-executed, can’t hold a candle to its truly inspired first half. Still, as get-rich-quick schemes go, it’s a classic, and damned if it doesn’t almost work. (LP)

HEAT (1995)

Heat famously brought Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together on-screen – if only for one diner conversation and a climactic chase sequence – yet it’s Michael Mann’s direction that elevates this cat-and-mouse saga to near-greatness. The story revolves around the efforts of Pacino’s cop to catch De Niro’s crook, two kindred warriors on opposite sides of the law. Though this dynamic is, to put it mildly, hackneyed, Mann’s film is an energized, invigorated work that recalls Jean-Pierre Melville’s noirs, which also focused on peerlessly cool lawmen and thieves whose dedication to customs, habits and ethical codes leaves them isolated. As the criminal struggling to reconcile personal desires for happiness with instincts that warn against being something he’s not, De Niro delivers his last great performance. Pacino’s trademark quiet-screaming overacting and a few too many narrative diversions prove occasionally aggravating, but De Niro’s superb turn helps offset these slight missteps, as does the thrilling in-broad-daylight centerpiece robbery that cements Heat’s status in the pantheon of heist films. (NS)

OCEAN’S 11, 12, 13… (1960, 2001, etc.)

The original 1960 Ocean’s 11’s best get-rich quick scheme didn’t take place onscreen; it was the Rat Pack’s all night, every night ring-a-ding-ding showcase at the Sands while shooting the film on location in Las Vegas. Sure, knocking over five casinos during a blackout on New Year’s Eve has a certain flair to it, but there’s nothing like working 22 hours a day for six straight weeks to really fatten the wallet. In 2001, a Frat Pack led by George Clooney and Brad Pitt staged their own Vegas heist, lifting $150 million from the Bellagio vault with the help of a Chinese acrobat, a Cockney explosives expert mysteriously played by Don Cheadle, and the always indispensible Elliott Gould. The remake took in even more than $150 million at the box office, which led to two further get-rich-quick schemes: the winky, self-referential Ocean’s 12, a sort of spiritual cousin to The Cannonball Run II, and Ocean’s 13, which proved once again that the death knell of a franchise sounds a lot like Al Pacino yelling. (SVD)

THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (1948)

Part of the point of John Huston's classic is that prospecting for gold isn't actually an easy or quick way to strike it rich at all, but once you've laid out for the tools and traveled all the way out into the middle of the Mexican desert and gotten used to the sight of Walter Huston jeering at you without his dentures, you're more than likely to stick with it until you've got something to show for it. After that, all you have to worry about is whether your paranoid, half-mad partner is going to be able to convince himself that you're plotting to steal his share of the "goods" so that he can feel justified in knocking you off and helping himself to your share. Whatever moral and practical defects can be found in Bogart's plan, it has to be said that he's a sage and a prince compared to the hippopotamus-toothed bandit played by the immortal Alfonso Bedoya, whose master plan involves decapitating Bogart and stealing his burros, after he's thrown away those saddlebags filled with the funny yellow powder that's weighing them down. (PN)

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

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Nick Schager, Scott Von Doviak, Phil Nugent

Morning Deal Report: Michael Sheen Trades Fur for Fangs

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Apparently Miley Cyrus has been forgiven for her racy photos, as Hannah Montana: The Movie topped the weekend box office with a better-than-expected $34 million. Fast & Furious slowed to second place with $28.8 million, bringing its total to $118 million. (By the way, those of you who told me this installment was as enjoyable as the original? You misled me.) Observe and Report debuted with a disappointing (to someone, I guess) $11.1 million for a fourth place finish.

Frost/Nixon co-star Michael Sheen has joined the cast of the Twilight sequel New Moon. Sheen “will portray the leader of the Volturi, an Italy-based coven of vampires,” per Variety, which also notes that the actor has played a werewolf in all three Underworld movies. That’s quite a conflict of interest.

Brad Pitt’s production company has obtained the screen rights to the Paul Pope graphic novel Battling Boy. “The story line follows the son of a god who comes down from the top of a mountain at his father's urging to rid the giant, continent-sized city of Monstropolis of a plague of beasts,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Watchmen co-writer Alex Tse will pen the adaptation.

Related:
Jailbait Cinema: 16 Films That Make Us Nervous
Screengrab Review: "Frost/Nixon"

Morning Deal Report: Basterds Bound for Cannes

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited World War II epic Inglourious Basterds will have its world premiere at Cannes next month. “The Brad Pitt starrer, set in Nazi-occupied France, has been invited to play in competition at the Cannes Film Festival,” Variety reports. “Insiders said Tarantino, a longtime favorite of the French, has accepted the offer and has told the film's backers -- the Weinstein Co. and Universal Pictures -- that the pic will be ready for its world premiere during the May fest. The movie, which follows a band of Jewish-American soldiers whose mission is to take down a group of Nazis, will bow Aug. 21.”

Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy are all in talks to join Leonardo DiCaprio in Christopher Nolan’s latest, Inception. “DiCaprio's character is mentioned as a CEO-type, while Cotillard would play his wife. Page is a young college grad student and DiCaprio's sidekick,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Inception is the sci-fi thriller “set within the architecture of the mind,” lest we forget.

Barry Sonnenfeld will open The Spellman Files for Paramount Pictures. The adaptation of Lisa Lutz's novel “revolves around a single private eye who has to juggle the demands of running her family's business with her dating life.”

Related:
Trailer Review: Inglourious Basterds
Ellen Page Whips It for Drew Barrymore

Morning Deal Report: “Waterworld” Sequel Washes Ashore

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:00:00 GMT

They said it would never happen, but Kevin Costner will grow a new set of gills for Waterworld Freezes Over, the much-belated sequel to the notorious 1995 mega-bomb Waterworld. “Waterworld was always intended as a trilogy,” says Universal spokesman Heywood Jablomi. “Enough time has passed that the original movie has acquired a whole new generation of fans via DVD and cable television. They don’t even know Waterworld was a colossal disaster that nearly cost me my job – they just want more.” Universal is so bullish on the sequel that Costner has actually been signed to a two-picture deal, with the proposed third installment, Steamworld, tentatively scheduled for summer 2013.

The Criterion Collection will release a deluxe, 3-disc edition of The Day the Clown Cried, the long-lost Jerry Lewis masterpiece about alcoholic circus clown Helmut Doork, who entertains children at Auschwitz as they are led into the gas chambers. The controversial film was once described by Harry Shearer, one of the few people to have seen it, as “really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is.” The Criterion edition contains a fully restored version of the film, along with a documentary on its making, Lewis’s first interview on the subject in more than 30 years, and a special 210-minute version of Hardly Working prepared specifically for this edition by Lewis.

Last but not least, we’re finally able to announce a piece of news we’ve been sitting on for months. Troma Pictures has purchased the movie rights to our humble blog, and Screengrab: The Motion Picture will be coming soon to a theater near you. John Waters is tentatively set to direct, and preliminary casting includes Larry the Cable Guy as Phil Nugent, Rob Schneider as Paul Clark, and Brad Pitt as yours truly. Further details are available here.

Related:
Martin Scorsese to Direct Final Harry Potter Movie

In Other Blogs: 100% Watchmen-Free Edition

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:30:00 GMT

It’s enough already! I blame myself for piling on, but surely we can find some intriguing blog entries out there on subjects other than the movie that rhymes with Blotchmen. For instance, Arbogast on Film is looking back at an apocalyptic fantasy from the olden days. “Maybe the world did come to an end in 1988. I don't want to be glib but I'm hard pressed to think of anything that has surfaced in the interim that really is something to tap dance about. There was an electricity back then, a crackle in the air that's missing now, the void filled by buzz, which isn't the same thing. None of us knew the backstory of MIRACLE MILE (1988) at the time of its release; we didn't know that the property had been kicked around Hollywood for the better part of a decade or that its author, Steve DeJarnatt, had written the script for Warners but had bound himself to the project as a director, which queered the deal. We didn't know DeJarnatt (well, we didn't know DeJarnatt) had bought the script back from the studio for $25,000 and that Hemdale stepped in with an offer to produce for just under $4 million, which got the ball rolling. Nope. All of this happened while we were sleeping, and when we woke up MIRACLE MILE had happened.”

At Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells speculates on rumors that Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life will feature…dinosaurs? “Some 18 years ago I over-wrote a very long piece about Malick, a where-is-he? thing called Malick Aforethought…I remember researching and describing an ambitious film that Malick wanted to film in the wake of the 1978 release of Days of Heaven, called Q. (A title later appropriated by Larry Cohen when he made Q, The Winged Serpent.) And I remember a passage about a dinosaur sleeping and dreaming in a sea of magma -- I remember that much. The story spanned millenia. We all know there's a 20th Century portion in which Pitt (I think) plays Penn's dad in flashbacks. I realize this all sounds a little vague.”

If you’re attending SXSW without a film badge, Slackerwood offers some tips. “Movies shot in Austin or with Austin ties may fill up quickly. Sometimes cast and crew members and their families are invited and a number of seats are reserved. On the other hand, these are the movies that often draw more ticketholders than badgeholders, because the audience is full of locals wanting to see their neighbor or coworker's movie. So if you get there early, you might be okay.”

At The House Next Door, Jeremiah Kipp talks to Daniel Bird about Central European New Wave Cinema. “In Poland I am a cultural outsider. I try to read films in cultural context, but my response is, ultimately, personal. I am English, after all. But I have been living in Warsaw on and off since 2002. Yes, there are culturally specific aspects to many of the films I write about. Sometimes an understanding helps the appreciation of these films, but not always. Zulawski's Diabel makes a lot more sense if you know something about the Warsaw student riots in March 1968. But what attracts me to a particular film is its bizarre quality. I guess you could say such films seem bizarre to a cultural outsider. But then I think the only person in the world who finds Diabel 'normal' is Zulawski himself.”

Finally in List-o-Mania, the AV Club offers 24 graphic novels besides, uh, you-know-what that they’d like to see made into movies. Like all right-thinking people, they’d love to see David Lynch adapt Daniel Clowes’ A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. “Seeing the two work together on this eerie, unhinged story, which blends elements of Twin Peaks and the Manson family’s worst nightmares, would be a rare treat—or a total disaster. Luckily, Clowes has already anticipated the latter possibility; in the pages of Eightball, where Velvet Glove first appeared, he wrote a hilarious what-if story of its Hollywood adaptation, complete with happy ending, product placement, and cheesy classic-rock soundtrack.”

Unwatchable #51: “Simon Sez”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

A few years ago I was on a bus from Paris to Frankfurt, following a whirlwind 36-hour tour of the City of Lights. Gazing out the window at the French countryside should have been entertainment enough for our tour group, but no: we had an in-ride movie. It was an action movie called Double Team, and it starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman and Mickey Rourke. Appropriate, no? Van Damme is almost French after all, and they still loved Rourke in France for many years before his recent comeback.

Anyway, I don’t remember much about Double Team, but Wikipedia reminds me that Dennis Rodman played “a flamboyant arms dealer.” One thing I don’t recall thinking is that Rodman would have a long and successful film career. In fact, I very specifically remember not thinking that, and I think history has proved me right. The ex-basketball star’s sleepy-eyed brand of charisma may be an asset to the likes of Celebrity Apprentice, but his acting chops only served to make Van Damme look Brandoesque by comparison.

Nonetheless, Rodman did get a second chance at becoming the next Van Damme with Simon Sez, which I would charitably describe as an action comedy. Rodman plays the titular Simon, an ex-CIA operative now working for Interpol in France. (Apparently the European agency has a more lax dress code, allowing their agents to sport platinum blonde hair and multiple facial piercings and tattoos. I would think such an appearance might be a drawback on undercover missions, but I never went to spy school.) For reasons that eluded me, Simon is assisted by two monks, a wisecracking fat guy and a wisecracking black dude; they’re like the worst Abbot and Costello tribute show on earth.

That makes them a good match for the sorriest Jim Carrey substitute a SAG minimum salary could buy in 1999, Dane Cook. As Nick Miranda, Simon’s old classmate from Langley, Cook has clearly been given free reign to unleash his comic genius at will. He makes Wookie noises and Jurassic Park noises! He snaps off the one-liners in the midst of a high-speed car chase. (“These guys are like my college loan officers – they just keep comin’!” “Maybe he just wants some Grey Poupon!”) There is a satisfying moment when he falls off a fire escape into a garbage can and rolls down an alley, but it’s not enough to make up for his gruesome mistaken faith in his own talent and likeability.

Anyway, the plot has something to do with Rodman and Cook teaming up to rescue a rich man’s kidnapped daughter who is being held ransom for the disk full of CIA secrets Brad Pitt thought he’d found in Burn After Reading. Rodman’s vortex of bad acting takes over the rest of the cast, none of whom can make the typed-by-chimpanzee dialogue sound like words actual humans would say. The action sequences offer an array of gaffes and utter disregard for the laws of physics (I think I saw Rodman stopping for a sandwich as he fell from a 30-story window), but there is a quicksand sequence, which always cheers me up. (Unfortunately, Rodman rescues Cook before he completely disappears beneath the surface.)

The good news is that Simon Sez was rewarded with one of the worst opening weekends in history, debuting on 504 screens and taking in a miserable $185,472 total. The movie got what it deserved, and I don’t need to pile on any further. I will mention something you may have noticed: this is Unwatchable #51, which means we’ve made it halfway through the list and have 50 more to go. They bet against me! They said I’d never make it past #78! But I proved ‘em wrong! Tune in next week for a special first-half celebration of…Unwatchable!

Previously on Unwatchable:
52. In the Mix
53. Baby Geniuses
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E
56. Araf

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.

Morning Deal Report: Soderbergh Plays Moneyball

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Happy Truck Day! With pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training in a matter of days, there’s no better time for Steven Soderbergh to announce his umpteen-zillionth project in development, Moneyball. Soderbergh is adapting the nonfiction baseball classic by Michael Lewis that “focuses on Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics who used a sophisticated computer analysis system to piece together a team that regularly contended for the World Series despite a payroll dramatically lower than such big-market rivals as the New York Yankees,” Variety reports. Brad Pitt is lined up to play Beane, and Joe Morgan has already vowed not to see the movie. We assume.

If there are two more romantic words than “The Baster,” I can’t imagine what they’d be. Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman are set to star in the romantic comedy from Blades of Glory co-directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon. Per The Hollywood Reporter, “Bateman and Aniston will play best friends Wally and Kassie. When Wally learns that Kassie plans to become pregnant through artificial insemination, he replaces the donor's semen with his own and must live with the secret that he is the father of her child.” Ick.

Al Pacino already has King Lear on his schedule, so why not make it a double and play King Herod as well? Pacino and Jessica Lange are in talks to join the cast of Mary, Mother of Christ, which is something my dad would say when he’d hit his thumb with a hammer. “Camilla Belle (10,000 BC) will star as the titular character and will be joined by Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the dual roles of Gabriel and Lucifer and Peter O'Toole as Symeon,” Variety reports.

Related:
Soderbergh Does Liberace
Pacino Finds New Role Involving Lots of Yelling

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:30:00 GMT

BEST ACTOR

And the nominees are...

Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

Paul Clark Predicts: Mickey Rourke

This might be more of a ballgame had Penn not won five years ago -- and if Milk had real Best Picture traction. As it stands, Rourke has the comeback story, the body transformation, the hype machine, and best of all, the awesome performance to carry him here.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Sean Penn

Mickey Rouke got his Golden Globe, so his fairy tale comeback story had a nice happy ending, but Sean Penn won the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance in a Lead Role, so I think he’ll take the Oscar. Besides, for once, I actually want to hear Penn pontificate on a political subject...specifically, I want him to aim his famous humorless scowl at California’s clueless voters and ask them why they felt the need to make George Takei sad.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Mickey Rourke

Frank Langella’s blowsy overacting is getting way too much attention, making him a risk to steal the thunder of much better performances. Brad Pitt’s Benjamin Button is showy but ultimately hollow, which should leave Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke to fight it out over Milk and The Wrestler. Given Penn’s history and AMPAS’ love of a comeback story, this one should by Rourke’s to lose.

Should Win: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Will Win: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Nick Schager Predicts: Mickey Rourke

Penn’s superb turn as the slain Harvey Milk is just as worthy, but the Academy loves underdog-comeback stories, and this year, that narrative belongs to The Wrestler’s Mickey Rourke.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Sean Penn

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Mickey Rourke

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: MICKEY ROURKE

BEST DIRECTOR

And the nominees are...

Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant – Milk

Paul Clark Predicts: Danny Boyle

There are years when Oscar voters decide to spread the wealth by giving this award to a celebrated filmmaker whose film they liked just a shade less than the Best Picture winner. But this isn’t one of those years -- among the nominees no one’s particularly “due”, so they’ll fall back on their Best Picture pick.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: David Fincher

Just hedging my bets on this one, in the same way Academy voters may split their love in the absence of a slam-dunk Best Picture frontrunner.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Ron Howard

This could be a curious case, insofar as there doesn’t appear to be any single movie poised to sweep the Oscars. I had originally predicted that neither David Fincher nor Gus Van Sant would receive a nomination due to the atypical films they made, but my colleague Scott Von Doviak, probably correctly, felt that this increases rather than lessens their chances. Stephen Daldry winning would be a worst-case scenario.

Should Win: Gus Van Sant, Milk
Will Win: Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon

Nick Schager Predicts: Danny Boyle

Of all the nominees, Boyle’s work is the flashiest, and his film has populist-landslide-winner written all over it. Given that he was also honored by the Director’s Guild of America, count on him taking home the gold.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Danny Boyle/Ron Howard

It's a toss-up between everyone's favorite — Slumdog Millionaire — and Frost/Nixon because Ron Howard is exactly the kind of "Hollywood insider taking his art seriously" that the Academy likes.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Danny Boyle

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: DANNY BOYLE

Stay tuned for our Best Picture predictions and your very own souvenir Academy Awards ballot as the Screengrab 2009 Oscar Special continues way past your bedtime and pre-empts the evening news!

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

JENKINS!!!!! (a.k.a., Screengrab's Oscar Nod Prediction Results)

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Just wanted to give a big Screengrab high-five to the always hardworking, frequently overlooked (until now) character actor Richard Jenkins for his well-deserved Best Actor nomination for The Visitor. I’ve been a Jenkins fan ever since his great comic role as the long-suffering federal agent in Flirting With Disaster, and I’m happy to see him get bumped to the A list (or at least the B+ list) at last.

It was also nice to see Michael Shannon vault onto the red carpet outta nowhere. The wife and I just saw Revolutionary Road the other night, and shortly thereafter we turned to each other and said, “Why no Best Supporting Actor buzz for the crazy guy?” So we’re glad the Academy felt the same way. (And Penelope Cruz was always a lock for a Best Supporting Actress nod, but I’m still happy it’s official.)

On the other hand, while I wasn’t really expecting Oscar love for Debra Winger or Sally Hawkins, it’s still too bad they got snubbed (although Hawkins at least got a nice shiny Golden Globe for her trouble).

In other news, the ongoing Benjamin Button love fest (really? Brad Pitt gave a better performance than Clint in Gran Torino?) continues to baffle me as much as the curious case of Doubt not being a Best Picture or Best Director contender despite nominations for the screenplay and just about every actor with a speaking part in the movie. (Man, the Academy must really hate Dutch angles!)

But the big question you’re asking yourself is: which Screengrab staffer (or reader) scored highest in our Oscar Nomination Prediction Pool?

Well, first I should mention the staff as a whole scored a (fairly) respectable B- with our collective overall picks, correctly guessing 24.5 out of 30 nominations (for an 81.67% accuracy rating, if I did the math right).

Although we flubbed one Best Picture prediction and one Best Director slot, I can’t say I’m terribly upset about the Academy snubbing Christopher Nolan or The Dark Knight. (Scott Von Doviak and Sarah Clyne Sundberg, meanwhile, were the only ones on the staff who picked The Reader for the fifth Best Picture spot, having fortuitously remembered that Academy bylaws require at least one Holocaust-themed nomination per year).

Speaking of which, the Screengrab accurately anticipated a Best Actress nomination for Kate Winslet...but only Sarah had the ESP-Fu to anticipate the nod would be for The Reader, not Revolutionary Road. EW.com explained it thusly: “The Academy overruled a campaign and placed Kate Winslet in the lead-acting category for The Reader instead of Revolutionary Road. She may not have gotten two nominations, but this increases her chance at an eventual win.” (Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure what they’re talking about.)

We also mistakenly forecast Best Actress noms for Cate Blanchett and the delightful Ms. Hawkins (although a few of us managed to correctly forecast nods for Angelina Jolie and Melissa Leo in our individual picks).

Nobody here (except, ahem, me) saw the Jenkins nomination coming, but I also joined the general mistaken consensus that Clint would snake a Best Actor nod away from Brad Pitt.

Finally, we only scored three and three and a half out of five in both tricky Best Supporting categories, favoring Ralph Fiennes and James Franco over Josh Brolin and Michael Shannon and (in a tie) Debra Winger and Kate Winslet (for The Reader...we’re still confused about that whole thing) over Taraji P. Henson.

As for which Screengrab writer (or reader playing along at home) had the most correct individual nomination predictions...well (ahem), I’ll just let the scores speak for themselves...

15 – Leonard Pierce
16 – Sarah Clyne Sundberg
21 – Iris Steensma
22 – Paul Clark
22 – Scott Von Doviak
24 – Andrew Osborne

Woo-hoo! Yes! In your face...uh...esteemed colleagues!

Okay, that's it for now! See you soon for the next round!

Related Stories:
Oscar Nominations Announced
Your 2008 Razzie Nominations
Screengrab Live Blogs The Golden Globes

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's Undeserved Oscar Buzz

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

So, I suppose I should first concede that I’m not exactly the target audience for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I only saw it because my wife likes Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton, and she wound up enjoying the movie (somewhat) more than me as well.

And it’s not like there aren’t good moments: every scene with the aforementioned Ms. Swinton, for instance. And Jared Harris is a hoot as a rollicking sea captain...in fact, in the midst of the film's long, long, ever-so-long 166 minute running time, the half hour-ish section with the intertwining Swinton/Harris subplots is certainly worthy of Oscar consideration, featuring as it does a vivid romance and a breathtaking World War II battle scene between a tugboat and a Nazi sub, illuminated by the flaming wreckage of a torpedoed battleship. Good stuff, as Johnny Carson used to say.

But Benjamin Button isn’t generating Oscar buzz as a short subject. Somehow, people think the whole thing should be considered for a Best Picture statuette, complete with nominations (and maybe even awards!) for Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, director David Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth. Which strikes me a bit odd, considering how bad the movie is.

Now, I don’t want to come down too hard on Ms. Henson: I know from Hustle & Flow (and even Smoking Aces) that she’s a good and interesting actress, and she does the best she can here with a one-dimensional "supportive mother" gig...but why this rote, uneventful role is considered more Oscar-worthy than Debra Winger’s barnburner performance in Rachel Getting Married is bizarre to the point of incomprehensibility.

