The Screengrab : vicky cristina barcelona

Scarlett Johansson: The Unkindest Cut

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Scarlett Johansson has the best boobs in Hollywood, according to a (no doubt very scientific) poll conducted by Access Hollywood. But that’s not the sort of news we report here at the Screengrab. No, no, no, we’re above that sort of thing here, which is probably why we’re doomed. What matters to us is what appears on the screen – or in this case, what disappears. You see, Ms. Johansson’s long-awaited directorial debut will have its premiere on the cutting room floor.

“The 24-year-old star of The Black Dahlia and Vicky Cristina Barcelona shot a segment for New York, I Love You, a series of linked love stories directed by different people, including Natalie Portman and Brett Ratner,” according to the Daily Mail. “But her episode, shot in black and white and starring Kevin Bacon, was 'unwatchable,' sources told the New York Post.”

Unwatchable! Now there’s a word that makes my eyes well with tears of pride. The film’s producer, Emmanuel Benbihy, has a much more diplomatic explanation for the excision of Scarlett’s segment. “The story did not specifically involve an interpersonal relationship, and it was conceptualised to be filmed in black and white – both of which were extreme departures from the other films… Scarlett presented me with an extremely compelling, albeit unconventional, narrative that appeared as though it would not necessarily conform to the overall approach of the entire collective.”

All is not lost, however. The Johansson short will appear on the DVD release of New York, I Love You. And we’ll always have her boobs.

Spirit Awards Unveiled; Mickey Rourke Crazy Train Rolls On

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:11:00 GMT

SEVEN THINGS I DISCOVERED WHILE WATCHING THE SPIRIT AWARDS ON IFC YESTERDAY:

1. Steve Coogan is a better host than Rainn Wilson. But then again, so am I.

2. Melissa Leo takes the whole "indie spirit" thing way, way too seriously (and the "fashion" thing way, way too not seriously).

3. Teri Hatcher can neither sing nor dance, nor is she funny, making her a curious choice to perform a comical musical tribute to Wendy & Lucy.

4. On the day of her big make-out scene with Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen had a panic attack about a mysterious freckle he'd just discovered and rushed to a doctor to get it checked out. (But apparently it was nothing).

5. Rosie Perez thinks Penelope Cruz is a fly bitch.

6. According to Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts did something terrible fifteen years ago. But Hollywood should forgive him.

7. We're all going to be really, really sick of Mickey Rourke by next year's Spirit Awards (if not much, much sooner).

As for the rest of what I learned watching the live broadcast from a big tent in Santa Monica, here's a list of the 2009 Spirit Award Winners:

Best Feature
The Wrestler

Best Director
Tom McCarthy, The Visitor

Best Screenplay
Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best First Feature
Synecdoche, New York (Director: Charlie Kaufman)

Best First Screenplay
Dustin Lance Black, Milk

John Cassavetes Award (For the Best Feature made for under $500,000)
In Search of a Midnight Kiss (Writer/Director: Alex Holdridge)

Best Supporting Female
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Supporting Male
James Franco, Milk

Best Female Lead
Melissa Leo, Frozen River

Best Male Lead
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

Best Cinematography
Maryse Alberti, The Wrestler

Best Foreign Film
The Class (Director: Laurent Cantet)

Best Documentary
Man on Wire (Director: James Marsh)

Screengrab Predicts The Oscars: Winners (Part Three)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:00:00 GMT

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

And the nominees are...

Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey, Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road

Paul Clark Predicts: Heath Ledger

Probably the most iron-clad pick of the major nominees, giving Hollywood a chance to honor one of their brightest young talents who was gone far too soon. Although if by some chance there’s a sentiment out there to give it to someone who’s still around, I’d say Brolin would be the best bet -- Hoffman just won, Shannon’s lucky just to be nominated, and they’d never give Downey an Oscar for a performance that controversial. But yeah, this is Ledger’s all the way.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Heath Ledger

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Heath Ledger

Josh Brolin’s terrific performance in Milk may be diffused by the fact that he’s surrounded by other great supporting roles. Downey deserved his nomination, but won’t get it in a million years. But really, what are we even talking about here? If there’s ever been, forgive me, a mortal lock in the history of the Oscars, it’s Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.

Should Win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Will Win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Nick Schager Predicts: Heath Ledger

Iconic role in an immense blockbuster? And it’s his final performance? Ledger is this year’s sure bet.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Heath Ledger

Any other year, Philip Seymour Hoffman, since he's in enough high profile movies this year to warrant it. Rightfully, though the award belongs to Josh Brolin. This being not a normal year, but rather The Year Heath Ledger Died, he will get posthumously rewarded.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Heath Ledger

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: HEATH LEDGER

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

And the nominees are...

Amy Adams – Doubt
Penélope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler

Paul Clark Predicts: Viola Davis

I’d say this is between Davis and Cruz, but the role wins it for Davis. After all, the role has already brought home a Tony, and while it’s tempting to think Cruz could accept the Oscar from her boyfriend and Vicky Cristina Barcelona costar Javier Bardem, Davis’ Oscar clip will be hard to beat.

Andrew Osborne Predicts: Viola Davis

I really, really want Penélope Cruz to win this, simply because she gave (for me, anyway) the most memorable Supporting Actress performance of the year...but the Academy hates comedy and loves drama, especially snot-running down the face “Oscar” moments like Viola Davis’ cameo in Doubt. Plus...diversity! And, hey, Viola ain't no slouch and totally knocked her scene outta the park, so no hard feelings. Taraji P. Henson doesn’t deserve it: she was likeable enough, but her performance was all about make-up, so I’ll be mad if she wins. Amy Adams doesn’t deserve it, either: she was fine, but the role was fairly bland. And I wouldn’t mind seeing Marisa Tomei win, but I’m guessing the Mickey Rooney wing of the Academy watched about five minutes of The Wrestler before snapping it off in disgust and reaching for that nice Benjamin Button screener again...

Leonard Pierce Predicts: Marisa Tomei

To hear a lot of the entertainment pundits tell it, Marisa Tomei is a stone cold lock for her role in The Wrestler, but I’m not convinced. She still catches a decent amount of flak from critics who don’t think she deserved her first Oscar. Viola Davis seems the most deserving for Doubt, but may suffer from a vote-split with Amy Adams. This one may be the most difficult of the major categories to call.

Should Win: Viola Davis, Doubt
Will Win: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

Nick Schager Predicts: Viola Davis

Davis takes supporting actress honors, because Doubt has to win something. And because Woody Allen’s excruciating Barcelona-travelogue-cum-phony-threesome-dramedy can’t in any way be honored. Please.

Sarah Clyne Sundberg Predicts: Viola Davis

Because she was that good and because the Academy will want to throw something Doubt's way.

Scott Von Doviak Predicts: Penélope Cruz

SCREENGRAB CONSENSUS: VIOLA DAVIS

Stay tuned for no Miley Cyrus, no Bruce Springsteen, no Jon Stewart and some Indian guy called Gulzar as the Screengrab 2009 Oscar Special continues!

