Category: Movies

Excellent movie. Jamie Foxx is Ray Charles!

NewMexiKen hasn’t seen enough of the nominated performances to be an informed judge, but I just can’t imagine better performances than Jamie Foxx and Hilary Swank.

The D.W. Griffith film The Birth of a Nation premiered on this date 90 years ago as The Clansman. The Library of Congress tells us:

Griffith’s story centers on two white families torn apart by the Civil War and reunited by what one subtitle calls, “common defence of their Aryan birthright.” Promoting a skewed historical vision of a wartorn South further abused by carpetbaggers, scalawags, and radical Republicans, the film remakes Lincoln as a friend of the South. “I shall deal with them as though they had never been away,” Griffith’s Lincoln says. In The Birth of a Nation, the Ku Klux Klan rushes in to fill the void left by Lincoln’s untimely death and the chaos of Reconstruction.

Ambitious in its reach, Part I of the film begins in the antebellum period, takes viewers across bloody battlefields of the Civil War, through the burning of Atlanta, and ends with the assassination of Lincoln. Yet, the director never loses sight of the human side of these sweeping events—at least where white Southerners are concerned. The movie is as famous for its tender portrayal of family life as its imaginative use of the camera.

The Birth of a Nation advanced the art of cinema even as it enshrined racist stereotypes and historical myth in the new and powerful medium of film. Assisted by cameraman Billy Bitzer, Griffith packed his film with a virtual catalog of innovative film techniques. The Birth of a Nation introduced or remastered total-screen close-ups, night photography, outdoor photography, fade-out, panoramic long shots, as well as liberal use of cross-cutting between scenes to build suspense. Surgical editing and imaginative camera work were necessary to propel Griffith’s three-hour-long epic. The film cost $500,000, employed 18,000 actors and 3000 horses, and required meticulous recreation of historic details.

Collateral, with Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx, is a fine psychological thriller, beautifully photographed and superbly acted. NewMexiKen saw the DVD Sunday and then watched again with director Michael Mann’s commentary audio this evening. Among things learned from the commentary: much of the film was shot in HD digital video, several of the minor roles of police officers were played by actual police, several of the club security guards were actual security guards, and some of the individuals playing bodyguards were on work-release.

Jamie Foxx, nominated for the Supporting Actor Oscar for this film, is simply outstanding. The only question is, just how was this a “supporting” role?

Item in The New York Times:

The Universal Home Video disc [of Ray] contains an option: push one button and the film unfolds in the 152-minute form in which it played in theaters; push another, and a substantially different movie appears, incorporating 24 more minutes of material that adds considerably to the film’s rhythm, dramatic depth and complex, ambivalent vision of its subject.

Netflix has been a bit irksome this week, bumping Ray down my queue twice. They’d better cut that out.

John Ford and Clark Gable were born on this date. Ford in 1895; Gable in 1901.

John Ford won six Oscars for Best Director: The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Quiet Man (1952). The other two Oscars were for World War II documentaries: The Battle of Midway and December 7th. Other memorable films include Drums Along the Mohawk, Young Mr. Lincoln, Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine and The Searchers. Regardless of where Ford’s westerns were set, most of the exteriors were filmed in Monument Valley Arizona/Utah.

Clark Gable won the Best Actor award in 1935 for It Happened One Night. He was nominated for Best Actor for Mutiny of the Bounty and Gone With the Wind.

Simply superb. Hilary Swank is magnificent.

“Alone in the Dark will be the worst movie of 2005. The idea that anything could be worse is the only genuine scare the movie has to offer.”

Kris Kaltenbach in The [Baltimore] Sun

The blog Geese Aplenty speculates on the Brad Pitt/Jennifer Anniston break up:

Jennifer finally got around to watching Meet Joe Black.

Brad finally got around to watching Along Came Polly.

There’s more if you follow the link.

Metacritic: 2004 Film Critic Top Ten Lists. Individual lists, followed by a summary of all top ten lists.

GoldDerby.com for all the latest on who will win the Oscars (and other awards news).

Links are to reviews in The New York Times.

