The Screengrab : man on wire

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:30:00 GMT

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

And the nominees are...

Bolt – Chris Williams and Byron Howard
Kung Fu Panda – Mark Osborne and John Stevenson
Wall-E – Andrew Stanton

Paul Clark Predicts: Wall-E

The Panda may have swept the Annies, but this award’s voted on by everyone, not just the animators. And it’s foolish to bet against Pixar.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Wall-E

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Wall-E

This one is as sure thing as there is at the Oscars this year; the 3D gimcrackery of Bolt and the overrated Kung Fu Panda don’t stand a chance against Wall-E, which really ought to have been nominated for Best Picture.

Should Win: Wall-E
Will Win: Wall-E

Nick Schager Predicts: Wall-E

Wall-E wins, or I throw something at the television. Or, at least, say something nasty under my breath.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Wall-E

Clearly Wall-E will win. It is this year's answer to An Inconvenient Truth. Only with animated robots instead of Al Gore.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Wall-E

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: KUNG FU PANDA! (No, just kidding...WALL-E)

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

And the nominees are...

La Maison En Petits Cubes - Kunio Kato
Lavatory - Lovestory - Konstantin Bronzit
Oktapodi - Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
Presto - Doug Sweetland
This Way Up - Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

Paul Clark Predicts: Presto

It’s Pixar. Good enough for me.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Oktapodi

My time-honored rule in this category is always to pick the one with the funniest title. (And yes, I think Oktapodi is funnier than Lavatory – Lovestory, which may come back to bite me right in the ass...that or the fact I forgot Presto was from Pixar.)

Nick Schager Predicts: La Maison en Petits Cubes

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Presto

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: PRESTO

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

And the nominees are...

Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water

Paul Clark Predicts: Encounters at the End of the World

Man on Wire is the best movie, but I think that sentiment for Herzog -- a newly-enshrined Academy member whose stock in Hollywood is higher than ever -- will take this. Besides, wouldn’t a Werner Herzog Oscar speech be awesome?

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Man On Wire

I can’t remember a stronger year for the Documentary Feature category...by which I mean I’ve actually heard of most of the films and the two I saw were great. I haven’t seen Trouble the Water (which by all accounts is fantastic and which I’m adding to my Netflix queue...right...NOW), and I’m rooting for Werner Herzog (if only for the peculiar, deadpan acceptance speech), but I’ve seen that little French tightrope elf on a dozen talk shows, so it seems Man On Wire has the most exposure...and, in the absence of a Holocaust documentary this time around, that may be enough to secure a win.

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Encounters at the End of the World

It’s a terrific year for documentaries, and the trick will be predicting which one appeals to the Academy voters. Man On Wire has charm, Encounters at the End of the World is stunning, and Trouble the Water is one of the best of the Katrina documentaries; my guess is that AMPAS will go for the Herzog to compensate for his not getting any dap for his fiction films.

Should Win: Trouble the Water
Will Win: Encounters at the End of the World

Nick Schager Predicts: Man On Wire

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Man On Wire

In these post-Bush times we can look back on the Twin Towers and reminisce in a French way. N'est-ce pas?

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Man On Wire

I guess I'm the only one who thinks this is overrated. It's the sort of thing I probably would have enjoyed if I'd stumbled upon it on the Discovery channel or something, but the twinkly Frenchman got on my nerves after a while and all that build-up to, what, two still photographs? I dunno, give me Encounters at the End of the World – compelling characters, brilliant cinematography and that poor goofy penguin.

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: MAN ON WIRE

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

And the nominees are...

The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306

Paul Clark Predicts: The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306

I haven’t seen any of these, but this sounds like the sort of title that wins this category.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: The Final Inch

Again, I go with the funny name in this category. The Final Inch. Heh-heh-heh-heh...

Nick Schager Predicts: The Final Inch

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: The Conscience of Nhem En

I don't know anything about it, but it sounds very important.

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: THE FINAL INCH

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

And the nominees are...

On the Line (Auf der Strecke)
Manon On the Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig (Grisen)
Toyland (Spielzeugland)

Paul Clark Predicts: On the Line (Auf der Strecke)

Sure, why not?

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Toyland (Spielzeugland)

Ordinarily, I’d go with the “funny name” strategy again, but this one’s about Nazis: ka-ching!!!