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

Thursday Poll for January 29, 2009

Paul Clark — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

With Oscar nominations, there of course comes the second-guessing. While many of our favorites made the cut this year, it seems like just as many got the shaft. But which was most egregiously snubbed? In a shocking turn of events, the Best Picture omission of fanboy favorite The Dark Knight was narrowly edged out by Academy voters’ lack of love for Happy-Go-Lucky’s persistently positive Poppy, Sally Hawkins. Hawkins’ non-nomination brought in 37% of the vote (compared to Dark Knight’s 32%), and prompted Steve C. to ask how the Academy could honor the screenplay for Mike Leigh’s film but not Hawkins herself. Astute question, Steve, and I’d add that it’s doubly odd considering that, this being a Mike Leigh film, Hawkins would no doubt have had a good amount of input on the screenplay, given his methods. Coming in third and fourth place, respectively, were Clint Eastwood’s growly star turn in Gran Torino and The Boss' title track from The Wrestler. Finally, only 5% of the voters found Woody Allen’s inability to procure a fifteenth Best Original Screenplay nomination for Vicky Cristina Barcelona to be the Academy’s biggest oversight this year. I guess that makes sense, since after all, it’s not like he’ll show up for the ceremony anyway…

Moving on to the movies that were nominated, I find myself surprisingly unmoved by this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees. Maybe it’s just that we’re coming off a year in which not only did I actually like all five nominated movies, but I thought that two of them- including the eventual winner- were out-and-out masterpieces. This year, on the other hand… yeesh. Of the five nominees, I can only claim to have liked two of them, and I wasn’t even all that keen on those. How about you? How many of this year’s Best Picture nominees did you like?

(In case you’ve forgotten, and I wouldn’t blame you if you have, the Best Picture nominees are: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire)

How many of this year's Best Picture nominations did you LIKE? | BuzzDash polls

Bonus poll: much has been made of how this year’s Best Picture nominees are the least box-office-friendly in years, with only one having played in more than 1,000 prior to nomination day. So, just for curiosity’s sake, how many of this year’s Best Picture nominees have you seen?

How many of this year's Best Picture nominations have you SEEN? | BuzzDash polls

As always, the comments section is open. Please keep death threats addressed to non-Dark Knight nominating Academy members to a minimum. See you next week!

DVD Digest for January 27, 2009

Paul Clark — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

This week, a whole bunch of late-summer/early-fall releases are coming on DVD to help soothe the midwinter moviegoing blues.

Of this week’s bumper crop of recent theatrical releases coming to DVD, the most noteworthy is Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Genius Products, also Blu-Ray), which became the Woodman’s biggest hit in years due in no small part to the promise of hot Penelope Cruz-on-Scarlett Johansson action. That it was also a welcome change of scenery for the filmmaker- shooting for the first time in Spain- helped matters somewhat as well. It’s definitely worth a look if you haven’t seen it yet- come for the sexy stuff, stay for the memorable performances by Oscar nominee Cruz, Javier Bardem playing a character 180 degrees removed from his Anton Chigurh, and the ever-dependable Rebecca Hall.

Also this week, Warner unleashes the cops’n’robbers trifecta of Edward Norton and Colin Farrell in Pride and Glory (also Blu-Ray), Neil LaBute’s Lakeview Terrace (also Blu-Ray), and Guy Ritchie’s Rocknrolla (also Blu-Ray). Other releases include: Rainn Wilson in The Rocker (Fox, also Blu-Ray); Kirk Cameron’s inspirational melodrama Fireproof (Sony), the Iraq War drama The Lucky Ones (Lionsgate); Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Image), a docuymentary about the filmmaker’s controversial court case; the French thriller Tell No One (MPI); the babes-and-binge-drinking comedy College (Fox); and a pair of direct-to-DVD animated releases, Hulk Vs. (Lionsgate, also Blu-Ray) and Open Season 2 (Sony, also Blu-Ray).

This week’s selection of classics coming to DVD is highlighted by MGM’s The Pink Panther Film Collection (MGM), which includes all of the films including a new pressing of the original, also available in separately as The Pink Panther (1963) Collector’s Edition (MGM, also Blu-Ray). There’s also The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection (MGM), a nine-disc set of the televised Pink Panther shorts. All of this Pink Panther news might be happier if it didn’t portend the release of the second crappy remake starring Steve Martin, but what can you do. Also this week: Mary Poppins 45th Anniversary Edition (Disney).

Finally, the big Blu-Ray only news this week is the release of Universal’s The Bourne Collection, which includes all three theatrical features (sorry, no Richard Chamberlain TV movie), along with a raft of extras. Also this week: Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday Director’s Cut (Warner), the college band drama Drumline Special Edition (Fox), and the annual release of Groundhog Day (Sony).

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)

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

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:46:00 GMT

6. THE WACKNESS

Thoughtful, well-made coming-of-age stories are usually popular, and weed has been making a cinematic comeback lately, so I’m not exactly sure why The Wackness in general and Josh Peck’s charming turn as wistful pot dealer Luke Shapiro didn’t make more of a splash in 2008. Writer/director Jonathan Levine’s evocation of Manhattan circa 1994 feels as specific and lived-in as Ben Braddock’s Pasadena or Lloyd Dobler’s Washington suburb, and it’s hard to think of a better first-love interest than Olivia Thirlby. I posted a full review of the movie back in June when it first charmed me at the Provincetown Film Festival, so rather than repeat all that praise, I’ll just paraphrase Thirlby’s character and say the film wound up on my Top Ten because, in a difficult year, it reminded me to look at the dopeness and not just the wackness.

7. FULL BATTLE RATTLE

Full Battle Rattle is a documentary by Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber about a simulated Iraqi province in California’s Mojave desert, populated by Iraqi-American citizens and U.S. Army “insurgents” in a full-immersion training scenario where soldiers practice both their combat and diplomacy skills before heading off to the real war in Iraq. At first, it’s funny to watch battles interrupted by visits from the ice cream man as the military combines role-playing and stagecraft to create what seems like a strange, gorey theme park or game show (complete with graphically wounded mannequin “casualties,” designed to prepare fledgling medics for the realities of war). But it’s those harsh realities waiting for the participants beyond all the play-acting that provide the film with its emotional core, as we come to know the various players, including an Iraqi immigrant terrified of being deported and an American combat vet who admits, tellingly, that after returning from a tour of duty, it takes him several days to start viewing his Iraqi colleagues as people again (as opposed to potential enemies). By the time the simulation ends and the soldiers we’ve come to know say goodbye to their families and ship out to an uncertain future, the lady next to me in the movie theater was openly weeping, and there seemed to be something in my eye as well.

