tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27444544611196416492024-03-13T03:18:28.359-07:00The Artful BloggerFrom the mind of a pop culture-obsessed grammarianHerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comBlogger171125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-30549345583017284342014-07-01T09:45:00.001-07:002014-07-01T15:25:42.106-07:00Modern Film Classics: “2046”<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OWz8JQNCPBU/U7LlAKutApI/AAAAAAAABW4/_78QnFOlOtY/s1600/2046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OWz8JQNCPBU/U7LlAKutApI/AAAAAAAABW4/_78QnFOlOtY/s1600/2046.jpg" height="320" width="217" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All memories are
traces of tears. </i></div>
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<br /></div>
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If you were to dance to the end of love, what would it look
like? </div>
<br />
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Wong Kar-Wai’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2046</i>
is the sequel to his celebrated 2000 masterpiece <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/miracle-cure-all-was-discovered-in.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In the Mood for Love</i></a>. In that classic, two neighbours in 1960s Hong
Kong discover that their spouses are cuckolding them with each other. The man
(Chow Mo-wan, played by Tony Leung) and woman (Su Li-Zhen, played by Maggie
Cheung) confide in one another and form an unusual bond. Against their better
judgment, they fall in love, their sorrow tethering their wasted souls to one
another. In the end they part, never to reunite.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2046</i> picks up on
the action a few yeaas later, in the late 1960s. The film takes on multiple
stories within the space of just two hours, but they are all intertwined with
one another on an emotional, if not necessarily logical narrative, level. Chow
has become a successful science fiction writer, fulfilling the potential
Li-Zhen saw in him during their time in the summer of 1962. Chow’s also become a bon
vivant and career lothario, living in room #2047. In a coincidence, he and
Li-zhen went to discuss their marital troubles (although they never consummated
their love) in room #2046 in a different hotel. It's enough for him to take up residence there. The emotional damage has scarred him,
as he acts out of character contrary to how he was in the previous film by
bedding a series of women (played by an outstanding cast of Chinese stars such
as Carina Lau, Gong Li, Faye Wong and Zhang Ziyi in her career performance) who
occupy room #2046. The key is that each of these women reminds him of aspects
of Li-zhen’s personality, but their totality never recreates or conjures the
memory of the woman he loves. Nat King Cole invades the soundtrack, singing of
happy memories but lacing them with a slight melancholy, for Chow cannot find
joy despite going through the motions of lovemaking. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nNNVHsPTHhw/U7Lk_SIgjnI/AAAAAAAABWs/yknzOraAN0w/s1600/2046(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nNNVHsPTHhw/U7Lk_SIgjnI/AAAAAAAABWs/yknzOraAN0w/s1600/2046(2).jpg" height="183" width="320" /></a></div>
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At another narrative level is the dramatization of Tak
(Tayuka Kimura), a lonely Japanese man who travels in the figment of Chow’s
imagination to a destination called 2046. It’s never made clear if it’s the
year before Hong Kong returns to China, or if it’s a fictional destination, or
perhaps a secular Asian version of a Judeo-Christian purgatory. They say in
2046 that those who venture there find their happiest memories, never to
return. Only Tak attempts to, but why? Tak falls in love with a female android,
but which does not leave with him. Why?</div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s clear that Tak’s narrative is an extension of Chow’s misery
and mourning for Li-zhen (who only appears in one flashback in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2046</i>). Chow inhabits the film, occupying
psychic and physical space, never registering emotionally to those around him.
In the aftermath of the loss of his great love, he engaged in love only on a
superficial level, disengaging himself from the proceedings and
disregarding the emotional needs of his lovers while never dropping the veneer
of his charm (is he a sociopath in disguise?). Zhang’s character is a
high-class escort whose persona may be closest to his, as she understands his
love in transactional terms. They share the same detachment, but
because neither will let the other see what’s behind the mask, the connection
remains shallow and functional.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oPxT3YXLF5M/U7Lk_NNKsOI/AAAAAAAABW0/2l5FFIeaG0g/s1600/2046(3).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oPxT3YXLF5M/U7Lk_NNKsOI/AAAAAAAABW0/2l5FFIeaG0g/s1600/2046(3).jpg" height="302" width="320" /></a> While critics understood the more emotionally accessible <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In the Mood for Love</i> as a denial of
passion and the heart’s deepest desire, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2046</i>
left audiences and critics cold upon its opening at Cannes 2004. There’s a common perception that the sequel is
a misbegotten venture. However, if we understand Chow’s journey in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2046</i> as an elongated mourning period, a
cinematic treatment of Albinoni’s Adagio in G, then we can view the film as the
long numbing and dulling of the senses in the aftermath of lost love. Chow isn’t
sad or angry that he lost Li-zhen, but he’s caught somewhere in between in a
long-term (if impermanent) emotional holding station, and Tak’s journey represents
his exploration of what never was and will be. If room 2046 stood for all of
the memories he remembers he holds most dear, but can no longer have, his
approximated habituation of 2047 is the closest thing to it, but he could never
return. It’s small comfort that he will one day cease mortality with memories,
and not dreams.</div>
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(As a side note, it’s no accident that the years 2046 and
2047 also correspond with the events of Hong Kong, and pure coincidence that pro-democracy
protests are taking place in Hong Kong as I write this, with the handover
taking place exactly 33 years into the future. There’s an entire treatise
waiting to be written on the themes of China-Hong Kong politics with this film,
but that is best left as the subject of another essay.)</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ttZd-qoM5UA/U7Lk_ZhjvDI/AAAAAAAABWo/CjMR_RYPkDI/s1600/2046(4).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ttZd-qoM5UA/U7Lk_ZhjvDI/AAAAAAAABWo/CjMR_RYPkDI/s1600/2046(4).jpg" height="128" width="320" /></a>Although initially misunderstood as a jumbled, frantic work
with a famously ill-fated shooting schedule that included a complete overhaul
and re-draft of the script over three years, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2046</i> remains the great divisive work of Wong’s career. It is not meant
to be a self-contained film, but as part of a greater work on lost love. Whereas
its companion piece <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In the Mood for Love</i>
is a meditation on denial of physical passion and the nature of great love, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2046</i> is an examination of the grieving
process. In the end, Chow may be ready to move on, but where shall he go? </div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-13323324070316538172013-12-13T13:01:00.001-08:002013-12-13T13:01:47.490-08:00Master Class: Beyoncé’s “Visual Album”<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Awm2c-MzLNM/Uqt0YlSQE7I/AAAAAAAABS8/zixXy1WBAQw/s1600/Beyonce_album.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Awm2c-MzLNM/Uqt0YlSQE7I/AAAAAAAABS8/zixXy1WBAQw/s1600/Beyonce_album.png" /></a>It was the mic drop heard ‘round the world.</div>
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Beyoncé’s sudden, stunning announcement that she had not
only recorded an entire new album while on tour, but released it at the exact
moment it was announced, in the absence of any advance publicity and nary a
clue of its existence, made the news rounds late last night and into this
morning. As expected, social media exploded in mass hysteria. For music lovers,
this was the equivalent of an atomic bomb, consuming and destroying everything
in its path. Imagine if the Beatles went on the news unannounced in 1968, carted in a
crate of LPs, said “this is <i>Abbey Road</i>.
It’s available as of right now. Enjoy,” then left.</div>
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Today, the “normal” process of promoting music these days is
for artists to Tweet the existence of a single, whether or not it was already
sent to radio or made available. Publicists work overtime to ensure maximal
exposure for their client. In the late twentieth century, we waited with bated
breath for the radio to play a newly-announced song, or hope and pray that a
bootleg would make the rounds and we’d pass them around on cassettes or
white-label CDs. I remember the promotion behind Madonna’s radio premiere of “You
Must Love Me” from the then-to-be-released <i>Evita</i>,
which was met with a collective shrug from the record-buying public. People <i>waited</i> for the product from the
superstar. It was expected that we would accord it respect. Nowadays, artists
are at the mercy of the public, each trying to command attention over the sound
and fury until such time that everyone was talking over one another, and the
audience stops caring. Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga did this more than once
this year, and both attracted negative publicity (in Justin’s case, it didn’t
hurt his album sales, but in Gaga’s situation it was decidedly more
detrimental). The artists didn’t let their music speak. </div>
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Beyoncé’s masterstroke is that she pushed the entire work
directly into the marketplace. Why just Tweet that there’s a song available in
advance of an album and making videos in a rush after the singles were pushed out?
Here are some ways in which the new album has radically subverted the rules of
the game, and reflects how we consume and discuss music. This is not an evaluation of
the disc’s artistic merits (lack thereof), but an exploration of how we regard this particular artist in the celebrity ecosystem.</div>
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<b><u>Go directly to the
marketplace.</u></b> There’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/13/beyonce-new-album-revolution-pr">this terrific article in <i>The Guardian</i></a> explaining that Bey went directly to the audience. It’s the equivalent of her
showing up in the middle of a crowded mall, setting up a kiosk, and quietly waiting
for people to appear and buy out her stock. There was no advance publicity, no
built-up anticipation. One could argue that Beyoncé’s been on tour for most of
the year and that would be publicity enough, but she never betrayed the fact
that this album was being made at that time, let alone released. We would have
expected an album at some point in the future, but traditionally it would not
be in the middle of the tour, and certainly not while she’s still promoting
material from her last album two years ago. It’s even more rare that she chose
to do so during the all-important fourth quarter of the year, when people buy
music in greater numbers than the rest of the year due to the holiday rush.</div>
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<b><u>Silence = respect.</u></b>
Consider the multitude of artists who contributed to this album: Frank Ocean,
Justin Timberlake, Pharrell, Timbaland, Sia (the most unexpected collaborator
of all) and her mercurial husband Jay-Z. She’s stacked the deck with tremendous
talent and not a single one of them have breathed a word. It’s a testament to
how she is so respected that she commands such respect. Virtually every other
artist has had a track “leaked” (intentionally or not), but nothing was said
here to anyone. Perhaps they didn’t even know, and assumed it would be released
a year from now, after the tour? This release was so sudden and unexpected that
for once, Wikipedia didn’t have any information on the album – not even a page –
within an hour of the disc’s release. Given how so many celebrities plead for “privacy”
and yet are photographed leaving their yoga class, here is a request truly met
and accorded respect. </div>
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<b><u>Silence is louder
than Tweets.</u></b> While the likes of Madonna, Gaga and Miley madly try to
get people to pay attention by espousing on everything and nothing at once, we
hear relatively little from Beyoncé. Even her self-directed (and deceptively “intimate”)
documentary <i>Life is But a Dream</i> conveys
little substance of her private life. Contrast this with Mariah Carey, who has
been on TV almost every day this week broadcasting from her well-appointed
Manhattan home. What has Bey said about this? Absolutely nothing, other than a
Facebook post, and singular pictures on Instagram and her Tumblr. She’s busy
with her tour, you see, and tending to motherhood. For someone everyone talks
about, it’s curious that Beyoncé herself says so little, yet what she
did with the stealth album drop said a lot.</div>
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<b><u>The single does
not command the marketplace.</u></b> It’s no secret that there’s not much money
in purchasing music. The public buys the singles they want at a fraction of the
entire album cost. Single purchases far outweigh album sales, and committing to
downloading a full disc is a greater commitment from the public. (The real
money is in tours, anyway.) By dropping the album with no advance publicity and
not identifying one particular song as “the lead single”, the sudden onslaught
of new music is too much for her public. We can’t just buy the one single and
wait two months for her to announce the next one: there <i>is </i>no single. This way, we have no choice but to listen to the
entire work and determine for ourselves what the standout tracks – should there
be any – truly are. Consider that Lady Gaga’s “Applause” was met with derision
and relatively mixed reviews in advance of her latest work. Despite being a hit
single, her latest disc <i>artPOP</i> is
selling respectable but hardly spectacular numbers, by superstar standards. For
the press surrounding her Vegas show, the once-indomitable Britney Spears’s new
platter <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-why-isnt-britney-spears-latest-album-a-hit-20131212,0,3020444.story#axzz2nMLrkmIu">has anemic sales</a>.