Nick Schager Predicts: Toyland (Spielzeugland)

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Auf der Strecke (On the Line)

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: NO CONSENSUS!

Stay tuned for appearances by Viola Davis, Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman and the vengeful ghost of Heath Ledger as the 2009 Screengrab Oscar Special continues!

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

Smells Like Indie Spirit: Our Favorite Sundance Films Of All Time (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:00:00 GMT

MARY JANE’S NOT A VIRGIN ANYMORE (1997)

Sundance is a phenomenon largely because of the buzz and excitement surrounding million dollar jackpot acquisitions, iconic crossover hits like Napoleon Dynamite and star-studded “indie” darlings like Garden State or Little Miss Sunshine. Lost amid the hype are films like Mary Jane’s Not A Virgin Anymore, a humble, charming work of DIY guerilla filmmaking by the late, lamented “Queen of Underground Film” Sarah Jacobson (who died far too young of endometrial cancer in 2004). Lisa Gerstein, as the titular virgin, is gawky, sincere and loveable, just like the accessible, naturalistic movie she inhabits. Sure, the production values are rough and the only real “star” power is a cameo by Jello Biafra, but the low-rent Northern California rock scene Jacobson captured feels like a real place, populated by actual humans, unlike the over-the-top quirksters and too-pretty people filling much of the rest of the indie cineverse.

THEREMIN: AN ELECTRONIC ODYSSEY (1994)

I’m afraid that no clips of this movie (winner of the Filmmakers Trophy: Documentary) are available for posting, although you can find scenes on YouTube here and here. The above clip is Clara Rockmore, the virtuoso thereminist, performing Saint-Saëns’ “The Swan.” You may notice that one of the links includes footage of Leon Theremin playing the same composition in the 1920s. Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey is the story of the theremin (that’s the odd electronic instrument Rockmore is playing, if you’re not in the know) and the creator for whom it was named. His story is even more bizarre than you can guess, and I fear that revealing some of the odder elements here could take away from their surprise in the movie. The film also features talking-head segments from Robert Moog (the creator of the Moog synthesizer), Brian Wilson (the fractured genius behind the Beach Boys), and Todd Rundgren (who is, get this, Todd Rundgren). The Wilson interviews are especially interesting for fans, as director Steve M. Martin (who is not the guy you’re thinking of) lets Wilson ramble off on tangents far and wide in a way that his handlers rarely allow. Anyway, this is a beautiful documentary, full of twists and surprises and an terrifically emotional climax.

DiG! (2004)

Proving that a compelling documentary can be made about two extremely (for me, at least) uncompelling bands, DiG! (winner of the 2004 Grand Jury Prize: Documentary) pits the keepin’-it-real psychedelic band The Brian Jonestown Massacre against the ready-to-sell-out Dandy Warhols. The Brian Jonestown Massacre is the brainchild of one Anton Newcombe, a guy who seems to believe that acting like a self-indulged, petulant asshole is exactly the same as being a genius. His sidekick is Joel Gion, who adds little to the music (being a non-singing tambourine player) but who Newcombe apparently keeps around because of Gion’s God-given gift of mugging for the camera and making playful comments during interviews. All of the other members of the BJM appear to be either stoned or barely holding their hatred of Newcombe in check. The BJM’s music is devoid of dynamic, interest, and a third chord. And yet in DiG!, they play the part of the authentic band a little too pure for the corporate scene. The Dandy Warhols, on the other hand, appear to be composed entirely of models or exhibitionists and make music that sounds like the product of a Clear Channel focus group. DiG! seems to view them as the band that does everything more or less right, and maybe by some metrics they are, in the sense that the Dandy Warhols are rock stars and the BJM are still relatively obscure. Anyway, the documentary shows the early camaraderie between the bands, which quickly devolves into a bitter rivalry, as the Dandy Warhols’ slick pseudo-psychedelic pop leads them towards a popularity that the BJM’s gritty (and dull, don’t forget) psych-sludge will never achieve. I’ve wondered whether fans of either band would see the movie differently, but I think the viewer may enjoy the drama more without feeling inclined towards either band.

