Category Archives: Cinema

Oscar 2013: Awards Season Truly Underway, Must-See Films

December 10, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva exchange a kiss in Michael Haneke's Amour

As 2012 draws to a close, films’ Awards Season is well underway.
Last Tuesday, December 4th, VanRamblings reported out on the winners of the New York Film Critics Circle awards. Sunday, December 9th, several other critics’ associations announced their winners of 2012’s top film prizes.
The most prestigious and influential of the film critics associations announcing awards on Sunday afternoon was the 35-member Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who released their list of awards for Best Films and Film Performances of 2012. The tender study of an elderly couple in their twilight years, named Palme D’Or winner at Cannes and at the recent European Film Awards, Michael Haneke’s Amour was chosen overwhelmingly as Best Picture in voting by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Paul Thomas Anderson was voted Best Director for The Master, which presents a portrait of a charismatic cult-like figure. The Master also won a Best Actor nod for Joaquin Phoenix and Best Supporting Actress for Amy Adams.
The Los Angeles Critics Association vote halted earlier momentum for Zero Dark Thirty, which won Best Picture and Directing nods for Kathryn Bigelow from the New York Circle of Film Critics, National Board of Review, the Boston Society of Film Critics, and the New York Film Critics Online (click on the preceding links for a full list of the winners). Bigelow was the Los Angeles group’s runner-up. The full LA Film Critics awards are as follows …
BEST PICTURE: Amour
Runner-up: The Master
BEST DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
Runner-up: Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
BEST ACTRESS (TIE): Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
BEST ACTOR: Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Runner-up: Denis Lavant, Holy Motors
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Adams, The Master
Runner-up: Anne Hathaway, The Dark Knight Rises & Les Miserables
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Runner-up: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
BEST SCREENPLAY: Chris Terrio, Argo
Runner-up: David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
BEST EDITING: Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg, Zero Dark Thirty
Runner-up: William Goldenberg, Argo
BEST ANIMATION: Frankenweenie
Runner-up: It’s Such A Beautiful Day
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM: Holy Motors
Runner-up: Footnote
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins, Skyfall
Runner-up: Mihai Malaimare Jr., The Master
BEST DOCUMENTARY: The Gatekeepers
Runner-up: Searching For Sugar Man
NEW GENERATION AWARD: Benh Zeitlin, Beasts Of The Southern Wild
BEST MUSIC SCORE: Dan Romer and Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Runner-up: Jonny Greenwood, The Master
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: David Crank and Jack Fisk, The Master
Runner-up: Adam Stockhausen, Moonrise Kingdom
DOUGLAS EDWARDS EXPERIMENTAL/INDEPENDENT FILM/VIDEO AWARD: Leviathan

Come back later in the week for a listing of VanRamblings’ favourite films currently playing around town, or due to open soon.

On The Road: Opening in Vancouver on January 18, 2013

December 7, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

Although, according to Ken Eisner in this week’s issue of the Georgia Straight, Walter Salles’ film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road won’t open until Friday, January 18th, 2013, there’s no reason not to post the video above, which apart from presenting the John Wages song Takin’ Life As It Comes, also provides a more beguiling insight into the film’s content than does the film’s rather prosaic and prettified trailer.
Yes, there are some wonderful films both playing in town at the moment (Argo, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook), with even more great films on the way (Not Fade Away, On The Road, The Impossible, Promised Land, Django Unchained, Jack Reacher, Les Misérables, Liverpool, among others).
And the list directly above doesn’t even include the films playing at the Vancouver Film Festival’s Vancity Theatre: Michael Apted’s 56 Up (we’ll be there for tonight’s 8:10pm screening), Phil Grabsky’s In Search of Haydn, as well as screenings of the restored epic films, Roman Polanski’s Tess, and David Lean’s 1963 Best Picture winner, Lawrence of Arabia.
For those who love the movies, the Christmas / Hannukah season is very much the holiday season, indeed! We’ll be seeing you at the movies.

