Category Archives: Cinema

From An Opus To a Re-Imagining of a Popular Movie Franchise

October 23, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

Cloud Atlas (Extended Trailer), starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, a Warner Bros. release

Perhaps the most controversial film that played the Toronto Film Festival this year, where critics’ opinions were widely divided, a 163-minute opus on the human condition from Lana and Andy Wachowski, and Tom Tykwer, according to Variety critic Peter DeBruge …

Cloud Atlas suggests that all human experience is connected in the pursuit of freedom, art and love. A daunting and innovatively-structured adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel, the co-directors adopt a cinematic approach to the interweaving of six seemingly unrelated stories, as the film lays out glimpses of six separate strands of this undeniably entertaining tale, gradually building toward grand movements in which the separate elements merge in paradigm shifting combinations.

Meanwhile, Hitfix’s Drew McWeeny is even more enthusiastic about Cloud Atlas, giving the movie a full A+ grade, as he writes, “Cloud Atlas is a remarkable movie experience, one that cannot be digested easily, and any attempt to dig in fully would rob you of the sense of discovery that washed over me as I sat in the theatre,” as he goes on to write “Cloud Atlas is daring, lush, rich, rewarding, and while it may not be for everyone, it is one of my very favourite films this year. You’ll be able to judge for yourself when it opens on October 26.” That, by the way, is this coming Friday.

A decidedly more audience-friendly film, and a movie that the critics are going absolutely wild over, Daniel Craig is back as James Bond in Skyfall, in what many are calling the best Bond ever.

“The most significant reset of the 23-film series that’s unconnected to a change of the actor playing 007, this long-awaited third outing for Daniel Craig feels more seriously connected to real-world concerns than any previous entry, despite the usual outlandish action scenes, glittering settings and larger-than-life characters,” writes the Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy. “Dramatically gripping while still brandishing a droll undercurrent of humour, this beautifully made film will certainly be embraced as one of the best Bonds by loyal fans worldwide and leaves you wanting the next one to turn up sooner than four years from now.”

Or how about this review by Kim Newman in Screen Daily …

“Skyfall is distinguished from the Bournes by class and classiness — replete with Tennyson quotes and musings on lost empire — and this manages to be elegiac and celebratory at the same time. Director Sam Mendes is unafraid to let the quieter dramatic moments breathe (a loaded conversation between Bond and Silva — Javier Bardem as the oddest, most lip-lickingly camp villain since the Roger Moore era — drew cheers the film’s preview audience). Ace cinematographer Roger Deakins makes the wildly ambitious action sequences the most beautiful in Bond’s 50-year career. Here’s a film that will be warmly embraced by series fans and general audiences alike.”

Set to open November 9th (just a bit over two weeks from now), here’s betting that Skyfall will be smashing entertainment, and a film that will satisfy the widest possible audience. See you at the movies on Nov 9th!

Gotham: The First Awards Nominations of The Season Are Unveiled

October 22, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

On this chill autumn Monday, we’ll take another brief break from our recitation of those Oscar-contender pics that’ll draw you (or should draw you) to your local multiplex to screen the best American flicks of the year. Today, though, we’ll indulge ourself with the first of our ‘lists’ posts.
Anyone who knows VanRamblings knows just how much we love lists, ‘best of’ lists, critics’ lists, Oscar-contender lists, and more. Mid-and-late autumn is nirvana time for VanRamblings, from the release of the Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards lists through to the prestigious New York Times Film Critics’ and the Los Angeles Film Critics’ awards, our friends have to set their phones to stun, as VanRamblings regales our poor woebegotten mes amis with one list after another. And it was always thus. We love our birthday, we love our lists. God has written such must be the case, and who are we to dispute the word of the Almighty? Or something like that.

The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) has unveiled nominees for the 22nd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, with 26 films named in Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best Ensemble Performance, Breakthrough Director, Best Actor and “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” categories. Indie favourites Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bernie, Middle of Nowhere, and Moonrise Kingdom received two nominations each. The Gotham Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, November 26th at the Cipriani Wall Street in New York. We’ll report out on the winners.
Although The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg suggests that it may be a foolhardy exercise to try to decipher Academy Awards implications in the release of IFP’s Gotham nominees — which each year champion American indie films — IFP is first out of the gate in the awards sweepstakes Oscar game, and despite the eccentricities of the IFP selection process (“the nominations reflect nothing more than the tastes of five-person committees comprised of distinguished film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators,” avers Feinberg), the early Gothams “often serve an important purpose by calling attention to some films that might not otherwise receive it, sometimes in a few of the categories below, but always in the best documentary category.” As such, the Gothams have value.
Here, then, are the Gotham Independent Award nominees for 2012:

Best Feature
Bernie - Richard Linklater, director; Richard Linklater, Ginger Sledge, Celine Rattray, Martin Shafer, Liz Glotzer, Matt Williams, David McFadzean, Judd Payne, Dete Meserve, producers (Millennium Entertainment)
The Loneliest Planet - Julia Loktev, director; Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Helge Albers, Marie Therese Guirgis, producers (Sundance Selects)
The Master - Paul Thomas Anderson, director; Joanne Sellar, Daniel Lupi, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, producers (The Weinstein Company)
Middle of Nowhere - Ava DuVernay, director; Howard Barish, Ava DuVernay, Paul Garnes, producers (AFFRM and Participant Media)
Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Focus Features)

Best Documentary
Detropia - Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, directors; Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady, Craig Atkinson, producers (Loki Films)
How to Survive a Plague - David France, director; Howard Gertler, David France, producers (Sundance Selects)
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present - Matthew Akers, director; Jeff Dupre, Maro Chermayeff, producers (HBO Documentary Films and Music Box Films)
Room 237 - Rodney Ascher, director; Tim Kirk, producer (IFC Midnight)
The Waiting Room - Peter Nicks, director; Peter Nicks, Linda Davis, William B. Hirsch, producers (International Film Circuit)

Best Ensemble Performance
Bernie - Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, Matthew McConaughey (Millennium Entertainment)
Moonrise Kingdom - Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban (Focus Features)
Safety Not Guaranteed - Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere, Kristen Bell, Jeff Garlin, Mary Lynn Rajskub (Film District)
Silver Linings Playbook - Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher (The Weinstein Company)
Your Sister’s Sister - Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Duplass (IFC Films)

Breakthrough Director
Zal Batmanglij for Sound of My Voice (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky for Francine (Factory 25 and The Film Sales Company)
Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin for Now, Forager (Argot Pictures)
Antonio Míyndez Esparza for Aquí Allá (Here and There) (Torch Films)
Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Breakthrough Actor
Mike Birbiglia in Sleepwalk with Me (IFC Films)
Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere (AFFRM and Participant Media)
Thure Lindhardt in Keep the Lights On (Music Box Films)
Melanie Lynskey in Hello, I Must Be Going (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Kid-Thing - David Zellner, director; Nathan Zellner, Producer
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty - Terence Nance, director; Terence Nance, Andrew Corkin, James Bartlett, producers
Red Flag - Alex Karpovsky, director; Alex Karpovsky, Michael Bowes, producers
Sun Don’t Shine - Amy Seimetz, director; Kim Sherman, Amy Seimetz, producers
Tiger Tail in Blue - Frank V. Ross, director; Adam Donaghey, Drew Durepos, producers

Joy, Forgiveness, But More Often, Silence In the House of God

October 21, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

The Sessions, starring John Hawkes, Helen Hunt. Opens Friday, Oct. 26th.

The Sessions (Grade: A), director Ben Lewin, a Fox Searchlight release
Having completed it’s brief, and celebrated, run at the 31st annual Vancouver International International Film Festival, Ben Lewin’s moving, incredibly touching, and laugh-out-loud funny Sundance Audience Award winner opens this coming Friday, certain of it’s place in the Oscar firmament, as both one of the best films of the year, and much-deserved Oscar material, for 2010 Oscar nominee, John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone; Marcy, Martha, May, Marlene), and 1998 Oscar winner, Helen Hunt (As Good as It Gets), who in 2012 set the standard for actor-driven cinema.
William H. Macy adds to an already first-rate cast, playing priest Father Brendan, who empathizes with Mark (Hawkes), the disabled, virginal 38-year-old writer on whom the story is based, acting as the guide who unofficially sanctions his journey to sexual liberation, the narrative at the heart of the film. Macy’s determined attempt to remain impassive while Mark gives Father Brendan more details than he needs is nothing short of a thing of beauty (which is not to imply that The Sessions is more explicit than it need be, just human scale and humane). Vulnerable, witty, self-lacerating, charming and erudite, Hawkes gives an entirely convincing portrayal of a man that is all at once emotional, spiritual, physical, pleasurable, soul-
satisfying and life-affirming. Hunt, meanwhile, turns herself and her body into an instrument for healing, the best work the actress has done since her 1992’s The Waterdance. A decent, disarming, lovely and wonderful film.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In the House of God. Opens Nov. 16th, 2012.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In the House of God, dir., Alex Gibney
Variety’s Justin Chang writes …

Weaving a devastating account of priestly pedophilia into an excoriating indictment of the entire Vatican power structure, Oscar winner Alex Gibney’s meticulously researched, hard-hitting documentary focuses on the chilling testimony of the film subjects’ experiences and the horrific scope of the personal and institutional corruption that damaged their lives. Gibney digs deep into the case of Lawrence Murphy, a priest alleged to have abused more than 200 boys while teaching at St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee from 1950-74. Four alumni — Terry Kohut, Gary Smith, Pat Kuehn and Arthur Budzinski — recall in sign language about how Murphy repeatedly molested them well into their teenage years, painting an angry picture of how their disability rendered them especially vulnerable to the misdeeds of a trusted church leader.