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (2005)

There are a few mentally ill performers who fans have embraced out of a sense of irony, and this has always reeked to me of exploitation. Wesley Willis, for instance, was an obese paranoid schizophrenic busker when he became semi-popular, and I rarely got the sense that many of his fans could separate the songs he wrote from these essential facts. Daniel Johnston is also a songwriter who struggles with mental illness. However, Johnston's songs are beautiful, lyrically profound, and more sophisticated than his rudimentary musicianship can convey. Don't believe me? Check out Kathy McCarty's album Dead Dog's Eyeball, in which she and producer Brian Beattie arrange Johnston's songs to give them the context they deserve. Actually, many, many artists have covered Johnston's songs (and very few have covered Willis). The Devil and Daniel Johnston (winner of the Sundance 2005 Documentary Directing Award) is more or less a biographical documentary about Johnston's life, but documentarian Jeff Feuerzeig, who also directed a movie about the band Half Japanese, spices the story with animation, talking head interviews that include a picture-in-picture frame that illustrate their comments, and a deep sensitivity to Johnston's plight and the toll that it's taken on everyone who loves him. The movie has almost as much to say about the effects of mental illness as it does about Johnston's musicianship.

ONCE (2007)

The music is from the U2 School of Anthemic Irish Rock Songs, so your appreciation may vary depending on how you feel about U2 (or lead actor Glen Hansard’s band The Frames, to be more accurate). But the relationship is pitched just right. A girl meets a busker and helps him to move on with his life. But she’s not just any ordinary manic pixie dream girl (thanks for the phrase, AV Club). She has her own reasons for helping the guy -- a toddler, an absent husband, a love of music, and fundamentally not enough joy in her young life. It helps that the director, who was formerly the bassist in the Frames, also loves the music. By all rights, the above scene, in which our scrappy underdogs record their first song in the expensive studio they’ve rented, should not work. The engineer’s reaction is too broad. See, at the beginning of the song, he’s a jaded insider, completely uninterested in the music. Then the drums kick in, and he seems to hear the song for the first time, dropping the magazine to start fiddling with the knobs, finding himself becoming a fan despite his years behind the board. That turnaround shouldn’t work, but it gets me right where I live. I love that moment, and I love that song, too, even if only for the time it’s on-screen. The overall restraint in the central relationship works well for the movie, too, because yearning for something or someone is better for your music than having the object of your desire. (Winner: Sundance 2007 World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic)

MAN ON WIRE (2008)

In the early dawn of August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit strung a wire between the World Trade Center towers and walked between them, a quarter of a mile over Manhattan, for about 45 minutes. He was all of 24 years old. Perhaps you saw him on The Colbert Report earlier this week, so you already know that he didn't fall. The movie somehow makes an end-run around your knowledge, presenting the difficult logistics of Petit and his crew sneaking into the yet-unfinished towers with a 450-lb steel cable and several crates of equipment as nothing less than a caper movie with the intensity of Rififi or Bob Le Flambeur. You feel the excitement and fear when Petit steps out over the yawning chasm between the towers, but you already know he's going to survive because you've already seen the older Petit pop up as a talking head. It's a clever conceit, and it pays off in spades. On a note of personal pimpage, my book Shoot Out The Lights (about Richard and Linda Thompson's album) includes a section about Petit and his walk, as Thompson has written a few songs about tightrope walkers. Thompson, of course, did the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man, and Herzog is apparently a good friend of Petit's. In retrospect, Petit seems like the classic Herzog subject, brilliant and obsessive, and in this world but somehow not of it. Man On Wire is completely unlike a Herzog documentary, but it certainly has a Herzog-like appreciation for the holy madness of the man at its core. The film just came out on DVD within the last week, so be sure to check it out. (Winner: Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary, 2008 World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Hayden Childs

Debra Winger: Searched for and Found

Phil Nugent — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:45:00 GMT

Rachel Cooke managed to swing a face to face with Debra Winger for the Guardian, who in addition to her flyspeck of a role in Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, has published a book, Undiscovered, described by Cooke as "a collection of brief essays and poems with illustrations of doors and windows by her friend, the famous tightrope walker Philippe Petit"--the Man on Wire guy. "I'm allergic to chapters," Winger told Cooke "They give me hives. I wanted doors and portals to illustrate the idea of transformations. I showed Philippe the old doors I collect - I keep them in my barn - and he took out his journal, and it was filled with drawings of doors. So that was it." The book has turned into a hit on the basis of word of mouth, a development that is very pleasing to Winger, whose issues with the bullshit connected to fame surfaced when she was encouraged to promote it. "I wanted to put it out under a pseudonym, but they said: are you fucking nuts? I tried going on The View, and the last time I experienced anything like that was when I was a child, and I got caught in a rip tide, and the lifeguard was yelling 'just relax!' Everyone's talking on top of each other, and it's humiliating, and I have to suffer the whole 'where have you been?' thing - as if the person asking me has been at the center of the universe all this time, and I just haven't checked in."

