The Screengrab : kate winslet

DVD Digest for April 14, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

Well folks, it looks like the studios are waiting until after the tax return deadline to release the good stuff. However, there are a few interesting titles on tap this week.

This week’s selection of recent releases can be more or less boiled down to a face-off between high-toned Oscar-bait and a lowbrow comic book adaptation full of cartoonish violence and scantily clad women. In one corner, wearing the drab grey trunks, Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (Weinstein, also Blu-Ray), which brought Kate Winslet a long-overdue Oscar and garnered its director his third Best Director nomination in three tries. In the opposing corner, wearing black and white trunks and a bright red tie, Frank Miller’s solo filmmaking debut, The Spirit (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray), an adaptation of the classic Will Eisner comic that got some of the most savage reviews of 2008. Of course, if you’re like me you could take or leave either of these movies, and I’d advise you to wait for next week when The Wrestler hits the streets.

Or if you just can’t wait, you might be better off with this week’s most interesting-looking classic, the 50th Anniversary Edition of Pillow Talk (Universal). Perhaps the most popular of Doris Day and Rock Hudson’s romantic comedies, the new DVD includes commentary, a doc about the two stars, and in some sets a bonus Mamma Mia magnetic picture frame. I know, I can’t wait either. And for you fans of poker and distractingly bad Russian accents, this week also brings the release of Rounders 10th Anniversary Edition (Disney, also Blu-Ray).

The big TV on DVD news this week is the release of the HBO miniseries House of Saddam. And in Blu-Ray only releases, this week’s slate includes: Eminem in 8 Mile (Universal); Zach Braff in The Last Kiss (Paramount); Lindsay Lohan and Tina Fey in Mean Girls (Paramount); the Happy Madison production Strange Wilderness (Paramount); and the forgettable sci-fi double feature The Thirteenth Floor (Sony) and Universal Soldier: The Return (Sony). I guess that’s how you know the format is here to stay- when studios are done releasing their recent crap and start releasing crap from the vaults.

Finally, my selection for the Plot Synopsis of the Week is yet again from the Japanese animation circuit- this week choice being ADV Films’ release The Karma Saiyuki. Once again, I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m bagging on anime, but some of these plot summaries- yowza. Take a look:

“In a world where a broken robot is as cherished as month-old milk, sexually abused androids are tossed in the scrap pile and forgotten by all but three beautiful young girls with the power to bring the discarded 'droids back to life through the bedroom arts. But do robots--even super-realistic-looking ones--feel sad when their cruel owners defile and then chuck them in the recycle bin? In this adult-themed anime, the power of loving sex might be the link between a robot’s artificial intelligence and its heart--or maybe it's just another chance for hentai fans to enjoy some kinky robot nookie.”

To these eyes, what really puts it over the top is that final sentence, in which the copy writer teases us with the possible deeper implications of the film, then snatches them away again with a dig at the sexual proclivities of hentai fans. And to think that DVD Planet has this listed in the “Children’s” genre…

Screengrab Review: "Lymelife"

Nick Schager — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:00:00 GMT

In case you haven’t been listening to what prestige and art-house films have been blaring, the suburbs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. The carefree contentment projected by all those white-picket-fence homes, and the smiling cheer of all those good-looking people in their nice clothes and fancy cars? It’s all lies, joyful facades that mask serious social dysfunction. Despite seeming like the place where happily-ever-afters come true, the suburbs are in reality hotbeds of familial discord, of tumultuous adolescent anger and misery, and of deception, greed, selfishness and alienation. If you thought that moving there from the vile, corrupting city was smart, think again. Relocating to a comfy home, and mingling with your undoubtedly Yuppie neighbors, will only warp you into a desolate conformist zombie like those seen in American Beauty, The Ice Storm and countless other likeminded dramas. And desperately running through the streets like Leonardo DiCaprio’s wretched Revolutionary Road hubby, or performing fatal makeshift abortions on yourself like Kate Winslet’s hopeless wife, are your only avenues of escape!

Excuse the sarcasm, but seriously – does anyone still find this gibberish relevant? Pulling the curtains back on picture-perfect suburbia is such a stale, clichéd modus operandi that it’s long ceased to be of any use. And one suspects that the reason so many recent films address this topic from the detached confines of an earlier era (anywhere from the ‘50s to ‘80s) is because only in the past would characters actually view as revelatory the fact that non-city-living isn’t a surefire blissful existence. Which brings us around to Lymelife, a late-‘70s-set tale about screwed-up Long Island high-schooler Scott Bartlett (Rory Culkin), whose crumbling family includes cold, philandering real-estate developer dad Mickey (Alec Baldwin), military brother Jimmy (Kieran Culkin), and gloomy, quietly suffering mom Brenda (Jill Hennessy). His life a checklist of movie clichés about adolescence, Scott is picked on by the local bully, loves Star Wars, and pines for his pretty older neighbor Adrianna (Emma Roberts), who flirts with and teases him. Also in the mix are Adrianna’s crazy parents: mom Melissa (Cynthia Nixon) is an adulteress sleeping with Mickey, and her dad Charlie (Timothy Hutton) is a mess of a man who, instead of looking for work, smokes pot in his basement, his deterioration ostensibly instigated by a case of lime disease.

I say ostensibly because Charlie – like everyone else in Derick Martini’s film (co-written with brother Steven) – is really suffering from suburbanitis, that stultifying malady in which moving to the ‘burbs not only doesn’t solve, but in fact amplifies, barely suppressed problems. Lymelife shows directorial restraint in depicting Scott’s confused headspace, and its performances are universally solid, with both Rory Culkin and Hennessey conveying a tempered soulfulness that helps prevent their characters from succumbing to cartoonishness. Yet the narrative they’re assigned to breathe life into is irrevocably moldy, a portrait of father-son and husband-wife strife, as well as of budding teenage sexuality and maturity, that’s defined by groaningly bittersweet, paradise-is-an-illusion shots of middle-class homes spied out of school bus windows. Apparently semi-autobiographical, Lymelife sporadically nails sharp (if familiar) details, for example a shirtless Scott rehearsing how to be cool and macho while staring into his mirror, or Scott and Adrianna’s awkward maiden sexual experiences. Too bad, then, that such authenticity is drowned out by an overarching don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover message that long ago lost its luster.

Clippy Strikes Back: The Scariest Technology In Cinema History! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:00:00 GMT

This week, youngsters (and the young at heart) will be treated to the sight of a giant space robot tearing up San Francisco (in 3-D!) in Monsters vs. Aliens (click here for review).

But last week, something really scary happened: my computer completely shut down thanks to some nasty virus, leaving me completely laptop-less for three long, frightening days (right in the middle of SXSW!), during which time I realized I no longer have the ability to think straight, remember things, communicate or even feed and dress myself without my little cybernetic soul mate in good working order.

Fortunately, the fine people at PC Guru in Austin, TX got me up and running...but it was definitely a scary reminder of how much it’s gonna suck when Facebook finally becomes self-aware and turns all our computers, ATMs, DVRs, MP3s and GPS systems against us.

So, as a public service, your (mostly) human friends here at the Screengrab figured now would be as good a time as any to whip up some post-Y2K panic with our list of THE SCARIEST TECHNOLOGY IN CINEMA HISTORY!

METROPOLIS (1927)

Fritz Lang's titanic silent sci-fi masterpiece uses a look derived from a mix of Art Deco and Amazing Stories cover designs to decorate a political allegory that Lang said was inspired by his first sight of New York City, which seems to have fried some of the wiring in his central cortex. (If the old boy were to come back and see what the place looks like today, we'd have to find him a job biting the heads off chickens.) Society consists of the rich who live above ground in glittering skyscrapers and the poor who labor and live in underground tunnels, sort of like in Titanic. The whole shebang is run by Johan, a capitalist uber-lord; meanwhile, down below, Metropolis has found its answer to Samuel Gompers in the beautiful Maria, a saintly labor activist who is rallying the workers. The plot kicks into high gear when Johan's breathtakingly goofy son, Freder, gets a look at Maria and is instantly radicalized. Instead of taking the usual tack of industrialist tyrants in this situation and buying his kid a motorcycle and a lap dance, Johan turns to his trusty house mad scientist, Rotwang, who creates a trouble-making robot duplicate of Maria, in a scene that anticipates The Bride of Frankenstein and Dr. Strangelove in about equal measure, and turns 'er loose, with results that prove instructional for one and all. (PN)

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

Its red eye glowing, its voice calm and soothing, HAL 9000 – on-board computer of the spaceship Discovery – remains, forty-one years after 2001: A Space Odyssey’s debut, cinema’s most iconic piece of evil technology. Or, at least, the sentient HAL is one of the most dangerous pieces of technology to ever be presented on screen, as its homicidal tendencies stem primarily from a desire to fulfill preprogrammed mission directives – aims which are threatened by the plan of astronauts Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Poole (Gary Lockwood) to disconnect it. The fact that self-preservation in service of duty is HAL’s motivation to kill problematizes any attempt to cast it as purely evil, especially since its survival instinct, when viewed alongside its emotive speech (contrasted with the men’s monotonous, monosyllabic utterances), marks the computer as distinctly human-like. Nonetheless, even if HAL isn’t immoral, it most certainly is frighteningly lethal. And rarely have the movies presented a more harrowing, intimidating vision of technology-run-amok than the sight of HAL covertly, calculatingly reading the lips of the scheming astronauts, and soon thereafter sending Poole spinning into the oblivion of space. (NS)

WESTWORLD (1973)

While re-watching Westworld in preparation for this list, I recovered a long-lost childhood memory. I’m on a train with my family when bandits on horseback pull us over, board the train and take our money. This really happened, although I should probably explain that it was supposed to happen – it was no ordinary train ride, but rather a reenactment of the Great Train Robbery. I remember being terrified as the bandits prowled the aisle, brandishing their pistols, bandannas concealing most of their faces – but not so terrified that I actually relinquished the dollar my mother had slipped me so that I could enjoy being robbed along with everyone else. Why am I telling you this? Because, like Westworld, this was a simulation of life in the Old West intended to give us all the thrills without any of the consequences. As far as I know, there were no actual robots involved, but how can I be sure? The other thing it has in common with Westworld is that it scared me as a kid. Now that I’ve seen Westworld as an adult, I realize it’s about as scary as a visit to Six Gun City. The movie serves up some of writer/director Michael Crichton’s patented technophobia with a formula that would be duplicated to better effect in Jurassic Park, as visitors to a high-tech theme park find themselves terrorized by the robots meant to amuse them. It does have one thing going for it: Yul Brynner’s iconic black-hatted Gunslinger, who did the unstoppable killer robot thing more than a decade before The Terminator. (SVD)

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)

In screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's world, human beings don't really need technology to screw up their lives, but in this movie they get some help anyway, courtesy of Lacuna, Inc. and its mind-wipe service, which enables the client to have his memory scrubbed of anything that he feels is holding him back or causing him undue pain. Jim Carrey, at his most subdued, is the loser hero who discovers that Clementine (Kate Winslet), the old flame who shook up his life, has had her memories of their time together erased, possibly as a lark, and who opts to have his own mind scrubbed clean of its memories of her, not realizing how hard he'll fight to hang onto any traces of having had her in his life when the process begins. Kaufman and director Michel Gondry manage to wring romantic comedy out of what may be the most painful of romantic truths: everyone wants to be remembered, but the memories of what was most important to you may be the ones that you'd sometimes most like to be rid of. (PN)

Click Here For Part Two, Three & Four

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

Screengrab's Ultimate Exploitation Films!!!!!!! (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:00:00 GMT

We’ve spent a lot of time discussing quality, award-winning cinema during the past few weeks of Award Season mania, but now that Hugh Jackman has doffed his top hat and tails and the Slumdog kids have shuffled back to Bollywood, we thought it would be as good a time as any to get back to all the SEX-CRAZED!!!! BLOOD-THIRSTY!!!! ULTRA-PSYCHOTIC!!!! movies we really like, from the gin-soaked swamps and drive-ins of hixploitation to the blaxploitation grindhouse and...BEYOND!!!!