It can be argued that the lead single hurt the album by tainting its image
prior to release. Beyoncé went through a similar situation when “Run the World
(Girls)” was met with a relatively soft commercial reception prior to the
release of her 2011 album <i>4</i>. By dropping
the entire disc at once, she neatly sidesteps this negative publicity, and
compels us to return to old patterns of buying entire albums. </div>
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<b><u>Image control.</u></b>
Beyoncé is not the first artist to release an entire video album accompanying
each track (including non-singles) with a clip. That would be Annie Lennox, who
did so for 1992’s landmark <i>Diva</i> album
(for which she won the Grammy for Best Long-Form Music Video). However, the
release of the disc as a concept “visual album” with bonus videos, feeds into
our fascination with Mrs. Carter. To keep herself in the conversation by saying
so little, we then look into her Tumblr and Instagram to determine if any of
the images in the videos were silently released in her sites. Did she leave
clues? Was she hiding a secret in plain sight, and nobody caught on? And
therein continues the virtuous cycle: Bey’s killer instinct and business sense
helps her understand when people are weary of celebrity, and when to back off. The
combination of the album and video compilation maximal release is both
manifestation of ego and maximal output all at once, forcing the viewer and
listener to judge the work on its own. Not for nothing is she <a href="http://www.annehelenpetersen.com/?p=2952">supreme in imagecontrol.</a> </div>
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<b><u>Confirmation of
iconic status.</u></b> Beyoncé is also not the first artist this year to do the
stealth album drop. That would be David Bowie, whose <i>The Next Day</i> turned out to be one of the year’s very best discs.
The difference is that Bowie preceded the disc by shipping a single to radio,
then released the album a few months later, with little to no other
publicity accompanying it. It still hewed more closely to the "traditional" publicity pattern than what Bey did. Only an artist with a captive audience would dare
try it. There are a few who may pull off this trick, and Bey proved she is one
of them. What's breathtaking about her strategy, more so than Bowie's, is that she dropped in the
midst of her tour, a time that is so exhaustive and all-consuming for her
professionally that one would not imagine she would have the time or energy to create
an entire new work that some artists take an entire year off to produce. True
to form, the album crashed on iTunes several times due to the overwhelming sudden
demand.</div>
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<b><u>The music itself.</u></b>
Is it any good? Is it bad? Is it great, or both? At this point it becomes a
moot point. All the emotion surrounding anticipated new music and its actual
release have been truncated and amalgamated overnight into the span of just a
few short hours. The stealth drop of the album has neatly sidestepped all of
the discussion by presenting the music as-is, compelling fans to buy it and
completely avoiding the tide of potentially negative publicity (and yes, it’s
pretty damn good). The videos clearly have ambition, scope, scale and budget to
carry out her vision. It is a celebration of the artist and her life,
confessional and dramatic. Perhaps this is the wave of the future, pop music as
grand opera?</div>
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In any event, I’ll be spending copious amounts of time
studying this work, deciphering clues and gaining insight into at once the most
public and yet enigmatic musical artist working today.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-4336096087636947712013-05-11T12:29:00.001-07:002013-05-14T11:38:23.181-07:00Cinematically Inclined: “The Great Gatsby”<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Who knew an old high school English class chestnut would be one of the main cultural events of the summer movie season?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s been over a decade since Baz Luhrmann made his signature film and masterpiece, 2001’s experimental, infuriating, over-the-top <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/modern-film-classic-moulin-rouge.html">Moulin Rouge!</a></i>, an MTV-influenced musical pastiche whose anachronistic spiritual twin was the Bollywood musical. In a similar vein, Luhrmann’s more straight-forward dramatization of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s <i>The Great Gatsby</i> draws the source novel into the long-held discussion on New York high society. Whereas we start the discussion with <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/06/when-marty-met-edie-age-of-innocence.html">Edith Wharton’s <i>The Age of Innocence</i></a> and then posit <i>Gatsby</i> as both the beginning and end of turn-of-the-century Manhattan social circles, Luhrmann’s film seems more apt to reference <i><a href="http://www.youknowyoulovefashion.com/gossipgirl/">Gossip Girl</a></i> by way of its themes of belonging, its dissection of old money and new money, and acceptable forms of desire.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The story is familiar and part of the canon of great American literature. Aspiring stockbroker Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) arrives in New York to make his fortune in the summer of 1922, when the alcohol was free-flowing, the flapper girls were cooing siren-like calls to the lovelorn, and many were awash in unprecedented wealth. The 1920s were the first half of the twentieth century’s counterpart to the 1980s. Nick visits his cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) and her brutish old-money husband Tom (Joel Edgerton) on Long Island, and becomes not so much friends with them as thrown together in common circumstances. New York was in thrall to the wild, weekend-long parties of Nick’s neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). These gatherings at his sprawling, <i>Citizen Kane</i>-like estate were so lavish that no one was ever invited, but anyone and everyone simply showed up in droves to bathe in the overindulgence and drink the champagne that flowed like water. (It is no coincidence that <i>The Great Gatsby</i> is also opening this year’s Cannes Film Festival.) It turns out that Jay and Daisy were once in love, and he’s returned from obscurity with obscene wealth and the single-minded goal to rekindle their romance.</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6o6XCFfYick/UY6apo3RW4I/AAAAAAAABQg/Ykz3JwYLQFQ/s1600/920339_534960753213011_649763148_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6o6XCFfYick/UY6apo3RW4I/AAAAAAAABQg/Ykz3JwYLQFQ/s320/920339_534960753213011_649763148_o.jpg" width="213" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While most critics have laid waste to Luhrmann’s aesthetic choices, with some of the worst reviews likening this film to a sorority or frat house party, I posit that Luhrmann’s aesthetic is exactly right for this story. If you wanted a slavish recreation of the era and to render it delicately, see the somnambulistic 1974 film version that had Robert Redford and Mia Farrow wandering about languidly in delicate drawing rooms like they were in the world’s most tedious, but well-dressed zombie flick. Gatsby was always a garish, larger-than-life character, and his ambitions and passions were as wide as the boundless Midwestern sky from which he emerged. The film’s extravagant set pieces vividly soar with the giddy contact high from his parties, the promise of youth, beauty and wealth on grandiose display. Oscar-winning designer Catherine Martin (Mrs. Baz Luhrmann) has outdone herself with the period production and costume designs. One wants to buy everything on screen. Luhrmann’s <i>The Great Gatsby</i> brings to mind the extravagance of large-scale opera like the Bregenz Festival. Like in Edith Wharton’s <i>The Age of Innocence</i>, nothing draws derision and criticism quite like audacity and sheer nerve. The film has strong promotional tie-ins with such luxury brands as Moet & Chandon, Tiffany & Co., and Brooks Brothers, exploring and showcasing the film’s exploration of conspicuous consumption while at the same time teasing audiences with the promise of happiness through the acquisition of those goods. Is this a comment on consumerist culture in a time of global economic crisis? </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eiQ4dz8Cozs/UY6apPJ6NYI/AAAAAAAABQY/8e9JBMMFujs/s1600/894102_515298268512593_1075037869_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eiQ4dz8Cozs/UY6apPJ6NYI/AAAAAAAABQY/8e9JBMMFujs/s320/894102_515298268512593_1075037869_o.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cast, as one would expect, steps up to these iconic characters with vigor and the requisite energy. DiCaprio makes a vibrant, arrogant Gatsby and brings out the truth behind the façade: not Gatsby’s humble beginning, but his social awkwardness that makes him try just a little too hard. The challenge of playing Daisy has always been alluring given that she’s such a thinly-written character. Daisy has always been more a promise and not a fully-realized woman, a sign, signifier and symbol of desire, fantasy and unfulfilled dreams. Mulligan’s vibrancy makes her more than just a projection of fantasy made flesh in Gatsby’s mind. Joel Edgerton’s raw anger is what we need for the jealous, puerile Tom Buchanan, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Armie Hammer would have made the part his signature role. Australian newcomer Elizabeth Debicki is delicious as Jordan, the famed golfer and teller of tall tales. While Jordan’s penchant for duplicity is almost completely gone from the film, Debicki makes us want to see more of her. The key role and film’s best performance belongs to Tobey Maguire, whose Nick Carraway is the narrative counterpart to Ewan McGregor’s Christian in <i>Moulin Rouge!</i>. </span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PeF0T1au1l8/UY6ao2pUTdI/AAAAAAAABQQ/AkOq7bF3oP8/s1600/472770_533964956645924_1426870053_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PeF0T1au1l8/UY6ao2pUTdI/AAAAAAAABQQ/AkOq7bF3oP8/s320/472770_533964956645924_1426870053_o.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And what of the film’s celebrated and already notorious soundtrack? Working again with Craig Pearce and this time with the emperor of the music world, Jay-Z (with his empress dowager <a href="http://www.annehelenpetersen.com/?p=2952">Beyoncé</a> in tow), the film’s sound is more contemporary than <i>Moulin Rouge!</i>. With the latter, the re-mixing and re-working of recognizable pop songs mixed in with Bollywood dance beats, house and Broadway made the soundtrack almost defy every era, and inadvertently rendering it timeless. My concern is if the same could be said for <i>The Great Gatsby</i>’s soundtrack. Nevertheless, it is itself full of gems and curiosities. While Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” and Florence + the Machine’s “Over the Love” soar on the proverbial wings of love, the Andre 3000 / Mrs. Z collaboration on Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” feels a shade extraneous. It works well as a call-and-answer, but it can’t improve on <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/07/back-to-black-amy-winehouse-1983-2011.html">the original’s emotional bloodletting</a>. Ironically enough, Emeli Sandé’s version of Mrs. Carter’s “Crazy in Love” as a sped-up flapper jazz suite is better than the latter’s own contribution. Still, it is entirely appropriate for the most ostentatiously wealthy of today’s musical royalty to contribute to the sounds of arguably the most over-the-top film of the year. (If anyone else tops Luhrmann in cinematic excess in 2013 he may be out of a job.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The film is not itself perfect. There is a coda tacked on where Nick is narrating the events from a rehabilitation facility that is an exercise in directorial vanity. The lovely and talented Isla Fisher is underused as Tom’s mistress Myrtle Wilson, there are too many uses of the same matte drawing to signify the commute between Long Island and Manhattan, and some of the more intimate gatherings run on too long, making some want to leave the party early. But then again, the film’s aesthetic is that more is more, so it is fitting even when the films needs to be more heavily edited. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If nothing else, <i>The Great Gatsby</i> is on all levels a visual essay on the fluid nature of dreams, and an inadvertent criticism of conspicuous consumption, even as it is itself seems complicit in its encouragement. (If anyone needs me, I’ll be at Brooks Brothers.)</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-25814231158156521422012-12-02T23:06:00.000-08:002012-12-03T16:49:15.139-08:00Cinematically Inclined: “Anna Karenina”<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I thank God that the curse of love has been lifted from me.”</span></i></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5KleWseXy-4/ULxOwlUM9TI/AAAAAAAABOQ/6hZ2KJxTED0/s1600/blog4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5KleWseXy-4/ULxOwlUM9TI/AAAAAAAABOQ/6hZ2KJxTED0/s320/blog4.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I first studied Leo Tolstoy’s mammoth <i>Anna Karenina</i> in my senior year of high school, writing several essays and a journal on the work. I still have that journal. I was assigned the novel again in my sophomore year of college, tearing through the book with a keener, more critical eye in a Russian literature class. Having seen numerous film versions of the classic novel, I had been waiting for a cinematic adaptation that would at once heighten the book’s social criticism, moral relativism and artifice, while paying more than scant attention to the book’s other main character, Constantine Levin. It was as if Joe Wright, in his first period piece since the masterful <i>Atonement</i>, heard my plea, and presented me with his accomplished new version of <i>Anna Karenina</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For the uninitiated, this is one of the most famous love stories of all. Published in 1876, the central story follows socialite Anna Karenina. She is bored in her marriage to her officious husband and falls madly in lust, then love with the charming Count Vronsky. As imperialist Russian high society watches, she learns the social mores and cruel double standards where men’s indiscretions are permitted but women must remain virtuous, without free will. Things do not end well, to say the least, as Anna unravels in a long chronicle of a social suicide. Anna’s plight is contrasted with young Constantine “Kostya” Levin, an idealist from the same circles who flees its rigid confines to scythe fields with the peasants, slowly adopting what would become Communist ideals. Of course, he must learn to curb his romanticised political leanings with romantic love for Ekaterina, or “Kitty”, who was originally meant to be Vronsky’s intended. High society, like pop, will eat itself.