Fincher, meanwhile, gives good mise en scène throughout, making fine use of CGI and production design to create some pretty (though bloodless) depictions of New Orleans in the ‘20s, Russia in the ‘40s, New York in the ‘50s, etc. And he kicks in some nice set pieces, like the Swinton/Harris bits and a running gag about lightning. But a director is also supposed to have what we in the business call a “take” on his material, even if he’s saddled with a gimmicky, unfocused screenplay full of vague, generic insights like “You never know what's comin' for ya.” Fincher is also responsible for some flat-out bad decisions like the unnecessary and distracting frame story, in which a dull, constipated Julia Ormond reads (and reads and reads) Benjamin Button’s diary to mumbly old Cate Blanchett while Hurricane Katrina bears down on them for no particular reason.

Indeed, the casting of Blanchett turns out to be another of Fincher’s missteps. While the actress has been good and sometimes even great in other roles, her alien beauty (and strangely unyielding red ponytail, present in just about every era of the story) more or less defeats the best efforts of the make-up and CGI teams assigned to convince us her character is aging while Button grows younger. Not counting the heavy prosthetics of her deathbed scenes, Blanchett’s "Daisy" always looks pretty much like the thirtysomething actress playing her, from her teens through her seventies, and not knowing how old the character's supposed to be at any given time gets awfully confusing in a movie about asynchronous timelines, especially when Daisy and Benjamin Button are trying to figure out the logistics of their relationship...although the near total lack of chemistry between Blanchett and Pitt is a much bigger problem in that department.

Blanchett’s character was semi-conscious through most of Babel, making it difficult to gauge her chemistry with Pitt in their previous go-round, but here the alleged lifelong soulmates seem to have nothing in common (apart from their ridiculous beauty). I’d blame Pitt, but he manages to generate plenty of believable heat with Swinton, so either Swinton’s so good she raises Pitt’s game in their scenes together (a distinct possibility) or else Blanchett's usual vibrance is simply weighed down by her distractingly gooey Naawwwwlins accent, underwritten character and dead weight co-star and there's not a hell of a lot she can do about it. (Or both.)

And Pitt really does nothing interesting with his role (in the same way Roth and Fincher do nothing interesting with a premise David Lynch or David Cronenberg would've knocked right the fuck out of the park). Sure, it's funny to see Pitt running around as a tiny little geezer, and in his romantic hunk scenes he certainly looks like a movie star...but his character is more or less completely passive throughout the story, and I never believed him as a young old man or an old young man: he’s basically just Brad Pitt in a series of wigs.

So, aside from Swinton and the art department, why exactly is Benjamin Button considered so dang award-worthy? Well, David Wildman of The Weekly Dig thinks it’s because “Pitt as an old fart looks shockingly similar to the way Robert Redford looks now. My theory is that Hollywood’s elite are feeling their mortality, as the boomers head off toward the sunset, and it isn’t pretty. When the WWII generation was getting to this point back around the ‘60s, they stoically denied it, pretending they could swing just like the kids. John Wayne played the same character until he keeled over, and codgers like Dean Martin posed as sexy secret agents. Pitt is still relatively young and handsome, but he can’t help gazing at his navel like a pussy and neurotically obsessing about that inevitable light at the end of the tunnel.”

Of course, in this case, the light may very well be glinting off an undeserved Oscar.

Related Stories:
Screengrab Predicts the Oscars: Nominations
Trailer Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Screengrab 2009 Preview: Andrew Osborne's Picks

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Not to sound morbid, but it occurred to me recently (whilst contemplating my own mortality) that someday – hopefully some far distant day -- I’ll read an Entertainment Weekly Spring/Summer/Fall/Holiday preview issue and/or watch a flock of coming attractions trailers for a whole bunch of movies I won’t, in fact, live long enough to see.

In Zelig, Woody Allen’s chameleon character dies with just one regret: that he never got to finish reading Moby Dick. Imagine Zelig’s disappointment if he’d been a Harry Potter fan in November, forever denied the opportunity to see the cinematic adaptation of Half-Blood Prince (let alone the Deathly Hallows)? And Lord knows at this point whether any of us will live long enough to see Zack Snyder’s much-litigated version of Watchmen. (Ironically, another movie that most of us seem destined never to see is Fanboys, about a cancer-stricken geek in 1998 determined, in yet another layer of sad irony, to see the as-yet-unreleased Phantom Menace before he dies...but I digress.)

Anyhow, with my wife and I both fighting various wintry ailments (and going on a solid week of sleep deprivation thanks to the itchy throats and sinus pressure of the damned), it’s hard to look forward to anything at this point beyond still yet more mucus...but if I should manage somehow to survive this relentlessly cold, snowy New England winter (good Lord...it’s only JANUARY?), then here are the five upcoming 2009 releases I’m most looking forward to:

5. HARRY POTTER & THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

I originally posted this in my 2008 Fall Preview before Warner Bros. saw fit to switch the release date of the sixth J.K. Rowling adaptation to 2009, but the following still holds true: I haven’t read a single word of Ms. Rowling’s fantastically popular and beloved series of novels, but I’ve followed the relatively unprecedented blockbuster cinematic serialization religiously. I’ll go on record here as a big fan of Christopher Columbus’ unfairly maligned adaptation of Sorcerer’s Stone, and I thought Alfonso Cuarón’s Prisoner of Azkaban was bizarrely overpraised, but in general, the series just keeps getting better and better, and I can’t wait for the next episode.

4. STAR TREK

Yes, I’ve heard the Star Trek 90210 jokes, and no, the last few Star Trek movies have not exactly instilled fans with a lot of confidence in the franchise -- but as with J.J. Abrams’ day job, the increasingly ludicrous and exasperating Lost, I simply have no choice in the matter: I’m still going to watch. My Dad recently reminded me of the time he drove my geeky pubescent ass to a Star Trek convention through a full-scale Perfect Storm blizzard just so I could buy myself a Tribble and hang out with bosomy fangirls dressed like Yeoman Rand. So yes, good or bad, I’ll definitely be seeing this one – (alone, notes my wife).

3. WHIP IT!

I couldn’t find any clips of Drew Barrymore’s upcoming directorial debut about a misfit teen (Ellen Page) who joins an Austin, Texas roller-derby team. Instead, the trailer above is for Hell On Wheels, an astonishing documentary about the girl-powered rockabilly roller derby revival that sparked in Austin and spread across the nation. In the film, director Bob Ray captures the birth and hilarious, harrowing growing pains of the Lonestar Rollergirls, an all-female, D.I.Y. enterprise that transforms from weekend lark to serious business when big money and crippling injuries raise the stakes of a burgeoning start-up, leading to shattered friendships (and fibulas) and a fiery schism between two factions of fiercely independepent entrepeneurs. Short skirts + third wave feminism + breathtaking banked track action + Marxist/capitalist tensions + a fascinating cast of real-life characters & a kick-ass soundtrack = one of the best movies of 2007. I doubt Whip It! will be as good, but with Barrymore, Page, Kristin Wiig and Juliette Lewis strapping on the skates and kneepads, I’m more than willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt.

2. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS

When I saw John Waters interview Quentin Tarantino on a panel at the Provincetown Film Festival last year, the erstwhile Mr. Brown said he’d set himself the goal of finishing his “guys on a mission” World War II spaghetti Western lollapalooza (starring Brad Pitt, Maggie Cheung, The Office’s B.J. Novak, Freaks & Geeks’ Samm Levine and...really? Mike Myers?) in time for this year’s Cannes Film Festival. With the exception of roughly 42 percent of Death Proof, Tarantino has never yet steered me entirely wrong (I didn’t even mind his segment of the disastrous Four Rooms), and when he’s on his game (as he could easily be with this project) he is, like the wallet says, a Bad Motherfucker. It’s possible, of course, he won’t finish the film in time for a 2009 release...in which case, be looking for Basterds at the top of my 2010 movie preview list.