And sure, if you think about it, pretty much everything Hollywood pumps out is some form of exploitation, from the straight-up blood and guts of the zillionth Friday the 13th remake to the pity party relationship-porn of He’s Just Not That Into You. Even this year’s Oscar nominees were baited with pulp: after all, Mickey Rourke’s face in The Wrestler was at least as freaky as anything in Freaks, and where would The Reader be without all the hot Nazi sex and Kate Winslet’s big pepperoni nipples?

But the movies on this week’s list go even faster, pussycat...not to mention further, deeper, weirder and wilder. They did it first or they did it best or maybe they really shouldn’t have done it at all. Can your heart stand the shocking facts as Screengrab salutes THE ULTIMATE EXPLOITATION FILMS-A-GO-GO?!!!!??!?!!!

MARIHUANA (1936)

1930s films such as Marihuana (whose poster bore the subtitle "Weed with Roots in Hell"), Cocaine Fiends, Assassin of Youth and Reefer Madness tended to come with introductions explaining that their lurid tales of young people driven to crime, madness, and death by indulgence in vile narcotics were being presented to the public for "educational purposes only." These things were later revived in the 1970s and turned into midnight movies for hip audiences who enjoyed laughing at the dim old things who didn't know that a little weed could just be harmless fun. In fact, the '70s audiences may have been more naive than those in the '30s, most of whom probably understood perfectly well that putting up with some fake moralizing was the price they had to pay for the wild-child melodramatics, which were so extreme that they could only be justified dramatically with the pretext that these characters were carried away by the kind of bad chemicals that had Hunter S. Thompson seeing drunken lizards in the lounge of his Las Vegas hotel. Truth be told, you have to be a little desperate for cheap thrills to really watch most of these things; despite all the wild and crazy goings-on, the slow, stagy filmmaking isn't exactly psychedelic. Reefer Madness is probably the most famous of them, but the 57-minute Marihuana makes that 67-minute epic seem downright poky by comparison. Its answer to Reefer Madness' famous piano-playing scene is a party scene where a girl takes a toke on one of "the funniest-looking cigarettes I've ever seen" and is soon laughing into the camera with an expression that would alarm the Joker. Soon she and her gal pals, one of whom looks like an unchaperoned young Margaret Dumont, are stripping off their clothes and running into the ocean, with the result that one of them drowns and another gets pregnant. (Ask your mother.) After that, it's a short path to dealings with smiling men in dubious mustaches, chases through alleyways against trigger-happy cops with very poor aim, and the once-innocent heroine's steady transformation into Lady Scarface.

DOLEMITE (1975)

Excuse me: that’s DOLEMITE, motherfucker! The world lost a singular talent last year when Rudy Ray Moore, the incredibly foul-mouthed stand-up comic and “King of the Party Records”, left Earth for the big Player’s Ball in the sky. In the blaxploitative 1970s, he made a handful of movies based on his bad-ass pimp persona, but none of them were as enjoyable or as crazily over-the-top as Dolemite. Made for half a buck and some chicken wings in 1975 and starring Moore and a cast of top-shelf nobodies, Dolemite’s plot was so thin it barely existed at all, but who cares? Nobody was going to see this movie for its clever plot twists. They were going to see it so that they could hear Moore call some two-bit cocksucking honky a rat-soup-eating, born-insecure, no-business-having motherfucker. Moore couldn’t act, his director couldn’t direct, and it’s pretty likely that his key grip couldn’t grip, but that doesn’t keep Dolemite from being as straight-up entertaining as anything produced during the blaxploitation era. Whether he was telling his bitch not to buy him no cotton draws or suggesting that a guard use his recently shed prison uniform to wipe his ass with, Dolemite was hilarious to watch, and helped define an insanely politically incorrect archetype that would inform aspects of American culture for decades to come. Even now, Dolemite probably ranks behind only Scarface as the movie that most influenced hip-hop. And even if you’re not a rap fan, if you can watch Moore do his thing without smiling, you might want to have your fun gland looked at.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977)

The key to a successful exploitation movie often boils down to having just enough intriguing elements and shocking visuals to fill a two-minute trailer. In the case of The Hills Have Eyes, those two minutes are just about all the movie has going for it. You’ve got the family driving their Winnebago off the beaten path, despite the warnings of the old coot at the gas station. You’ve got the tires blowing out, leaving the family stranded in the middle of the Nevada desert. And you’ve got the most exploitable element of all: the head of Michael Berryman. Berryman – who plays Pluto, the muscle of the clan of cannibalistic mutants that terrorizes the family – was never known for his romantic leading roles. His lumpy, oblong head, recessed eyes, lopsided nose and complete absence of hair pretty much ensured him steady work as one of nature’s mistakes, and he’s true to form here. Other than Berryman, The Hills Have Eyes is thin gruel indeed, one of Wes Craven’s most overrated works, way too reliant on the dog-jumping-out-of-the-shadows school of shock effects. And yet it spawned not only a sequel and a remake, but even a remake of the sequel – or is it a sequel to the remake? Either way – that’s exploitation!

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978)

Those looking for either a passionate condemnation or defense of Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave (aka Day of the Woman) will have to look elsewhere, since aside from its unforgettably titillating VHS cover artwork – which made my teenage heart yearn to rent the film – and its infamous reputation, this piece of exploitation hackwork mostly elicits a shrug. Still, it’s nearly impossible to deny the status of Zarchi’s shocker as an exploitation cinema touchstone, what with its Z-grade craftsmanship, empty-headed commingling of sex and violence, and pitiful strategy of reveling in abhorrent brutality and misogyny and then attempting to condemn such behavior with more gruesomeness. Over the course of 30 minutes, a New Yorker vacationing in the country is raped by sadistic hicks (including a mentally challenged virgin Neanderthal) who don’t like city folk. After suffering this assault, the woman seeks lethal vengeance on her attackers, a twist which may upend the film’s early gender-power dynamics, but nonetheless mainly just affords Zarchi further opportunity to stage bloodthirsty mayhem.

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four, Five & Six...if you dare!!!!

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

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.

Harvey Weinstein Predicts Another Great Oscar Year for Harvey Weinstein

Phil Nugent — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:00:00 GMT

For three years, Harvey Weinstein went without an Academy Award Best Picture nominee to promote. That's like three Decembers in a row where they forget to run How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (Talking to Ramin Setoodeh for Newsweek, Harvey recalls the golden days of early Miramax Oscar campaigns when he would force his way into potential voters' homes to make them watch his movies, and actually says, "I was like Santa Claus. I had all the DVDs, and I'd go to everybody's house, with cookies." Setoodeh fails to ask about reports that anyone who tried to reach for one of Harvey's cookies got a fork stuck in his hand.) This year, Harvey--my apparent inability to refer to this man, who I have never met, as "Weinstein" testifies to his status as a semi-beloved living cartoon character--has a contender in The Reader, the roots of which go back to the days when, as the head of Miramax, he was an Oscar force to be reckoned with, sending out Shakespeare in Love to defeat Saving Private Ryan and somehow wangling a nomination for the fluffy Chocolat. Apparently Harvey read the Bernhard Schlink novel in a single night back in 1997, the year it was first translated into English, while keeping watch over his sick daughter. In the dawn he rose like thunder and and sent one of his minions to Germany to secure the movie rights, with orders that if he failed, he was never to darken Harvey's towels again. The movie had a troubled history that included the deaths of two of its producers, Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack. And when it finally opened this past fall, it didn't get the reviews that the filmmakers might have wanted. In fact, it set off a brief exchange of gunfire on-line when a blogger used Manohla Dargis's dismissive New York Times review to accuse her of being insensitive to the plight of ambitious bad movies. And since the nominations were annnounced, Ron Rosenbaum of Slate pondered the question of whether the movie should be given an Oscar in an essay with the ambiguous title, "Don't Give an Oscar to The Reader".

Weinstein laughs off all of this and much, much else. The important thing for him is that he's back, baby, after a dearth of nominations and a few high-profile box-office disappintments (such as Grindhouse) that followed his and his brother Bob's departure from the company they'd created and the establishment of their new base of operations, The Weinstein Company. But when things start swinging Harvey's way, they swing hard: as evidence, consider not just The Reader's nomination, but the fact that Kate Winslet got her Best Actress nomination for that movie, when everyone thought she would get it for her role in Revolutionary Road, which was directed by Winslet's husband, Sam Mendes. Originally, the Weinsteins tried to play it safe, and stay out of Revoltionary Road's way, by nominating Winslet for The Reader in the Supporting Actress category, "But the Academy clearly said, 'You guys are completely full of shit. It's an insult to all the girls in supporting.' This is why I always love the Academy. They're so just at the end." It's true--that lynching party the Academy has dispatched should be showing up at Roberto Benigni's house any minute now.

In the meantime, Harvey remains convinced that his baby has a shot against perceived front-runner Slumdog Millionaire. "What happens is: there are some times when a front runner peaks. All of a sudden people say, "That movie is going to gross $100 million. It's fun, it's won a million prizes, but what else is there?" Milk has done a very good job on their campaign, and is also a very important movie, in my opinion. What could happen, Slumdog and Reader could split. Slumdog and Milk could split, and one of those could get through. With The Reader, lots of Academy members still haven't seen it. I know, it's shocking." Of course, some would argue that the fewer voters have actually seen it, the more that it improves its chances. And now that he's in a position to win his friends Oscar nominations again, Harvey is that much more beloved among people like Judi Dench. "Judi Dench did six movies in a row with me and got five Academy Award nominations. She took me to the Four Seasons restaurant, with Mike Nichols, Carly Simon, Nora Ephron, a bunch of really famous, fun people. It was the day she got her fifth nomination. She said, 'I have a present for you.' She pulled down her pants and she had a tattoo...It's a tattoo you could wash off. 'JUDI LOVES HARVEY', right on the rim of her butt. Everybody at the table is completely shocked. I think she chose it on purpose because she wanted to embarrass me, and she did." Now there's a headline for you: "HARVEY WEINSTEIN CAN'T TAKE JUDI DENCH ANYWHERE."