8. IRON MAN

I’ve gone on record about my utter bafflement over the messianic fervor surrounding The Dark Knight, a good but occasionally clunky superhero movie featuring an entertaining performance by a talented actor who died far too young. But I still don’t see why Heath Ledger’s Brad Dourif-ian performance as The Joker is considered groundbreaking or revelatory: compare its evocation of evil to Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and then get back to me. And I’m still not really sure why Batman’s deliberations over civil liberties vs. public safety are especially more profound than Iron Man’s growing awareness of the consequences of war profiteering, except that Jon Favreau’s comic book adaptation takes itself far less seriously while delivering its tightly paced (but not over-written) action payload. Robert Downey Jr.’s performance is nowhere near as flashy or iconic as Ledger’s, of course – a typical downside of playing the good guy – but it’s miles ahead of Christian Bale’s stiff-in-a-suit Caped Crusader. Downey is fun and fascinating to watch, infusing a potentially one-dimensional role with the gravity and humanity of hard-won experience, as well as the humility of a man all too aware he could very easily have shared Ledger’s fate.

9. IN BRUGES

Who is this incredibly engaging, charismatic actor named Colin Farrell, and why haven’t I seen him on the big screen before now? Oh, sure, I’m familiar with his doppelganger: that brooding, constipated Irish guy with the same name who kept threatening to be the next big thing for several years, but never quite arrived thanks to performances in a succession of mezzo-mezzo movies that never quite connected with audiences. But the Farrell who plays the guilt-ridden hit man Ray in Martin McDonagh’s funny, suspenseful crime drama In Bruges is a true movie star, well-paired with Brendan Gleeson as the soulful mentor waiting for the other shoe to drop in the titular Belgian town after a botched assignment brings down the wrath of crime boss Ralph Fiennes (who likewise has never been quite so compelling on screen). The beautiful but claustrophobic confines of the distinctive setting and the pervasive undertow of regret gives Bruges a richer flavor than, say, a fun but ultimately disposable Guy Ritchie offering like RockNRolla, even if McDonagh’s film isn’t ultimately all that much more than the sum of its high quality parts.

10. VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

Until three seconds ago, I was planning to include Slumdog Millionaire in the final slot of this list, if only for the energy and scope of Danny Boyle’s storytelling mojo. But as I started to think and write about it, I realized the film as a whole simply left me cold. On the other hand, there was no lack of heat in Woody Allen’s latest comeback film, which is possibly why I have warmer memories of it. Penelope Cruz's performance as the hot-blooded trois in the ménage between Scarlett Johansson’s feckless American tourist and Javier Bardem’s Spanish art stud is probably better than the movie itself, but Allen still has some interesting things to say about the chimerical nature of love, the conflicting desires of the brain, heart and libido and the way smart people consistently outsmart themselves by refusing to acknowledge what they really want, even when they somehow manage to find it. (And, of course, the fact the movie unfolds against a backdrop of gorgeous Spanish locations doesn’t hurt, either.)

Honorable Mention: Wellness, Goliath, Turn the River, American Teen, Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, Tell No One, Ghost Town, Burn After Reading, The Bank Job, RockNRolla, Role Models, Quantum of Solace, Slumdog Millionaire, Doubt

Worst Movies I Actually Saw:
Patti Smith: Dream of Life, Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, What Just Happened?

Worst Movie I Didn’t See:
An American Carol

Most Overrated:
The Dark Knight (see above)

Most Overcriticized:
The Happening

Respected More Than Liked:
Synechdoche

TOP TV:
The Wire
Mad Men
The Amazing Race
The Daily Show & The Colbert Report
Survivor: Micronesia & Gabon
Breaking Bad
The Soup
Everybody Hates Chris
Recount
Generation Kill
Project Runway
True Blood

2008 SOUNDTRACK
“No One” – Alicia Keyes
“Pretty Blue” – Moonflower
“Paper Planes” – M.I.A.
“Wichita Lineman” – Glen Campbell
“Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” – Beyonce
“Sex Changes” – The Dresden Dolls
“Shoot the Runner” – Kasabian
“Still Alive” – GLaDOS
“Sax Rohmer, Pt. 1” – The Mountain Goats
“M79” – Vampire Weekend
“I Am Commando” – The NorthAtom
“I’m Good. I’m Gone” – Lykke Li
“Belleville Rendezvous” – The Triplets of Belleville (Soundtrack)
“Happy Days Are Here Again” – Barbara Streisand

Click Here For Part One

Screengrab Presents: Cinema's Greatest Comebacks (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

“Don’t call it a comeback, I been here for years,” implored L.L. Cool J (shortly before his mother told him to knock us unconscious), raising an interesting point in the endless Hollywood parlor game of career perception: after all, the recent Golden Globe nominations for Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem would seem to mark Vicky Cristina Barcelona as a return to form for Woody Allen...but what then to make of the fact that Match Point, Sweet & Lowdown, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Crimes & Misdemeanors, etc. etc. were all considered phoenix-like returns to form in the Woodman’s prolific (and sometimes crappy) oeuvre? How many times can a person come back if they never really go away?

Sometimes, though (as in the case of pugilist/thespian Mickey Rourke), the weepy entertainment magazine profiles and welcome home parties seem entirely appropriate. After all, the one-time heartthrob used to be a bona fide movie star (and light bondage icon) thanks to hits like Diner and 9 ½ Weeks, and though he’s done interesting work since then in films like Buffalo '66 and Spun, among others, there’s a big difference between co-starring with Eric Roberts and generating Oscar buzz.

Sure, Rourke essentially torpedoed his own career by stomping around like the Pope of Douchebag Village for years and years...but as the auto and financial industries have shown, everybody gets a second chance in America, no matter how bad you fuck up (unless, of course, you’re poor).

So, in honor of this week’s release of The Wrestler, we here at The Screengrab hereby salute...THE GREATEST COMEBACKS OF ALL TIME!

(And stay tuned next week as we ask Santa for THE COMEBACKS WE’D MOST LIKE TO SEE!)

JACK NICHOLSON in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983)

Though you could be forgiven for not believing it, there was a stretch there where it looked touch and go for the continued health of Jack Nicholson's continued career and reputation. After winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Nicholson jumped head first into a series of high-profile ventures -- The Missouri Breaks, Goin' South (which he also directed), The Postman Always Rings Twice, and, yes, friends, The Shining, which did disappointing box office and was badly mauled by most reviewers. However many fans it's racked up in the years since, the reaction to his performance in The Shining was typical: the conventional wisdom was quickly turning towards the direction that a man once capable of sensitive work had turned into an eyeball-rolling self-parodist, and in a Playboy interview published a year before his 1982 death, the gentle-spirited Henry Fonda criticized Nicholson for having thrown away his career and disgracing his profession. The actor's critical reputation began to recover around the time the magazine hit the stands, starting with his supporting performance in Reds and then with his starring role in the little-seen The Border, but it was Terms of Endearment that set the tone for Nicholson's successful reinvention of himself as a post-counterculture elder statesman who styled himself as a broad but soulful entertainer, someone who was still prone to go over the top but could usually make you love him for it. It could be argued that Nicholson lost something beautiful in the process -- as Anthony Lane later wrote, Nicholson rose to stardom as a man who seemed deeply pained by the state of the world, and sustained his stardom into old age by turning into someone who seemed very pleased with himself -- but it was still an audacious pull back from the career abyss. The role of the pear-shaped horndog Garrett Breedlove won him a second Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actor, neatly bookending his time of trouble. It also established that he was smarter than Burt Reynolds, who famously turned the role down to honor his commitment to Hal Needham to do Stroker Ace, which in career terms was like honoring his commitment to show up in front of the firing squad at dawn with a cigarette in his mouth and the blindfold in place.