1. THE MEAT CITY BEATNIKS

As I mentioned on Thanksgiving Day in the 2008 Screengrab Holiday Special, I began shooting this ultra-low budget guerilla indie musical about screenwriters on the make and a drug deal gone bad (co-scripted by my esteemed Screengrab colleague Scott Von Doviak, based on a short story by Jim Dryden, with music by Eric Jacobson) way back in January 2008 (or possibly the late fall of 2007...it’s all a bit hazy at this point). Of all the releases I hope to see in 2009, this tops the list if only because it will mean (A) I’ve finally finished post-production and (B) it actually got released. Like Basterds, though, I’m not betting the farm on this one actually seeing the light of day before 2010...but if ever there was a year for hope, it’s this one!

HAPPY YEAR OF THE OX!

Related Stories:
The Top 50 Movies of 2009
Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds Unleashed

Screengrab Predicts the Oscars: Nominations (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:30:00 GMT

BEST ACTOR

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

NOMINEES
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

If Sean Penn can get nominated for I Am Sam, there's no reason to think his beautiful work in Milk will be overlooked. Everyone loves a comeback, so even if they're a little worried he'll take a drunken stumble into Jack Nicholson's lap, Mickey Rourke will be nominated for The Wrestler. Rounding out the leading men will be Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Brad Pitt (Benjamin Button), and this year's sentimental "Hey, you're almost friggin' 80!" nominee, Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino).

WINNER
Rourke. Watch out, ladies!

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

NOMINEES
Christian Bale (The Dark Knight)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Synecdoche, NY)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Since Philip Seymour Hoffman appeared in two movies likely to figure in the Academy Awards this year, it follows that he must be nominated for at least one. Brad Pitt will be nominated for long and faithful service, Christian Bale for being in a blockbuster that didn't suck, and Mickey Rourke for appearing again out of nowhere. Sean Penn will win, because he is playing a gay man. But also because this is the best role he has done in a good while, if not ever. Madonna will be jealous.

WINNER
Sean Penn

Paul Clark Predicts:

NOMINEES
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

Where’s Richard Jenkins, you ask? The Screengrab favorite won numerous early accolades for his work in The Visitor, but the risky plan to open the film early to build steam for Jenkins has led to the unassuming actor getting lost in the end-of-the-year shuffle, as most of the honors have been split between Penn and Rourke. With early predictions such as Leonardo DiCaprio (Revolutionary Road) and Benicio Del Toro (Che) having largely stalled out, Jenkins is the only potential spoiler here, but between Rourke’s comeback-kid status, the high-profile biopic turns of Penn and Langella, and two big stars in Eastwood and Pitt, I’m predicting that Jenkins pulls a Paul Giamatti and gets shut out of a nomination despite the early hosannas. As for the eventual winner, it seems too soon for Penn to win a second Oscar, and unless Rourke torpedoes his chances between now and February 22, I suspect that capping off his comeback with a statuette will prove too perfect an ending for voters to resist.

WINNER
Mickey Rourke

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

NOMINEES
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

After all the endless hype about Mickey Rourke’s comeback in The Wrestler, it’d be heee-larious if he didn’t actually get nominated. And I’m guessing there’s more than a few Academy voters not exactly wishing Mickey well...but Hollywood and professional sports are all about storylines, so a Rourke nod seems inevitable. Unlike Rourke, Frank Langella and Sean Penn were playing other people in their movies rather than semi-autobiographical stunt-casting versions of themselves...and doing it well: Penn, in particular, seemed like an entirely different human being in Milk (which, y’know, is probably why the award is “Best Actor” instead of “Best Comeback”). Then again, there’s something to be said for a beloved screen icon just playing a stylized, hyper-real version of themselves, especially when they’re still kicking more ass in their seventies than alleged action star Shia LaBeouf will kick on the ass-kickingest day of his life, and especially when said role occurs in what may be said icon’s last screen role ever...in other words, I’ll be surprised if Clint Eastwood doesn’t grab a nomination for Gran Torino. And speaking of beloved movie stars, I’m supposed to pick Brad Pitt for the fifth spot, but what if the Academy decides his performance in Benjamin Button was more to do with CGI than acting chops? In that case, they might choose a dark horse, under-the-radar industry vet who’s paid his dues and (unlike Pitt) may never get another shot at the brass ring: the lovely and talented “that guy” Richard Jenkins for his role in The Visitor. (But Penn’s gonna actually win, partly thanks to Proposition 8...and I mentioned that whole crazy “acting” thing, yes?)

WINNER
Sean Penn

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

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

Goodness knows why anyone continues to insist that Leonardo Di Caprio is a good actor, but I’d bet my next paycheck on him getting the nod. Frank Langella, likewise, plays Nixon like a broad majestic Shannon – that ain’t acting, that’s overacting – but the Academy loves an old pro. Pitt’s Button nom makes up for the Burn After Reading one he won’t get. In the end, though, it’ll be a battle between comeback kid Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler and Sean Penn’s well-deserved nomination for Milk; I’ll predict that Rourke gets it, though, since Penn has had (and will have) many more moments in the sun, while this is likely Mickey’s last dance. BIGGEST SCREWJOB: Benicio Del Toro’s incredibly tight performance in Che won’t get recognized because the public won’t sit through a 17-hour movie, and right-wing critics will yap endlessly that the movie glorifies a killer, which has never, ever happened before in a Hollywood movie.

WINNER
Mickey Rourke

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NOMINEES
CLINT EASTWOOD, FRANK LANGELLA, SEAN PENN, BRAD PITT, MICKEY ROURKE

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
MICKEY ROURKE

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

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

Morning Deal Report: Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Mickey Rourke isn’t taking any chances with this whole comeback thing. Just yesterday we told you Rourke has joined The Expendables, and today The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop on The Wrestler’s role in Iron Man 2. “Marvel has been keeping a very tight lid on the script for the sequel, being written by Justin Theroux, but it is known that Rourke would play a tattooed Russian heavy named Ivan who becomes Whiplash, a man with deadly, technologically enhanced coils.” Wait, isn’t that Dr. Octopus? Anyway, Rourke won’t be alone in terrorizing fellow comebacker Robert Downey, Jr. – since one villain never seems to be enough for any superhero sequel, Sam Rockwell is also aboard as “Justin Hammer, a multibillionaire businessman and a rival of industrialist Anthony Stark, AKA Iron Man.”

Leonardo DiCaprio will try to Beat the Reaper. “The protagonist in the novel penned by Josh Bazell is a Manhattan emergency room doctor, whose life becomes complicated when a mobster recognizes the doc from his former life as a hitman who went into the witness protection program,” Variety reports.

It’s official: Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards really is called Inglourious Basterds, and it now has a release date. The World War II epic starring Brad Pitt will reach theaters August 21st, courtesy of The Weinstein Company. Or is that the Winesteen Kumpanee?

Related:
Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler" Pleases Mankind, Annoys Iran
Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" Unleashed

DVD (Mini-)Digest for December 23, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Christmas is just two days away, and for you last-minute shoppers, the studios are unloading several of their late summer and early fall releases to fill out an otherwise slow DVD week.

The most notable of the bunch is Burn After Reading (Universal, also Blu-Ray), the Coen brothers’ follow-up to the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. Much more comedic than its feted predecessor, Burn has a no less bleak view of human nature. Consequently, despite the many laughs the film has to offer, the film is much more disquieting upon reflection than one might guess while watching it. But even if you’re just in the mood for entertainment, you should still be able to relish the game performances, especially those given by Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt’s unspeakable hair, and the priceless double act of J.K. Simmons and David (Sledge Hammer!) Rasche.