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part One)

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

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

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

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

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

BEST ACTRESS

And the nominees are...

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

Paul Clark Predicts: Kate Winslet

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

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Kate Winslet

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

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Angelina Jolie

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

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

Nick Schager Predicts: Kate Winslet

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

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Melissa Leo

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

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Kate Winslet

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

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS PREDICTION: KATE WINSLET!

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

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

SAG Awards Announced

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Fifteen years ago, members of the Screen Actor's Guild -- tired of their work only being acknowledged by 24/7 news coverage, 7000 entertainment magazines and the paltry 938 awards shows available at the time -- established the SAG Awards, to more conveniently bestow awards directly upon one another.

And so, last night, the glitterati convened once again to honor the following actors with the coveted "Saggy":

Film

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
SEAN PENN - Milk

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
MERYL STREEP - Doubt

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
HEATH LEDGER - The Dark Knight

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in (an allegedly) Supporting Role
KATE WINSLET - The Reader

Outstanding Performance by a Cast
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble
THE DARK KNIGHT

Television

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
PAUL GIAMATTI - John Adams

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
LAURA LINNEY - John Adams

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
HUGH LAURIE - House

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
SALLY FIELD - Brothers & Sisters

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
ALEC BALDWIN - 30 Rock

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
TINA FEY - 30 Rock

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
MAD MEN (Woo-hoo!!!)

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
30 ROCK

Outstanding Performance by an Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
HEROES

Life Achievement Award
JAMES EARL JONES

In Other Blogs: Oscar Grumbling

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Curious Case of Forrest Gump - watch more funny videos

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

Screengrab Live Blogs The Golden Globes

Andrew Osborne — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:39:00 GMT

(All times TiVo approximate)

7:33 - Nice silly bow tie, Brad.

7:35 - Way to step on your annoying daughter’s dress, Billy Ray.

7:38 - Good Lord! Marisa Tomei is wearing the puffy shirt! Is her next movie The Pirates of Penzance?

7:41 - Brangelina blow off Ryan Seacrest...heh-heh-heh...

7:46 - My lovely Polish bride Amy acquaints me with the Golden Globes dinner menu:

APPETIZERS
California organic field green salad with white asparagus
Crisp apricot dill goat cheese in phylo and poached pear
Maple syrup apple cider vinaigrette

ENTREES
Grilled prime tenderloin of beef with green tea pearl and sautéed aromatic Asian spice marinated sea bass
Sherry wine yuzu pepper sauce
Grilled king oyster mushroom
Jicama, Romanesco and potato onion croquette

DESSERT
Golden chocolate Globe with organic yogurt pistachio mousse

7:49 - The E! Channel breaks out their "Star Tracker" technology, wherein video arrows point out the stars to us in wide shots of the red carpet. Note to E! - Just because you CAN do it doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.

7:50 - Jeremy Piven appears on the red carpet. Apparently his mercury levels have returned to normal. Thank you, baby Jesus!

7:53 - Amy is sick of all the sand colored couture. Her favorite gowns of the evening: Drew Barrymore and Christina Applegate. Me, I could eat me some Anne Hathaway with a spoon.

8:02 - Amy thinks J. Lo is wearing one of Cher's Bob Mackie gowns from a 1970s time machine.

8:04 - Okay, I haven't seen The Reader and I love Kate Winslet, but...really? Best Supporting Actress? She must give really good Nazi.

8:06 - Damn, that Kate Winslet is adorable. Meanwhile...um...is Sting in that production of Pirates of Penzance with Marisa Tomei?

8:10 - BROOOOOOOOOOCCCEE!!!!!

8:11 - I'm trying to figure out who or what Darren Aronofsky looks like in his funny weaselly moustache. A villain in a Preston Sturges film? The Guy Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta? Meanwhile, Amy thinks Rumer Willis (in the background as a Golden Globes girl) may have had her chin shaved, since her big square potato head is no longer quite as prominent and she actually looks kinda cute. From a distance.

8:13 - Robert Downey Jr. apparently stuck his toe in the same electrical outlet as Drew Barrymore.

8:18 - Tom Wilkinson has apparently been drinking since noon.

8:20 - Hooray for Laura Dern! Amy's happy she kept her original nose, and I'm happy David Lynch used his mysterious powers of transcendental meditation to help her win.

8:25 - What happened to Don Cheadle's hair?

8:27 - Amy does not care about Eva Mendes. Even if she is a proud Cuban-American. (But we both love whoever that guy was she introduced...I missed what he said because I was Googling Eva Mendes and found this great shot of her plumber's crack while Amy drools over Hamm, John Hamm:

8:31 - Both my mother and Amy's mother call to express outrage over Hamm getting robbed. Amy dubs it Hammgate.

8:36 - Ricky Gervais = hilarious. Tells Kate Winslet, "See? I told you...do a Holocaust movie and you'll win awards!"

8:39 - The hobbits from the Fellowship of the Ring...sorry, I mean, the Jonas Brothers, present the award for Best Foregone Conclusion...I mean, uh, Best Animated Feature. Amy says the middle Jonas Brother looks like the guy she lost her virginity to (although I saw the guy recently and he no longer has that silky Jonas hair...or any hair, really).

8:41 - Amy wants Johnny Depp, meanwhile, to simply wash his hair.

8:43 - Sally Hawkins wins Best Actress for Comedy! I couldn't be happier! Amy is also happy for Sally, but wants to feed her skinny ass some brie.

8:45 - Sally Hawkins is full of love. And, possibly, nitrous oxide.

8:54 - Cheadle: good bald. Ralph Fiennes: not so much. (Amy, meanwhile, loves loves loves Drew Barrymore's dress.)

8:58 - Ledger wins. Universal sadness.

9:03 - Meanwhile, over on CNN, they're interviewing Priscilla Presley, who apparently got some cut-rate plastic surgery that left her looking like a Dick Tracy villain.

9:07 - Colin Farrell has that weird Aronofsky moustache, too! Trend alert!

9:10 - Waltz With Bashir guy: best acceptance speech of the evening.

9:11 - Maggie Gyllenhaal wears my aunt's drapes. Shirley Maclaine is either stoned or just got hit in the face with a frying pan.

9:13 - Paul Giamatti, for some reason, decided to come dressed as Judah Friedlander.

9:18 - Mmm! Look at that sexy Seth Rogen! Amy prefers fat Seth. Either way, Mickey Rourke is probably gonna kick his ass for that coke-snorting joke.

9:21 - What did David Duchovny mouth to the camera while blowing a kiss? Amy's guess: "I love hookers."

9:23 - Alec Baldwin thanks his vile pig of a daughter. Awwww.

9:31 - Giamatti!

9:36 - I don't have any little snarky comment to make, but I must just pause here to acknowledge the comic brilliance of Tracy Morgan, edging past the Waltz With Bashir guy for best speech. (Lorny Mikes!)

9:41 - Didn't mention it at the time, but controversy breaks out here in Somerville over Glenn Close's outfit. Amy says age-appropriate. Her mother, phoning in from New Hampshire, says early '80s Boca Raton.

9:43 - "Mmm...Pierce Brosnan," quoth Amy. "Nothin' wrong with that." She also likes him because he has a fat wife.

9:46 - P. Diddy and Kate Beckinsale step down off a wedding cake to present a nice Indian man with the award for Best Soundtrack (for Slumdog Millionaire).

9:48 - Nice boobs, Tina Fey!

9:54 - Scorcese!

9:58 - Much whispering about the awe-inspiring wonder of Steven Spielberg and his gift to the art of cinema. Bathroom break!

10:06 - All right, snark aside: (A) Spielberg throws some love to Scorcese, which is nice, but (B) that montage of Spielberg movies reminds you...damn, Steven Spielberg sure made a bunch of good-ass movies. (And, y'know, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). This speech sure is going on, though.

10:09 - Spielberg: still talking.

10:13 - Is it more that Emma Thompson's really big or that Dustin Hoffman's really small?

10:15 - Danny Boyle wins Best Director. Again, the toe-in-electric-outlet hair. Trend alert!

10:19 - Amy says Colin Farrell looks less like a pubic hair with his hair cut short. And I'm happy to see the Bruges love: rent it now! (By the way, I didn't realize when I put In Bruges on my 2008 Top Ten list that the movie's writer/director, Martin McDonagh, is also the playwright responsible for The Lieutenant of Inishmore, the bloodiest play (and one of the most entertaining) I've ever seen on stage. If you get a chance, be sure to check it out!) I have plenty of time to write about all this, incidentally, because Colin Farrell will apparently never stop talking. "You're not Steven Spielberg!" says Amy, who hates him. Me, I thought his speech was kinda sweet.

10:29 - Hayek, Johansson and Cruz all enter my consciousness at once. Amy breaks out the smelling salts.

10:31 - Borat!

10:32 - Really? The Golden Globe audience boos a Madonna joke? Hmm. While I ponder this strange development, Vicky Cristina Barcelona wins best comedy/musical, which makes me think of Salma, Scarlett and Penelope again...mmm...

10:36 - Oh, wait...add Freida Pinto to that fantasy...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

10:39 - Kate Winslet momentarily forgets that Angelina Jolie was also nominated for Best Actress. Angelina Jolie: not happy. Mark Wahlberg says hi to my mother for me.

10:45 - Mad Men? Rules.

10:49 - All the people who wouldn't return Mickey Rourke's calls last year are now very happy for Mickey Rourke.

10:50 - Mickey Rourke thanks David Unger for his balls.

10:52 - Darren Aronofsky flips the bird on national television. "Nice, real nice," says Amy's mother, phoning in from New Hampshire. "John Ford would never do that."

10:54 - Mickey Rourke thanks Scott Franklin for breaking his balls. Somehow Axl Rose was also involved with The Wrestler, making it the New Jersey-est movie of all time. Finally Rourke thanks his dogs. "That's the kinda shit you wait up all night for," says Amy.

10:58 - And...Slumdog! The guy accepting the award jumps the Aronofsky train with a verbal finger flip...trend alert!