New York Film Critics Announce Annual Awards

December 4, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

The New York Film Critics Circle have named Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty the Best Film of 2012, voicing their strong support for the speculative journalistic Osama bin Laden docudrama. Bigelow, whose Hurt Locker won the Best Picture Oscar in 2010, also won Best Director in the awards announced Monday. Greg Fraser won for the film’s cinematography.
“Zero Dark Thirty confirms the massive talent of Kathryn Bigelow,” said NYFCC chairman Joshua Rothkopf, a critic for Time Out New York. “Zero Dark Thirty is a very important movie, not triumphal but significant in its dramatization of a signal event. And we were knocked out by the film.”
According to former Village Voice lead film critic J. Hoberman, who currently writes the Movie Journal column for Blouin ArtInfo and who participated in the balloting for the New York Film Critics Circle awards …

“An early favourite for Best Director, The Master’s Paul Thomas Anderson was overwhelmed by Zero Dark Thirty’s Kathryn Bigelow on the second ballot, with Argo’s Ben Affleck finishing a distant third. (Strikingly, Steven Spielberg, who failed to get a single first ballot vote, was never in contention.) By this time, it was evident that Zero Dark Thirty would run the table and, indeed, The Master finished third for Best Picture behind Argo, although it took three ballots for the obviously exhausted voters to decide the winner.”

The critics group also cast a significant vote for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, bestowing it with three awards: Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor, Sally Field for Best Supporting Actress, and Tony Kushner for Best Screenplay. Lewis’ award for his performance as the 16th U.S. president is his fifth from the NYFCC. The Supporting Actor award went to Matthew McConaughey for his performances as both a Texas district attorney in Richard Linklater’s Bernie and as a male stripper in Steven Soderberg’s Magic Mike.
Hoberman offers the following on the Best Supporting Actress and Actor awards …

“In the acting awards, Sally Field (Lincoln) finally defeated initial front-runner Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises, Les Miserables) for Best Supporting Actress on a fourth ballot while, in a rare second ballot win, Matthew McConaughey (Magic Mike, Bernie) beat out Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) and Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln).”

Rachel Weisz earned Best Actress from the critics for her performance in the little-seen but wonderful The Deep Blue Sea, a period drama by the British director Terence Davies.
More inside the beltway NYFCC voting background from Hoberman …

“The closest and most surprising race saw Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea) edge Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, Silver Lining Playbook) and Emmanuelle Riva (Amour). Last year’s winner Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) was a factor throughout, tying for the lead on several ballots. (This race was by far the most polarized; only three of the 16 ballots cast for Lawrence or Chastain cited both actresses.)

By contrast Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln), possibly the most feted actor in NYFCC history, led on every ballot but still required three rounds of voting to best the closely bunched trio of Jack Black (Bernie), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master) and Denis Lavant (Holy Motors).” Greig Fraser was named Best Cinematographer for Zero Dark Thirty, beating the initial favourite, The Master, on the third ballot. Although heavily favoured, Tony Kushner’s Lincoln screenplay needed four ballots to win over those for Zero Dark Thirty and Moonrise Kingdom.”)

Shut out entirely were awards hopefuls Les Miserables, Argo, Silver Linings Playbook and The Master.
This year’s Oscar hunt is generally seen as fairly open, with a number of strong contenders. The NYFCC voting could help coalesce support behind Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln. Rothkopf, though, said that there was strong passion in voting for several films that didn’t yield an award.
Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or-winning Amour, a depiction of an aging married couple, took Best Foreign Language film, while Best Documentary went to The Central Park Five, covering the infamous 1989 New York rape case, co-directed by Ken Burns, his daughter Sarah Burns and David McMahon.
Best Animated Film went to Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. The AIDS activism documentary How to Survive a Plague was chosen as Best First Feature.
The New York Film Critics Circle, a body of 35 New York-based critics founded in 1935, announced their annual vote on Twitter over a period of hours. Awards will be handed out at a ceremony January 7th, 2013.
Next to come in the quickening awards season are the National Board of Review Awards on Wednesday, and the Los Angeles Film Critics on Sunday. Golden Globe nominations will be announced Dec. 13th.

Lincoln: Steven Spielberg Reaches for Auteur Greatness

November 9, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

There are three “big” Oscar-bound films that are opening in the month of November: Skyfall, which opens today; Silver Linings Playbook, opening on November 21st; and Steven Spielberg’s prestigious and well-reviewed historical pic, Lincoln, opening next Friday, the film we’ll write about today.
All, of course, demand to be seen — Skyfall, for its pure entertainment value, Silver Linings Playbook, because Jennifer Lawrence is the early odds-on favourite for a Best Actress Oscar, and Lincoln, because the reviews are universally praising and because, too, the film represents an unusually mature work by director Steven Spielberg, with Lincoln set as the film to consolidate and enhance his legacy as a 20th-21st century filmmaker of prominence, whose canon of cinema has influenced filmmaking and filmmakers perhaps more than any other in the past 40+ years.