Of course, a lot of people wonder where Winger--who has spent a lot of the time in recent years tending to her farm in upstate New York with her husband, the actor Arliss Howard (who directed her in the 2002 movie Big Bad Love)--has been because they miss watching her in movies. It's gratifying to hear that Winger would have no objections to doing more work in movies if she could be spared the bullshit, and bewildering to hear that her appearance in Rachel Getting Married hasn't led to a spate of offers. (Though it could be that most directors assume that anyone who gets her to work for him must know the secret handshake that it takes to get her to say yes. Demme was one of those who only managed to summon up the courage to approach her after having come to terms with his assumption that she'd say no.) But Winger's name has also taken on this second life as a catch phrase for the hard time that even greatly gifted actresses have getting treated with respect, let alone offered the roles they deserve. It's fascinating to hear that she is, to put it gently, as ambivalent about this as she is about anything else. The sense that Winger might be a symbol of something gelled after Rosanna Arquette's 2001 documentary Searching for Debra Winger. "I was interviewed for it when it was called something else," she recalls, "and I said to Rosanna at the time, this is your question. I had no idea what she planned on calling the film, and she made me the poster child for something I was not talking about. I didn't give a shit [about what Hollywood was going to do to me]. I was just tired of it." With regard to the scarcity of good roles for actresses, Winger herself would rather address practical issues, such as her observation that "women don't write enough. Because who do they expect to write these roles? Men?"

One thing that Winger has going for her is that, at 53, she still has an expressive kisser, in contrast to, as she delicately puts it, "those boiled faces!" On the other hand, "I have a movie out now and I can't bear to watch it. I see myself up there, and it's not normal to scrutinise your own face on a screen this big; it's like opening a vein. So I do have some compassion for Nicole Kidman, or whoever, who has obviously looked at her face and sort of dissected it, like it's a thing." It's okay, honey, you don't have to add "or whoever" after you say "Nicole Kidman." At film festivals, "the celebrities are dragging their movies in, going 'look at this!' instead of the movie being the thing, and they're just there to support it. It's a case of: 'Look at my dress, at my hair, at my face and ... oh, by the way, there's a movie here, too!' I have this character in my head. She keeps appearing places: on trains, in the city, on the highway. I see her out there. She is heroic, but not like any hero we've ever seen. Society makes women of a certain age invisible. It's convenient. Remember our mothers? How inconvenient they were to us? It's like that, on a grand scale. In the early part of my life I carried the flame for fiery women: perky women who were not dumb. And now I feel like I could be the woman to play this role: the invisible woman." So you're saying that you would play it if only somebody would write it? "As you know, I've long been ambivalent about the whole movie star thing. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to, uh ... work."

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

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

2008 is already getting a rap as a bad year for filmmaking, which is entirely unfair -- it's merely a good year that has to contend with coming right after 2007, one of the greatest years in recent cinematic history. It's also the first year where I spent the entire year as a critic living in a city that seems allergic to art films; when it came time to compile my top tens, which no doubt reflect my current cultural circumstances, I found I had seen fewer of the most highly praised films of the year than in any recent memory. Putting this list together involved a lot of work on my part -- not the normal intellectual work of weighing the artistic merits of each movie and finding something to say about them, but the physical work of actually seeing the damn things, when a good half of them didn't play in my city. This is especially true of the 2008 end-of-year releases. But throught a combination of tactics, including but not limited to Netflix, filesharing, begging publicists for screeners, shuttling back and forth to Austin, and, in the case of my #1 pick, engaging in a quest that would, itself, make a pretty good movie, I managed to put together a list of my ten favorite films of the year. I don't know how you loyal readers will take it -- I know that I'm at odds with a few of my Screengrab colleagues on at least a couple of these -- but here I stand, in a year that ain't as bad as it seemed.