This week’s other releases include Anna Faris doing what she does best in The House Bunny (Sony, also Blu-Ray); Meg Ryan, Annette Bening and friends in The Women (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Steve Coogan taking comic aim at both Shakespeare and the alleged sexiness of Jesus in Hamlet 2 (Universal); and the fashionably unhinged Julianne Moore in Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace (Weinstein).

Morning Deal Report: Brad Pitt Seeks Lost City

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

We Own the Night director James Gray is adapting the nonfiction book The Lost City of Z for Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B. Pitt will star as British soldier and spy Percy Fawcett, who “left Victorian society to explore in the Amazon, and he became obsessed by the idea of an advanced civilization he called Z, which he believed existed in the depths of the jungle. Along with his son, Fawcett headed into the jungle in 1925 in search of Z and was never seen again,” Variety reports.

Mumblecore mavens the Duplass Brothers are set to make their studio debut with “an intergenerational comedy” for Fox Searchlight. “The studio is in talks with Marisa Tomei, John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill to star in the film, which will center on a budding romance between a man (Reilly) and woman (Tomei) that the woman's son (Hill) attempts to foil,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Get ready to hold your lighters aloft. “New Line has won an auction for screen rights to Rock of Ages, a stage musical that does with '80s rock anthems what Mamma Mia! did with Abba tunes,” Variety reports. “The show is propelled by signature '80s rock anthems popularized by Journey, Twisted Sister, Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, Bon Jovi and REO Speedwagon.” What, no Loverboy?

Related:
Brad Pitt Jilts Aronofsky Again
Die Mumblecore Die

Your Thursday Afternoon “Twilight” Roundup

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:00:00 GMT

You may have noticed that we at the Screengrab have more or less completely ignored Twilight. We are aware that it’s a cultural phenomenon, and that the movie is out in theaters tomorrow, and that it’s predicted to be one of the biggest hits of the year. It’s just that none of us are teenage girls. Believe me, there are some among us who wish they were teenage girls, not that I’m naming any names. (See if you can PIERCE the veil of that cryptic comment, as if you were an arrow from the bow of Ted NUGENT!) But I digress. In the interest of fairness – and page views from the teenage girls who normally avoid the Screengrab like the plague – here is a handy roundup of the latest the Web has to offer in Twilight-mania.

The first reviews are in! Entertainment Weekly gives Twilight a B; critic Owen Gleiberman oozes over Robert Pattinson’s “dreamy, sculpted hunk of a teenage vampire,” who he describes as “Romeo, Heathcliff, James Dean, and Brad Pitt all rolled into one: a scruffy-gorgeous bloodsucker pinup who is really an angelic protector.’ Get a room, Owen! Slate’s Dana Stevens calls it “flawed yet transfixing,” reserving special praise for costume designer Wendy Chuck, who “manages to make weatherproof parkas look Goth.” Claudia Puig of USA Today dissents, citing “questionable casting, wooden acting, laughable dialogue and truly awful makeup.”

The LA Times reports that the Twilight setting of Forks, Washington is getting all the tourist business that used to go to Snoqualmie (aka “the real Twin Peaks”). “Forks High School is often besieged with Twilighters, who pose for pictures in front of the Spartans sign or scan the parking lot for Edward's car, a silver Volvo sedan. Some have even wandered inside to seek out the fictional characters. Still others have requested to be transferred to the school.” That’s okay, I still have my Twin Peaks Phys-Ed Dept. t-shirt somewhere.

Movie Retriever offers Six Excuses Grown-Ups Can Use for Going to See Twilight This Weekend. “Forget about the kid-vampire stuff. You're just a big fan of Twilight's director Catherine Hardwicke, ranging back to her days as a production designer - she designed Tapeheads, I'm Gonna Get You Sucka, and Tombstone! - to her more-recent career as a big-time director, helming movies like Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown.”

Of course, there’s the inevitable face-off between Twilight and True Blood: BuddyTV asks “Who's the Better Vampire Boyfriend?”

At Rotten Tomatoes, dreamy Robert Pattinson dishes on his five favorite movies. One of them is Corky Romano. How’s that crush doing now, Owen?

Russell Crowe Will Not Wear Tights

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

As Body of Lies opens in Britain, The Independent interviews the always genial Russell Crowe, who opens up about his deeply introspective acting process. “ ‘Preparation? I picked up a bag, I put a pair of underwear in it and I got on a plane. There you go – preparation done,’ he says, slapping his hands together. ‘How many times have you seen me do it in the last 20 years? A lot. Whatever the character needs, I'll get to that point. It's no big deal. I was at 88 kilos when Ridley called and asked if I'd mind putting on a load of weight. I was at 117 kilos when the movie started, and I've been coming down slowly. I'm at about 95 kilos at the moment, maybe a little less.’”

Crowe remained bulky for his role in the upcoming State of Play, a big screen remake of the BBC miniseries. Crowe signed up when Brad Pitt abandoned the project. (Pitt does that a lot, doesn’t he?) He’ll shed the pounds for his dual role as the Sheriff and Robin Hood in Ridley Scott’s upcoming Nottingham. “The world doesn't need a mundane version of Robin Hood. If we're gonna do it, we've got to kick some serious butt. I've loved Robin Hood since I was a kid, but when the idea came up and they gave me this script, I said, 'Look, I don't like this. This doesn't work. It's not good enough.' But the idea of Robin Hood? For sure. I spent 10 months just reading Robin Hood books – the history, the mythology, the original ballads, the legend – and then you've got 100 years of cinematic history as well. So this has got to be the best one ever done, otherwise I should be doing something else."

Crowe adds: "I will not wear tights because according to our research they weren't invented for another 300 years. I apologise to you all – and to Sienna Miller."

If the whole “dual role” thing strikes you as a little odd, you aren’t alone. Writing in The Guardian, James Anthony express some concern: “I'm all for actors playing dual roles. It has worked in several films where it has thematic relevance. But Crowe's ego precedes him, and it's tempting to believe he just wants to share screen time with himself.”

Related:
Sienna Miller in the Hood
When Good Directors Go Bad: 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992, Ridley Scott)

21 Stars We Hate (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:30:00 GMT

TOM HANKS

I know, I know...this list is called “Stars We Hate,” and it’s hard to work up any real vitriol against Mr. Hanks: after all, he seems like a peach of a guy, he’s turned into a pretty good producer and he established an eternal place for himself in the cinematic canon as the voice of Woody in Toy Story 1 & 2. But let me ask you something: do you consider Tim “Buzz Lightyear” Allen a truly iconic movie star? The Cary Grant of his generation? No? Why not? Like Hanks, Allen also rose to fame as a likeable lug in a dumb sitcom, then made the leap to movies with a series of mostly terrible high concept comedies, give or take one undeniable classic apiece (Galaxy Quest for Allen, Big or Splash for Hanks, depending who you ask). And, like Hanks, you totally wouldn’t believe Allen as a dangerous tough guy mobster in Road To Perdition...although, wait, actually, I take that back: considering Tim Allen was busted with a pound of cocaine back in 1978, ratted out 21 drug dealers to avoid a life sentence and spent more than two years in prison, I’m guessing he’s got more than a little bit of a dark side, which makes him an interesting performer even though, for some reason, he’s mostly chosen to squander his talent on crap over the years. Hanks, on the other hand, is more ambitious and, in the “serious” half of his career, has generally chosen better material (three movies with Meg Ryan notwithstanding)...but the problem is there’s no there there: he’s just not that great an actor, no matter how many Best Actor awards he wins. Sure, he pulled the “lose a lot of weight” gimmick for Castaway, which puts him on par (at best) with Ethan Hawke and Christian Bale, who pulled the same trick for Alive and The Machinist, respectively (though neither of them won an Oscar for their efforts). Playing gay was just another award-winning acting gimmick for Hanks in Philadelphia: I never believed his performance for a second, just as I failed to believe his grizzled tough guy act in Perdition or Saving Private Ryan. At his best, in light comedy or light drama like Apollo 13, Hanks is akin to the guy who got all the starring roles in your high school drama club...appealingly bland in productions the audience is predisposed to like. But a modern-day Jimmy Stewart (as people who should know better insist on calling him)? Hardly. For one thing, Jimmy Stewart would never have subjected us to Bachelor Party or Forrest Gump.