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j8WSBg8c3EM/ULxOvW4iYtI/AAAAAAAABOA/8IFjkRjIf30/s1600/blog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j8WSBg8c3EM/ULxOvW4iYtI/AAAAAAAABOA/8IFjkRjIf30/s320/blog2.jpg" width="231" /></a><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How prescient that Tom Stoppard wrote this film’s screenplay. Stoppard’s seminal work <i>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead</i> won the Tony Award forty-five years ago and remains one of the authoritative works on challenging a fictional medium’s confines. It was not just breaking down the fourth wall that made that play work so well: its knowing air and self-awareness made the work break new ground. The idea of having a character address an audience directly is not new, but it's used here as a deviated narrative conceit. By staging Anna’s story entirely within a theatre, Shakespeare’s point that “all the world’s a stage, and we are but players upon it” is laid bare. The theatre is used as signifiers and symbols to abstractly represent the physical, drawing attention to its own artifice (i</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">nsert Bertolt Brecht reference here</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">). The stage is where the main characters play out their actions, while high society fills the audience and boxes watching and judging, and the indifferent population traipses around backstage, supporting the upper echelons unnoticed. Stoppard’s use of theatre as society is microcosm, lending the film a higher concept that we have seen thus far from other film adaptations of the same source material. Detractors have, however, found the conceit to be tiresome and distracting, so either you’re along for the ride or you aren’t. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Beyond its utility as a narrative conceit, Stoppard’s screenplay draws heightened attention to the fact that high society’s actions are consequential only to its own self. Considering the double standards that drive Anna away and allows her brother Stiva’s flagrantly public infidelity, the moral relativism is thrown into stark relief. It is no accident that Levin’s struggle, while merely a subplot in the film, is set in naturalist settings outside of the theatre. The filmmakers use verisimilitude for his story to contrast the artifice of Anna’s opulent but empty existence.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This adaptation also captures smaller points that may have been lost upon the casual viewer or those only familiar with the previous adaptations starring Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh and Sophie Marceau. The dialogue is so often focused on the love triangle that the subtler social criticisms are lost, but not so here. An overarching theme almost left unnoticed is the historical attributes given to Moscow and St. Petersburg (or “Peterhof” as it was known then). Peterhof was the seat of high society, culture and government, while Moscow was then considered a backwater. This further stresses Anna’s infidelity as improper, as it seemed to take place in the then-equivalent of a lesser place. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As usual, all players fare well in Wright’s film. Although somewhat miscast as Anna, Keira Knightley attacks the role with finesse and enthusiasm. Ms. Knightley may be a shade too youthful to play the weathered Anna, but she excels when the despair unravels the once-poised Anna. As Vronsky, Aaron Taylor-Johnson has every element correct, capturing the youthfulness that betrays the proper man, knowing in the very bottom of his soul that it has little consequence to him. Anna knows what she’s talking about when she says he knows nothing of the cross she bears for them both. To complete the triangle, Jude Law embodies the long-suffering Karenin, leveraging his brittle voice and measured cadence to capture the broken heart of Anna’s ineffectual husband. There is also ample support from Alicia Vikander as Kitty (she can also be seen in the wonderful <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2012/10/viff-2012-royal-affair.html">A Royal Affair</a></i>), Emily Watson, Matthew McFadyen, Kelly Macdonald and Domhnall Gleeson, as Levin.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qy06IoGugq0/ULxOwDkX3KI/AAAAAAAABOI/0kdNGUf_5Ko/s1600/blog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Qy06IoGugq0/ULxOwDkX3KI/AAAAAAAABOI/0kdNGUf_5Ko/s320/blog3.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Visually, this is one of the most striking pictures of the year. Its aesthetic extravagance suggests Scorsese’s <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/06/when-marty-met-edie-age-of-innocence.html">The Age of Innocence</a> </i>by way of <i>Synecdoche, New York</i>. As with his previous collaborations with Knightley on <i>Pride & Prejudice </i>and <i>Atonement</i>, all technical details are exquisitely rendered, from Sarah Greenwood’s production design, to Seamus McGarvey’s sumptuous lens, to Jacqueline Durran’s sartorial excesses. The sound recording complements the score, which is almost continuously played and rendered beautifully by Oscar winner Dario Marianelli. As with <i>Atonement</i>, sound plays an important role in isolating and heightening for emphasis in seemingly benign but effective manners.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Treatment of a revered literary classic is not, as a matter of due course, without its faults. It is a daunting task to condense a 900-page text that sometimes moves at a glacial pace into a film that seems all too short. Another fault is that Karenin has been homogenized in this version, with his misogyny (or is that misanthropy, given how self-contained he is) removed almost entirely from the film. This oversight should not, however, be attributed to Mr. Law. It makes Anna’s betrayal somewhat baffling and driven not by a need for escape or loathing, but a moment of uncontrolled passion run amok. The film’s numerous players are not well-established as characters on their own, and are more often signified by little traits and virtues. Nevertheless, the film’s bravura acting, inventive but elegant script, and technical excellence more than make up for the film’s shortcomings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Anna Karenina</i> opened in the United Kingdom in September, following a high-profile opening at the Toronto International Film Festival, and is now playing in select cities throughout Europe and North America.</span></div>
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-86416702900991630252012-11-05T23:23:00.003-08:002012-11-05T23:42:26.774-08:00Open Letter: Why Eduard Khil’s “Trololo” Should Be the Christmas #1<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Every so often, a wondrous Internet meme of a non-lexical, nonsense
song becomes earworm. A prime example is <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/06/sound-advice-adriano-celentanos.html">Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol”</a>,
a gibberish tune that topped the Italian charts in 1972 and has garnered
millions of views on YouTube. That was my nonsensical pop music obsession of
2011. For 2012, there is no better candidate than Russian crooner Eduard Khil’s
“Trololo”.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dPG_wsQLdZY/UJi6L0z-vvI/AAAAAAAABNc/Ia4oRz2Vw4w/s1600/blog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dPG_wsQLdZY/UJi6L0z-vvI/AAAAAAAABNc/Ia4oRz2Vw4w/s320/blog1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Initially titled “Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">”,
the late Khil’s non-lexical Soviet pop sensation gained notoriety when it
became an Internet meme in 2009. The title translated into English means “I Am
Glad, ‘Cause I’m Finally Going Home”. How it came to become known as “Trololo”
was because of the way it sounds. Here’s what the original sounds like:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Note that the song has, at the time of this writing, fifteen
million views to date.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It garnered a minor cult following, including a joke on <i>Family Guy</i>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hF3A0w5E20A?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There’s even a continuous ten-hour – yes, <i>ten <b><u>hour</u></b>
</i>– loop of the song in a single YouTube clip, which you can see here:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/sCNrK-n68CM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is in fact the only song by Khil available for purchase at
the (non-Russian / Eastern European) iTunes store, where for 99 cents once can
have the pleasure of listening to this musical nonsense nonstop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are about six weeks out from the infamous chase for the
Christmas Number One on the UK music charts. Past winners of this title include
vaunted pop classics by Paul McCartney, the Spice Girls, Whitney Houston and
Pink Floyd. For those readers unfamiliar with the concept, this is a cultural
phenomenon in Britain, a time when a mad crush of artists releases
Christmas-themed songs and sing-song-y power ballads in a bid to see who will
end up on top of the musical pile during the biggest sales period in the music
industry for the entire year. Only sales in the week leading immediately up to
Christmas Day counted towards the total, so timing is crucial. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the last decade, the Christmas Number One single has been
dominated by reality singing competition winners, such as Girls Aloud (who saw “Sound
of the Underground” launch their successful career in 2002), Alexandra Burke
and Leona Lewis. There have on occasion been songs that were released as
explicit cash grabs that have nothing to do with the holiday, such as the
Teletubbies’ theme song and Bob the Builder, some of which top the chart but
often came up just short. Then there was the successful 2009 Facebook-enhanced
campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s anything-but-Christmas-y “Killing in
the Name” to the top, which was started as a joke to counter the commerciality
of the whole enterprise but actually became the Christmas Number One (I may or
may not have purchased a copy). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is now <a href="http://www.facebook.com/xmas.number.one?fref=ts">a campaign on Facebook to get Eduward Khil’s “Trololo”to the top of the Christmas charts in the UK</a>. Here’s why it should be on top:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>True to the whole
enterprise, there’s a huge Novelty Factor.</b> Like comically ironic
candidates like Rage Against the Machine and the insipid Teletubbies theme song
(which was an unconsciously ironic choice), it’s the idea of taking the piss
out of the whole occasion, with its seriousness and sentimentality, that makes
it such a great idea. </span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DpKu_muOukU/UJi6MVMVk1I/AAAAAAAABNk/zJoeDnldbgI/s1600/blog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DpKu_muOukU/UJi6MVMVk1I/AAAAAAAABNk/zJoeDnldbgI/s320/blog3.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>It kinda <i>sounds</i> like a Christmas song.</b>
Sing “Trololo lolo” and what does it sound like? <i>“Falalalala</i>”. Reader, the gibberish rhythm makes it, combined with
the instrumentation, almost sound like a forgotten Christmas classic, complete
with orchestral sweep and chimes that make this sound like a Russian Bing
Crosby. Okay maybe not <i>that </i>far, but
it’s a musical facsimile, <i>nyet</i>?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>It would be
really, <i>really </i>funny.</b> Having
seen the Christmas Number One parody storyline in <i>Love, Actually</i> many, many times, I have been waiting for a blatant
attempt at the coveted title with a song that mocks the insincere warbling of
pretty young pop stars. Plus, an added bonus would be that the idea of having
this top the chart would make musical executives rip out their hair in
frustration. Can you see Simon Cowell having a fit that a decades-old record
beats out his latest <i>X-Factor</i>
investment, the one that was going to buy him a private island next to Beyoncé’s
and Jay-Z’s? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Universal appeal.</b>
It’s the kind of “universal” record that the record companies try to get to
appeal to everyone with the Christmas Number One releases. While the Spice
Girls had three back-to-back-to-back titles from 1996 to 1998, non-English
speakers would not be able to fully appreciate their singles. “Trololo”,
however, is perfect in that anyone anywhere can sing along and enjoy it. Plus,
it offends absolutely nobody (except aforementioned record company executives)
and language is not a factor. You could play this to anyone of any race, age,
religion, gender, political affiliation, sexual orientation, nationality or
ethnicity and <i>they would get it</i>. I
always wondered: in that old 1972 commercial “I’d Like to Teach the World to
Sing”, what song <i>would</i> the singer
like to teach to sing? It sure isn’t Michael Jackson or “Express Yourself”,
because it’d be too tough with the language barrier. Just throw “Trololo” on
and have everyone sing, and you could bring about world peace. Heck, for those
opposed to pop music as being “too westernized”, let me remind you: this is <i>a pop record from Soviet Russia</i>. (This also explains <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/guilty-pleasure-eurovision-song-contest.html">Eurovision</a>.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;">If you can buy “Gangnam Style”, you can buy this
as your next earworm.</span></b><span style="line-height: 115%;">
Self-explanatory.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So if you’d like to teach the world to sing, have a laugh
and get a perfect score at karaoke while getting caned at your parents’ place, get
“Trololo” to the Christmas Number One! And remember: you can only buy it during