10. MILK (Gus Van Sant, dir.)

Three decades too late, but this is the year of Harvey Milk: the new album by an Athens-based band that bears the assassinated San Francisco supervisor’s name is one of the best of the year, as is Gus Van Sant’s biopic of the country’s first openly gay elected official. Noted by Van Sant as the first movie of his return to mainstream filmmaking, Milk has been criticized for taking a straightforward approach rather than showcasing the director’s more experimental side, but, like Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, it largely succeeds because it lets the flashy stylistic touches take a back seat to what is, after all, one of the most compelling political stories of the American century. Sean Penn is rightly getting props for his terrific performance as Harvey Milk; it’s a career-redeeming showing after nearly a decade of missteps. But no one should ignore the excellent supporting performance, especially those of James Franco as Milk’s partner Scott Smith and Josh Brolin as the tortured killer Dan White. Elegant, appealing, timely and persuasive without being preachy, Milk is one of the best biopics of recent vintage.

9. BALLAST (Lance Hammer, dir.)

Lance Hammer’s debut feature film Ballast is being widely proffered as proof that reports of independent film’s death have been greatly exaggerated. The indie scene was on the rocks this year, to be sure, but Ballast is a mighty convincing argument for its continued vitality. It deals quietly and hypnotically with the emotional paralysis into which a Mississippi family is thrown after one brother commits suicide, and its characters – played almost entirely by an amateur cast using improvised dialogue – are so real as to be astonishing. The performances by a batch of promising unknowns are halting, wandering, and unspectacular, because people rarely react to such an event in a spectacular way. Likewise, criticism of the film’s slow pace seem off the mark to me: the movie’s slow movement and stately grace (visually abetted by some incredible cinematography by Lol Crawley) recall Ozu, who was rarely subject to such carping. Ballast is a thing of dark, slow beauty.

8. THE DARK KNIGHT (Christopher Nolan, dir.)

The opinion of a million IMDB fanboys notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn’t one of the greatest films ever made. Now that it’s available on DVD, its flaws are easy to catch on repeat viewings: too much of David S. Goyer’s heavy scriptwriting hand, a confused and uncentered role for Batman himself, and an ending that continues to make precious little sense. But, by the same token, its strengths are also mightily in evidence, ready for anyone to savor who thinks a big-screen action picture can’t also be a good movie: a number of near-perfect emotional moments, a riveting conjuration of a city caught in the grips of terror, and, of course, Heath Ledger’s absolutely electrifying performance as the Joker, one of the greatest screen villains in history. And, in the same way he used a pulp noir thriller as the framework for one of the most deeply philosophical mainstream movies ever in Memento, Nolan manages to take a superhero punch-‘em-up and turn it into one of the most profoundly political movies of the year.

7. IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T'AIME [I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG] (Phillipe Claudel, dir.)

This French drama is, with Synechdoche, New York, one of two amazing films made this year by first-time directors who are better known for their writing. Phillipe Claudel, a well-respected screenwriter and novelist, has made a movie as small and controlled as Charlie Kaufman’s is ambitious and sprawling: it’s remarkably tight for a first effort, with none of the excess that often betrays a first effort. With not a single frame wasted, he brings us the story of Juliette Fontaine, a woman whose sister takes her into a distrusting – not to say dysfunctional – family after she has spent fifteen years in prison; Kristin Scott Thomas (who seems an entirely different actress, and a far superior one, in French than she is in English) plays her with an emotional and physical reticence that borders on exhaustion, and she’s perfectly complemented by Elsa Zylberstein as her loving, determined sister. It’s the best family drama in years, understated and nearly perfect at conveying its emotional complexities.

6. MAN ON WIRE (James Marsh, dir.)

The most compelling documentary of the year is based on an event so trivial it would be almost entirely forgotten if not for the existence of the movie: Phillipe Petit’s jaw-dropping, pointless, spectacular, and foolhardy tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center during its construction in 1974. Filmed by the director of Wisconsin Death Trip and using similar techniques (including some arbitrary, though skillful reenactments), Man On Wire brings us a movie about the WTC that has nothing to do with the terror attacks that brought it down – and yet which cannot escape comparison, with its images of bits of the towers in chaos (though from construction, not destruction), its central plot of a small group of schemers engaging in intricate planning to conquer them (though their motivation is art, not violence), and its unforgettable image of Petit suspended between the buildings, so eerily reminiscent of the shots of those who fell on September 11th. Petit did not fall; we know he did not, because we see and hear him from the movie’s first shots. The fact that it’s so fascinating to watch though we know he didn’t fall is a testament to its power as a film.