Anyway, thanks for playing along at home! And now, to recap...the complete list of winners:

Best Motion Picture - Drama

Winner: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama

Winner: Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler (2008)

Best Television Series - Drama

Winner: "Mad Men" (2007)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama

Winner: Kate Winslet for Revolutionary Road (2008)

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Winner: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Winner: Colin Farrell for In Bruges (2008)

Best Director - Motion Picture

Winner: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy

Winner: Tina Fey for "30 Rock" (2006)

Best Original Score - Motion Picture

Winner: Slumdog Millionaire (2008) - A.R. Rahman

Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy

Winner: "30 Rock" (2006)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Winner: Paul Giamatti for "John Adams" (2008)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy

Winner: Alec Baldwin for "30 Rock" (2006)

Best Screenplay - Motion Picture

Winner: Slumdog Millionaire (2008) - Simon Beaufoy

Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television

Winner: Laura Linney for "John Adams" (2008)

Best Foreign Language Film

Winner: Vals Im Bashir (2008)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Winner: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (2008)

Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Winner: "John Adams" (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy

Winner: Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

Best Animated Film

Winner: WALL·E (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Drama

Winner: Anna Paquin for "True Blood" (2007)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Drama

Winner: Gabriel Byrne for "In Treatment" (2008)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Winner: Laura Dern for Recount (2008) (TV)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television

Winner: Tom Wilkinson for "John Adams" (2008)

Best Original Song - Motion Picture

Winner: The Wrestler (2008)("The Wrestler")

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture

Winner: Kate Winslet for The Reader (2008)

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part Three)

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

BEST ACTRESS

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

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

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

WINNER
Kate Winslet

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

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

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

Paul Clark Predicts:

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

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

WINNER
Anne Hathaway

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

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

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

WINNER
Anne Hathaway

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

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

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

WINNER
Cate Blanchett

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

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
ANNE HATHAWAY

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

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

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Nominations (Part One)

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Scott Von Doviak Predicts:

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

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

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

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts:

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

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

Paul Clark Predicts:

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

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

WINNER
Kate Winslet

Andrew Osborne Predicts:

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

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

WINNER
Viola Davis

Leonard Pierce Predicts:

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

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

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

WINNER
Kate Winslet

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

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: WINNER
KATE WINSLET

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

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

Thursday Poll for New Year's Day 2009

Paul Clark — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

The celebration of some obscure holiday caught me completely off guard a week ago, and so shocked was I by its sudden emergence that I completely forgot to run a Thursday poll. Because of this, I neglected to report that fully half of our readers, when given the choice between Kate Winslet’s Oscar-nominated performances, preferred her turn as the mood-haired Clementine in Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Somewhat less expected was the 25% showing for the second-place finisher, 2006’s Little Children, followed by her performances in Sense and Sensibility and Iris. Bringing up the rear was her starmaking role in a little sleeper hit called Titanic, which brought in no votes whatsoever. So that only leaves us with the question of whether she’ll finally take home an Oscar this year, either as Revolutionary Road’s disenchanted housewife or the “illiterate Nazi cougar” (thanks, Uncle Crizzle!) of The Reader.

Over the past week, the writers of The Screengrab have posted their lists of the best movies of 2008. Now it’s your turn. Which of the Screengrab’s top five favorites from the past year do you prefer?

Which is your favorite? | BuzzDash polls

Feel free to post your lists of the best of 2008 in the comments section if you wish. See you next week!

Trailer Review: The Reader

Paul Clark — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

You know, I’ve been known, as many critics have, to make the occasional joke at Holocaust movies being obvious Oscar-bait. But really, I’m not sure I could come up with a baitier-looking trailer than The Reader without trotting out a lineup of saucer-eyed children in concentration-camp garb. Like Stephen Daldry’s last movie The Hours, which I didn’t particularly care for, The Reader is a handsomely mounted adaptation of a so-called “contemporary masterpiece”, which is practically the only way a movie that contains this much misery can get made by a Hollywood studio. It helps, naturally, that Kate Winslet gets naked, providing the spoonful of sugar to help the storytelling medicine go down in the most awards-friendly way (although does anyone else miss when Kate had more meat on her bones? I know I do). After two consecutive years of inspired Best Picture winners, I have my hopes that Academy voters will know better than to fall unconditionally for a movie that’s engineered to hit their usual sweet spots. As for me, unless this starts racking up all kinds of awards, I’m pretty sure I’ll skip this one. Also, what he said, more or less.

Screengrab Salutes: The Top Biopics of All Time! (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 23:30:00 GMT

SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER (1993)

If you’re ever standing around awkwardly at a cocktail party with my father, just mention this movie and watch his eyes light up: you’ll instantly have a new friend and at least half an hour of fresh conversation fodder. Before he retired, you see, my father was a public school teacher who worked with “gifted and talented” students – and no, despite the beliefs of every pushy parent in America, not all of their little darlings are technically “gifted” – but Joshua Waitzkin, the real-life chess prodigy at the heart of screenwriter Steve Zaillian’s directorial debut, would definitely qualify. And that’s the character’s problem: as the saying goes, “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising.” Waitzkin (portrayed with believable, naturalistic grace by a then-eight-year-old Max Pomeranc) has undeniable talent, but worries his gift will ultimately rob him of a normal, happy life. The movie comes down to a battle for Waitzkin’s soul, with Ben Kingsley’s joyless mentor on one side, urging the boy to use his abilities to win at all costs (like World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer), and Laurence Fishburne’s laid-back speed chess guru on the other, reminding Waitzkin that Fischer’s exclusive focus on winning eventually drove him into bitter seclusion. The notion that winning and happiness aren’t necessarily the same thing is a rare theme in Hollywood (and the U.S. in general)...which is exactly why my Dad and me both dig this film so much.

HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

Before he came to Hollywood with dreams of elves, walking trees, and ancient CGI hobbits dancing in his head, Peter Jackson made a few films best described as ‘muppet porn’...and then he made Heavenly Creatures. Heavenly Creatures is the true (or true-ish) story of one of the most notorious murders in New Zealand, in which two teenage girls murdered one of their mothers in 1954. Jackson chooses to focus on the relationship between the girls, an obsessive closed-circuit of fantasy and romance that is surprisingly mundane and normal to modern eyes. Many people have intense friendships in their early teen years that involve storytelling and attachments to pop culture and so forth. Well, okay, these girls begin exploring their sexuality with each other at some point, which was extra-freaky for their parents – products of their times – once they start to catch on. Jackson shows how the girls’ fantasies have idealized the parents of the richer one (who’s played by a young Kate Winslet, by the way, just starting her career of cinematic nakedness), thus adding an interesting class dimension to their decision of which parent to murder for standing in their way. And Jackson brings their fantasy world to life with a deftness that helps to explain – if not forgive – how the girls came to choose murder as the solution to their problems. I should point out that I’m pretty fond of the elf movies, actually, and Heavenly Creatures has the wit and humanity to illustrate how Jackson brought those books to filmic life without embarrassing everyone involved. Well, okay, there’s a little embarrassment (for instance, all of the hobbits jumping on the bed towards the end, for 17 straight hours in dreadful slo-mo), but it’s minimal in the grand scheme.

GODS & MONSTERS (1999)

I don’t know how true this story is, but it’s better than a lot of biopics of creative people. The subject is James Whale (Ian McKellen, who also appeared in Peter Jackson’s elf movies), a director of 20 movies between 1930 and 1941 – most notably Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein – and only one thereafter. Whale was openly gay at the time, which is remarkable considering the contemporary horror of homosexuality. The movie runs with the idea by focusing only on his last days, after a stroke has left him lost in his memories. Whale is constantly flashing back to his time in the trenches in WWI, where he lost someone he loved, and to the making of Bride of Frankenstein. He becomes attached to his new gardener, played soberly by Brendan Fraser. Fraser comes to realize that the Frankenstein movies are a metaphor for the isolation Whale felt throughout his life because of his sexual orientation. All of this is a little overblown, naturally (this is a biopic, after all), but it fares fairly well when compared to the hoke-fests of Ray, Walk The Line, A Beautiful Mind, and their ilk. One of the best moments comes near the end, when Whale is walking in silhouette with a hulking figure that appears to be Frankenstein’s monster, but a flash of light shows it to be Fraser. Quite nicely done.

QUIZ SHOW (1994)

Robert Redford has a blunt directorial hand. The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Horse Whisperer, Ordinary People, and even (and this is hard for me, because I love to fly-fish) A River Runs Through It: all pushy where they should be gentle and preachy where they should be guileless. With two movies, though, Redford’s insistence that his audience agree with him is subsumed into his narrative, making them far more enjoyable viewing experiences: The Milagro Beanfield War and Quiz Show. Quiz Show is the true(-ish) story of the quiz show scandals of the 1950s, which led to congressional hearings into whether or not the shows were rigged. Amazingly, these hearings somehow failed to stamp out producer-rigged game shows for good. So the movie has a classic competition between a not-ready-for-prime-time slob (the “ethnic” ex-GI Herb Stempel, played by John Turturro, who is apparently all ethnicities in one) and an elite pantywaist (Columbia professor of English Charles Van Doren, played by the cinematic face of privilege, Ralph Fiennes). The producers rig the show (spoiler!) so that Stempel loses to Van Doren, but then renege on their promise to keep Stempel flush with TV work. There’s certainly some bluntness in this movie, but Redford does take the time to murky the waters by making Stempel a little unlikeable and Van Doren a little charming and regretful. Not too shabby.

RESCUE DAWN (2007)/LITTLE DIETER NEEDS TO FLY (1997)

The story so amazing that Werner Herzog had to tell it twice, Rescue Dawn is the fictionalized biopic version of the story Dieter Dengler tells about his life in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. The documentary will blow you away, guaranteed. Herzog has Dengler re-enact many of his ordeals while telling the story of his capture and desperate escape from a Laotian prison camp. Dengler is a fascinating guy with a positivity and self-assurance that seem bottomless, especially in circumstances where most people would see no other options than despair. It’s no wonder that he’s so interesting to Herzog, who is clearly attracted to people who remain in thrall to their dreams even in the most extreme situations. Rescue Dawn is the Hollywood movie treatment of Dengler’s story, but since Herzog remains in the director’s chair, it has an extremity and beauty that usually don’t appear in Vietnam epics. Christian Bale captures Dengler’s spirit well, and the cast is excellent. There’s still something a little too idealized about it, though. To feel like you know Dengler, you should see the documentary. To be swept up into his life, supplement with the movie.

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

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Hayden Childs

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Nov. 15-21, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

I have no wacky character to introduce this week’s Highlight Reel. I have only this goofy photo of Ginger Spice in a Wonder Woman costume. But really, shouldn’t that be enough? After all, Spice World is one of the entries in our survey of Guilty Pleasures (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six). And comic book movies are all the rage, I am told. Besides, I’ve run out of story – just like Hollywood! So I might as well just tell you about the highlights from the week and Screengrab and be on my way:

We welcome back Vadim Rizov, who wonders Why Action Heroes Must Have Manly Haircuts

Despite my physician’s warnings, the Unwatchable project continues with Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie and Carry On Columbus

Phil Nugent explores The Short Career and Strange Legacy of Tom Graeff and explains Why Cinemark Shouldn’t Get Your “Milk” Money

Paul Clark reveals how Brian De Palma went bad with Bonfire of the Vanities and revisits Thunderball and Moonraker

Leonard Pierce cranks up Rushmore: OST and Hayden Childs gives us The View Through the View-Master: Iron Giant

Kate Winslet Allows Leo DiCaprio to Strangle Her until She Passes Out

Film Threat Unveils Frigid 50 of 2008

Kate Winslet Allows Leo DiCaprio to Strangle Her until She Passes Out

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

We’re learning a lot about Kate Winslet as we get closer to the release of her two latest films, Revolutionary Road and The Reader. We already know she doesn’t use a stunt ass. Now Leonardo DiCaprio reveals a bit more of her process than she may have wanted us to know. “We're old friends and we know where we can go with each other,” DiCaprio is quoted as saying in The Guardian. “She will let me strangle her until she literally passes out in the scene.” I don’t remember the strangulation scene in Titanic, so presumably that’s something to look forward to in Revolutionary Road, which reunites the sinking ship co-stars for the first time.