the week leading up to Christmas in the UK, so that the sales count.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>With thanks to our friends at <a href="http://www.gayfrenchriviera.com/">Gay French Riviera</a> for the tip!</i></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-70487726133184956312012-10-28T19:48:00.000-07:002012-10-29T09:43:29.815-07:00Cinematically Inclined: on Michael Haneke’s “Amour”<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PghukWEBOlE/UI3t7-p1j8I/AAAAAAAABM4/dJk3UeKzwWk/s1600/blog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PghukWEBOlE/UI3t7-p1j8I/AAAAAAAABM4/dJk3UeKzwWk/s320/blog1.jpg" width="320" /></a><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Dance me to the end of love” – Madeleine Peyroux</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What happens when happily ever after ends? Michael Haneke, the distinguished Austrian filmmaker whose credits include realist horror stories such as <i>Funny Games</i>, <i>Cach</i><i>é </i>and the 2009 Cannes Palme d’Or winner <i>The White Ribbon</i>, makes a radical departure from his usual oeuvre to answer the question.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Right off the bat, cineastes note that this film’s subject matter is not something expected of the director. His films appear at first blush to have an accessible theme, but are often about something else altogether. His <i>Cach</i><i>é </i>started off with a couple attempting to find out who’s been sending them videotapes of themselves carrying on in their daily lives, but is a meditation on the legacy of the Franco-Algerian War. <i>La Pianiste</i> appears to be about a forbidden sexual affair, but actually explores misanthropy and sexual alienation. And <i>The White Ribbon</i> might seem like a riff on <i>Children of the Corn</i>, but things take a more darkly realistic turn when you realize this was in the years just before WWI and who the young citizens of that small German grew up to be in the 1930s … and into this mix comes <i>Amour</i>.</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-imSJGx4Kg0Y/UI3t8n-gpuI/AAAAAAAABNE/243S_VRBkAE/s1600/blog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="172" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-imSJGx4Kg0Y/UI3t8n-gpuI/AAAAAAAABNE/243S_VRBkAE/s320/blog3.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Set in contemporary Paris, we meet an elegant retired couple in their 80s who were once great piano teachers. They attend recitals, they debate interpretations and they mentor dazzling pianists who still look to them for their opinions on the latest attempt at perfecting Handel’s Sarabande. Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) now live in an elegant Parisian apartment, enjoying their retirement. One day, Anne has a stroke at breakfast, but doesn’t know it. A series of increasingly debilitating strokes weaken her and rob her of her motor coordination, until she is all but confined to her bed and barely able to receive the occasional visitor. Their estranged daughter (Isabelle Huppert) drops by every once in awhile to express her annoyance at their care of treatment plan, and is exasperated by Georges’s measures to prevent her from even seeing her mother in such a state. Georges, suspicious of nursing homes, refuses to let Anne be looked after outside the apartment: soon, we notice that we haven’t left the apartment, either. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If this story sounds familiar, it is thematically similar to Sarah Polley’s acclaimed 2007 film <i>Away From Her</i>, which explores a husband watching helplessly as his wife drifts away into the abyss of Alzheimer’s. Unlike Polley’s film, however, Haneke’s story doesn’t take place in a nursing home, and instead explores the ever-increasing, possibly inescapable indignities that arrive in old age. Anne falls out of bed in an attempt to be mobile. An unfeeling home-care nurse treats her roughly and, when fired by Georges, gives him a terse “go fuck yourself, you dirty old man”. Eventually, pained by her inability to express herself through music any longer, Anne orders Georges to stop playing recordings of their favourite piano pieces. All that is left is the couple, the silence, and the long torturous wait for The End. And in the end, is that all there is? Is this what happens at the end of love? Haneke posits that the title is a bitter test at the end of a long and happy marriage, as if the universe tauntingly asks, “do you love your spouse this much?” </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jxEY_JsPezc/UI3t8A1t6II/AAAAAAAABNA/Uxym138g5Oc/s1600/blog2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jxEY_JsPezc/UI3t8A1t6II/AAAAAAAABNA/Uxym138g5Oc/s320/blog2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Haneke, with the Palme d'Or, Cannes 2012</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was reminded recently of the beloved American sitcom <i>The Golden Girls</i>, a long-running smash about four senior women living in a shared Miami home, enjoying life to the hilt. The gut-busting laughter in that show was always informed by the ever-present specter of death looming about, and how the women respond to changing times and attitudes with perspective and good humour. The show regularly made fun of Alzheimer’s and did not shy away from jokes about adult diapers. Its insight was informed by the idea of a blended biological and adopted family that kept the demons at bay, even in the face of impending mortality. Georges and Anne, however, have all but locked themselves into their well-appointed home that serves as a <i>de facto</i> sarcophagus. Haneke’s vision is grim and sobering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is not, however, a damnation of <i>Amour</i>. On the contrary, it is one of the most penetrating and emotionally devastating films in recent years. Trintignant, the handsome 1960s leading man of <i>A Man and a Woman</i> and the great Kieslowski’s <i>Trois Couleurs: Rouge</i>, came out of retirement to play Georges. His quiet dignity must be enough for two, as he hides his suffering in plain sight of his wife while she is betrayed by the confines of her now-feeble body. Riva, the ravishing star of Resnais’s <i>Hiroshima, Mon Amour</i>, bottles the last of Anne’s great beauty and cages it within the prison of her mind, looking out onto Georges from within. It’s as if she were suffering death by a thousand cuts, all of them bleeding internally and, most poisonously, emotionally. Providing able support is another French acting national treasure, Huppert, packing her brief appearances here memorably with years of untold frustration. She’s long past the point in life where she knows better than her parents, but helplessly finding their situation increasingly untenable. That Haneke’s story was strong enough to draw two top-drawer veterans out of hibernation and one of the country’s preeminent stars proves that it is a worthy project of the highest order. As he gives the story the gravity it deserves, these three inhabit their performances with nuance and skill that could only have been gained through experience, and cannot be taught in acting class.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While I have painted a story about mortality and decay, I must emphasize that this is a film that fully embodies its title. Haneke’s film says that love reaches beyond platitudes, song and passion, well into the unknown and emphasizes “for worse”, whatever that might be. It is at times unbearably painful. Those who only fathom true cinematic romance in vampire movies and that “notebook” will not be prepared for what lies beyond fantasy and the promise of eternal youth, and posits that only the eternal aspect of love survives, long after the point of no return.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/6Tuc3zjvJU8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1602620/">Amour</a> </i>won the coveted Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It has been a sensation at film festivals the world over and is the Austrian entry for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards (which I predict it will likely win, or be at least nominated). I would argue that all three performers – Trintignant, Riva and Huppert – also deserve nominations for their challenging work. <i>Amour</i> has been opening slowly throughout Europe, and is set for limited release in North America on December 19, 2012. It will be one of the most haunting films on pure, unadulterated love you will ever see.</span></div>
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-84579504594793773952012-10-08T20:05:00.001-07:002012-10-08T20:14:20.614-07:00The German Opera Project: “Wagner’s Dream” (VIFF 2012)<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RyUlgY-mqO8/UHOTrBl7dJI/AAAAAAAABMM/ch2hEGcqYeo/s1600/blog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RyUlgY-mqO8/UHOTrBl7dJI/AAAAAAAABMM/ch2hEGcqYeo/s320/blog2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s nice to know that in parts of North America, high culture
can still be a big deal. In the fall of 2010, New York was in a furor when the
legendary Metropolitan Opera debuted Robert LePage’s staging of Wagner’s <i>Der Ring das Nibelungen</i>. Opening night
drew out high society, in addition to the notorious “Ring nuts”, and luminaries
such as André
Leon Talley attended. Outside Lincoln Center, hundreds sat on plastic chairs in
the rain to watch the opening performance for free in as it was projected on
giant screens, which was also simulcast in Times Square. Despite being so close
to the Jersey “shore”, high culture can still command an audience.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WSyXqVzQ6_8/UHOTqZqNK5I/AAAAAAAABME/j_YuYhljYeU/s1600/blog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="202" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WSyXqVzQ6_8/UHOTqZqNK5I/AAAAAAAABME/j_YuYhljYeU/s320/blog1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The production of the most noteworthy Ring Cycle in recent years is the subject of <i>Wagner’s
Dream</i>. Directed by noted Quebecois stage and film director Robert LePage,
the massive undertaking involved a 90,000 pound (45 ton) stage, hydraulics, zip
lines, a frequent fear that the stage would injure the performers, and assembled
talent such as famed conductor James Levine. Director Susan Froemke had free
rein to follow every aspect of the production, much like last year’s
little-seen Wagner documentary <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/10/viff-2011-singing-city.html">The Singing City</a></i>, a document on the staging of <i>Parsifal</i>
in Stuttgart at around the same time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">LePage is known for unconventional productions. He staged
Peter Gabriel’s masterful Secret World Tour from 1994, made the award-winning
film <i>Le Confessionnel</i> in 1995,
directed numerous operas and oversaw the Cirque du Soleil shows <i>Ka </i>and <i>Totem</i>. The Met had wanted to instill new life into a shrinking
subscriber base as opera was becoming more expensive, and their prior
productions had not been well-received. A production of the Ring Cycle in LA in
the spring of 2010 cost an astounding $31 million and failed to turn a profit,
not to mention having been criticized for its avant-garde staging, and with
lawsuits stemming from workplace injuries. Taking a chance on LePage meant they
wanted something fresh and exciting, and potentially ground-breaking. And they
got it in spades.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--MQQf8I7SO0/UHOTsL-5oMI/AAAAAAAABMc/7mnjlgFm4x8/s1600/blog4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--MQQf8I7SO0/UHOTsL-5oMI/AAAAAAAABMc/7mnjlgFm4x8/s320/blog4.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Rhine maidens, suspended in performance</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">LePage’s stage for the Met’s Ring Cycle consisted of one
giant piece. It is a set of overwhelmingly large planks spinning 360 degrees on
a long rod that ran the length of the stage. The planks moved independently of
each other and, with the right lighting, were able to stand in for the River
Rhine, the forests, the great palace of Valhalla, underworld caves and all
manner of hinterlands in between. The Rhine maidens were lifted on harnesses
and sang the challenging libretto while suspended in mid-air, adjusting so that
the safety wear did not prevent their diaphragms from being able to fully project.
We see the initial rehearsals where the sopranos worked with technicians to
ensure that they were positioned so that they could sing, and learning how not
to get caught in the set or plunge below should a harness snap. (And you
thought <i>you </i>had occupational hazards.)</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-leziWnQWREs/UHOTrlYuO_I/AAAAAAAABMU/_xlKxRag0Ms/s1600/blog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="201" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-leziWnQWREs/UHOTrlYuO_I/AAAAAAAABMU/_xlKxRag0Ms/s320/blog3.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Voigt, as Brunnhilde<span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;"> </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We follow LePage and other production heads as they
negotiate the set and reassure the performers that they will be safe. We meet
charming Deborah Voigt, the dazzling soprano who was famously dismissed from a
2004 production of <i>Ariadne auf Naxos </i>at
the Royal Opera House for being too fat for the title role, as she prepares mightily,
only to suffer an embarrassing fall on the set on opening night of <i>Die Walk</i><i>üre</i>.
Brünnhilde
is considered the ultimate test for sopranos and for many is the role of a
lifetime. We also learn that famed tenor Gary Lehrman bowed out of the
production four days before opening night of <i>Siegfried</i> and was replaced by Jay Hunter Morris on short notice.
And then there is the sudden exit of conductor James Levine due to ongoing
health issues. On top of this, that darn stage appears to have a mind of its
own and continues to be a potential safety hazard. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m1PVRiyo0H8/UHOTsklrUxI/AAAAAAAABMk/BrBRGm9ZF4Q/s1600/blog5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m1PVRiyo0H8/UHOTsklrUxI/AAAAAAAABMk/BrBRGm9ZF4Q/s320/blog5.jpg" width="216" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nevertheless, Froemke’s assured hand as a director ensures
that we see the top players in the industry work their way through the difficult
material, breathing new life and vision into the work. This is a film not just
for Ring nuts or classical music lovers, it is an accessible story of
collaboration on a project everyone believes in. You will not find any diva
tantrums, <i>All About Eve</i>-style
backstage back-stabbing or petty squabbles here. We also see the perspective of
the New York Wagner Society, who traverse the world seeing different versions
of the Ring Cycle and warn the opera directors that the production should not
overwhelm or get in the way of the score. An usher tells us that purists want
to see the same play performed in the same way, time after time, without
deviation or. That Froemke’s camera is able to get behind the scenes and
capture the perspective of the vanguard who is the gatekeeper of the canonical
work shows that she understands the cultural value and interest in getting the
Ring Cycle done just right. (Those purists would no doubt have hated <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/06/german-opera-project-wagners-ring-in.html">last year’s San Francisco production</a>, which combined industrial art deco production design
with Jay Gatsby’s wardrobe.) They all know they’re embarking on a daunting and
slightly mad venture, but everyone respects the journey and take it seriously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wagner’s original composition in the 1870s could not have
been staged the way he wanted it, and he expressed unhappiness with the
original production at Bayreuth, declaring “next year we’ll do it differently”.