Click for Part Two

2008 in Review: Paul Clark's Favorite Movie Moments

Paul Clark — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Starting tomorrow, the writers of Screengrab will be unveiling their lists of the top 10 films of 2008. But before that begins, I’d like to post a different sort of list of highlights from the past year. For those of you who’ve only started reading recently, I used to write a bi-weekly column called “The Movie Moment,” in which I’d explore in depth some of my favorite scenes from movies both old and new. This past spring, I had to put the column on indefinite hiatus for various reasons, but I wanted to bring it back for this week only so I could celebrate some of my favorite Movie Moments of 2008. However, I had such a devil of time trying to narrow down my list that I’ve decided to simply list all of the moments that made me laugh out loud, cry like a baby, bite my nails uncontrollably, or which otherwise rocked my world this past year. This list is by no means meant to be taken as comprehensive, but merely were the moments which readily sprang to mind while I was writing the piece. So without further ado, I give you…

2008: The Year in Movie Moments:

(in no particular order)

The little boy’s confession notes- In Bruges

“No-no-no. I kill the bus driver.” - The Dark Knight

The security guard makes his rounds - Man on Wire

Sidney’s musical vows - Rachel Getting Married

The kiss that launched a thousand lens flares - Silent Light (only one of several transcendent moments in the film- the swimming-hole scene or the epic rainstorm might just as easily have qualified)

Mike’s late-night visit (or really, anytime Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” is played) - The Strangers

Peekaboo nudity - The Romance of Astrea and Celadon

Harry unveils the machine - Burn After Reading (honestly, who could possibly enjoy THAT?)

Madame Gaudens’ confession - A Girl Cut in Two

Incident at the race track - My Winnipeg

Most hilarious random line of the year: “When it comes to women, you’re Michael Jordan. I’m… Bill Laimbeer.” - Baghead

The new army suits up for battle - Role Models

Alex takes a shower - Paranoid Park

Brandi forgets her cell phone - Stuck

Black Kold Medina puts on a show - Trouble the Water

Runaway penguin - Encounters at the End of the World

Jung-rae Kim diagrams his neuroses - Woman on the Beach

Alex’s sex surprise, both inevitable and strangely erotic - XXY

The director’s big exit - Tropic Thunder

Most unlikely tearjerking moment of the year: Fred Knittle sings “Fix You”, Young@Heart

Three-way fist fight: Seth Rogen vs. James Franco vs. Danny McBride - Pineapple Express

The Richard McGuire segment - Fear(s) of the Dark

Ninjas! - In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (yes, really)

And finally, my five favorite openings and finales of the year:

Perfect openings: “Put on Your Sunday Clothes”, WALL*E; Sunrise, Silent Light; The piano, The Silence Before Bach; The Jean-Claude Van Damme Stunt Spectacular, JCVD; The Legend of Po, Kung Fu Panda

Great final scenes (no spoilers): Synecdoche, New York, The Duchess of Langeais, Shine a Light, The Visitor, Burn After Reading

I would invite all of you to share some of your favorites in the comments section. After all, I’m surely missing at least a couple of really good ones.

DVD Digest for December 9, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:00:00 GMT

This week brings a number of interesting possible Christmas gifts for the DVD lover in your life, no matter what his or her taste might be.

DVD of the Week: There are probably about half a dozen DVDs coming out today that I’d be happy to receive for Christmas. But if, say, some unnamed benefactor with deep pockets was to give me any of this week’s new releases (hint hint), the one I would want most would be the Murnau, Borzage and Fox DVD Collection (Fox). Spotlighting two of Fox’s most celebrated silent filmmakers- F.W. Murnau and Frank Borzage- the set collects a dozen of their great American silents, from Murnau’s City Girl and Sunrise to Borzage’s 7th Heaven and Street Angel. But while the films alone would justify the purchase, the set is also filled with extras that should prove to be catnip for silent film junkies, including a feature-length documentary about the filmmakers, several commentary tracks, and the alternate European cut of Murnau’s masterpiece Sunrise. Perhaps most exciting is the inclusion of material related to Murnau’s famous lost film 4 Devils, including the screenplay, a stills gallery, and a documentary about the film. All in all, it’s the perfect Christmas gift for the movie nerd in your life, not least if that movie nerd is me.