“‘We were very interested to let it go and see where it went. I was like, “If you want to smash me up, OK, you want to smash me up”,’ said Winslet at a Q&A session which followed a screening of the film in Los Angeles at the weekend… In the middle of [filming a confrontation scene over breakfast] Leo and I became completely hysterical. We had to laugh or else we were going to cry.”

As for The Reader, it probably won’t come as much of a shock to learn that the oft-nude Winslet bares all again. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Winslet “refused to use a body double or lose weight for the scenes, wanting a completely realistic look for her character. Describing her own body, Kate admits to having aged, but maintains she is proud of her flawed physique, saying: ‘Here we go, I have a crumble baby belly, boobs are worse for wear after two kids... I'm doing all right. I'm 33. I don't look in the mirror and go, “Oh, I look fantastic!” Of course I don't.’” We at the Screengrab respectfully disagree.

Related:
Leonardo DiCaprio in "Pong: The Movie"?
The Top 25 Leading Ladies of All Time

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Nov. 1-7, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Change has come to America. The campaign was long and hard-fought, like that of Billy Jack. While we all enjoyed the Election Day Online Viewing Guide, that time is behind us. Forgotten are the days of Gabriel Over the White House. No longer must we ponder Visions of Change: Utopias and Worst-Case Scenarios (Parts One, Two, Three and Four). The Barack Obama Film Festival has begun. As such, I have chosen the Screengrab to outline my agenda for the next four years.

Highlights include:

Stopping the Three Stooges Revival

Exalting Kate Winslet’s Real Ass

Expunging Alone in the Dark, Great Expectations and Angels Brigade from the Library of Congress

Mourning Michael Crichton

Turning Guy Ritchie Gay

Kate Winslet Would Like You to Know That’s Her Real Ass

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:30:00 GMT

If you’re familiar with the films of Kate Winslet, you know she’s never been shy about taking her clothes off. She does it again for the latest issue of Vanity Fair, albeit in that coy you-can’t-really-see-nothin’ way that so infuriates us fans of seeing Kate Winslet naked. The Daily Telegraph has expressed some skepticism over this latest round of photographs. Noting that Winslet once objected to the digital slimming of her body (“‘I don't look like that and I don't desire to look like that,’ she said at the time. ‘It wasn't that they simply retouched my image - they completely stretched it so I looked like I was six feet tall and a size two.’”), the Telegraph suggests that the same process has been applied to the Vanity Fair pictures.

Winslet isn’t having it, or at least, her representation isn’t having it. “Kate is furious at suggestions that her body has been airbrushed,” her rep tells People magazine. “She is in terrific shape and what you see is how she looks or she would never have agreed to pose for those shots.”

Perhaps you think this post is merely an excuse to run this photo of Kate’s bum. Well, you’ve got us. Come on, it’s a slow movie news day.

You can check out the rest of the photos here.

Screengrab Salutes: The Top 25 Leading Ladies of All Time (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:00:00 GMT

15. LAUREN BACALL (1924 - )

How cool is Lauren Bacall? Cool enough that she tamed Humphrey Bogart, the greatest leading man of all time. Originally making her name as a teenage fashion model, Bacall’s slender frame and fiery eyes caught the attention of Howard Hawks, who changed her name, fixed her hair, and likely would have driven her career straight into the ground if he hadn’t arranged to cast her in The Big Sleep opposite the man she called “Mr. Bogart”. Bacall wasn’t even the best actress in the movie – according to both Raymond Chandler and William Faulkner, Martha Vickers, cast as her sister, acted rings around her to the degree that her scenes were cut so as not to make Bacall look bad. But she was good enough: her chemistry with Bogey was electrifying, her patented chin-down, eyes-up look was enchanting, and her clever patter, delivered in a sultry, husky voice combining East Coast class with East Side brass, could be felt in the hip pockets of every man in hearing distance. America demanded more of her, and she went on to prove that while she wasn’t the greatest actress of her day, she was at least game for anything, and surprisingly adept with light comedy as well as her trademark dangerous-dame roles. Now a ripe old 84 years old, Bacall is the very image of the classy old Hollywood dame, occasionally taking acting work (with Lars von Trier, even!), but mostly content to be one of Tinseltown’s great raconteurs – a fearless liberal, a hilarious storyteller, and a priceless link to the Golden Era.

14. ANNA KARINA (1940 - )

When she was young, she was the face of the French New Wave. And she was (and is) utterly beautiful, but she has always looked younger than her years. So she has the face of a little girl in those early films, but the words that she speaks -- and the way that she speaks them -- are those of an older, wiser person. Her first film appearance was in a film by the Situationist philosopher Guy Dubord. She has worked with Agnes Varda, Jacques Rivette, Fassbinder, Visconti, and, of course, Godard, to whom she was married during his greatest period of creativity. Wow.

13. MYRNA LOY (1905-1993)

With her pert features and her way with a tart comeback, Loy was peerless in her day at the delicate art of making sanity look sexy, which is always a cause worth fighting for. Much of what needs to be said about her career got said last week in our entry on William Powell in our Leading Men list: they did, after all, co-star in fourteen films. It was the double impact of Manhattan Melodrama, in which she left Clark Gable (with Gable's enthusiastic consent) for Powell, and their first Thin Man movie that, as she was wont to put it, made her an overnight success after more than eighty films. Her earlier jobs had included uncredited bit parts in The Jazz Singer and the 1925 silent Ben-Hur, as well as punching the clock as the sexy-evil-zombie daughter of the Yellow Peril supervillain embodied by Boris Karloff in the camp classic The Mask of Fu Manchu. She also served her country as Fredric March's wife in The Best Years of Our Lives, making a pretty good case for going off to war so long as you had her to come back to. Her last movie roles included 1978's The End (where the director-star, Burt Reynolds, made a bid for being considered a man of taste by casting her as his mother), and the underappreciated Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), as Alan King's unflappable assistant. In 1973, she made her Broadway debut in a production of Clare Booth Luce's The Women, which was reportedly a failure, but which absolutely has to have been better than the recent movie version.

12. GRETA GARBO (1905-1990)

Garbo began her career in silent pictures in her native Sweden and in Germany. It was after seeing one of these, Gosta Berlings Saga, that Louis B. Mayer decreed that she and the film's director be brought to America and installed at MGM. It didn't take him long to decide that the director could go back home after all, but Garbo stuck around, entrancing the crowds who piled into theaters to watch her co-starring roles with her offscreen lover John Gilbert through the clouds of steam that the two of them seemed to give off together. When Garbo made her first sound picture, Anna Christie (1930), MGM famously promoted it with the line, "Garbo Talks!"; years later, when she made the comedy Ninotchka (a calculated, and successful, attempt to lighten what had come to seem an oppressively heavy image), they used the line, "Garbo Laughs!" Pauline Kael once asked why, when she gave what is generally remembered as her finest performance in the 1936 Camille, they didn't think to use the line, "Garbo Acts!" Garbo was a superb actress, but the real historic impact of her career is the degree to which she established that there are some faces so beloved by the camera that their bearers can do no wrong in its all-seeing eye. Although most of her vehicles (Camille included) are kind of stodgy and crude and cheesy at the edges, they hold up to the extent that you cannot take your eyes off that woman. Garbo retired from the screen after 1941, reportedly due to a feeling that her moment had passed and in rebellion against MGM's desire to change her image and maker her seem like more of an accessible, regular gal. (The mind reels, the blood curdles, at the thought of how they might have tried going about this.) The only known time since then that she willingly stepped in front of a camera came in 1949, when she was 43, and agreed to do a screen test for a picture that she was considering coming out of retirement for but that subsequently fell through. To judge from that footage, seen above, whatever her reasons for not returning to movies, it couldn't have been that she'd lost her ability to make the camera go weak in the knees.

11. KATE WINSLET (1975 - )

The story of modern Hollywood is largely one of actresses who start out doing interesting, challenging roles until some big studio takes notice and rewards them for their hard work by putting them in blockbuster movies that make them rich – and utterly boring. Though she’s made some bad choices in her career (let’s not even talk about The Life of David Gale), former sandwich shop employee Kate Winslet, after becoming one of the biggest stars in the world by virtue of appearing as the female lead in Titanic, has steadfastly refused to settle into the role of a reliable, rich and uninteresting box office draw. Her pre-Titanic career was launched with an eerie, unforgettable performance in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures, which she followed up with adventurous roles in classical adaptations like Jude and Hamlet; but shockingly, it was after appearing in the highest-grossing film of all time that her career really got interesting. Since that time, she’s become known for her unconventional beauty (having had many pointed things to say about Hollywood’s insistence that its leading ladies stay rail-thin) and her willingness to portray women who are sexually adventurous, unflatteringly neurotic, and possessed of unexpected and sometimes alarming depths. Outside of a few bill-paying blockbusters – likely the result of knowing she’ll never luck into another Titanic – she’s chosen a rare path, appearing in movies like Hideous Kinky, Quills, Iris, and Finding Neverland. She’s even put an unforgettable twist on romantic comedy with her role as Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. When you’re the star of the biggest movie in history, maybe you can afford to take those kinds of risks; if so, we’re glad it was Kate Winslet who got the chance.

Click Here for Part One, Two, Four, Five, Six, Seven & Eight

Contributors: Leonard Pierce, Hayden Childs, Phil Nugent

Trailer Review: Revolutionary Road

Paul Clark — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Once again, Sam Mendes turns to suburban ennui, which previously won him Oscar gold in American Beauty. But while that film had plenty of sassy (some would say snarky) humor courtesy of screenwriter Alan Ball, Revolutionary Road is pretty sober stuff. Of course, the production values look pretty impeccable here- with Roger Deakins behind the camera it’d almost have to be a great-looking movie. And given the movie’s pedigree, the filmmakers clearly have Oscar in their sights again. Who knows- this buzz could very well be warranted. But I worry that the “Leo and Kate reunited” angle perpetuated by the Hollywood hype machine could overwhelm anything else about the movie. Sure, it might put a few more asses in the seats, but in the long term I’m not sure it does the movie any good, especially when it’s quite likely that the original Titanic audience simply hasn’t grown up like its stars have.