In an age when technology has finally caught up with the infinity of
imagination, LePage was able to realize Wagner’s dream.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/FBmDU7RKI_s/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FBmDU7RKI_s&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FBmDU7RKI_s&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Wagner’s Dream</i>
played at the <a href="http://www.viff.org/">Vancouver International Film Festival</a> and enjoyed a successful
art house run in Los Angeles and New York. The entire Metropolitan 2010-2012
Ring Cycle played on PBS and screened in cinemas in HD. For more information on
Metropolitan Opera productions in HD, head over to their <a href="http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_template.aspx?id=15114">site</a>.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-60567677152232423622012-10-07T13:40:00.000-07:002012-10-07T16:16:34.925-07:00VIFF 2012: “A Royal Affair”<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Y4HClb4yvk/UHHm5pYwwoI/AAAAAAAABLw/FIvnpGvGBAs/s1600/blog4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Y4HClb4yvk/UHHm5pYwwoI/AAAAAAAABLw/FIvnpGvGBAs/s320/blog4.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love palace intrigue. If the naughty goings-on of Prince
Harry this summer in Las Vegas were any indication, so does the rest of the
free world. We enthrall ourselves to the naughty happenings of
royalty, going back to the age of the Roman Empire. Even as print is a dying
medium, it still makes great copy in our era, especially if we can screen-cap,
Tweet, Facebook-update (is this a verb now?) eyewitness accounts in real time.
Into this state of affairs comes an excellent new film at the Vancouver
International Film Festival, Nikolaj Arcel’s Danish costume drama </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.magpictures.com/aroyalaffair/">A Royal Affair</a></i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> (original title: </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">En kongelig aff</i><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ære</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">).</span> </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ZXjUH4u-9E/UHHm3pN8Y_I/AAAAAAAABLY/k4xuZEXld_M/s1600/blog1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ZXjUH4u-9E/UHHm3pN8Y_I/AAAAAAAABLY/k4xuZEXld_M/s320/blog1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This <i>Affair</i> is set
in Copenhagen and continental Europe during the 1760s and 1770s. Young Princess
Caroline of England (luminous newcomer Alicia Vikander, who also plays Kitty in
the much-anticipated new version of <i>Anna
Karenina</i>) is married off for political reasons to King Christian VII of
Denmark (Mikkel Følsgaard). Christian is a poorly educated, foppish
dilettante who the entire court believes to be mad. He has frequent outbursts
that include announcements at dinner to the entire court of when he intends to sleep
with his wife. Once he has tired of her and she has produced an heir, he gives
himself over to every vice possible and frequents brothels, oblivious to public
opinion and the scandal sheets. It is believed in a number of historical
biographies, as well as in this film, that he suffered from an undiagnosed
medical condition that may have been schizophrenia. (One doctor’s prognosis is
that his condition was brought about by excessive masturbation.) In any event,
the ruling powers make the disinterested king sign off laws, orders and decrees
that are to their advantage. It suits them that the king is perceived to be a
madman.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zJTAWWxZzJc/UHHm4xm71PI/AAAAAAAABLo/04jg7sGTAgc/s1600/blog3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zJTAWWxZzJc/UHHm4xm71PI/AAAAAAAABLo/04jg7sGTAgc/s320/blog3.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Into this unhappy royal marriage comes Dr. Johann Struensee
(a quietly smoldering Mads Mikkelsen). Despite being the son of a prominent conservative
minister, Struensee is a man of reason and science, not of faith. Appointed
royal physician, he is also the secret author of some “subversive” writings proposing
such radical ideas as abolishment of serfdom and peasantry, enforced inoculation,
and other reforms that were counterintuitive to the nobility’s interest.
Struensee and Caroline bond over their mutual frustration with Christian’s infidelity,
their belief that nobility abuse of the masses should end, and an attraction
borne out of loneliness and a meeting of the minds. Caroline’s discovery of Rousseau’s
dangerous philosophical treatises on the new social contract in Struensee’s
library appears to seal the deal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Struensee soon proves himself to be an able and astute observer
of what Denmark needs to reform. Eventually, and much to the consternation of
vengeful nobles, he persuades Christian to dissolve the state council and
together they form a ruling class of two. This true story takes place in the
Age of Enlightenment, which is the real catalyst of progress. Struensee and
Christian introduce ideas radical to the age, such as lifting the ban on state
censorship, greater access to health care, the abolition of serfdom, and
additional reforms that promise to deliver Denmark into an Enlightened and
progressive state. The nobility are put out by these changes and quietly
sharpen their knives, waiting for some salacious piece of innuendo with which
to remove Struensee. In one hilarious example of reform, Christian descries the lack
of proper sanitation in the city and declares a “war on shit” in which he
triples the number of waste collectors. There’s a line from <i>Hamlet</i> that is brilliantly used here. (You know which one it is.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The film doesn’t hesitate to put the king, his queen and his
doctor on morally ambiguous ground. Struensee helps alleviate the king’s
condition as best he can and encourages him to become a truly groundbreaking,
fair-minded ruler, but he also sleeps with his wife and is a political radical
(at least he was for the times). Morality and ethics aren’t applied in broad
unambiguous stripes here, making even the exemplary Struensee an antihero at
best. Not even King Christian is a devil, he’s simply so overwhelmed at his lot
in life that he holds himself captive to his most base desires at the sake of
his own dignity.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wfTZThmuEkQ/UHHm4HYhJ9I/AAAAAAAABLg/TtKxt554TfE/s1600/blog2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wfTZThmuEkQ/UHHm4HYhJ9I/AAAAAAAABLg/TtKxt554TfE/s320/blog2.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is a testament to Følsgaard’s
work that what could have been a caricature is instead a measured study of a
man trapped by the confines of his mental and emotional issues, trapped within
his body without a prognosis for his various maladies. They say comedy is
harder to play than drama, but arguably the greatest challenge is doing both in
the same performance to develop narrative arc and character, subtly and without
exaggeration. It is possibly the best interpretation of mad royalty since
Nigel Hawthorne’s master class in <i>The Madness of King George</i>. The delicate balance of humour and
pathos earned Følsgaard Best Actor honours at this year’s Berlin Film
Festival. He should look forward to receiving further recognition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Recognition should also be given to Vikander for her
portrait of a queen desperately locked in a life of unhappiness, knowing she is
a laughingstock for marrying a madman. She exudes intellect that thinly veils a
repressed sensuality. She successfully makes you believe that the Queen never
fell in love until <i>after</i> her marriage.
Mikkelson, as Struensee, is on a roll this year. He pairs quietly intense work
here with his soul-destroying performance in <i>The Hunt</i>, for which he won one of the other major film festival acting prizes (Cannes). Mikkelson will soon star as the new Dr. Lecter in the forthcoming television series <i>Hannibal</i>. The trio constitute a locked-and-loaded triangle in which
there’s no one to root for entirely, but you just wish them all well despite
the cruelty of time and circumstance.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/FGXNQu3fpP8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.magpictures.com/aroyalaffair/">A Royal Affair</a></i> is the Danish official entry for this
year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It is currently playing at
the <a href="http://www.viff.org/festival/programs/pn166-a-royal-affair">Vancouver International Film Festival</a> and is scheduled for limited release in North American beginning on November 9,
2012.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-13285403630010397852012-10-04T23:37:00.000-07:002012-10-04T23:52:55.827-07:00TV Review: “The Song of Lunch” <br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-la9WB8W2xdI/UG5_9zMLmDI/AAAAAAAABLE/b0A3l3Lv9Cw/s1600/Lunch1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-la9WB8W2xdI/UG5_9zMLmDI/AAAAAAAABLE/b0A3l3Lv9Cw/s320/Lunch1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The title gives it away, even though it’s hiding in plain
sight. While etymologically it signifies nothing, it reveals that the BBC
production <i>The Song of Lunch</i> is styled
after the mock heroic narrative poem conventions popular in the Regency Period.
In particular, the title hearkens back to Alexander Pope’s epic poem <i>The Rape of the Lock</i>, a seriocomic masterpiece
that blows the cutting of a lock of hair out of proportion. In other words, it
is a perfect storm in a teacup.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And what a storm is brewing in the glasses served at <i>The Song of Lunch</i>. This is a dramatization
of a contemporary narrative poem by Christopher Reid. He (Alan Rickman) once had
a passionate affair with her (Emma Thompson). She moved away long ago to marry
a successful novelist in Paris, while he has an editorial job he despises. The funereal
volume of poems he composed based on her departure went out of print, “creeping
into triple digits” in terms of its pitiful sales. This is their first meeting
in fifteen years, at a restaurant that he heavily criticizes but also cherishes
because they both shared happy memories there: it was <i>their </i>place. Directed by Niall McCormick, the film runs an
economical 48 minutes. Little actual dialogue is spoken, as the lunch is almost
narrated entirely by him. He still aches for her, as the production flashes
back to their intense lovemaking, while resenting her choice to leave him
behind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The inner monologue he intones deliciously elevates the
exercise of mastication to Herculean heights. The ordering of the meals from
both he and she, informed by feeling and recognition of old patterns, invokes
different reactions from the same waiter and reveals calculated premeditation
usually reserved for warfare. (Reid would not be above assigning similarly
heavy significance to the arrangement of forks, at least for this occasion.) No
drop of wine falls without threatening to echo across the universe, magnifying
its terrifyingly insignificant significance to shake the heavens. To give you a
better flavor of it, here is the opening of the text:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span calibri="calibri" minor-latin="minor-latin" mso-bidi-theme-font:="mso-bidi-theme-font:"></span></i><i><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span><br />
It’s an ordinary day</i></span>
in a publishing
house</div>
<br />
of ill repute.<br />
Another moronic
manuscript<br />
comes crashing down
the chute<br />
to be turned into
art.<br />
This morning it was
Wayne Wanker’s<br />
latest dog’s dinner<br />
of sex, teenage
philosophy<br />
and writing-course
prose.<br />
Abracadabra, kick
it up the arse -<br />
and out it goes<br />
to be Book of the
Week<br />
or some other
bollocks.<br />
What a fraud. What
a farce.<br />
And tomorrow: who
knows<br />
which of our
geniuses<br />
will escape from
the zoo<br />
and head straight
for us<br />
with a new
masterpiece<br />
lifeless in his
jaws.<i><o:p></o:p></i>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Reader, you may have noticed that neither character is
named, thereby throwing the drama into sharp relief. Not only are the acts and
omissions of these two people of nominal interest other than to themselves (he arguably
more than she), but they are also greatly exaggerated. It should surprise no
one that his hateful volume of regret features an Orpheus and Eurydice analogy
elevated to absurd dimension. Like the mock heroic narrative poem tradition,
Reid blatantly and deliberately flaunts the narrative excesses to grotesque
grandeur, like a Grand Guignol of emotions dancing on the frays of his last
nerve.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/rXKLgyWM4gU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although he is the orator of these proceedings, it should be
no surprise that she has her own perception of how they once were. As the wine
flows and he polishes off the first bottle, she presents her own view of their
relationship and rips his analogy apart, then rebuilds it using new signifiers
to reflect his own character – the one he cannot or refuses to accept – back onto
him. <i>The Song of Lunch</i>, for its
deadly hilarious and delectable turns of phrase, also harbors buried anguish,
stuffed away in the deepest chambers of the soul, slouching forth to be borne
again. At its heart, the poem says that
as grander emotions like love, lust and anger subsides, they are replaced by
disappointment. It’s the ultimate sign that one is getting older when
once-all-consuming passions surrender to resignation and regret. At one point,
there is no longer any energy to be angry, only the gradual acceptance that a
Henry James character once uttered in a devastating <i>cri de couer</i>, “We can never again be what we once were!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The Song of Lunch </i>received
scant attention in North America until Emma Thompson received a surprise Emmy
nomination for Best Actress this summer. It is so little-seen that neither its
IMDB nor its Rotten Tomatoes pages have any memorable quotes submitted for it.