Of course, if you’re on a budget, that movie nerd would probably be happy with a number of this week’s other releases. Also worth mentioning on the classics front is the release of two of the most inventive films of the 1990s, Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep (Zeitgeist) and Lars Von Trier’s Europa (Criterion), released in the U.S. as Zentropa. Also of note are a pair of double-feature DVDs from Warner, one containing Chamber of Horrors and The Brides of Fu Manchu, the other pairing The Shuttered Room and It!

If the DVD nut in your life is more of a TV watcher, you could do a hell of a lot worse than HBO’s massive box sets of The Wire: The Complete Series (HBO) and Deadwood: The Complete Series (HBO). Or if he’s more into brain-teasing fantasy, give Lost Season 4 (Disney, also Blu-Ray) a spin. And the classic TV nut should go for Get Smart: The Complete Series (Universal).

If you’re looking for some discs to go with the snazzy new Blu-Ray player you’re getting Christmas morning, this week brings the comedy triple feature of Dodgeball (Fox), The Mask (Warner), and Super Troopers (Fox).

Finally, this week’s new releases on DVD include something for the kids (Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! [Fox, also Blu-Ray]), something for the ladies (Sex and the City: The Movie Ultimate Collector’s Edition [Warner]), and something for the documentary fans (James Marsh’s stunning Man on Wire [Magnolia]). Oh, and there’s a little something called The Dark Knight (Warner, also Blu-Ray) coming out this week. I figure it’ll sell at least a few copies, but don’t quote me on that.

Thursday Morning Poll for September 11, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

With the year two-thirds over, we thought it was a good time to look back at some of the most acclaimed titles of 2008 so far. But while IMDb users and tough-talking bands of blog commenters are largely in agreement that The Dark Knight is pretty much the greatest thing ever (or at least since The Shawshank Redemption), it might come as a surprise that the Screengrab readership does not concur with this opinion. To wit: in last week’s poll of the top five best-reviewed major releases of 2008 (according to Rotten Tomatoes), the winner was Pixar’s latest contemporary classic, Wall-E, which brought in 39% of the vote. Furthermore, The Dark Knight actually tied for second (22% of the vote apiece) with a film that was never released on more than fifty screens at any given time, last year’s Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. As for me, I cast my vote for the James Marsh’s thrilling documentary Man on Wire, which came in a solid fourth (17%) but at least fared better than Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winner The Counterfeiters, which garnered no votes whatsoever.

This week, in conjunction with my colleague Andrew Osborne’s run-down of the biggest hits and flops of the summer, we get your opinions on the hottest tickets from the last four months. As you might have guessed, two of the titles this week were also included in last week’s poll, but we’re hoping that perhaps some of you Iron Man fans out there were waiting for your chance to cast your vote here. So, which of the summer’s biggest box-office winners was your favorite?

Favorite of this summer's biggest blockbusters? | BuzzDash polls

In addition, we’d like to know how many of the summer’s reigning blockbusters you managed to see.

How many of the blockbusters in question did you see? | BuzzDash polls

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

When Is A Documentary Not A Documentary?

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

That's the question that William Goss is asking at Cinematical. Documentaries, long thought to be boring slogs that were designed to educate first and entertain fifth, have recently started making big money and attracting media attention. With that, they've also started to become entertaining first and informative last; and now, catering to an audience no longer consisting only of the fringe elements who liked documentaries for their own sake, their only previous requirement -- that they be true -- has come under increasing scrutiny.

"At what point did we begin to craft documentary filmmaking specifically to the masses," asks Goss, referring specifically to the Breakast Club-esque, heavily choreographed American Teen, "and then what happens when the masses just don't show?" And more than that, what happens when, in service to those massess, documentaries absolve themselves of their most sacred trust -- to reflect reality -- and start become something entirely different?

Obviously, this isn't the first time documentaries have blurred those particular lines in hopes of finding an audience. Going as far back as Nanook of the North, we find scenes that are staged, reshot, or otherwise tinkered with. Recreations have been a hot issue since the debut of Errol Morris' work; old Disney nature documentaries frequently blurred or even fabricated the truth about their subjects; and ideological bias has been an issue in documentary film since long before there was a Michael Moore. But in recent years, it's become a more important question than ever, with such popular films as March of the Penguins, which used manipulated footage on its way to becoming one of the biggest documentary successes of all time, the similar Arctic Tale, and the upcoming Morning Light, an alleged real-life documentary about sailing in which the cast is selected no differently than that of a sitcom.