AL PACINO in SEA OF LOVE (1989)

This entertaining, twisty little thriller made the leap to event status on the strength of its announcement that Pacino had returned to functionability. Pacino had entered into a nightmarishly sustained slump after The Godfather, Part II and Dog Day Afternoon, starring in a series of movies that rank among the very worst of their time (Bobby Deerfield, Revolution), films so thoroughly mediocre and tinny that it was impossible to imagine what appeal they'd ever had for him (...And Justice for All, Author! Author!), as well as Cruising and Scarface, which, for whatever cult status they would come to enjoy, earned him more in bad press at the time than they did in good reviews or box office. Compared to some of those misfires, the relative modesty of Sea of Love was part of its appeal at the time: it was a relief to see Pacino, returning to the screen, after a four-year absence, in a clever little cop opera that gave him a chance to look worn-down and middle-aged but not romantically implausible, enjoying the Richard Price-scripted byplay with such solid pros as John Goodman and Richard Jenkins, and -- an eternal Pacino specialty -- demonstrating that he wasn't afraid to pitch on-screen woo with an actress (Ellen Barkin) who looked as if she could fold him up and stick him in her purse. His spirit refreshed, Pacino was back a year later as Big Boy Caprice in Dick Tracy, happily gnawing the last traces of meat from the hambone.

CHRISTOPHER LEE in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001) & STAR WARS EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES (2002)

Lee has scarcely stopped working since entering movies in the late 1940s, but his ghettoized stardom in horror movies failed to translate into mainstream screen prominence, and as the decades went by, he seemed most likely to appear in high-profile pictures when the director was someone like Joe Dante or Tim Burton, who'd cut his teeth on Hammer films and felt an affectionate debt of gratitude to the old gent. Which is nice, but self-paroding cameos in Gremlins 2 and Sleepy Hollow do not a comeback make. The first real sign in years that the then-78-year-old Lee still had strapping reserves of energy going to waste came when he turned up in the 2000 BBC version of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, where he was dashingly costumed and looked and moved like a man twenty years younger. But the cherries on top of his career came with his villainous performances as Rings' malignant sorcerer Saruman and the abuser of the Force Lord Dooku -- subtle, George -- which, by drawing on memories of his screen past even as they threaded him into the texture of the two biggest multi-part fantasy series of the turn of the century, honored his career while tying it up with a handsome bow. After which, Lee being Lee, he called his agent and went back to work.

DENNIS HOPPER & DEAN STOCKWELL in BLUE VELVET (1986)

For most of his career, Hopper had led the league in blackballings, being driven out of the acting profession by the director Henry Hathaway, then remaking himself as a director and returning in glory with the 1969 Easy Rider. The box office success of that movie was so bewildering to the studios that Hopper was given a big bag with a dollar sign on it and absolute creative freedom to do whatever he wanted for his next movie as director, which resulted in 1971's The Last Movie...and cue blackballing number two. Hopper would spend most of the next fifteen years reeling from his intake of drugs and drink while working on a string of offbeat projects for European and American maverick directors, ranging from Apocalypse Now and Rumble Fish for Coppola and Wim Wenders' The American Friend to Neil Young's Human Highway, Henry Jaglom's Tracks and Orson Welles' unfinished The Other Side of the Wind. His performances in most of them were pretty unsteady; Hopper seemed to have his notion of artistry boiled down to the actor's willingness to do anything, but nobody ever hesitated to hire Dennis Hopper because they were concerned that he might not be crazy enough. He's said that Blue Velvet, one of a string of films he appeared in around 1986 which also includes River's Edge, Hoosiers, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Part II, was the first job he'd gotten after getting clean and sober, though he apparently almost talked himself out of it by telling David Lynch that he had to play Frank Booth because he was Frank Booth, after which Lynch considered hiding under the table. It's a measure of how impressed Hollywood was with both Hopper's performance and the sheer feat of rendering himself employable that Entertainment Tonight had a camera installed in Hopper's home when the Academy Award nominees were announced on television so that they could record his reaction, it being a forgone conclusion that his name would be among those read aloud. (It's a measure of just how freaked out Hollywood was by Blue Velvet that the E.T. cameras got to record Hopper's momentary confusion when it turned out that he'd been nominated instead for his work in Hoosiers.) Hopper's long shadow also obscured some of the triumph of his Blue Velvet co-star, one-scene wonder Dean Stockwell, who had also appeared with him in The Last Movie, Tracks, and Human Highway. A child actor back in the 1940s, Stockwell had kept his career going into adulthood, winning the Best Actor award at Cannes for 1959's Compulsion and co-starring with Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, and Jason Robards in 1962's Long Day's Journey into Night. He went counterculture and turned his back on Hollywood in the late '60s and '70s, then slowly began creeping back with parts in Paris, Texas and To Live and Die in L.A., as well as Lynch's Dune, which he later told an interviewer was the only role he wanted badly enough to screen test for. (The interviewer next asked if he'd care to explain why he'd wanted it so badly. Stockwell replied that he'd rather not.) But it was his performance in Blue Velvet that made him hot enough that he could quit his second job hustling real estate.

JOHN TRAVOLTA in PULP FICTION (1994)

Travolta may have mixed feelings about having had his career resurrected by Quentin Tarantino, given that he's been known to insist to interviewers that he wasn't that far down the ladder when Pulp Fiction broke -- those Look Who's Talking movies made a lot of darn money, thank you very much! -- but most people who cared knew that Tarantino's dialogue and taste in hair extensions restored cachet and hipness to a star brand that had gotten badly devalued since 1981. Travolta cemented his comeback with Get Shorty, a project that he, yes, turned down before Tarantino called him up and advised him to snap to attention. His filmography since then has more than its fair share of stinkers, but it's better remembered now than it was in 1993 that he really is a terrific actor, and he retains the special dignity of a star who came back after being depicted as having been reduced to tending bar in a '70s nostalgia club on an episode of The Simpsons, an episode on which -- the ultimate indignity! -- he didn't even get to provide his own self-mocking voice. And, lest we forget, he did get to name Harry Knowles's site.