The fact that such a symphony of the English language is not enshrined anywhere
on the Internet for the aliens to find, but where reality show sound bites run
unabated, is a crying shame.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/rfS4C2LSVsU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If, after a summer of junk culture you crave a meal of
substantive art, tuck into <i>The Song of
Lunch.</i></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-80510682611591192402012-06-02T20:11:00.000-07:002012-06-02T20:18:51.132-07:00Summer Song 2012: Loreen’s “Euphoria”<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dHobXZnPJn4/T8rU2d0MLJI/AAAAAAAABKk/UdB5AvMBny4/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dHobXZnPJn4/T8rU2d0MLJI/AAAAAAAABKk/UdB5AvMBny4/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last year, I wrote about the importance of the <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/08/pop-rewind-summer-radio-1991.html">summer song</a>.
Identifying a song with the summertime is part of growing up and follows us
into adulthood. Hearing that one jam brings back specific memories of a time, a
place, a person. You can taste, see, hear and almost feel everything around you
in that place and time just by a couple of bars of that song. Think of what
happens whenever you hear any of the following summer hits and see if they
conjure memories: </span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">1986: “Venus” by Bananarama<br />
1987: “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” by Whitney Houston<br />
1991: “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” by Bryan Adams<br />
1996: “Killing Me Softly” by Fugees<br />
1998: “Ray of Light” by Madonna<br />
1999: “I Want It That Way” by Backstreet Boys<br />
2002: “ Complicated” by Avril Lavigne<br />
2003: “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2007: "Umbrella" by <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/06/party-girl-rihannas-loud-tour.html">Rihanna</a><br />
2008: “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay<br />
2011: “The Edge of Glory” by <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/05/sound-advice-lady-gaga-born-this-way.html">Lady Gaga</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One cannot predict what makes a summer jam or what will
stick in the memory long after you pack away the beach umbrellas for the
winter. But my choice for one of this year’s summer jams is a rarity, as it
could also be crossover hit from the Eurovision Song Contest: Loreen’s “Euphoria”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pfo-8z86x80?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Originally a contestant on the Swedish version of <i>Pop Idol</i> in 2004, Loreen was born Loren
Talhaoui and went on to forge a successful career as a TV presenter without
releasing a proper music album. That’s about to change, as her Swedish
chart-topper “Euphoria” won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest ahead of the
heavily-favoured novelty track by the <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/03/eurovision-2012-russias-buranova.html">Buranova Babushkas</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Within hours of
winning, the song blasted to the top of the UK iTunes chart. Within a week, it
had topped over a dozen other music charts across Europe and was poised to make
its mark on the official UK chart in the top five, giving Loreen an instant
blockbuster smash single. That’s not surprising given that “Euphoria” received
first-place votes from a record 18 of 42 voting countries in the contest, and
only two of the 40 did not award it any points at all (and that’s only because Sweden
couldn’t vote for itself).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And remember what <i>other
</i>Swedish Eurovision champion went on to conquer worldwide charts? A little group
known as ABBA, in 1974, with “Waterloo”.</span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5qURKt4maw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let’s examine what’s so great about “Euphoria”. It’s a
trance-inspired dance track that, at first blush, sounds like just like
everything else in vogue on contemporary hit radio. But listen again a little
more closely, and you can see that it’s constructed so that it opens with
minimal instrumentation to showcase Loreen’s vocals. She’s quietly whispering,
questioning why a simple moment of joy is fleeting. But as the chorus builds,
the beats kick in and the full vibrato of her glorious voice comes through loud
and clear. There is no guest rap, no name-checking, no self-referencing. There
is only a voice and a beat.</span></div>
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</div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Kg0whfs1Rk/T8rU10ttP6I/AAAAAAAABKc/P29Z-aClT14/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Kg0whfs1Rk/T8rU10ttP6I/AAAAAAAABKc/P29Z-aClT14/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The live performance sells the single well. Unadorned by any
sets or back-up dancers, the stage is just Loren, hair all askew, in a kimono
over a loose-fitting pantsuit in bare feet. She moves about under the
spotlight, willing it to follow her as she sways arms akimbo, fleet of foot and
yet still singing the whole time. You can tell just by her breathing pattern that
she’s not lip-synching it for easy money like Britney Spears did on her last
two tours. Loreen doesn’t need to grope or expose herself to get the audience’s
attention. When she moves and chants “euphoria!” just before the chorus, before
the big beats kick in, she commands your attention. Those with long memories
and a fondness of art rock will find similarities to legendary singer Kate Bush’s
live performances. That is a lofty ambition and high praise, in my eyes, and
Loreen should be commended for elevating the tone when her peers squat suggestively in short shorts and call that “dancing”. It is a bit
reminiscent of both the demonic little girl from the murderous video in <i>The Ring</i> and a bit of this from <i>Memoirs of a Geisha</i>, but the Kate Bush
tendencies outweigh the horror-cheese tendencies.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9787CulElJc/T8rU26WZwNI/AAAAAAAABKs/YjUtrIr8ZNw/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9787CulElJc/T8rU26WZwNI/AAAAAAAABKs/YjUtrIr8ZNw/s320/A3.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What’s most intriguing about the song is that its meaning
can be two-fold. On the one hand, it can simply be about romantic love, and
euphoria being absolute romantic ecstasy. However, the lyrics can be read in a
religious subtext as well, particularly when she sings “we’re going
up-up-up-up-up”. Heck, she even mentions divinity and infinity in the chorus. Most
of the big dance parties in your city, particularly now during Pride Month,
likely call their parties “rapture” or “sin city” or “heaven”. In fact, I’m
sure there’s at least one hot club out there that calls their big night out “euphoria”.
Regardless, it’s an invocation to transcend and find joy in either sense of the
word. This is something that will sound rapturous and thrilling in a club at
the end of the night. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Loreen’s “Euphoria” deserves to be blasted out of every
nightclub, car stereo, MP3 player, music channel or streaming media outlet this
summer. I, for one, will remember this as one of the songs of the summer of
2012 long after I put away my white shoes and start my Christmas shopping.</span></div>
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-29605114533007144652012-05-28T23:39:00.002-07:002012-05-28T23:40:09.144-07:00Master Class: Demy’s “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b9EpPeIJaws/T8Ru67aHD0I/AAAAAAAABKM/4K-B-IAKSLg/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b9EpPeIJaws/T8Ru67aHD0I/AAAAAAAABKM/4K-B-IAKSLg/s320/A6.jpg" width="235" /></a>I live in a rainy city. Even today, after a week of perfect
sun that seemed to serve as a prelude to summer, the skies opened and I found
myself digging out my rain coat again. That’s what happens when you live in a
port city. And with the closure of this year’s Cannes Film Festival on my mind,
with a French film victorious, there was no better time to see Jacques Demy’s
classic 1964 film <i>The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg</i>.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the surface, this seemed like a simple love story when I first
saw it years ago. The young man, Guy (Nino Castelnuovo) is in love with
17-year-old Genevieve (the luminous living legend Catherine Deneuve, in her
breakthrough role). He’s a mechanic who dreams of opening his own garage. She
works for her mother in the town’s only umbrella boutique, which is on the
verge of financial ruin. They talk of marriage, although her mother disapproves
(he has only a sickly godmother, thus completing the familial economics of the
story). Figurative dark clouds appear overhead in addition to the rains: the Algerian
War is raging several hundred miles away, and he must serve. “I will wait for
you”, she sings to him, repeating “<i>je t’aimes,
je t’aime, je t’aimes</i>” repeatedly as his train takes him away. While Guy’s
away, a wealthy jeweler has his eye on Catherine, and the separation and other
circumstances conspire to keep the young lovers away for good. I haven’t even
mentioned that the whole has nary a line of spoken dialogue, as everything is
sung beginning to end, and it finishes in a lightning-fast 90 minutes.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PRJW41IRIWY/T8Ru6I-dndI/AAAAAAAABJ8/rse-omMnYKU/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PRJW41IRIWY/T8Ru6I-dndI/AAAAAAAABJ8/rse-omMnYKU/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Few films dared, even musical ones, to become full-scale
operettas where every word was expressed in song. Even the most famous of
musicals had great dialogue and witty exchanges. Not so in Demy’s enduring love
story. Demy had the incredulous notion that the whole thing would be sung, and
he was fortunate to find a supportive producer who saw his vision completed.