DIANE KEATON

In certain quarters here at Nerve’s opulent Screengrab HQ, Diane Keaton is held not only to be not a bad actress, but in fact a rather good one. You will recall, because I know you read everything we post here every day, that she even appeared in the Honorable Mention section of our list of the Top 25 Leading Ladies of All Time. A gentlemanly raising prevents me from mentioning the name of the Screengrab contributor who placed Ms. Keaton into nomination; but I beg of you -- since I assume you all agree with me that Diane Keaton could not act her way out of a paper bag, or act her way into a paper bag, or even act in the general vicinity of a paper bag -- do not e-mail jibes and rotten fruit at this individual. He is a fine man, an insightful film writer, and an intelligent human being, but once, when we were shooting the back nine at Burning Tree, he caught a stray Ben Hogan right in the temple, and ever since then, he has been unable to recognize Diane Keaton’s fretfully obvious limitations as an actress. Starting out strong by playing Woody Allen’s most appealing muse in Annie Hall, she soon discovered that a career as a professional actress would require her to display emotions other than whimsy and peevishness, a task to which she was sadly unequal. Witness, for example, her performance in The Little Drummer Boy, a woefully overrated film in which she proves that as an actress, she is unable to convincingly portray an actress. Even in her biggest break, playing the insufferably Kay in the first two Godfather movies, her greatest accomplishment is to leave you feeling baffled as to what Michael Corleone – or, for that matter, Francis Ford Coppola – ever saw in her to begin with. Happily, since she has descended into middle age, she has been relegated to the kind of roles Hollywood tends to offer middle-aged women, which greatly reduces the odds that I will ever have to see her in anything ever again.

ANDIE MACDOWELL

Joe Queenan, one of film criticism’s greatest haters, once said of the enervating Penelope Ann Miller that “if she is still alive, Penelope Ann Miller is the worst actress alive. And if she is dead, good.” While I can’t say that I actively wish for Andie MacDowell’s death, I will say that if she were suddenly stricken with some horrible disease that prevented her from ever appearing in front of a camera again, I would send a hundred dollars to any charity vowing to prevent the disease from being cured. While I certainly can’t argue that Penelope Ann Miller is a horrendously bad actress, I will say that, unlike Andie MacDowell, she did not seem to have a knack for convincing talented directors to put her in good movies. While MacDowell's career started out poorly – in her debut role in Greystoke, she was out-acted by both a chimpanzee and Christopher Lambert, and she went on to be only the third most annoying thing about St. Elmo’s Fire – she somehow got herself cast as the lead in the otherwise excellent sex, lies and videotape, where she first showed her ability to flounder around helplessly while being outacted by every sentient creature in the vicinity. She went on to appear in Groundhog Day, where she was unable to convince me that Bill Murray would bother crossing the street for her, let alone turning back time. But her crowning crappiness was in Robert Altman’s wonderful Short Cuts, a movie whose greatness is evident in the fact that it survived being completely ground to a halt by her reading of a line -- in what was meant to be the movie’s most intensely emotional scene -- with all the passion of a piece of cardboard. I haven’t seen her in anything since she conned Wim Wenders into putting her in The End of Violence, but IMDB tells me that she’s spent the last 12 years making movies, just as if she weren’t the very worst actress in the world.

ROBERT REDFORD

If you look at some of Redford's early supporting performances in movies such as Inside Daisy Clover and The Chase, or even his earlier guest shots on such TV shows as The Twilight Zone and Route 66, you see a self-aware guy with a sly wit and the ability to sketch out a character in a few quick strokes. What happened? He turned into a politician, focusing public attention on his support for good causes ranging from the environment to independent filmmaking and taking longer and longer breaks from the screen. It's good to have interests, but the thing is, the breaks from the screen eventually seemed to be continuing even when he was on screen. From the moment that he (belatedly) became a big star on the back of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Redford's acting became more and more minimalistic, until you began to suspect that he put out so little for fear of expressing something that might alienate or cool off a single member of his target demographic. At the same time, what looked like simple vanity was eating into and damaging his movies in big ways (such as his inability to connect with Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby) and small (such as his refusal to allow his character to receive a jailhouse haircut when he's undercover in a barbaric Southern prison in Brubaker.) Redford made his name at the moment when Hollywood was suddenly deluged with new "ethnic" stars such as Pacino, De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman, as well as stars who fell far outside the pretty-boy category, such as Gene Hackman, and for decades Redford got first pick of the glamorous, man of few words golden boy romantic lead roles in old-fashioned films such as Out of Africa and the benighted Havana because he was thought to be the closest thing left to a star in that mold. Which is fine, but it's surprising that so smart a guy would have wanted those roles, especially given that he didn't devote much time to doing anything else. (Maybe all that shampoo ate into his brain.) Whether as an actor (The Last Castle, Up Close and Personal, Spy Game), a director (The Legend of Bagger Vance), or both (The Horse Whisperer, Lions for Lambs), his films of the last several years couldn't be more beside the point. He faces the end of his career in the very odd position of being a hero to young independent filmmakers at the film festival his Sundance Institute sponsors rather than for any movies he's actually worked on.

BRAD PITT

Pitt became America's sweetheart through his role as the one night stand of Geena Davis' dreams in Thelma and Louise, but the thing about one night stands is you're never supposed to have to see them again. It didn't take too many leading roles to reveal that Pitt couldn't act a lick, but it was easy to sympathize with all the people who didn't mind so long as they got to rest their eyes on him for a couple of hours. However, two factors made Pitt's superstardom more grating than the success of most fabulously good-looking untalented people: first, a lot of people, some of them movie critics, liked looking at him so much that they actually started talking as if he were in fact one hell of an actor, and not just a skillful master of his craft, but rather some kind of high-flying hip icon, earning him the respect of people who wouldn't cross the street to piss on, say, Keanu Reeves; and, second, for a while he seemed to think that he had something to prove, so after being content to flash his teeth and his six-pack in Thelma and Louise, A River Runs Through It, and Legends of the Fall, he actually started taking on challenging roles in creatively ambitious projects, and in the course of time showed that he had it in him to be a real menace. To see Pitt trying to break new acting ground in 12 Monkeys, Se7en and Interview with the Vampire (where he mostly succeeded in making his co-star, Tom Cruise, look better than he ever had before, albeit by comparison) is to experience the same kind of flush of emotions one might feel watching a drunken monkey juggle plastic explosives. When he has no idea what to do, as in most of Vampire, he pouts as if the director just hit him with a yardstick and bruised his winkie. When, God help us, he's fully confident and going for broke, as in 12 Monkeys, his uncontrolled spasm of a performance makes you fear for his co-workers. During the late '90s, in such films as Seven Days in Tibet and Meet Joe Black, he did seem to find his true niche, getting paid kajillions of dollars to star in unbelievably long, misconceived movies that nobody would see. And he gave what will likely stand as his best-remembered performance in Fight Club, in which he was well-cast as a violent lunatic's vainest projection of his imaginary self-image. Time, money, and acclaim seem to have mellowed him, and the on-screen company of George Clooney and Angelina Jolie has been good for him; in the Danny Ocean pictures and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, he's been content to hang around on screen like a handsome lump, allowing the filmmakers to tap into his proven box office appeal while leaving the heavy lifting to his more gifted co-stars. But on those occasions where he's attempted to re-affirm his acting stature by impersonating Achilles or Jess James -- well, he still pouts real good.