Click Here For Part Two, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent

Morning Deal Report: Golden Globe Nominees Announced, NY Critics Sound Off

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button lead the way with five nominations each, as the Golden Globe nominees were announced this morning. Both were nominated for Best Drama, along with The Reader, Revolutionary Road and Slumdog Millionaire. Meryl Streep is nominated for both Doubt and Mamma Mia, matched by Kate Winslet for The Reader and Revolutionary Road. Other acting nominees include Sean Penn for Milk, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler and Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight – the sole Bat-nomination. Check out the full roster here.

The New York Film Critics Circle drank up Milk, naming it the best movie of the year and honoring Penn and Josh Brolin for their performances. Happy-Go-Lucky earned kudos for director Mike Leigh and star Sally Hawkins. Penelope Cruz took Supporting Actress honors for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Here's the full list.

“Ben Stiller is set to replace Mark Ruffalo in Greenburg, a comedy-drama Noah Baumbach is writing and directing,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Ruffalo dropped out after the shooting death of his brother last week. Greenburg “is expected to center on the intimacies of relationships in the manner of Baumbach's other films,” if that helps.

Related:
Globes Without Glitter
Auto-Baumbach-graphies

Screengrab Review: "Frost/Nixon"

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:30:00 GMT

I’ve been spending the waning days of the George W. Bush era immersed in Nixonland. Rick Perlstein’s massive, compulsively readable tome makes a convincing case that Richard Nixon capitalized on the divisions in ‘60s America so successfully that he defined the political landscape for decades to come. I’m only halfway through the book – early 1969, to be specific – so please don’t ruin the ending for me. My guess is that Nixon is elected to three more terms and his face is carved on Mt. Rushmore.

But I kid. I’m actually aware that Mr. Nixon had something of an ignominious downfall, and that some years later he sat down to discuss the matter with British chat show host David Frost. I never would have guessed that the backstage finagling behind this momentous meeting would serve as the basis for a critically-acclaimed Broadway play, let alone a Ron Howard movie. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. But while I have my doubts that this is a story that needed to be told, Frost/Nixon tells it in such a brisk, engaging way, it’s easy to forgive a few notable missteps.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I’m convinced what has ended up on the screen here bears much resemblance to the actual behind-the-scenes intrigue of the Frost/Nixon interviews. The play by Peter Morgan (who has adapted it for the screen) is probably at least 50% speculative nonsense, but you could say the same for Robert Altman’s 1984 foray into Nixonia, Secret Honor, and that film would be no less riveting for it. Howard isn’t on Altman’s level (please, don’t stop the presses), but for the most part he stays out of the way and lets the two lead actors do their thing.

They’ve been doing that thing for a while now. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella originated the roles of Frost and Nixon on London’s West End, and Langella won a Tony for his presidential portrayal when the production moved to Broadway. As the movie opens, Frost is hosting an Australian variety show, having lost his high-profile gig on American television, and he’s itching to get back to the big time. He sees his opening when President Nixon resigns in disgrace in 1974. Working on his memoirs, the ex-Prez wants a big payday for his first exclusive TV interview, and the U.S. networks are unwilling to pony up.

Enter the unlikely Frost, a man best known for chit-chatting with lightweights. (The real Frost disputes this, insisting he had interviewed many political giants before landing the big fish.) He gets Nixon to agree to four 90-minute specials, the last of which will focus exclusively on Watergate, then sets about cobbling together a syndicated network and sponsorship agreements with the likes of Weed-Wacker in order to meet Nixon’s seven-figure price. Frost brings aboard a team of Nixon experts to help him sharpen the knives for the grand inquisition, but as filming gets underway it is Nixon who has the upper hand, gassing on at length about his accomplishments and leaving Frost gasping for air.

Can Frost pull it together in time to nail Nixon to the wall once and for all in the climactic Watergate interview? As I recall, the general reaction to the actual Nixon/Frost interview has always been…eh, not really. (The real thing is now out on DVD, although I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet.) Still, Howard and Morgan do a capable job of milking the drama out of this question, only occasionally overreaching, as in an imagined late-night drunken phone call from Nixon to Frost.

The supporting cast, including Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon and Toby Jones, is excellent, but I need to single out Rebecca Hall, mainly because I didn’t recognize her at all from Vicky Cristina Barcelona and so every time she appeared on screen I made a mental note to check IMDb as soon as I got home to find out where this wondrous being had been all my life. The ’70s style definitely works for her.

More importantly, Sheen and Langella expertly tango their way through the steps of this adversarial alliance between interviewer and subject. Sheen is equal parts showman and con man, revealing just enough vulnerability to earn our affections. Like Philip Baker Hall and to some extent Anthony Hopkins before him, Langella is a mythic, larger-than-life Nixon, but he leaves you with at least a smidgen of sympathy for the devil.

Related:
Screengrab Review: "W."
That Guy! Philip Baker Hall

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

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

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

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

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

TOP TEN FILMS:

Burn after Reading
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Defiance
Frost/Nixon
Gran Torino
Milk
WALL•E
The Wrestler

2008 Gotham Awards & 2009 Spirit Nominations Announced

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

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

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

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

THE 2009 SPIRIT AWARD NOMINATIONS

Best Feature

"Ballast"
Producers: Lance Hammer, Nina Parikh
"Frozen River"
Producers: Chip Hourihan, Heather Rae

"Rachel Getting Married"
Producers: Neda Armian, Jonathan Demme, Marc Platt

"Wendy and Lucy"
Producers: Larry Fessenden, Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani

"The Wrestler"
Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Scott Franklin

Best Director

Ramin Bahrani, "Chop Shop"
Jonathan Demme, "Rachel Getting Married"

Lance Hammer, "Ballast"

Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"

Thomas McCarthy, "The Visitor"

Best First Feature

"Afterschool"
Director: Antonio Campos
Producers: Sean Durkin, Josh Mond
"Medicine for Melancholy"
Director: Barry Jenkins
Producer: Justin Barber

"Sangre de Mi Sangre"
Director: Christopher Zalla
Producers: Per Melita, Benjamin Odell

"Sleep Dealer"
Director: Alex Rivera
Producer: Anthony Bregman

"Synecdoche, New York"
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Producers: Anthony Bregman, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Sidney Kimmel

John Cassavetes Award (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)

"In Search of a Midnight Kiss"
Writer/Director: Alex Holdridge
Producers: Seth Caplan and Scoot McNairy
"Prince of Broadway"
Director: Sean Baker
Writers: Sean Baker, Darren Dean
Producer: Darren Dean

"The Signal"
Writer/Directors: David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry
Producers: Jacob Gentry and Alexander Motiagh

"Take Out"
Writer/Directors/Producers: Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou

"Turn the River"
Writer/Director: Chris Eigeman
Producer: Ami Armstrong

Best First Screenplay

Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
Lance Hammer, "Ballast"

Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"

Jonathan Levine, "The Wackness"

Jenny Lumet, "Rachel Getting Married"

Best Screenplay

Woody Allen, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, "Sugar"

Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York"

Howard A. Rodman, "Savage Grace"

Christopher Zalla, "Sangre de Mi Sangre"