Goss isn't entirely convinced this is a bad thing. He cites, in particular, cites Man On Wire (with its many reenactments) and Operation Filmmaker (whose protagonist abandons the 'role' crafted for him) as being excellent films depite the blurring of reality and fiction. But it does leave open copious questions. "The challenge remains for documentaries to double as entertainments," he says; but how much compromise can be made in service of that worthwhile goal?

Tribeca Film Festival Review: "Man on Wire"

Phil Nugent — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:00:00 GMT

James Marsh's documentary Man on Wire may not be the best movie in the Tribeca Film Festival--it feels a little drawn-out at 94 minutes, and it includes "dramatic reconstructions" that, mixed in with home movies and news footage, create confusion about whether what we're seeing is real or staged--but it's easy to see why it belongs in the Tribeca Film Festival. As everyone knows, the festival was created in the wake of, and as a response to, the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and the movie is about one of the few moments in the WTC's history that can only be called likable: the day of August 7, 1974, when Philippe Petit, a self-taught wire walker and master of other carny skills, such as picking pockets, managed to hang a wire between the two towers and perform on it, some 1300 feet above the ground. Interviewed in the movie along with his various accomplices, Petit, who couldn't be more elfinly French if he were played by Dominique Pinon, says that he knew that he had to do it when he first learned of the WTC's construction, years before the buildings were finished; while he was working the kinks out of his plan, he warmed up by performing similar illegal wire walks above Notre Dame Cathedral and Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Marsh's film, which is an entertaining curio, builds up to the triumphant big moment by letting the principles lay out how the scheme came together. (For Petit, getting out on that wire was nothing compared to smuggling his equipment into the building and up onto a high floor so that the wire itself could be set in place.) It can't be said that the movie does much for the legend of the American can-do spirit; of the three Americans in in the plot, one of them panicked and bailed at a crucial moment and another was summarily dispensed by Petit for turning up at a planning session while stoned. (Asked about it now, the man says, "I smoked pot every day for thirty-five years. I don't know why I wouldn't have smoked it that day.") As for the third local member of the team, the "inside man" Barry Greenhouse, his mustache alone is cause to suspect that he's really a Martian who took a job working in an office on the 82nd floor of Tower Two just to make ends meet. For New York audiences, the real star of the movie will be the cop who turns up in news footage at the end to explain it all to the TV cameras in an accent that would bring tears to Clifford Odets's eyes and with the kind of phrasing that you only encounter when a New York cop decides to get all precise on your ass. Calling Petit "a wire dancer" because "you couldn't really call him a wire walker" based on what he saw him doing out there, the cop says that it was explained to Petit's partner in crime that if he didn't come inside, "we were gonna get a helicopter out there and pluck him" off the wire, whereupon the accomplice began to "shout at him in French," which made perfect sense when you think about it, "seeing as how he's from France."

Sundance: The Final Roundup

Scott Von Doviak — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:51:00 GMT

It’s all over except for the long lines at security in the Salt Lake City airport. The awards were handed out last night by a jury featuring Quentin Tarantino and Marcia Gay Harden, and the top honors went to a couple of politically-charged pictures that flew under the radar for most of the festival. The grand jury prize for drama went to Frozen River, writer-director Courtney Hunt’s film about two women smuggling immigrants across the Canadian border. The top prize for documentaries went to Trouble the Water, about New Orleans families struggling in the aftermath of Katrina.

But that’s not all. As Kenneth Turan notes, awards were handed out like Halloween candy this year, with top audience prizes going to The Wackness and Fields of Fuel. Other notable recipients include American Teen (for dramatic directing), Man on Wire (for world documentary) and Choke (special jury prize for ensemble cast). Over at Slamdance, a documentary about a Neil Diamond cover band (Song Sung Blue) was the big winner.

In addition to its award, The Wackness picked up a distributor. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures Classics will ensure that you get the opportunity to watch Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen swapping spit.

And on that note, that’s a wrap for this year. Let’s hit the slopes!