Lincoln, dir. Steven Spielberg, w/ Daniel Day Lewis & Tommy Lee Jones
Perhaps the best place to start in our preview exploration of Lincoln is Todd McCarthy’s first out of the gate review of Lincoln — Spielberg’s magnum opus — published on November 1st, in The Hollywood Reporter …

An absorbing, densely packed telling of the 16th president’s masterful effort in manipulating the passage of the 13th Amendment, Lincoln dedicates itself to doing something very few Hollywood films have ever attempted, much less succeeded at: showing, from historical example, how our political system works in an intimate procedural and personal manner, history that plays out mostly in wood-paneled rooms darkened by thick drapes and heavy furniture and, increasingly, in the intimate House chamber where the strength of the anti-abolitionist Democrats will be tested against Lincoln’s moderates and the more zealous anti-slavery radicals of the young Republican Party.

At the film’s centre lies one of the remarkable characters in world history at the critical moment of his life. As Walt Whitman said of Lincoln, “he contained multitudes,” and Daniel Day-Lewis’ sly, slow-burn performance wonderfully fulfills this description. Gangly, grizzled and, as his wife was known to say, “not pretty,” this Lincoln plainly shows his humble origins and is more disheveled than his Washington colleagues. With an astonishing physical resemblance to the real man, Day-Lewis excels when shifting into what was perhaps Lincoln’s most comfortable mode, that of frisky storyteller, especially in the way he seems to anticipate and relish his listeners’ reactions. But he also is a hard-nosed negotiator with that critical attribute of great politicians in a democracy: an unyielding inner core of principle cloaked by a strategic willingness to compromise in the interests of getting his way.

Andrew O’Hehir, respected film critic over at Salon.com, feels equally enthusiastic about Lincoln, as he writes …

Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and an amazing cast bring history alive in Spielberg’s moral masterpiece. Spielberg has outdone Griffith and Ford and then some, crafting a thrilling, tragic and gripping moral tapestry of 19th-century American life, an experience that is at once emotional, visceral and intellectual. In a mesmerizing collaboration with a great actor (Day-Lewis) and a visionary writer (Pulitzer-winning playwright Tony Kushner), Spielberg has captured Lincoln as a shrewd political leader and a man of his time.

Is Lincoln an inspiring story of American greatness? Yes, absolutely. But if you say that, also say that it’s a cautionary tale of American mendacity and hypocrisy, the unfinished story of a cancerous evil that poisoned and divided America from its birth and does so still.

Meanwhile, Devin Faraci over at Badass Digest, who often tends to the cynical, offers an all out rave for Lincoln, when he writes, “Polish the Oscars, and warm up the accolades: this is the best Daniel Day-Lewis performance ever, and it’s one of the best Spielberg movies ever.” Faraci goes on to say:

Lincoln is an epic achievement. Smart, inspiring and bold, the film shows a vision for what government can be and what it can do. It presents a road map for sensible political compromise in the pursuit of historic and important goals. And it paints a compelling portrait of Abraham Lincoln as a flawed, imperfect man who was nonetheless a genius and a once-in-a-generation visionary.

Lincoln is one of the best movies of the year, and it’s one of the best movies of Spielberg’s career. It’s a film that speaks to his growth as a filmmaker; the bravest thing he does here is to pull himself back, to let the performances and the script speak for themselves, to act as a guide to this and not as a showman or a spectacle-maker. He has made a film that presents a mature, finely gradated examination of right, wrong and the murky place between them. And he has made it fun, and enjoyable. He has made a movie about thinkers and debaters for thinkers and debaters. He has made a movie where eloquence and conviction are the action elements, not chases and explosions.

He has made, simply, a masterpiece.

Many other (but not all) of the prominent British, American and Canadian film critics feel as O’Hehir, McCarthy and Faraci have indicated they do, that with the release of Lincoln, director Steven Spielberg has reached for and attained auteur greatness. Will audiences fill the same way? The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences most certainly will.
Although Lincoln opens in Toronto, New York and select other U.S. cities today, in Vancouver we will have to wait until next Friday, November 16th.