Best Female Lead

Summer Bishil, "Towelhead"
Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"

Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"

Tarra Riggs, "Ballast"

Michelle Williams, "Wendy and Lucy"

Best Male Lead

Javier Bardem, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"

Sean Penn, "Milk"

Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker"

Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler"

Best Supporting Female

Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Rosemarie DeWitt, "Rachel Getting Married"

Rosie Perez, "The Take"

Misty Upham, "Frozen River"

Debra Winger, "Rachel Getting Married"

Best Supporting Male

James Franco, "Milk"
Anthony Mackie, "The Hurt Locker"

Charlie McDermott, "Frozen River"

JimMyron Ross, "Ballast"

Haaz Sleiman, "The Visitor"

Best Cinematography

Maryse Alberti, "The Wrestler"
Lol Crowley, "Ballast"

James Laxton, "Medicine for Melancholy"

Harris Savides, "Milk"

Michael Simmonds, "Chop Shop"

Best Documentary

"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)"
Director: Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
"Encounters at the End of the World"
Director: Werner Herzog

"Man on Wire"
Director: James Marsh

"The Order of Myths"
Director: Margaret Brown

"Up the Yangtze"
Director: Yang Chung

Best Foreign Film

"The Class" (France)
Director: Laurent Cantet
"Gomorrah" (Italy)
Director: Matteo Garrone

"Hunger" (UK/Ireland)
Director: Steve McQueen

"Secret of the Grain" (France)
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche

"Silent Light" (Mexico/France/Netherlands/Germany)
Director: Carlos Reygadas

Robert Altman Award (Given to one film's director, casting director and ensemble cast)

"Synecdoche, New York"
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Casting Director: Jeanne McCarthy
Ensemble Cast: Hope Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Tom Noonan, Dianne Wiest, Michelle Williams

Someone to Watch Award

Barry Jenkins, "Medicine for Melancholy"
Nina Paley, "Sita Sings the Blues"

Lynn Shelton, "My Effortless Brilliance"

Truer Than Fiction Award

Margaret Brown, "The Order of Myths"
Sacha Gervasi, "Anvil! The Story of Anvil"

Darius Marder, "Loot"

Producers Award

Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy, "Treeless Mountain" and "I'll Come Running"
Jason Orans, "Goodbye Solo" and "Year of the Fish"

Heather Rae, "Frozen River" and "Ibid"

Thursday Poll for November 13, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday Morning Poll for September 4, 2008

Paul Clark — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:00:00 GMT

As a companion piece to Woody Allen’s new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, I used last week’s poll to spotlight the European works of Woody Allen. And while Woody has consistently begun making movies overseas in the past few years after more than three decades specializing in the New York scene, it should surprise no one that the favorite Euro-Woody film of Screengrab readers was the sole eligible film from his “early, funny” years, 1975’s Love and Death. Allen’s gag-filled satire of Russian literature brought in 53% of the vote, followed by his UK debut, Match Point, with 27%. Cassandra’s Dream and Scoop brought in 13% and 7% respectively, while Vicky Cristina garnered no votes whatsoever. So much for the persuasive power of Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz kissing.

This week, as we look forward to the fall “prestige movie season”, it does us good to look back at the best movies of the first eight months of the year. Spring and summer 2008 have brought us a number of very good arthouse releases, plus a better crop of summer movies than we’ve seen in a while. But which are the best? I checked on Rotten Tomatoes to find the most acclaimed films of the year that have received a minimum of 100 rated reviews on the site. The five contenders this week are a diverse bunch, but which is your favorite of the five?

Which do you prefer? | BuzzDash

So, what’ll it be? The latest release from the Pixar animation juggernaut? The Palme d’Or winning Romanian abortion drama? An inventive documentary about the man who walked the tightrope between the Twin Towers? The Oscar-winner for Best Foreign-Language Film? Or will it be the most buzzed-about superhero blockbuster in, well, ever? You decide. And remember, the comments section is open. See you next week!

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 16-22, 2008

Andrew Osborne — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:17:00 GMT

Hello? Oh...Mr. Rooney...what? Uh, no...Scott's not here. This is Andrew...Andrew Osborne...yes, sir, I'm another one of the writers here at The Screengrab. You may have read my ongoing autobiographical posts about the summer I spent working for Troma ...no? Well, maybe you read my special 50th birthday salute to the films of Madonna or my review of Vicky Cristina Barcelona? No? Oh, well...

...uh, what's that, sir? Scott Von Doviak? You mean the author of "Tom Cruise Still Creepy, Still Not Funny," "Anna Faris, Honorary Bunny" and "Unwatchable #74: You Got Served"? Oh, well, he's not here right now, but...

...excuse me? You've heard rumors that Scott is singing "Twist and Shout" in the streets of Chicago with his colleague Leonard Pierce, author of "Video of the Day: Sharon Stone Bares All For Paul Verhoeven," "Summerfest '08: Corvette Summer" and that cool story about the state of DC Comics film adaptations? And that Sarah Sundberg, one of the hardworking contributors to "Screengrab Salutes The Top 20 Animated Feature Films" was riding around with them in a bright red Ferrari convertible?

Oh, no, sir, I'm afraid you must be mistaken. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Scott was just in here a few minutes ago...see, he and Paul Clark were both working on their individual Fall Movie Previews and...

...excuse me? Oh...I see. You're saying nobody posted the weekly Screengrab highlight reel on Friday? Well, sir, I'm sure there must be a good reason...in fact, now that you mention it, I remember Phil Nugent telling me his friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who's pretty sure that Scott passed out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

But I'm sure if Scott were feeling better, he would have reminded everyone about the memorial for Manny Farber, the cool trailers he saw for Rachel Getting Married, a reexamination of Passion of the Christ and...

...I'm sorry? Could you repeat that, sir? "Les jeux sont faits." Yes, sir, well, I'll be sure to pass the message along if I see him.

Gummi bear?

Morning Deal Report: Harry Potter and the Half-Assed Release Date

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:00:00 GMT

The Dark Knight has finally been dislodged from its perch atop the box office charts. Tropic Thunder took over the number one slot with a weekend total of $26 million. Batman and company fell to second place with $16.8 out of a total of $471 million, which means it has passed Star Wars on the all-time list just as The Clone Wars debuts with $15.5 million. Vicky Cristina Barcelona had a blockbuster opening by Woody Allen standards, finishing the weekend in 10th place with $3.7 million.

Bad news for Hogwarts fans: the sixth movie in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, has been bumped from its November release to next summer. As this AP story notes, Entertainment Weekly didn’t get the memo, despite being owned by the same parent company as Potter distributor Warner Bros. In other kid lit news, a live-action Goosebumps feature is headed for the big screen. Screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood, Problem Child) are adapting the R.L. Stine series, per the Hollywood Reporter.