BEST PICTURE
“The Aviator”
“Finding Neverland”
“Million Dollar Baby”
“Ray”
“Sideways”

DIRECTOR
Martin Scorsese, “The Aviator”
Clint Eastwood, “Million Dollar Baby”
Taylor Hackford, “Ray”
Alexander Payne, “Sideways”
Mike Leigh, “Vera Drake”

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Don Cheadle, “Hotel Rwanda”
Johnny Depp, “Finding Neverland”
Leonardo DiCaprio, “The Aviator”
Clint Eastwood, “Million Dollar Baby”
Jaime Foxx, “Ray”

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Annette Bening, “Being Julia”
Catalina Sandino Moreno, “Maria Full of Grace”
Imelda Staunton, “Vera Drake”
Hilary Swank, “Million Dollar Baby”
Kate Winslet, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Alan Alda, “The Aviator”
Thomas Haden Church, “Sideways”
Jaime Foxx, “Collateral”
Morgan Freeman, “Million Dollar Baby”
Clive Owen, “Closer”

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Cate Blanchett, “The Aviator”
Laura Linney, “Kinsey”
Virginia Madsen, “Sideways”
Sophie Okendo, “Hotel Rwanda”
Natalie Portman, “Closer”

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
John Logan, “The Aviator”
Charlie Kaufman, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”
Keir Pearson and Terry George, “Hotel Rwanda”
Brad Bird, “The Incredibles”
Mike Leigh, “Vera Drake”

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Kim Krizan , “Before Sunset”
David Magee, “Finding Neverland”
Paul Haggis, “Million Dollar Baby”
José Rivera, “The Motorcycle Diaries”
Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, “Sideways”

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“As It Is in Heaven” (Sweden)
“The Chorus” (France)
“Downfall” (Germany)
“The Sea Inside” (Spain)
“Yesterday” (South Africa)

ANIMATED FEATURE
“The Incredibles”
“Shark Tale”
“Shrek 2”

ORIGINAL SCORE
“Finding Neverland”
“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”
“Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events”
“The Passion of the Christ”
“The Village”

ORIGINAL SONG
“Accidentally in Love” from “Shrek 2”
“Al Otro Lado Del Rio” from “The Motorcycle Diaries”
“Believe” from “The Polar Express”
“Learn to Be Lonely” from “The Phantom of the Opera”
“Look to Your Path (Vois Sur Ton Chemin)” from “The Chorus”

The three DVDs that just completed their visit to NewMexiKen from Netflix were Before Sunset, Maria Full of Grace and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I watched the latter for the second time today and it too rates five ristras on the NewMexiKen scale (five being best).

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as introduced by Roger Ebert —

It’s one thing to wash that man right outta your hair, and another to erase him from your mind. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” imagines a scientific procedure that can obliterate whole fields of memory — so that, for example, Clementine can forget that she ever met Joel, let alone fell in love with him. “Is there any danger of brain damage?” the inventor of the process is asked. “Well,” he allows, in his most kindly voice, “technically speaking, the procedure is brain damage.”

The movie is a labyrinth created by the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, whose “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” were neorealism compared to this.

Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett are superb as the confused and confusing couple Joel and Clementine.

Interesting and good as the film was first time through, it is much better the second time when one knows what’s happening well enough to focus on the story, characters and dialogue. If you saw it once and liked it, see it again. If you haven’t seen it, see it twice.

was born on this day in 1899. According to The Writer’s Almanac:

[Bogart] was expelled from Massachusetts’ Phillips Academy and immediately joined the Navy to fight in World War I, serving as a ship’s gunner. One day, while roughhousing on the ship’s wooden stairway, he tripped and fell, and a splinter became lodged in his upper lip; the result was a scar, as well as partial paralysis of the lip, resulting in the tight-set mouth and lisp that became one of his most distinctive onscreen qualities.

From a series of interviews with video store clerks in The Albuquerque Tribune:

Now, if the choice is root canal or Brad Pitt Film Festival, then I’ve got to go with the root canal. In every freakin’ movie, he’s just atrocious. Have you noticed that in every single movie, he uses three fingers to point at things? Every single one. ‘Troy,’ ‘Fight Club,’ whatever, he uses three fingers to point. What’s up with that?”

Maria Full of Grace, starring Catalina Sandino Moreno in the title role, is a moving, dramatic film.

A Colombian, Maria swallows pellets of drugs to bring them to New York. She is, in drug parlance, a mule. She does this simply enough for money — and to escape a loser boyfriend (the father of her unborn child), a demanding mother, an irritating sister and a degrading job.