Click Here For Part One, Part Three & Part Four

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Phil Nugent

Morning Deal Report: A Brad Pitt Odyssey

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

No need for a recount: Max Payne has defeated George W. Bush at the box office polls. The Mark Wahlberg shoot-em-up took in $18 million over the weekend to claim the top spot. Finishing second was that pesky Beverly Hills Chihuahua, just edging out The Secret Life of Bees. Oliver Stone’s W. was fourth with $10.6 million.

After dumping Darren Aronofsky from his dance card, Brad Pitt is preparing for a space Odyssey. “After turning Homer's epic poem The Iliad into the 2004 film Troy, Warner Bros. and Brad Pitt are teaming with George Miller to adapt the Greek poet's other masterwork, The Odyssey,” Variety reports. “Their intention is to transfer the tale to a futuristic setting in outer space.”

Miramax is “developing Daily Show head writer Ben Karlin and Stu Zicherman's satirical comedy A.C.O.D. (Adult Children of Divorce), the story of a grown man still caught in the crossfire of his parents' 15-year-old divorce,” per The Hollywood Reporter. “‘We're very glad to get the validation from Miramax, especially since we've been working on the script longer than any of our parents were married,’ Karlin and Zicherman said.”

Related:
Brad Pitt Jilts Aronofsky Again
Screengrab Review: "W."

Morning Deal Report: Brad Pitt Jilts Aronofsky Again

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Now this is just sad. As you may recall, Brad Pitt was originally set to star in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. He ever grew a big, scary beard for the role. Then he dropped out over creative differences and did Troy instead, while Hugh Jackman took his place in Aronofsky’s bizarre sci-fi epic. Now history seems to be repeating itself. Per Entertainment Weekly, “Director Darren Aronofsky's The Fighter, a boxing biopic about pugilist Micky Ward that's his long-planned follow-up to December's The Wrestler, is falling on hard times: Paramount confirmed to EW.com that Brad Pitt, who was long attached to play Ward's half-brother and trainer, recently dropped out of the film.” Mark Wahlberg is still on board, although he is reportedly troubled by the proposed scenes in which he talks to animals.

I was just pondering this morning before my third cup of coffee, “When was the last really good Napoleon comedy?” Well, Steve Carell is ready to give it a shot. He’s attached to The Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, scheduled for an early 2009 shoot. Variety reports Carell “will play the title character, the bravest soldier in Napoleon’s army and also the dumbest. Gerard follows Napoleon from his rise to power to his permanent exile. The comedy is based on stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” Ol’ A.C. Doyle’s making quite the comeback these days.

Viggo Mortensen may not be hitting The Road this year after all. The Hollywood Reporter is saying that the film “based on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic tale about a man and his son wandering a bleak landscape,” which has already been pushed from its original November release date to December, may be moved out of 2008 altogether. “John Hillcoat's movie, shot this year mainly in Pennsylvania, is in post and decidedly not done, those familiar with the project said.”

Related:
Aronofsky Takes Up Residence in Riverview Towers
Barack Obama and Brad Pitt: Separared at Birth?

Trailer Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Trailer #2

Paul Clark — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Last month, I declared David Fincher’s film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story to be my most-anticipated movie of the fall. This trailer only made me more breathless in my anticipation. For one thing, the trailer affords me a more in-depth look than ever before at the breadth of Brad Pitt’s performance- sure, there’s plenty of CGI and makeup effects involved, yet Pitt (a perpetually underrated actor) nonetheless has plenty of responsibility in bringing the character to life. In addition, the story is shown a little more in-depth, including supporting characters played by Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and Taraji P. Henson. There’s been some bad buzz coming out of early screenings that the film is “too long”, but to hell with that. I could be happy luxuriating in Fincher’s world for hours on end.

Screengrab Fall Preview: Paul Clark's Picks

Paul Clark — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Yesterday, my colleague Scott Von Doviak dared all of his fellow Screengrab staffers to weigh in on our most anticipated movies of the fall. Given my lifelong inability to resist a dare (which resulted in my eating far too many unspeakable things in my younger days) I’ve decided to answer the call. Craving an additional challenge- and hoping to spotlight the wide array of good and bad releases coming soon to a theatre near me- I’ve decided to eliminate all contenders that appeared in Scott’s preview. Here goes:

3 UP

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – for years, David Fincher has been one of Hollywood’s most gifted filmmakers, with last year’s Zodiac his best film yet. With Button, Fincher turns his camera on an honest-to-goodness work of literature (an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, fer chrissakes), but don’t expect a workmanlike Tradition of Quality-style adaptation. Button re-teams Fincher with Brad Pitt, who continues to improve as an actor by seeking out adventurous material, and this story gives him his biggest challenge yet, not only playing a character from childhood through old age, but playing him while aging in reverse. It’s the kind of story that requires a visionary to pull off, and I can think of few better candidates for the job than Fincher. Every year, there’s at least one high-profile movie that I actively root for to be great, and this year, it’s Benjamin Button.

2. A Christmas Tale – Unlike Benjamin Button, the latest film by the great French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin is something of a known quantity, premiering at Cannes to almost universal acclaim. But even if it hadn’t already screened, my hopes for this one would be through the roof. In the past few years, Desplechin has become one of my favorite filmmakers, and he’s coming off his finest work yet, 2004’s Kings and Queen. Factor in that Christmas Tale re-unites four of that film’s stars- Matthieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Devos, and Hippolyte Girardot- and I’m sold. That the film’s IMDb recommends the Steve Martin remake of Cheaper By the Dozen shouldn’t be held against it.

3. The Brothers Bloom – as I stated in my Trailer Review earlier this week, I’m in the pro-Brick camp, so naturally I’m excited for Rian Johnson’s follow-up project. But he’s also assembled an irresistible cast (I love Brody and Ruffalo as brothers, and Rachel Weisz is always best when she plays daffy), so I’m extra-stoked for this one. Could we be witnessing the rise of a major American filmmaker? Here’s hoping.

3 DOWN

1. Defiance – tell me if you’ve heard this one before: Ed Zwick directs a film about an outsider who aids a group of minorities in fighting about those who oppress them. That the minorities are Jews and the time period is during World War II only makes Defiance’s Oscar-grubbing even more blatant. Thanks, but no thanks.

2. RockNRolla – you know, I was under the impression that the abject failure of Revolver coupled with the divorce from Madonna meant that the moviegoing public would get a break from Guy Ritchie. Alas, that beautiful dream wasn’t to be. It was nice while it lasted though…

3. Bedtime Stories – Adam Sandler’s comic persona might be juvenile, but he’s always been at his best at unleashing his rage onscreen in decidedly un-kid-friendly ways. Less successful are his attempts to warm the heart, which makes the idea of a Sandler family comedy all the more misguided. The presence of Adam (The Pacifier) Shankman in the director’s chair doesn’t inspire much confidence either.

WILD CARD

It’s not as odd as Scott’s choice of Oliver Stone’s W. (what could be?), but I’m pretty conflicted about Quantum of Solace. What made Casino Royale so damn good is that it combined a kickass James Bond thrill ride with a legitimately compelling story. But although hiring director Marc Forster hints that the producers might be trying for that same balance of action and drama, I have my doubts that lightning will strike twice. Add to this Forster’s lack of experience in the action genre, plus the fact that unlike Casino this one doesn’t have an Ian Fleming novel to provide a solid narrative foundation, and Quantum has a lot to live up to. Sure, it might be diverting, but after Casino Royale, that just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore. However, I’d love nothing more than to be wrong about this.