Finally, the Moulin Rouge is returning to the silver screen. Toulouse Latrec fans need not apply, however, as Variety reports The Fabulous Moulin Rouge concerns a short-lived Las Vegas casino “that sprang up in 1955 and closed six months later under mysterious circumstances just as it was gaining momentum and attracting singers such as Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra.” We suspect the involvement of Danny Ocean.

Related:
Trailer Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Bores: Five Reasons to Skip "The Clone Wars"

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: August 2-8, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:30:00 GMT

First of all, I should mention that we here at the Screengrab are sensitive to your complaints that the place has become something of a boy’s club, strewn with boxer shorts, empty beer cans, baseball cards and “adult reading material.” To that end, we’ve tidied up a bit, sprayed some lilac-scented Febreeze around, and are now prepared to welcome the newest member of the Screengrab team, Sarah Clyne Sundberg. Sarah made her debut earlier today with Olympic Games Past, so please extend your warmest greetings. As for the betesticled among us, we’ve been busy this week:

You ever think “Hey, that movie could have been directed by that other guy!” Well, so have we! Here are 15 Movies That (Almost) Could’ve Been Directed by Someone Else (Parts One, Two, Three and Four).

The Midnight Meat Train probably won’t be coming anywhere near you, but maybe you can catch Elegy or In Search of a Midnight Kiss.

How about a triple feature from the Summer of ’78: Revenge of the Pink Panther, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Hooper were all clogging the drive-ins 30 years ago. None of them really summed up the season like The Endless Summer, though.

Best wishes to Morgan Freeman for a speedy recovery and a painless divorce!

Scarlett Johnasson and Penelope Cruz did their best to lower our expectations of their lesbian makeout session in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

While cleaning out Screengrab headquarters, we found these Boxes of Kubrick.

Jason Statham as Daredevil? Britney Spears in Faster, Pussycat…Kill! Kill!? Maybe in the Parallel Universe Film Guide.

Rejoice in my misery as I resume my Unwatchable quest to view every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list, including College Road Trip and Kickboxer 3: The Art of War.

That’s it. Get your motor running, head out on the highway!

The Band From “Barcelona”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:30:00 GMT

It’s rare to see a new interview with someone whose music is featured in a Woody Allen movie, in that most such people have been dead for fifty years. If that’s an exaggeration, it’s a slight one; the 72-year-old Allen isn’t one for Footloose-style compilations of potential Top 40 hits (of course, by citing Footloose I now feel 72 years old myself). He’s more prone to raiding his collection of 78s for the likes of Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman, and while he often comes up with some great stuff, it’s still very familiar stuff – just one more element of his filmmaking style that has grown stale over the years.

So it’s at least a little encouraging to learn that the Woodman’s latest, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, features music by a living, breathing band. Billboard recounts the story of “little-known Spanish indie band” Giulia y los Tellarini, whose “music came to Allen's attention last year during filming, when the girlfriend of one of the band members left a CD with some of the group's songs on it at the director's Barcelona hotel, the fashionable Hotel D'Arts.”

"Our music is difficult to classify. It's got loads of influences," says lead singer Giulia Tellarini. "I think one of the main things about us is that we sing in different languages. We try and get inspired by the atmospheres of different countries." The inspiration for “Barcelona,” which can be heard in the Barcelona trailer, was “Guilia’s on-and-off relationship with the city,” a place she found a little too pricy to live. Not a problem for Allen, of course, who pronounces the song “perfect.” But don’t take his word for it; here’s a performance of the song from the Spanish talk show El Club.

Related:
And Now, Scarlett Johansson Making Out with Penelope Cruz
Woody Allen Doesn't Care What You Think

Woody Allen Doesn’t Care What You Think

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:00:00 GMT

One reason Woody Allen drives critics crazy these days – aside from his increasingly flaccid self-parodies posing as new movies, of course – is that there’s nothing they can do to hurt him. One of the recurring character types in his “serious” efforts is the guy who gets away with murder, never to receive his comeuppance. Clearly a lot of people think Allen is that guy. It’s not so much that he survived the whole Mia Farrow/Soon-Yi contretemps; in Allen’s case, he keeps getting away with making movies that are murder to sit through.

The British papers are particularly harsh in this assessment, probably because the critically excoriated Cassandra’s Dream is just now reaching London theaters. Interviewing Allen for The Times, James Mottrom comes off as a man beating his heat against a brick wall. ““I never think about a film once it’s finished and I’m almost finished filming another one,” Allen says, responding to a question about the Cannes premiere of Vicky Cristina Barcelona. “I never give it a second thought. It was finished last summer and now it’s this summer.” When asked about his lack of critical support in recent years, the Woodman shruggeth. ““I haven’t read a word regarding myself or my films in over 30 years…I have no idea how they are regarded. Even from a financial point of view if one does well I’d never know as the money flows to my accountants – and I have no contact with them.”

Is he a man concerned with his legacy? ““I never have any idea what happens to my films after I put them out. I don’t know where they are released, what theatres they are in. Distribution of my movies falls into the category of business and I don’t have the slightest interest in their fate.” Has he improved as a filmmaker with time? ““I don’t see any reason why I should be any better now.”

In The Guardian, humorist-provocateur Joe Queenan issues a call to action: “Europe, please stop funding this man.” This is what really seems to get under Allen haters’ skin – it doesn’t matter how his films perform, there’s always someone lined up to finance another one, year after year after year. “Six years ago,” Queenan writes, “the New York Times published a front-page article reporting that only eight people had shown up at a Times Square cinema to see an afternoon screening of Woody Allen's new film, Hollywood Ending. To many of us, the number sounded a bit high; surely the eight included ushers, refugees seeking political asylum, undercover cops and vagrants…. Americans can be blamed for many things, but the perpetuation of Allen's zombie-like career is one atrocity for which we refuse to be held accountable. It is Europeans who are providing much of the money for these projects, Europeans who are welcoming the director to their communities, Europeans who are marching through the turnstiles in support of Allen's interchangeably neurasthenic films. Europeans are the ones paying the freight for Allen's cavalcade of duds.”

Through it all, Allen remains unflappable. He’s currently shooting in New York for the first time in four years. You can’t stop him.

Cannes Rundown, Day 3: A Christmas Tale and more!

Paul Clark — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:21:00 GMT

Of all the films in competition this year at Cannes, the one that has me most excited was A Christmas Tale, the latest film by the masterful Arnaud Desplechin, whose Kings and Queen was one of the finest films of recent years. Not wanting to have everything spoiled for me before I see it myself, I’ve tried to avoid reading the reviews coming from Cannes too much or too deeply, but based on the little I’ve read my hopes for the film are well-founded. Here’s the one and only Glenn Kenny:

“The creation of such a vivid, individualized group of characters and such a compelling roster of dilemmas is a staggering enough feat. But what makes this movie such a darkly exuberant feast is Desplechin's storytelling. Calling his directorial style "eclectic" simply doesn't do. He has packed himself an almost inexhaustible kit bag of cinematic techniques that he deploys here with an ease that makes his previous film, the incredibly impressive Kings and Queen, look relatively forced. Not only is there not a single dull moment in this two-and-a-half-hour family drama; the film practically teems with ferocious moments, and the novelistic detail offered by Desplechin (here collaborating on the screenplay with longtime writing partner Emmanuel Bourdieu) is always spot-on.”