Maria Full of Grace is almost documentary in style. But it is Maria’s story, not the story of drugs or the drug cartel that is documented. And it is Maria’s story that you should see.

The film is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Five ristras on NewMexiKen’s scale of one-to-five (five being best).

(In the beginning of the film Maria works at a flower plantation trimming the torns from roses. I’d never thought about it before, but I guess the florist doesn’t just snip them out back in his little green house anymore.)

NewMexiKen watched the film Before Sunset this afternoon and recommends it highly. (There are, however, no shootings, crucifixions or car chases.)

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy played a young couple during a brief romantic encounter in Vienna in the 1995 film Before Sunrise, a warm telling of boy-meets-girl. (I haven’t seen that film.) This is the sequel — they meet again in Paris, now in their early 30s. The film, shot as if in real time, is essentially their conversation over about 75 minutes as they walk through Paris (they also have coffee, take a boat ride, ride in a car). The dialogue is simply superb as they analyze love and life.

Five ristras on the NewMexiKen scale (five being the best).

Nearly a month ago NewMexiKen watched the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate. Today I watched the 2004 version starring Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep.

While the modern film is more visual and the acting fine, the 1962 version is crisper and less cluttered. The Laurence Harvey portrayal of Raymond Shaw is a much spookier character than the one played by Liev Schreiber, and Frank Sinatra a less melodramatic Ben Marco than Denzel Washington. Streep seems as unlikable but less evil than Angela Lansbury as the mother (Lansbury got an Oscar nomination).

If it had been me, I would have remade the first screenplay and left the film set in the 1950s.

See both films and enjoy the comparison.

The 13 Best Movies of 2004 by David Edelstein —

1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Sideways
3. Hero and House of Flying Daggers
4. Bad Education
5. The Incredibles
6. Tarnation
7. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
8. Moolaadé
9. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
10. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
11. Spanglish
12. Team America: World Police
13. Collateral (FIRST HALF ONLY)

He says Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is “an inexhaustible masterpiece and, by a wide margin, the best film in many years.”

The consensus seems to be Sideways, Before Sunset and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

New York Times reviewer A. O. Scott has an interesting self-awareness essay on Sideways today: “The Most Overrated Film of the Year.”

Roger Ebert’s list (he also has a worst 10):

1. “Million Dollar Baby”
2. “Kill Bill, Volume 2”
3. “Vera Drake”
4. “Spider-Man 2”
5. “Moolaade”
6. “The Aviator”
7. “Baadasssss!”
8. “Sideways”
9. “Hotel Rwanda”
10. “Undertow”

died of lung cancer on this date in 1966. He was 65.

The Walt Disney Family Museum provides in-depth background.

No, Walt Disney’s body was not frozen and preserved.

premiered in Atlanta on this date 65 years ago.

Hattie McDaniel, who won a supporting-actress Oscar for her portrayal of Mammy, was not present in segregated Atlanta.

Martin Luther King, Jr., sang in the “negro boys choir” from his father’s church at the Gone With The Wind Ball the evening before the premiere.

The 2,000 tickets were $10 and up.

When the news of war is announced in the film, the audience in the theater rose to its feet with rebel yells.

Laurence Olivier reportedly proposed to Vivien Leigh on their flight from Atlanta to New York after the premiere. Their marriage lasted 20 years.

The Loew’s Grand Theater, where the premiere was shown, was destroyed by fire in 1978.

The film, however great as a motion picture, forever ruined America’s understanding of what the War of the Rebellion was all about.

NewMexiKen watched Cold Mountain twice last evening, first as a movie and secondly with the commentary of director and screenwriter Anthony Minghella and film editor Walter Murch.

Somehow, Renée Zellweger’s Oscar-winning performance had escaped my radar. I remembered she’d been nominated for Best Supporting Actress (and that Nicole Kidman famously had not been nominated for an Oscar), but I did not remember that Zellweger won. And I knew nothing of her performance or the character.

She was superb, saving the film from its own earnestness. Most intriguing talent from UT Austin since Janis Joplin.

And who would think a Civil War film, famous for its love story and its battle scene, would come across as a tale of female bonding?

Alas, the commentary on this film, while not without some interest, is remarkably tedious. These two creative talents believe that a picture requires 1,000 words. Or at least every explanation and elaboration does.