Coming Soon: A Screengrab Salute To Movie Trailers (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The fake trailers from TROPIC THUNDER (2008), GRINDHOUSE (2007) & KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE (1977)

Of course, no tribute to the art of coming attraction trailers would be complete without a nod to the art of FAKE coming attraction trailers. Tropic Thunder recently delighted many and outraged some with its fake preview for Simple Jack, a dead-on parody of the odious, manipulative genre of faux-inspirational retar...I mean, “mentally challenged”-sploitation potboilers like I Am Sam. And last year, the interstitial glimpses of fictional schlock classics like Machete, Thanksgiving, Werewolf Women of the SS and Don’t (by Robert Rodriguez and cameo directors Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright, respectively) were the best reasons to sit through the entire 191-minute cut of Grindhouse in one sitting. But perhaps the granddaddy (or granddaughter?) of all fake trailers is the "teaser" for Catholic High School Girls In Trouble, one of the definite hits in John Landis’ hit-or-miss cult classic, Kentucky Fried Movie (but, uh, you might not wanna watch this one at work).

The trailer for BUFFALO ’66 (1998)

Whether you love him or hate him, you have to agree that Vincent Gallo doesn’t make ordinary movies. Gallo’s taste for the strange extended to his trailer for his first directorial effort, Buffalo ’66. Cut by Gallo himself, the trailer is a montage of still images from the film, set to the opening passages of Yes’ “Heart of the Sunrise.” As a montage it’s pretty irresistible, with the percussive cutting matching the rhythm of the song, down to the way Gallo animates the stills of Anjelica Huston gesticulating at the dinner table. But what makes this trailer even cooler is that it’s one of the few that show more or less everything in the movie without giving it away. We see the characters, the style, the grey and dingy setting, but we’re wondering how it all fits together. And thanks to how well Gallo sells it, we can’t wait to find out.

The trailer for MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (1975)

The Python boys never met a phenomenon they couldn’t satirize, so it was only natural that with the trailer for their first feature, they’d hold the art of movie advertising up to scorn. This epic three-minute spot begins with a panoramic shot that’s meant to underline the majesty of the film that’s ostensibly being advertised, accompanied by properly stentorian narration. Naturally, the boys soon pull the rug out from under this seriousness, revealing it to be merely auditions for a voiceover artist. Eventually, we end up with narration in subtitled Chinese (this at a time when studios were avoiding non-English dialogue in trailers), after which the trailer goes to work on the self-important rhetoric of studio marketing. The narrator calls the movie “run-of-the-mill” and says, “compared to something like Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, it’s all rather silly.” In addition, the editing of the trailer is reminiscent of the work of fly-by-night distributors who more or less assembled highlights from the film with little regard for coherence. But here, that’s all part of the magic, although it may be difficult to notice while you’re laughing at the trailer’s version of a rave review or the abrupt segue to an advertisement for a nearby Chinese restaurant. So few classic movies have the trailers they deserve, but Monty Python and the Holy Grail definitely does.

The trailer for COMEDIAN (2002)

When it was announced that Don “The Voice” LaFontaine had passed away, many movie lovers flashed back to this trailer, only to discover that its featured talent wasn’t LaFontaine at all, but fellow voiceover titan Hal Douglas. No matter: we’d like to think that LaFontaine would have approved of this “anti-trailer”, still the most succinct and priceless distillation of the deathless voiceover clichés that he spouted so many times over the years. But while on the surface this teaser has nothing but contempt for the inane catchphrases that get recycled by the studios, there’s also a real affection for the men whose job it is to give them authority. By giving a face to the usually faceless voiceover artist, we gain respect for him, and for the way he forges on even when he realizes that the things he’s made to say are completely absurd. As much as lines like “in a world…” have become a joke to trailer watchers, they’re also a kind of comfort, and when Douglas responds to his being fired with, “No, I like it in here,” we can’t help but think that, yes, we like you in there too.

The trailer for SLEEPER (1973)

This trailer for Woody Allen's futuristic "love story about two people who hate each other" parodies the convention by which the great filmmaker is caught by the camera crew and an unseen interviewer while busily working on his next masterpiece. The trailer itself benefits from clips drawn from one of Allen's few films to include both vivid cartoon imagery and an elegant production design. And the scenes in which Allen promises a movie "with very little overt comedy" and scenes "of a cerebral, almost didactic nature" look even funnier now, considering that they could pass as an accurate description of any of a dozen stink bombs he's made since this slapstick classic came out.

The trailer for ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)

Instead of emphasizing popular stars Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, early promotions for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind featured supporting player Tom Wilkinson – if you knew to look for him. This teaser trailer mimicks the low-budget aesthetic of commercials for the local dentist’s office, but the service they’re offering – a selective memory erasure – is purely the stuff of Charlie Kaufman’s imagination. The poker-faced buzz campaign for Eternal Sunshine was entirely based around Lacuna, Inc., including a website with coupons.

The trailer for LITTLE CHILDREN (2006)

You can keep your big explosions and breathtaking panoramas. This trailer for Todd Field’s Little Children holds everything in, and the mounting tension – symbolized by a child’s toy train chugging through a dozen ordinary suburban moments – is almost unbearable.

The trailer for THE SHINING (1980)

Often the most memorable and effective trailers aren't those that sweat to cram in the movie's every high point and plot point but those that boil a picture down to an especially striking image and sell it in a way that sutures it to the viewer's imagination. Stanley Kubrick provided an especially choice example with this early and mysterious look at his 1980 horror movie. It consists of a single shot that turned up late in the film, tricked up here with electronic music and mechanical-sounding voices chanting "Redrum." (Did Kubrick bring in HAL 9000 to work on the soundtrack?) It appeared several months before the movie itself was released, and played briefly before being pulled in favor of a more conventional and far less disturbing trailer.

Click Here for Part One!

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Paul Clark, Phil Nugent, Gwynne Watkins

Take Five: Gotta Get A Guru

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:55:00 GMT

Mike Myers' not-so-glorious return to the big screen, The Love Guru -- also known as Austin Powers IV and Verne Troyer's Pleading E-Mails Finally Pay Off -- opens everywhere today, and critics couldn't be more disappointed. Not only is it reported to be low on laughs, it's also being criticized as being high on stereotypes; despite his alleged friend and idol Deepak Chopra coming to his aid, Myers has been attacked for his stereotyping of Asian Indians and his portrayal of a cartoonish, caricatured guru. But let's face it: Hollywood has always loved its gurus, spiritual masters, and wise old mystics from the subcontinent. Hardly had the Beatles falled under the influence of the Maharishi than Hollywood followed suit; here's a look at some of the more memorable wise men of the East that the movie business has given us.

THE LOVED ONE (1965)

One of the few countercultural satires from the 1960s to hold up in the modern era, Tony Richardson's The Loved One holds up for two reasons: first, it was based on an Evelyn Waugh novel from nearly two decades prior and isn't quite as tarred, as a result, by the hippie-dippie vibe of its time; and second, it's got an impeccable crew behind the camera, from Richardson to cinematographer Haskell Wexler to skilled, hip screenwriters Christopher Isherwood and Terry Southern. This satire of capitalism run amok in the funereal industry crams so many jokes into its two-hour running time that it's almost impossible to keep up with them all, but make sure you don't miss gravel-throated character actor Lionel Stander as the Guru Brahmin, one of the first-ever big-screen gurus -- and one of the first to be portrayed as a bumbling fraud.

CANDY (1968)

This big-screen adaptation of the Mason Hoffenberg novel (actually the infamous Terry Southern writing under a pseudonym) is generally regarded as a major failure. It's not that there weren't talented people involved -- besides Southern himself, and his co-writer Buck Henry, the cast is crammed with fine actors -- but the entire film seems to go off the rails from the very start. That doesn't mean, though, that there aren't plenty of bizarre treats for those with the energy to sit through it. This updating of Voltaire's Candide is purely Southern in the sense that authority figures are always portrayed as phony, venal, and couching some grotesque habits or appetites. In this instance, we're treated to the the sight of the monstrour Grindl -- a sex-crazed Hindu guru played by an overheated Marlon Brando -- putting the poor, put-upon Candy in yet another compromising position.

THE PARTY (1968)

All right, so technically, Peter Sellers' Hrundi V. Bakshi ("That is what my name is called") in the Blake Edwards farce The Party isn't a guru. (That title more rightly belongs to Chauncey Gardiner, the character played by Sellers in 1979's Being There.) But he is Indian, sort of, and he does speak in Hindi platitudes that those around him mistake for pearls of inscrutable eastern wisdom. For example, when asked who he thinks he is, he responds, "In India, we do not think who we are. We know who we are." Whoa, heavy. The rest of the movie is pretty much straight-up Blake Edwards comic fare, and it falls flat on the stereotypes at times, but a few scenes are still paralytically funny forty years later, especially when a stoned Bakshi comes across a parakeet cage and solemnly intones the name of the birdseed: "Birdy Num Num."

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)

In this stunning, surreal, and nearly incomprehensible masterpiece by ultimate provocatuer Alejandro Jodorowsky, the guru is Horacio Salinas, a Christlike thief who is half savior and half mountebank. Under the tutelage of the Alchemist, a mysterious figure played by Jodorowsky himself, he and his gang of mystical banditos -- each named for a different celestial body -- plan nothing less than an assault on Heaven, where they will depose the reigning gods and take their places. Visually, this is exactly the sort of film people talk about when they talk about crazy European art films: it's bewildering, deliberately offensive, totally impenetrable, and weird for the sake of being weird. It's also absolutely brilliant, and Jodorowsky -- who's the real guru here -- shows us what it might be like inside the mind of the truly enlightened -- and it alternately makes us gasp at its beauty and scares the hell out of us.

HOLY SMOKE (1999)

Jane Campion's weirdest movie -- which, if you think about it, is really saying something -- features the always-engaging Kate Winslet in the role of a young woman who decides to embark on a quest for spiritual self-discovery in the Indian subcontinent. Along the way, she encounters the guru Chiddaatman Baba (played by Dhritiman Chatterjee) and falls under his sway -- and that's just where the movie begins. From there, she is confronted by Harvey Keitel as a deprogrammer -- sorry, "cult exiter" -- hired by her family to get her back, and discovers that he's not without his own guru-like tendencies. A battle of wills, intellects and bodies ensue over the terrain of feminism, spirituality and sexuality, and the movie degenerates into a bit of a chaotic mess, but it's at least a glorious mess with two terrific actors like Keitel and Winslet at the fore.

