Movie Maven

Well, the nominees are in, folks. A few little surprises: no nomination for Walk the Line for Best Picture, or for Grizzly Man for Best Documentary. There were nominations for Keira Knightly (Pride and Prejudice), William Hurt (A History of Violence) and Terrence Howard (Hustle and Flow...wait- are you serious?). Anyway, other than that it's pretty much as expected. Here's a list of the biggies:

Best Actor in a Leading Role:
Philip Seymour Hoffman- Capote
Terrence Howard- Hustle and Flow
Heath Ledger- Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin phoenix- Walk the Line
David Strathairn- Good Night, and Good Luck

Best Actress in a Leading Role:
Felicity Huffman- Transamerica
Keira Knightly- Pride and Prejudice
Charlize Theron- North Country
Reese Witherspoon- Walk the Line
Judi Dench- Mrs. Henderson Presents

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:
Paul Giamatti- Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal- Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt- A History of Violence
Matt Dillon- Crash
George Clooney- Good Night, and Good Luck

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:
Amy Adams- Junebug
Catherine Keener- Capote
Frances McDormand- North Country
Michelle Williams- Brokeback Mountain
Rachel Weisz- The Constant Gardener

Best Picture:
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Munich

Please see my good friends at Oscar Buzz for more info. I myself will stay tuned to witness every moment of this bonfire of the vanities.

Note: A few grammatical dribs and drabs were corrected from an earlier posting of this article.

Ah, the SAG Awards- that pointless precursor to the Oscars we all know and don't care about. I have always hoped that one year the good people of SAG would genuinely surprise us and come up with interesting nominations that really demonstrated their interest as film as an art form rather than just a product.

But hey, I'm just a big romantic.

The nominees and winners this year were predictable- Crash won for best performance by a cast in a motion picture, Philip Seymour Hoffman won Outstanding Male Actor for his work in Capote. Reese Witherspoon nabbed the Outstanding Female Actor for Walk the Line. Paul Giamatti and Rachel Weisz won for their supporting roles in Cinderella Man and The Constant Gardener, respectively...

Oh, I'm sorry, what were you saying? I wasn't listening, I was watching paint dry.

Sorry to be snippy, but the same movies being nominated over and over again is getting a little old. Where was The Squid and the Whale? Where was Thumbsucker? Heck, where was Batman Begins? It's not that I didn't like the films that were nominated (I was especially fond of David Strathairn and Philip Seymour Hoffman, as well as Amy Adams in Junebug, who was nominated for Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role. The movies chosen were of quality. But the same "good" actors are being chosen every time, and are we really supposed to believe that these few films were the only ones with quality performances?

One slightly surprising development was the fact that Brokeback Mountain didn't win anything- nothing. Zilch. Nada. What happened, you may ask yourself. Did the Bush administration bribe SAG to keep the unholy film out of the limelight? Did the 120,000 cast members of Crash gang up and form some sort of SAG Tammany Hall using blackmail and kick-backs? Seems unlikely, but actors take these things very seriously. And I hear Sandra Bullock's handy with a baseball bat.

Tomorrow: Oscar nominations. Plus: My review of Junebug.

Terrible news, folks: due to some horrible twist of fate, my cable has been lost. I have been periodically flipping through my channels all weekend, looking for some sign of hope, but to no avail. The very nice cable man says he cannot come until Tuesday, which unfortunately means that I will not be able to view the SAG Awards tonight, and comment accordingly. I swear upon the life of my little 13" Toshiba, however, that I will find all the online footage I can and hopefully have something to say tomorrow on the Festival of Self-Congratulation.

Apologies for getting this to you a bit late, but I think it's an intriguing article, which appeared in last Sunday's New York Times. The U.S. market barrier for foreign films, according to Anthony Kaufmann, has grown wider and more forbidding, partly due to the success of lower budget domestic films like Brokeback Mountain, and documentaries like The Aristocrats.