The film was a smash in Paris, claimed the Palme d’Or at the 1964 Cannes Film
Festival, and proceeded to storm the world, culminating in global success, a
Grammy nomination for the soundtrack, several Academy Award nominations and an
invitation for Demy to live and work in the United States, which he happily
accepted. And yet <i>Cherbourg </i>remains
his most revered masterwork. Why is this?<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b9RB82ESUEg/T8Ru6SRBUYI/AAAAAAAABKE/d8fwJtFjPEo/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b9RB82ESUEg/T8Ru6SRBUYI/AAAAAAAABKE/d8fwJtFjPEo/s320/A3.jpg" width="317" /></a>The secret lies in the film’s simple structure: a boy and a
girl in love, torn apart by life circumstances and choices, but not by plot
machinations or something as convenient as <i>deus
ex machina</i>. When Demy collaborated with Michel Legrand for the film’s
now-famed score, they stuck so faithfully to the idea of a three-hanky-weeper
that they wrote at which points in the film each of the three figurative
hankies should actually be taken out. The operetta format elevates how we see
and experience young love for the first time, when everything in life tastes,
smells, feels and <i>sounds</i> that much
better. There is nothing else in the world but love. Emotions are heightened
and never stop, even when the emotions swell and contract, for better or for worse,
and Demy understands this. The music, while constant, doesn’t come at your
relentlessly. Instead, it is as gentle as the tide, ebbing and flowing, but it
never stops. It may have a sweeping orchestral suite throughout, but it’s also
heavily jazz-influenced. Regardless, the two genres make compliment each other
seamlessly. This is a seemingly small charmer of a film that grows into a grand
masterpiece and reminds you of how you felt in that first brush of true love,
and how heartbreaking it is when it doesn’t work out. The film’s coda, which I won’t
give away, gives closure, is almost unbearably cruel, but also accepting of the
hard choices we make in life, without judgment.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kDK8k-BP4_Y/T8Ru5x0Vx9I/AAAAAAAABJ4/_8F1EbywZw0/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kDK8k-BP4_Y/T8Ru5x0Vx9I/AAAAAAAABJ4/_8F1EbywZw0/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>Cherbourg</i> was
filmed in eye-popping gorgeous colour schemes. The town feels just a bit more
lived-in than most film musicals of the era. You could sense that people actually
lived there and that it wasn’t just a film set. Demy knows that such a simple touch
made the film connect that much more to the audience: this could happen to even
the most uncomplicated people you know, and it’s a complete heartbreaker when
life intrudes. There’s an expression that God likes having a laugh when people make
plans for the future. While religion doesn’t figure heavily in <i>Cherbourg</i>, one is reminded that
compromise and making do are what shapes our experiences and makes us into the
people we are. The film’s final scene, when Guy and Genevieve meet under circumstances
more complicated than they are, is a <i>coup
de grace</i> of such delicate balance that if the emotions were glass, they’d
be smashed to smithereens.</div>
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Who says life is simple? It’s not, and you must be prepared
for any circumstance. That’s what life in Cherbourg is like, just as it is in
my city. In both cases, carry an umbrella, just in case. <i>The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg </i>is available in glorious DVD and Blu-Ray. Watch it with a box of
Kleenex. This is one weeper that earns its tears honestly.</div>
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It hurt me today to find out that my beloved <i>The Office</i> has received <a href="http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/04/13/the-office-drops-to-series-low-against-big-bang-repeat/">a record lowrating</a>. This was the lowest for the American version of the series since its
premiere in the spring of 2005.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7d84cZcC0Cs/T4juxCCvLhI/AAAAAAAABJo/ujfKDphHm0E/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7d84cZcC0Cs/T4juxCCvLhI/AAAAAAAABJo/ujfKDphHm0E/s320/A6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The history of NBC’s <i>The
Office</i> was not a smooth one in its inception. Initial critical reception
was generally favourable, but also cool, with many noting its inferiority to
the original British series starring Ricky Gervais (admittedly I was not a
stark raving fan of it but that’s another blog post). The ratings were
generally low-rated, but enough for NBC to continue with the series. Clearly
they saw more potential in it than in the wildly misbegotten 2003 version of <i>Coupling</i>, which lasted exactly two
terrible episodes. The cast developed and grew into an ensemble, headed by the
brilliant Steve Carrell as Michael Scott. The lynchpin of the series was his
continually embarrassing efforts to befriend the staff by trying too hard. In
other words, perpetual social experimentation and wild failure was the engine
of what drove the show, and how the staffers reacted to it. By the time Carrell
left for his successful movie career in 2011, having led the cast for seven
years and earning numerous honours including a Golden Globe and SAG Award, and
half a dozen Emmy nominations, the show had become a respectable long-running
hit. The question was: would the series survive, let alone thrive, without him?</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_mTStNeoguY/T4juwrRG4jI/AAAAAAAABJY/i-5dHufaQR4/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_mTStNeoguY/T4juwrRG4jI/AAAAAAAABJY/i-5dHufaQR4/s320/A1.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New boss: Catherine Tate</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The answer appears to be a hesitant “no”, at least for the
moment. There has been a tortured attempt in the show’s narrative to fill the
gap left by Carrell. He may have been incurably dorky, but he also drew the
entire staff together and they came to care for him in the end. The humanity
was what was missing from the original Gervais version of <i>The Office</i> in Britain. For Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton branch, the quest
to fill the void Michael left behind mirrored his actor’s departure. Michael
was Carrell’s signature role, and the problem was like any good pen, he left an
indelible mark that could not be erased and would always be woven into the
show. </div>
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Let’s liken it to what happened with Diana Ross when she
left the Supremes. Without their biggest star, the one who defined the group, the
effect was that the air was let out of the room. The Supremes carried on and
did respectably, but they were never quite the same no matter how talented the
members were who remained. Carrell’s from <i>The
Office </i>departure echoes similarly, even a year later. The cast still has
moments of brilliance and the ensemble plays well with one another, but the
dynamic has changed radically. Sure, there’s great promise in British transplant
Nellie as the by turns vicious and loopy new manager, played brilliantly by
Catherine Tate in a turn balancing deft comic timing with a hint of dark
turmoil, but she will need another year to make the show her own and to erase
Carrell’s influence.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eov9ZIX1rDg/T4juwx6zqNI/AAAAAAAABJc/uZPDPrVzebQ/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eov9ZIX1rDg/T4juwx6zqNI/AAAAAAAABJc/uZPDPrVzebQ/s320/A2.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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It’s a bit disheartening that the show seems to be on its
last legs. Longtime showrunner Paul Liberstein, who plays the harangued human
resources manager Toby, has stepped down and NBC is advertising for a new
showrunner. Mindy Kaling, fresh off the success of her terrific comic memoir <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/ideal-dinner-party-guest-mindy-kaling.html">Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?</a></i>, is
filming a pilot that hopefully gives us more of an opportunity to see this
refreshingly bubbly actress on a regular basis. And Rainn Wilson has been
offered a spin-off with his one-of-a-kind character Dwight Schrute, in a
backdoors pilot that will be aired sometime within the next year. (I am looking
<i>very </i>much forward to this project.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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Like every office after a major shift in management, <i>The Office</i> is still in a transition
stage. What we need to determine is whether or not the company will survive the
change and grow into a stronger whole, or be finished off for good. Stay tuned.</div>
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doesn’t ring much of a bell. However, if I were to play you her two signature
tunes from the James Bond films – “Goldfinger” and “Diamonds Are Forever” – you
will hear <i>that </i>voice and know <i>that </i>singer, for no one else can utter
that voice that suggests images of jewels slinking their way seductively out of
a velvet pouch.<br />
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Having been absent from the music scene since her heyday in
the 1960s and 1970s, Dame Shirley spent much of the 1980s and 1990s focusing on
charity work and undoubtedly living off the residual income from her immortal
recordings. Then, in 2006, she recorded a big, brassy version of P!nk’s smash
record “Get the Party Started” for a Marks & Spencer commercial. It
contains a slightly halted, almost spoken-word utterance of the opening verses
before belting into a powerful crescendo. </div>
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Dame Shirley, eschewing the trend of aping youth in the name
of commercial art (are you listening Madonna?), instead embraces her signature
sound. The cover has big, sweeping brasses with a drum machine that grooves
without wearying out the listener in a frantic attempt to party! Hard! Right!
Now! The effect is a bold cover that can easily be remixed and made into a
dance-club smash (if you want to party hard right now). It could be played as
ambience at a more sophisticated lounge or social mixer. Or it could provide
the perfect soundtrack to New York Fashion Week while models float about in the
latest by Tom Ford or Mary Katrantzou. Although Bassey’s version of “Get the
Party Started” doesn’t have the bouncy R&B-inflected youth pop of P!nk’s
original smash, it does have what P!nk’s doesn’t have: a sense of occasion.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The popularity of Dame Shirley’s recording lead to the
release of a 2007 cover album bearing the same name. To round out the album and
flesh out its theme, the recording is big on interpolating brass and drum
machine, giving the album grandeur and sonic sweep worthy of a dame. While not
every song pops the way her cover of “Get the Party Started” does, there’s
plenty to accompany your evening. The list of covers includes a saucy “Big
Spender”, a worthy interpretation of Grace Jones’s “Slave to the Rhythm”, a
suitably earth-shattering “I (Who Have Nothing)” and yes, another Bond cover, “You
Only Live Twice”. The album, in a sign that music consumers still have good
taste, became a Top Ten hit in the U.K. This was when she was 70(!!) years old, looking and sounding as beautiful and regal as the day she first blasted her way onto the airwaves nearly half a decade earlier.</div>
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And laced through the recording is that big, magnificent
voice. Yes, Dame Shirley is still a belter and can indeed get your party
started, whatever the occasion. There is nothing like a Dame.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-52hEAtFJmjM/T4I57IkQEhI/AAAAAAAABJI/3v1i_TFdze8/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-52hEAtFJmjM/T4I57IkQEhI/AAAAAAAABJI/3v1i_TFdze8/s320/A6.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Judging from
the poster and title, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jiro Dreams of
Sushi</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> sounds and looks like a postmodern comedy directed by Michel Gondry.
I immediately thought of Gondry’s 2006 film </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Science of Sleep</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> as a possible kindred spirit to </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jiro</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, at least in theory. How wrong I was.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jiro Dreams of Sushi</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> is a snappy Japanese-language documentary
about an 85-year-old sushi chef who runs a ten-seat restaurant hidden in the basement
of a business building. It is close enough to access by metro and around the
corner from the famed Printemps location in Tokyo’s high-end Ginza district.
The documentary is a paean to work and the love of it. We learn that Jiro was
abandoned as a child and, having no formal education or means to access it, started
working for survival at a young age. He has become a master sushi chef,
evidenced by the fact that his little shop is the only one awarded three stars
by the prestigious Michelin rankings. In case you’re wondering, a Michelin-rated
three-star rating means that it is worth traveling to that country for the sole
purpose of eating at that particular restaurant. And this tiny sushi bar –
literally, it is just the bar with ten chairs – was chosen out of the literally
millions of sushi restaurants in Japan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EUgMHNFkV2o/T4I56u3U40I/AAAAAAAABI8/_eOx_uB0qnI/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EUgMHNFkV2o/T4I56u3U40I/AAAAAAAABI8/_eOx_uB0qnI/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jiro is a workhorse,
to put it mildly. He rises at 5 am and arrives at the famed Tsukiji fish market
to ensure he gets the very best catch of the day for his customers. We are let
in on some of the secrets to preparing and serving the best sushi (rice should be
served at room temperature not cold; massaging the octopus for a good 45
minutes will ensure that your <i>tako</i>
will have the perfect texture). The intense dedication comes at a hefty price,
as menus are often chosen by the chefs based on the catch of the day and start
at 30,000 yen a head (that’s $300 US), and reservations are taken a month in
advance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We learn
that his sons have gone into the business as well, with the elder working
directly for him and the younger having opened a chain in the upscale Roppongi
Hills neighbourhood. We also learn that there are sacrifices to hard work, as
Jiro often works from 5 am until well past 10 pm and admits that he missed most
of his children’s formative years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/M-aGPniFvS0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s a
little odd that I’ve never seen a movie about sushi (I’m not counting <i>Oldboy</i>: fans will know why) and that,
together with <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/10/viff-2011-sushi-global-catch.html">Sushi: the Global Catch</a></i>,
I’ve seen two of them in the space of six months. But such is the appetite for
the food and its place in the global discussion on sustainability that Jiro and
his sons worry about overfishing and overconsumption of seafood. The two films
together would make a very informative double bill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DWh6XeaJaWM/T4I56ZQSxaI/AAAAAAAABI4/3tVRfWoAF0U/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DWh6XeaJaWM/T4I56ZQSxaI/AAAAAAAABI4/3tVRfWoAF0U/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While <i>Jiro Dreams of Sushi</i> is not as whimsical
as its subject sounds, it is also sincere and honest about the nature and love
of work. Being a sushi chef is more than cutting up raw fish and putting them
on plates served ice-cold. To master it, there lies a philosophy that whatever
you serve, the next one will be better. This is an intimate documentary that is
straightforward and, like last year’s masterful <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/cinematically-speaking-bill-cunningham.html">Bill Cunningham New York</a></i>, shows the dignity and fun in working with
something you love. (Take note that both Jiro and Bill Cunningham are working