The Ten Best Murderous Duos in Movies, Part 1

Phil Nugent — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:00:00 GMT

The life of a killer can be a lonely one, whether pursued professionally or as a hobby. In last year's Mr. Brooks, Kevin Costner, who based on some of the stories about his on-the-set behavior that have hit the papers ought to have had some experience with having no one to play with, was so lonesome that he had to summon up an imaginary friend (William Hurt) to give him someone to talk to on those long nights of stalking and shooting. (In the course of the movie, a real person who knows about his secret life approaches him and asks if he can apprentice with him as an aspiring psycho, but since this asshole is played by Dane Cook, having to put him up with him just means Costner needs to lean on the nonexistent Hurt more than ever.) Michael Haneke's new English-language version of his 1996 Funny Games also underlines the need for a killer to bring along a spare, someone with whom he can trade wisecracks and rely on to keep an eye on the prey and one hand on the remote control. (If you haven't seen the movie, don't ask. And if you haven't seen the movie, also don't see the movie.) Then there's Pete and Sidney, who work for Joe Brody in the classic The Big Sleep. After Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe meets them, he asks Brody about the weedier, goofier one: "Is he any good?" "Sidney?" replies Brody. "He's company for Pete." ("He kills me," says Pete, by way of an unsolicited testimonial.) These pairs kill us:

Henry (Michael Rooker) & Otis (Tom Towles), HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1990)

When watching a couple of characters prancing through a movie laying waste to half the cast, you might let your mind wander to the question of just how these folks met. Are there conventions? Classified ads? It's easier to understand why a serial killer would want another pair of hands than to envision how he'd go shopping for someone to supply them. There are any number of ways that such a conversation could go wrong. Not the least of Henry's virtues is that it addresses head on the issue of how a solo killer goes about trying to establish a franchise. Henry is already well into his serial-killing career when, after a good long stretch on Otis's couch, he concludes that his old friend might have the stuff to join him on his visits to the homes of strangers. For a while, it does look as if having the fun-loving Otis along has made it more rewarding to rampage around town performing random acts of dismemberment. But, as our nation has learned since 2000, being a good person with whom to have a beer is not the best qualification for a job requiring careful planning and precise execution. Careless and uncontrollable, Otis finally proves himself an unacceptable risk and winds up as one more load of filler weighing down a Hefty bag. Like Rick in Casablanca, Henry is forced to consider the possibility that he is destined to be one of life's romantic loners.

Mingo (Earl Holliman) & Fante (Lee Van Cleef), THE BIG COMBO (1955)

There’s a lot to love about Joseph H. Lewis’ nasty little noir: the gorgeously dark camerawork by John Alton, the snarling screenplay by Philip Yordan (its vicious snap most clearly evident in an early scene where the mob boss, played toothily by Richard Conte, chews out a losing boxer), the barely sublimated sex and the creative violence. It’s one of the best movies of its kind, and criminally underseen by audiences both today and when it was released. One of the most enjoyable bits of the movie, though, is the presence of Mingo and Fante. These two characters, with their bizarrely unlikely names, are the goons of Conte’s Mr. Brown, and they’re memorably played by the lunkheaded Earl Holliman and the domineering Lee Van Cleef, respectively. Alternately menacing, comical and even sympathetic, they’re two of the best-written minor characters in noir history, but one of the reasons that they’re fondly remembered by a handful of film buffs today (Joss Whedon named a couple of characters in his Firefly series after them) is because, predating Mr. Wint & Mr. Kidd in Diamonds Are Forever by a good twenty years, they are perhaps the first murderous duo on the big screen to be portrayed as gay. Of course, this being the ‘50s, neither Yordan or Lewis could come right out and say so, but it’s made plenty clear for anyone who’s paying attention: Fante and Mingo share a room together, sleep feet apart, bicker like a married couple, express a great deal of, er, manly fondness for one another, and even dine together. Which, in fact, leads to the movie’s big oh-what-a-giveaway line: holed up in a ratty dump waiting for the heat to die down from their latest killing, our gruesome twosome are reduced to dining on take-home lunchmeat, leading Mingo to lament, “I can’t swallow any more salami!” Even if the movie version of The Big Sleep had been allowed to be as explicit about the sexuality of Joel Cairo and Wilmer Cook as the book was, they wouldn’t have been this much fun.

Al (Charles McGraw) & Max (William Conrad), THE KILLERS (1946)

These guys have a special weapon: the dialogue from the classic original short story by Ernest Hemingway. In the story, two strangers walk into the small town diner where they plan to kill "the Swede" for reasons unspecified, and, feeling serenely untouchable in their big-city arrogance, proceed to taunt the rubes while they sit there and wait for their target to walk in. ("We’re killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend, bright boy.") The first fifteen or twenty minutes of this movie amount to probably the most faithful film adaptation that Hemingway ever got: McGraw, the star of the cult noir The Narrow Margin (and a man who looked as if he'd been carved out of granite and was royally pissed off about it) and Conrad (TV's Cannon and the narrator of the Bullwinkle cartoons) just play out their little scene together, and then the Heningway story runs out. The movie, which was co-written by Anthony Veiller and the uncredited John Huston and Richard Brooks, and which is not bad at all, proceeds to fill itself out to feature length by having an investigator, played by Edmond O'Brien, fill in the backstory of why the Swede — Burt Lancaster, in his film debut — had a price on his head. There was a sort-of remake in 1964, directed by Don Siegel, which is best remembered as Ronald Reagan's last film as an actor. (He plays the head villain and gets to slap Angie Dickinson around.) The remake, which hews closer to the Lancaster movie than to the Hemingway, eliminates the O'Brien-investigator figure and has the killers themselves — called Charlie and Lee, and played by old pro Lee Marvin and younger hepcat punk Clu Gulager — decide to find out why they'd been hired. This version lacks the crackle that the earlier one had, but it does have a scene where the title characters trap Norman Fell in a steam bath while Gulager mockingly wipes his sunglasses on Mr. Roper's head.

Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) & Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert), LA CEREMONIE (1995)

Bonnaire and Huppert are two of France's greatest and most fearless actresses, and it's a wonder it took a director so long to put them together. But when Claude Chabrol finally did so in his masterful thriller, the result was quite possibly the finest psychotic duo in French cinema. Bonnaire plays Sophie, an illiterate yet hyper-competent young maid for a rich family, and Huppert is Jeanne, a nosy, gossipy postal clerk who becomes her friend. "What a pair," Sophie's employer (Jean-Pierre Cassel) exclaims. "One can't read and the other reads our mail!" It's clear that the two women need each other — Jeanne, with her playfully forceful personality, draws Sophie out of her shell, while Sophie gives Jeanne a sympathetic ear compared to the other townspeople who shun her for the accidental killing of her young daughter. Soon, the two of them are partners in crime, getting into all manner of mischief around town and at the charity where they volunteer. But after Sophie is fired for trying to blackmail the family's pregnant daughter, she and Jeanne sneak in one night to take revenge. The night begins innocently enough — some torn clothing here, some ruined bed sheets there — but quickly turns deadly once the girls see the shotguns hanging on the wall. Jeanne wants to have fun by scaring them, while Sophie insists on loading the guns, yet it's entirely possible that they hadn't planned to kill anyone until Cassel happens upon the gun-toting duo in his kitchen. Once they've killed him, they have no choice but to kill off the rest of the family as well. For all the big-screen psychopaths who plan their murders down to the last detail, cases like Sophie's and Jeanne's are arguably more chilling, as the killings aren't a premeditated act of vengeance but the climax of a prank gone horribly wrong. Funny games, indeed.

Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey) & Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet), HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

Like Sophie and Jeanne, Heavenly Creatures' heroines Pauline Parker (Lynskey) and Juliet Hulme (Winslet) are a pair who first bond over their shared outcast status. In their case, they both suffer from health problems, and as their classmates take exercise, they become fast friends. Together they rule over a lurid, elaborate fantasy world of their own creation. The pair are inseparable, spending every possible moment together, and they eventually their frenzied teenage hormones lead them to experiment with sex. But more than anything else, it's their fantasies that sustain them and help them to escape their difficult lives in 1950s New Zealand, but they also lead to their downfall. From the beginning, they look down on anyone else, and eventually this disdain turns to paranoia about those who would threaten their happiness together. Of all the perceived threats to the world they've created, the most threatening is Pauline's pragmatic, hardworking mother, so one day the girls decide to join her on a leisurely stroll, and when they're alone on a path, they bludgeon her to death. Heavenly Creatures was based on a real-life case, and while the facts might have lent themselves to a sensationalistic treatment, director Peter Jackson keeps us with his heroines all the way. The film follows Pauline and Juliet into their fantasies (rendered in loving detail by a pre-Lord of the Rings Jackson), mostly because it's the only way to truly understand what led them to carry out their hideous crime. Along the way, we grow to love the sinners even as we hate their sin, and it's because of this that the film's final scene, in which Pauline and Juliet are forced apart by the courts, is almost unbearably sad.

— Paul Clark; Phil Nugent; Leonard Pierce

Click here for Part 2.

Oscar's Next Show

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Some people just can't get too much of a good thing. With one of the most enriching movie years in history behind us, and one of the most highly anticipated Academy Awards in decades less than a week old, Scott Feinberg's 'And The Winner Is' blog is finally looking ahead to...

...the 2009 Oscars.

That's right, folks: just because none of these movies have been seen yet — just because most of them, indeed, have not even been made yet — doesn't mean the LA Times' irrepressible scamp isn't going to go ahead and handicap them for their chances of taking home Oscar Gold a little over a year from now.

Although Feinberg approaches this ridiculous effort with tongue at least partially in cheek, that doesn't mean he's not somewhat dismayingly comprehensive in his look at whose names might be prominent come Oscar eve '09. Among his choices as early, early, unbelievably early favorites: Benecio del Toro for Best Actor as Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh's The Argentine; Julianne Moore for Best Actress in Blindness; John Patrick Shanley for the screenplay of Doubt, an adaptation of his own play; Gus Van Sant for directing Sean Penn in Milk, the life story of the assassinated gay rights activist and San Francisco city supervisor; and any number of high-profile performances from Kate Winslet.

Okay, Scott, okay... but can't we elect a President first?

The Ten Worst Hairdos in Movie History, Part 2

Peter Smith — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray, KINGPIN (1996)

Bowling is enjoyed by millions of Americans of all ages, but in the Farrelly brothers' second film Kingpin, the professional bowling circuit is portrayed as being forever trapped in the seventies. Professional bowlers are seen as sleazeball would-be lounge lizards, dressing in garish clothes, doing cock-of-the-walk victory dances, and relentlessly chasing women when they're not bowling. But in Kingpin, the most telling remnant of their faded vocation is almost certainly the hairdos they sport. In the seventies, Harrelson's Roy Munson and Murray's Ernie "Big Ern" McCracken were well-coiffed slicksters. Two decades hence, they try, with varying degrees of success, to maintain their youthful appearance by engaging in that age-old solution practiced by creepy old men the world over — the comb over. True to their characters, Big Ern is better at maintaining the façade — his 'do looks like a woodland creature parked itself atop his pate, but at least it doesn't reflect the light. But once the rivals take to the lanes for the climactic showdown, Big Ern shows his true colors. Usually a cool customer, he lets the stress get the better of his hair, and it gradually begins to detach from his head, until it resembles the world's largest ripped seam. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kate Winslet's Clementine speaks of having mood hair, but we'd like to think that, as with so many great things in cinema, Bill Murray got there first.