Thanks, Glenn. Let’s see what others have to say…

Andrew O’Hehir: “Rather than supplying the holiday healing suggested by the title, Desplechin (and co-writer Emmanuel Bourdieu) have constructed a tale as emotionally challenging, fragmentary and unresolved as family life itself. At the press conference after the film, Desplechin said he always aimed to make films that were "strange and personal," and that were singular rather than generic. He has succeeded, perhaps at the cost of demanding too much from his viewers.”

Attaboy, Arnaud! And of course, this being Cannes, several other films screened today as well, though none as intriguing (to me anyway) as Arnaud’s. Let’s check out the rundown:

Time Out London’s Geoff Andrew gives us a second opinion on Three Monkeys- “This fifth feature is arguably the most ambitious film yet from the maker of ‘Uzak’ and ‘Climates’. It has the dry humour, assured pacing, astute psychological insights and sharp sense of moral and dramatic irony that has been conspicuous in all his work, but in many respects the film feels like an expansion upon ‘Climates’, not only in extending that film’s clear-eyed, unsentimental assessment of male-female relationships from a couple to a whole family and its acquaintances, but in exploring the rich potential afforded by digital technology; if you thought Ceylan’s photographer’s eye produced stunning images in ‘Climates’, ‘Three Monkeys’ pushes the envelope still further.”

ScreenDaily’s Lee Marshall weighs in on the out of competition omnibus film Tokyo!- “One out of three ain't bad for this Tokyo-themed directorial three-hander. Whimsical Michel Gondry delivers a thirty-minute segment that resonates, while compatriot Leos Carax spoils an otherwise tasty genre exercise by pressing it into service as a message film. Korea's Bong Joon-ho, meanwhile, delivers an artsy rom-com that is too slight even for its half-hour running time.”

Finally, two opinions on Scarlett and Penelope making out Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a pro from Variety’s Todd McCarthy- “Just as London did when Allen went there for "Match Point," the Catalan capital serves as an evident stimulus for the director. Even if the film provides a strictly tourist's view of the city (a perspective justified by the scenario, in fact), and one just as upscale and heedless of money as ever for Allen, "VCB" is by several degrees more hot-blooded than his usual norm, thanks especially due to the palpable chemistry of Bardem and Cruz in the second half.”

… and a con from (who else?) Jeffrey Wells- “I haven't the time to write any kind of comprehensive review of this sometimes unintentionally comedic, frequently cliche-ridden parody of a Woody Allen film, but it dawned on me early on that it plays exactly like a Ben Stiller Show parody of a typical Allen effort. Allen has been accused of parodying himself for years, but now he's really done it. And it pains me to say this. No one filmmaker has given me greater pleasure for a longer period of time than Allen. I worship the guy, but VCB is agony to sit through at times.”

Ouch. Let’s leave on a high note, shall we? Any positive press for Desplechin’s film counts as good news in my book. So here’s Cineuropa’s Fabien Lemercier on A Christmas Tale- “This exploration of a family – made of viciousness, a tormented past and a painful present – goes straight to the heart, in particular those psychologically unpleasant zones that Desplechin loves to depict. The result is a high-class feature that is both complex and subtle.”

Woohoo!

And Now, Scarlett Johansson Making Out with Penelope Cruz

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Good heavens, has it really been a week since our last pandering Scarlett Johansson post? How time flies! Although Woody Allen has done his best to undermine his own publicists by downplaying the erotic elements of his latest effort, Vicky Christina Barcelona – in response to the rumors of a steamy ménage a trois among Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, the Woodman stoked the flames by telling Entertainment Weekly, “People who come and expect those exaggerations are going to be disappointed” – the marketing team simply isn’t having it. As V.C. Barcelona gets set to launch at the Cannes Film Festival, a teaser chock full o’ steamy smoochin’ has hit the YouTubes. Hit the jump for all the action:

Today’s Reason To Live: The Scarlett Johansson-Penélope Cruz-Javier Bardem Ménage à trois!

Andrew Osborne — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

So, for those of you who haven’t received your Entertainment Weekly Summer Movie Preview yet (or read the news previously at Screengrab), hold onto your freakin’ hats: Woody Allen is filming a new movie in New York City with...deep breath...Larry David!!!

So, yes, despite Scoop and Melinda and Melinda and Hollywood Ending (and, uh, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Small Time Crooks and Celebrity and...well, you get the idea), I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope against hope that America’s favorite bald fuck has the power to resurrect Mr. Konigsberg’s erstwhile comedy mojo.

Oh...and the hot, spicy Johannson-Cruz-Bardem threeway?

Well, they’re all co-starring in Woody Allen’s upcoming summer release, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and because of that, according to the director, “...it got out that there was torrid sex in the picture.” But unfortunately, he cautions, “People who come and expect those exaggerations are going to be disappointed.”

There is, however, “a discretely photographed ménage à trois,” which should at the very least earn the flick a spot on my Netflix list.

Ah, who am I kidding? See you in the popcorn line on August 29th!

Woody Allen Come Home, All is Forgiven

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Not long ago, the conventional wisdom on Woody Allen was that his New York state of mind had become a creative rut. His hermetic world of neurotic Upper West Side intellectuals had become a creative straightjacket, and getting out of town – hell, getting out of the country – might do him a world of good.

How’s that working out for you?

Sure, Match Point accrued its share of raves, hailed as a return to form in a fresh new milieu by those who didn’t recognize it as Crimes and Misdemeanors with a British accent. It was harder to find anything nice to say about the flimsy Brit-com Scoop, and the trailers for this week’s Cassandra’s Dream sure make it look like an instant remake of Match Point. (Early word is not good; in Film Journal International, Chris Barsanti writes, “If it can't be determined which Allen has shown up—the Greek dramaturge or Borscht Belt shtick-meister—then the film that follows is bound to be a tedious affair.”) With the Spain-set Vicky Cristina Barcelona already in the can, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the 72-year-old auteur will ever return to the city he once seemed certain to never leave.

Wonder no more – according to this interview with the New York Daily News, Allen will be shooting in New York this spring. While claiming he doesn’t see his influence in younger filmmakers, Allen does acknowledge that his view of New York has had an impact. “Especially in foreign countries, I'm always hearing how their picture of New York has come from me. Now, my picture of New York, as I've mentioned before, has actually come from old Hollywood movies.”

His influence may have also spread to his latest protégé Scarlett Johansson. The Daily Telegraph reports that ScarJo will make her directorial debut with a segment of an anthology film, New York, I Love You. And you guessed it, Woody Allen will also be supplying a five-minute short for the film from the producers of Paris je t’aime.