In a time when domestic blockbusters are having a hard time making ends meet, is it really all that surprising that foreign films aren't doing well in the U.S.? It's a sad fact that Americans can only handle a little "good" film making in between their trips to Hostel and The Ringer, and will only see it if the movie has established domestic stars and a whole lot of publicity to back it up. There are few true film-lovers out there now, people who go to the movies to see something new and unusual, who are not afraid of being challenged by what they're viewing. Marie Theresa Guirgis, head of Wellspring Media discussed the lack of cinema literacy:

"I feel as if there's almost no auteur draw anymore,'' Ms. Guirgis said. ''As opposed to 20 years ago, you were marketing the movies around the film-maker -- Fassbinder's new film, Godard's new film. We still do it, but the honest truth is that the film-make matters increasingly little today.''

But perhaps an even sadder fact is that a foreign film has to be an action foreign film to get any publicity or play in the multi-plexes. An Asian film? Well, it better be a high-flyin', seizure-inducin', butt-whoopin' Asian film, a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And don't make it too talky, or else I'll have to read the subtitles. And no one wants that.

Wild Blue Yonder (2005)
Starring: Brad Dourif
Written and Directed by: Werner Herzog
Official Website
Photo: Henry Kaiser, via wernerherzog.com

When I went to see Wild Blue Yonder, I had no idea what to expect. The film is Werner Herzog's latest documentary (sort of), riding in on the coattails of his brilliant art house hit Grizzly Man. It was it's status on IMDB as a "documentary/sci-fi" that drew me to it, and Herzog's gorgeous, haunting little film did not disappoint.

The tale is a familiar one: an alien (Brad Dourif, Deadwood) tells the story of a faraway planet which for unknown reasons began to die, and of its inhabitants that came to Earth in search of a new home. In the aftermath of their coming, the government sends a crew of astronauts to journey into the expanse of space to find their own new world.

The story is told almost completely through gathered footage of the astronauts of space shuttle STS-43, and Henry Kaiser's video of Antarctica. Original footage includes Dourif narrating the story, and a few mathematicians theorizing on the nature of space travel. This documentary footage juxtaposed with the fantastical "plot" is woven seamlessly together by Herzog. By the end of the film, I had forgotten which was documentary, and which was sci-fi.

Dourif's performance as the tortured alien is simultaneously painful and hilarious. He wanders around an abandoned desert city and pontificates in the midst of a destroyed trailer, practically swimming in a sense of loss and regret. At one point, he tells the audience why their utopia on Earth failed. "We were sent by wonderful scientists," he said. "But we just sucked." It's a humorous moment, but it's tinged with the feeling all in a modern age feel: the failure to live up to the expectations of our predecessors.

It is not a perfect film. At a few points the footage of the shuttle seems to drag on (compelling as it is, how long do we really have to watch people turn in the air and eat astronaut food?) And the music, an array of cello, Senegalese singing, and a five-man Sardinian shepherd choir, is intriguing at first but quickly becomes distracting and a little shrill.

The film is about the history of man's flight, and of the constant search for the next frontier, for the next place to see, settle on, and make money off of. It is also a not-so-subtle commentary on our treatment of our own planet. But in the end it highlights precisely what Grizzly Man highlighted: nature's refusal to be tamed or civilized, as something to be viewed with reverence and fear. The space shuttle's views of Earth from space, Kaiser's footage of the frozen waters of Antarctica, the failed city in the middle of a desert- all show how a place we call home can still look completely alien. That is Herzog's genius.

Grade: A-

EmmaJ and Blogger.com, in association with JRNU525 Online Journalism are proud to present an all-new full-length blog:

Movie Maven!

Hmmm, well, with that awkward beginning, let's get a move on. Basically I will be commenting on all-things cinema. I am planning on an extremely hyperactive blog, constantly distracted by shiny things like Hugh Jackman in leather jumpsuits and movies about large, tragic apes with soul. But I also hope to have a focus on the odd, the obscure, and the classic, as well as a bit of news here and there. I'll try to keep away from celebrity gossip, because, quite frankly, they make it too easy for me.

Tomorrow: My first review of Werner Herzog's latest Sci-Fi/Documentary hybrid. Plus- The foreign film industry, post-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.