The Leningrad Cowboys, LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA

Rock'n'roll has a history of some pretty questionable hairdos, but none like those worn by the Leningrad Cowboys. Almost surely the most rockin' band to get their start north of the Arctic Circle, the Cowboys first entered the scene as the brainchild of director Aki Kaurismäki, who assembled some of his rocker pals for his 1989 stone-faced mockumentary, Leningrad Cowboys Go America. In the film, the Cowboys, tired of playing in Siberia, mount an American tour, despite their uncertain grasp of the English language. But if their songs mark them as foreigners, their hair is positively alien, with all members sporting uniform black pompadours, each with a large, unicorn-like forelock pointing out into the distance. As the film progresses, we discover that this hairdo is actually a congenital signifier of musical skill — the musically-challenged cousin who stalks the combo has but a tiny tuft to his name. Unfortunately for the Cowboys, the U.S. tour is mostly a washout, but they'd find more enduring success at home following the fall of the Iron Curtain. They appeared in two more features, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses and the concert film Total Balalaika Show, in which they teamed up with the Alexandrov Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble, as well as over half a dozen music videos directed by Kaurismäki. Finally, the Cowboys made their triumphant return to the American stage for the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall. All the while, the band remained true to their roots, never touching so much as a strand of those terrible, awesome hairdos.

Demi Moore, STRIPTEASE

Some might think the obvious choice here would be G.I. Jane, but somehow even a number-one blade on a pair of clippers only revealed that Demi Moore had a perfectly shaped head, and didn't diminish her hotness in the least. The same cannot be said for the bangs-and-blow-dry look of Striptease. Yeah, we know she's supposed to be playing a stripper, but those are clearly hair extensions, and not very flattering ones at that. Most people at the time were probably distracted by the reveal of Moore's surgically enhanced breasts (we liked the originals just fine, thank you) and there are certainly many places the finger of blame can be pointed in this nuclear stinkbomb of a movie — but you shouldn't underestimate just how bad a haircut had to be back then to make Demi Moore look unattractive.

Kevin Costner, THE BODYGUARD (1992)

The story behind one of Sir Kevin's more laughable haircuts (and, if you've seen his mullet in Robin Hood, that's really saying something) is actually kinda touching: The interracial romance-thriller The Bodyguard was originally conceived as a vehicle for Diana Ross and Steve McQueen way back during the 1970s. When the film was finally made in 1992, starring Costner and Whitney Houston, the star decided to try and channel McQueen; to do so he adopted the legendary icon of cool's trademark close-cropped haircut, which looked fantastic on McQueen but downright surreal on Costner. That said, Costner did have the last laugh: The Bodyguard was one of his worst films, and a stain on screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan's career (it had been his first script — turns out he made up for it with The Empire Strikes Back), but it wound up being a huge hit. Indeed, we're not unconvinced that Costner's follicular follies in this film didn't lead indirectly to the George-Clooney-and-his-Caesar-haircut craze a couple of years later. There you go, folks — one more societal ill you can blame on Kevin Costner.

Nicolas Cage, NATIONAL TREASURE (2004)

Full disclosure: For weeks the spot for this entry stood empty on this list, with simply the words "Nicolas Cage, FILM TO BE DETERMINED LATER" holding its place. Because let's face it, any number of films starring Nicolas Cage from the past few years could go here — from the god-awful toupee he sported in Ghost Rider to the goofy balding curls he fretted over in Adaptation (of course, we don't hold that last one against him, not only because his bad hair was a plot point in that film, but also because we have this disturbing suspicion that, had nature been allowed to take its course, that's what Nicolas Cage's real hair might actually look like today). But we're going with National Treasure, for the simple fact that we spent the whole film staring at the slug-like patch of weave at the very tip of the actor's forehead. Seriously, this isn't hair, it's a lid. In these later years, Cage and Kevin Costner have switched places, but if you'd asked us fifteen years ago which of the two would allow himself to go bald gracefully while the other kept trying new ways to make himself look like he had something resembling a "full" "head" of "hair," the answer might have been different.

— Paul Clark, Bilge Ebiri, Phil Nugent, Vern, Bryan Whitefield

Click here for Part 1!

Morning Deal Report: Upgrades and Downgrades

Peter Smith — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:50:00 GMT

Hayden Christensen to play lead role in Neuromancer? Yikes. I've heard stories about Christensen getting in brawls with heckling Star Wars fanboys. At least William Gibson fans probably aren't wielding prop lightsabers.

Kate Winslet replaces a pregnant Nicole Kidman in Stephen Daldry's The Reader. She was apparently the original choice for the role, so that's cool.

The brainiest videogame of the year by all accounts was Bioshock, a spook show set in a mostly-abandoned, subaquatic utopian colony. Now rumor suggests a film version may be on the way.

One Last Shot: Romance and Cigarettes

Peter Smith — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 22:00:00 GMT

John Turturro's third film as director, Romance and Cigarettes, got canned by its distributor and suffered some of the worst reviews around this year (even from some of my favorite outlets, like The Onion AV Club), as well as a handful of the best. Count me in the "best" category; I loved it and was lucky enough to interview Turturro about it, an experience that really cemented my admiration for him and his work. I'm not sure what other critics disliked about it so much, though I could see it being a movie you either love or hate. A blue-collar musical, it follows James Gandolfini through a torrid affair with Kate Winslet, and an estrangement from his wife (Susan Sarandon) and his daughters (Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker and Aida Turturro). It's sweet, sad, hilarious and dirty — a great date movie, if your date has a good sense of humor.

Turturro has distribution rights to Romance and Cigarettes until January 17th, at which point Sony will ignominiously dump it to DVD and run for the hills. It's done really well given its limited distribution, but in this last push — well, I can't speak for my Screengrab colleagues, but at least a portion of Screengrab encourages you to see this lovely film before it leaves the screen. Here's a clip (illustrating Turturro's juxtaposition of bawdy humor and fantasy) I hand-picked to whet your appetites. (Right-click to save.) Hit the jump for a list of theaters opening Romance and Cigarettes in the coming weeks; it's also currently playing at a number of others, including, for New Yorkers, the Quad on 13th St.

CALIFORNIA
12/21/2007 Encino, CA Town Center Five
12/21/2007 Irvine, CA University Town Center 6
12/21/2007 Los Angeles, CA Landmark Theater
12/21/2007 Los Angeles, CA Sunset 5
12/21/2007 Pasadena, CA Playhouse 7
12/21/2007 Pasadena, CA One Colorado
12/21/2007 Sacramento, CA Crest Theatre

COLORADO
12/7/2007 Denver, CO Chez Artiste

FLORIDA
1/4/2008 Sarasota, FL Burns Court
1/11/2008 Gainesville, FL Hippodrome Cinema

GEORGIA
12/7/2007 Atlanta, GA Midtown Art Cinema

ILLINOIS
12/7/2007 Chicago, IL Music Box Theatre
12/7/2007 Wilmette, IL Wilmette Theatre
12/7/2007 Highland Park, IL Landmark's Renaissance Place Cinema

KANSAS
1/11/2008 Kansas City, KS Tivoli Manor Square

MAINE
1/4/2008 Waterville, ME Rail Road Square Cinema
1/11/2008 Portland, ME The Movies on Exchange Street

MASSACHUSETTS
12/14/2007 Northampton, MA Pleasant Street Theater

MARYLAND
12/21/2007 Baltimore, MD Charles Theater

MICHIGAN
12/14/2007 Detroit, MI Main Art Theatre

MISSOURI
12/14/2007 St. Louis, MO Plaza Frontenac Cinema

MINNESOTA
12/7/2007 Minneapolis, MN Edina Cinema

NEBRASKA
1/4/2008 Lincoln, NB Ross Media Arts Center

NEW JERSEY
12/7/2007 Washington Township, NJ Washington Township Cinema

NEW YORK
12/7/2007 Albany, NY Spectrum 8

OHIO
1/4/2008 Cleveland, OH Shaker Square

OREGON
12/14/2007 Portland, OR Cinema 21

PENNSYLVANIA
1/4/2008 Pittsburgh, PA Regent Square

RHODE ISLAND
12/7/2007 Providence, RI Avon Cinema

TEXAS
12/7/2007 Houston, TX Angelika Film Center

UTAH
1/4/2008 Salt Lake City, UT Broadway Centre

WASHINGTON
12/14/2007 Seattle, WA Varsity Theatre

WISCONSIN
12/14/2007 Madison, WI Sundance Cinema

Yesterday's Hits: Titanic (1997)

Peter Smith — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:00:00 GMT

What makes a movie a hit? Whatever it is, it's fascinating to look how moviegoing tastes change over the years. I hit upon the idea for a feature called "Yesterday's Hits" as a flipside to Nathan Rabin's My Year of Flops, and I'll be focusing on movies that were initially popular but haven't sustained that popularity. To this end, I plan to ask three questions:

1. What made this movie a hit?
2. What happened to the movie's popularity?
3. Divorced from the original buzz, does the movie itself still work?

We'll begin with the highest-grossing film of all time, James Cameron's Titanic.

What made Titanic a hit? Titanic had something for everyone — adventure, romance, destruction, tragedy, cutting-edge effects, history, and protagonists to whom audiences could relate. Cameron mixed these elements so cannily that the movie became a must-see, even for those who almost never went to movies, like my grandfather, who trekked to the local cinema for the first time in fifteen years. But the film's biggest supporters were teenage girls, a underrepresented demographic, who famously saw the movie dozens of times.

What happened to Titanic's popularity? Teenagers — both male and female — are notoriously fickle. The movie's original fans are now in their twenties and have mostly moved on, and today's teenagers want to find a hit of their own to embrace. Likewise, Titanic isn't particularly well-served by video and DVD, its largesse diminished by the smaller screen while the cornball dialogue and nuts 'n' bolts characterization become more glaring.

Does Titanic still work? Yes and no. Titanic is a mix of classical and modern elements, and these elements don't always mesh well. Most of the supporting characters are given exactly one note to play — Billy Zane's sneering possessiveness, Frances Fisher's old-money snobbery, Kathy Bates' aw-shucks Molly Brown — which grows a little tiresome over three-odd hours. By comparison, Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) are relatable because they feel more modern than the others. It's a convenient way to elicit audience sympathy, but Cameron's more baldfaced attempts to inject their characters with contemporary traits, such as Rose's love for modern art (Billy Zane: "That Picasso will never amount to anything!"), fall flat.

In addition, a lot of smaller elements of the film don't really work. The framing story takes too long to get going, and Gloria Stuart's Oscar-nominated performance as Old Rose doesn't age well. And couldn't Cameron have found a better MacGuffin than the Heart of the Ocean diamond? Then there's the matter of the music. James Horner's Enya-inflected score is even more distracting now than it was ten years ago, and Celine Dion's end-credits number "My Heart Will Go On," never that great a song to begin with, has become so ubiquitous that it's almost unlistenable.

Still, a lot of the movie still sings. Titanic's bravura second half, containing the sinking, plays to Cameron's strengths as a filmmaker (destruction and human chaos). Both the opulence and the effects remain impressive today. And even the old-fashioned storyline plays better than I'd remembered. Cameron wisely stays mostly with Jack and Rose, and in doing so he taps into one of the great themes of epic cinema: people at the mercy of history. It worked in Gone With the Wind, it worked in Casablanca, and it still works like a charm in Titanic. — Paul Clark