A thoroughly damning portrait an arrogant, unfeeling institution that sees its authority as absolute, invoking canon law in order to hush up scandals and excommunicate those who would bring the truth to light, showing greater mercy toward its perpetrators than toward those who suffered at their hands, Mea Maxima Culpa reserves its most withering attack for the Vatican itself, advancing an exhaustively detailed argument that (current sitting) Pope Benedict XVI is the single most knowledgeable figure on the Church’s history of sexual abuse, yet has done little to reach out to victims or to bring violators to justice.

Meanwhile, reporting from the London Film Festival, In Contention’s Guy Lodge suggests that Mea Maxima Culpa may well emerge as the winner at next February’s Oscar ceremony. Screen Daily critic Anthony Kaufman writes, “Mea Maxima Culpa — which translates as ‘my most grievous fault’ in Latin — presents a well-constructed and poignant argument, full of outrage and ample evidence, about the heinous crimes and cover-ups that have taken place in the Catholic Church. Or as Rev. Thomas Doyle, a Catholic lawyer, chillingly notes in the film, it’s “far worse than a conspiracy; it’s a policy of secrecy.” As noted above, Mea Maxima Culpa opens Nov. 16th.

Hollywood Gets Serious As The Oscar Season Begins

October 20, 2012CinemaRaymond Tomlin

At the start of the weekend, VanRamblings once again commences with an exploration of the 20 or so Oscar-contending films that January 10, 2013 will be announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as Oscar nominees, a precursor to what is sure to be an inventive, Seth McFarlane-hosted Sunday, February 23rd, 2013 Oscar gala ceremony.
What is one picture sure to be celebrated on Hollywood’s special night?
Silver Linings Playbook, director, David O. Russell, with Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DeNiro, Chris Tucker, Jackie Weaver, John Ortiz
Of all the pictures that’ll be released this fall, there is no film which comes with more attendant buzz than David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook. Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells has already adopted the film as this year’s The Social Network, the season’s can’t miss Oscar bait — and all this despite the fact that it’s a comedy, a heart-tugging comedy, but a comedy nonetheless. Winner of the prestigious People’s Choice Award at the recent Toronto Film Festival, winner of the Audience Award at The Hampton International Film Festival — their picks the past two years, The King’s Speech and The Artist, both went on to win the Best Picture Oscar, as is the case with TIFF, critics are already suggesting the wins in Toronto and the Hampton’s a foretelling of a three-peat — with a great deal of buzz surrounding Jennifer Lawrence — who’s carrying The Hunger Games franchise, and was a Best Actress nominee two years ago for Winter’s Bone — being a lock for Best Actress, Robert DeNiro a lock for Best Supporting Oscar, the film a career re-starter for actor Chris Tucker, with David O. Russell solidifying his best director rep after last year’s The Fighter, this time around, though, doing what he does best — off-kilter comedy — and a lock for a Best Director Oscar nod.
Critics’ reviews are in, and just as is the case with the often beleaguered Mr. Wells, the reviews are downright enthusiastic. Some pictures you want to discover on your own. Opening wide on November 21st, Silver Linings Playbook is a Weinstein Company picture release which, if you know anything about Harvey Weinstein, means that the film is going to get an Oscar push the likes of which Hollywood has not previously experienced.

Heck, it’s the weekend, and because it’s the weekend, and you need a little down time — we know that you don’t want to be lollygagging around VanRamblings, you’d rather be outside — we’ll leave you with one more film in today’s post, perhaps not Oscar bait (you never know, tho), but a picture that’ll emerge this coming Christmas season as a box office winner.

If you were in any doubt, Tom Cruise is back, hot on the heels of last Christmas’ smash Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Although Jack Reacher may not hit the heights that the new James Bond thriller, Skyfall, will likely hit, as revved up Hollywood-style Christmas fare, there’s no question Christopher McQuarrie’s adaptation of the Lee Child best-selling novel series will be on your holiday season film radar. Due out the Friday before Christmas, December 21st. We’ll be seeing you at the movies.