well into their 80s and show no signs of slowing down.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jiro Dreams of Sushi </span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">is currently playing in limited
theatres, and you can find out more about the restaurant <a href="http://www.sushi-jiro.jp/">here</a></span>. </div>
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-11874597636938378492012-04-02T20:53:00.000-07:002012-04-02T20:53:31.221-07:00Cinematically Inclined: “The Turning Point”<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X_Rc4sq42SU/T3pzrY8KZfI/AAAAAAAABIQ/fTUHWa7cPeg/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-X_Rc4sq42SU/T3pzrY8KZfI/AAAAAAAABIQ/fTUHWa7cPeg/s320/A1.jpg" width="216" /></a>If there’s one thing I learned from <i>Black Swan</i>, it’s that ballerinas are batshit crazy. One friend called it “Ballerina Fight Club”. From other films with ballet or dance, I learn only about some nondescript aspiring young Midwest girl hoping to learn about life and love and the big city. The dancing, in all of the stories, appears secondary to the life journey the often milquetoast, heterosexual white female undertakes to find herself, or some such nonsense. (See further: <i>Center Stage</i>, <i>The Company</i>.)</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">This is what makes Herbert Ross’s 1977 film <i>The Turning Point</i> unique in its day and even today, at least in the small canon of dance films. This is a film centering on two women who started off as aspiring ballerinas in the 1950s and took radically different paths in life. Emma (the late, great Anne Bancroft) became the prima ballerina of the premiere American ballet theatre company. Dee Dee (Shirley MacLaine) became pregnant, gave up a promising career and settled into a low-key life running a dance school with her former partner Wayne (Tom Skerritt) in Oklahoma. Twenty years later, the company plays two nights in their small town and Dee Dee is reunited with her former colleagues, including her best friend and formidable foe Emma. The “turning point” refers not just to the pregnancy, but also the lead role in <i>Anna Karenina</i>, which was awarded to Emma when Dee Dee had a baby, and became a career-defining role.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_ocSRCuqvxA/T3pzsV2ZpEI/AAAAAAAABIo/B8tCIdMn_Rc/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_ocSRCuqvxA/T3pzsV2ZpEI/AAAAAAAABIo/B8tCIdMn_Rc/s320/A6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">That baby, Emilia (Leslie Browne), has become a promising ballerina. The dance company offers her a summer scholarship in Manhattan, and Dee Dee accompanies her, surrounding herself with her past and the career that she left behind, which now awaits her daughter. In the background, a young Russian dancer (Mikhail Baryshnikov, in the role that made him an actor) romances Emilia. Into this turmoil there are rumours of the dance company suffering financially, a young prick of a director trying to make ballet cold and hip, and an old flame from Dee Dee’s past, amongst others.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RQV7zHVAdLE/T3pzrxN7GRI/AAAAAAAABIc/Ai_qNz0hxxE/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RQV7zHVAdLE/T3pzrxN7GRI/AAAAAAAABIc/Ai_qNz0hxxE/s320/A3.jpg" width="213" /></a>There’s enough drama here to fuel an entire soap opera. In fact, the content of <i>The Turning Point</i> could easily have been the catalyst for a show like NBC’s <i>Smash</i>, and an heir apparent to <i>Fame</i> (which, by the way, was released just a couple of years after the success of <i>The Turning Point</i> and became a cultural touchstone in its own right). Playwright Arthur Laurents crams his screenplay not with clichés, but with several plot threads giving the film an aura of really living in the dance world. There’s constant worry about funding an art form that has considerable support in Europe but not in America, where it is considered an elitist pastime and not as part of one’s essential cultural education. The ballet is not just a backdrop into which a navel-gazing treatise a la <i>Eat, Pray, Love</i> is thrown to give some young starlet an acting showcase. This is a film that honours the dance tradition and is about people who eat, breathe, sleep and love the ballet, without irony and purely for the love of it. Their bodies may ache, their feet will bluster and their will beaten (and sometimes broken) under vicious taskmasters, but all of the assembled members of the company believe in their craft, using it to create art. </div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">The film’s centerpiece is an all-too-brief montage of various pieces immaculately performed by the company to Tchaikovsky, Mugorssky and Debussy, amongst others. Who needs an original music score for such a film when the finest composers in the world have already done so? This being the 1970s, split-second film editing was not in vogue at the time, and thankfully the dance sequences are filmed in medium and long shots, showcasing the work of the entire company without the frantic zooming and focusing that characters dance-laden films. You can actually <i>see</i> the choreography, which was done by no less than Alvin Ailey and George Balanchine, amongst others. (They are the first names mentioned when the end credits roll. How do you like them apples?)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This is not to say that the film is perfect. Despite there being none of the conventional plot machinations we have come to expect, or a predictable triumph of the spirit or will, there’s still too much storyline crammed into less than two hours. The central melodrama surrounding Dee Dee’s regret feels a bit deflated and, had it not been for the lead performers, somewhat tiresome, and ends in a rather silly denouement. There’s so much content to flesh out and explore that this really should have been a TV series and not a feature film. (This is why <i>Fame </i>made for better television than film: it knew it had a story to tell and did it no matter how long they thought it should take.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AX-dHIWzPog/T3pzrlIz0zI/AAAAAAAABIU/3_qy9ATxnqo/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AX-dHIWzPog/T3pzrlIz0zI/AAAAAAAABIU/3_qy9ATxnqo/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a>The two central roles are well-performed, with Bancroft chilled but not impenetrable as the formidable yet brittle Emma. MacLaine plays Dee Dee as earnest and disappointed, but hopeful that she can create a dance legacy through her daughter. Browne, who just happens to be the director’s niece, made a lovely film debut that is as much physical in her performance as it is cerebral. She went on to have an extraordinary career in the American dance theatre world with occasional but unmemorable film appearances. And Baryshnikov, in his film debut, still smolders in a role that, while it may not have been much of a stretch, showed off his considerable charisma. It’s no wonder he became a star and is still remembered vividly to this day. All four received Oscar nominations for their work, even if Skerritt was overlooked for his sensitive work as Dee Dee’s husband, the one who also left it all behind to start a family.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s much to admire about <i>The Turning Point</i>. What ultimately keeps it from becoming a truly great film is the script’s overextension to include too many narratives. The film also ends a little too neatly, if not ideally, yet there’s much more than could be explored with even another hour to iron things out. (Or, they could have cut some rather unnecessary plot lines and a few characters to keep things as lean as the dancers’ bodies.) <i>The Turning Point</i> also holds the dubious distinction of having received the most Academy Award nominations in a single year – 11 of them – without winning a single one of them, a record tied by <i>The Color Purple</i> in 1985. It is available for streaming on Netflix.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/AssRlsPH578?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-1564908720482936682012-03-25T16:26:00.000-07:002012-10-05T14:38:08.058-07:00Cinematically Inclined: “Nine”<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IrF4f6Q07pE/T2-ol_vq7dI/AAAAAAAABHw/tdi4REwOzBU/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IrF4f6Q07pE/T2-ol_vq7dI/AAAAAAAABHw/tdi4REwOzBU/s320/A3.jpg" width="240" /></a>Sometimes, you hear about a film project and it’s an absolute dream. You line up a prestigious director, decorated cast consisting of award-winning actors, throw it a big budget and slot it for a prestigious holiday release, in anticipation of big box office and critical hosannas translating into a slew of show-business awards. And then sometimes it goes terribly wrong.</div>
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In 2008, plans were finalized for the film version of the Best Musical Tony Award-winning play <i>Nine</i>. It seemed to be a natural fit for a film project. The original musical was based on Federico Fellini’s classic movie <i>8 ½</i>. One of the plays the original musical beat for the Tony, <i>Dreamgirls</i>, was adapted into a highly successful film version in 2006. <i>Nine</i> was meant to join the burgeoning renaissance of movie musicals, which includes not only <i>Dreamgirls </i>but also <i>Moulin Rouge!</i>, <i>Hairspray</i>, the Best Picture Oscar winner <i>Chicago</i> and <i>Mamma Mia!</i>, which became the highest-grossing film of all time in the UK. <i>Nine</i>’s glorious cast included Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Dame Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren, plus nominee Kate Hudson and Grammy-winning singer-rapper Fergie. The project was helmed by Rob Marshall, who shepherded <i>Chicago</i> to roaring success. It had the backing of The Weinstein Company, with an incredible track record of box office and Oscar winners dating back to 1992. And a sensational trailer that debuted at Cannes amidst a flurry of publicity to exhibitors and ecstatic advance word:</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W8ER48MV1xY/T2-olgnghoI/AAAAAAAABHo/rTRll31qxEQ/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W8ER48MV1xY/T2-olgnghoI/AAAAAAAABHo/rTRll31qxEQ/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a>So why did the project fail? One could easily blame the intense box office competition at the time the film went into wide release. The blockbuster <i>Avatar</i> appealed to all demographics and became a cultural event, and the reboot of <i>Sherlock Holmes</i>, it could be argued, had siphoned the more mature audience that was meant for the sophisticated <i>Nine</i>. One might make the case that its failure was also owed to <i>Up in the Air</i>, the acclaimed dramedy that was also attracting the same crowd. Had an overabundance of films aimed at the same demographic cannibalized the audience? Sure, you could have argued that, but how does that explain why the film received mixed to dismal reviews? I was absolutely ecstatic to see the trailer in the spring of 2009, but the final project felt underwhelming when I finally caught it at a New Year’s Day matinee performance. It wasn’t from distaste for the genre, either, so that argument was out.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HG1TBvJ3g-s/T2-omTUFgDI/AAAAAAAABH0/uFkzpCiX5-g/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HG1TBvJ3g-s/T2-omTUFgDI/AAAAAAAABH0/uFkzpCiX5-g/s320/A6.jpg" width="320" /></a>A word on the marginal plot, taken directly from Fellini’s original 1963 film. Movie director Guido (Day-Lewis) has director’s block and is working on his latest project following a nervous breakdown. He has no script and no confirmed cast, only a leading lady (Kidman) and some sets. His loyal costume designer (Dench) has been working with him forever and wants him to do something about his procrastination. Heck, the whole movie is two hours of procrastination, set to music. He’s been cheating on his wife (Cotillard) with longtime mistress Carla (Cruz), and both come to the town where he’s filming the movie. An American journalist (Hudson) has started asking uncomfortable questions (he’s hiding his recent meltdown from the press). His mother (Loren) figures in his imagination, as does the town whore (Fergie) who introduced him to the mystique of the female gender in his boyhood. <i>Nine </i>concerns whether his wife ultimately wises up and leaves him, and whether or not the film is made. Neither question’s answer is at all consequential.</div>
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What ultimately sank <i>Nine </i>artistically may perhaps been the fact that the source material wasn’t very good in the first place. Consider that although the original musical won the biggest prize at the Tony Awards, its Broadway run was much shorter than its competitor <i>Dreamgirls</i>, which played for years to rapturous audiences and has been revived so many times that it’s a now a staple of musical theatre. You remember the songs in <i>Dreamgirls</i>. There’s a big production number partway through that is played in the trailer (“Be Italian”), but there’s nothing really hummable or memorable about the score. Let’s face it, if you’re going to make a musical, at least have more than one decent song. Andrew Lloyd Webber, despite his being reviled by musical purists as being a populist, builds an entire score around one or two very memorable melodies that leave the theatre long after the curtain has dropped. You could hum <i>Phantom of the Opera</i> and <i>Evita</i> for days. Maury Yestin’s score for <i>Nine</i> is pleasant enough while you’re in the theatre watching it, but it’s not particularly hummable. A musical, for all of its production values and fancy cast, lives and dies by its songs.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jj-0A6bCrpE/T2-olSCeW0I/AAAAAAAABHg/N7ezLWYd7uo/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Jj-0A6bCrpE/T2-olSCeW0I/AAAAAAAABHg/N7ezLWYd7uo/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a>Let’s not blame the production, either. Marshall assembled most of the same crew who won or were nominated for Oscars on <i>Chicago</i>, and their work here is immaculate. <i>Nine </i>is a beautiful-looking picture, but without more substance it’s nothing more than the best kind of window display at Barneys. The cast is game, with Cruz and Cotillard as particular standouts. Day-Lewis owns the picture as he always does. Dench and Loren clearly had easy paydays, Kidman is flat, Hudson doesn’t stretch much and Fergie has the five most memorable five minutes all to herself. The cast is only as good as the material and time given to perform.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IFfqqp3EPcE/T2-onJhiw5I/AAAAAAAABII/rWcXa7RmMi0/s1600/A9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IFfqqp3EPcE/T2-onJhiw5I/AAAAAAAABII/rWcXa7RmMi0/s320/A9.jpg" width="320" /></a>The musical numbers are lavish and, but despite spending all of this time in Guido’s mind, what distinguishes the musical from the original classic film is that the flights of fancy were framed in a stream-of-consciousness format that suited the visual style very well. Fellini knew not to distinguish between reality and memory, thereby allowing the viewer to question whether or not Guido’s already lost his mind. Marshall is using the structure from the musical and applying the method that was so successful in <i>Chicago</i> here, but the effect is like going on holiday with a tour group where the tourists aren’t allowed to mingle with the local population: it’s an arm’s-length treatment. The performances are worth seeing, and those daydreaming of an Italian holiday could play the film without the sound, but there are plenty of other films set in Italy that have the same effect but with substance to them (<i>The Talented Mr. Ripley</i>, <i>Death in Venice</i>, <i>Under the Tuscan Sun</i> and even <i>The Italian Job</i> do the job better).</div>
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Now, a word about the film’s title, which has nothing to do with the narrative. Fellini named <i>8 ½ </i>because it was, technically, his eighth-and-a-half film, encompassing his seven features and three short subjects. The title <i>Nine </i>was meant to add a half-credit to Fellini’s oeuvre (although he had several more features for the next quarter-century). At best, this musical and its companion film’s contribution would only add up to a good 8¾.</div>
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-70193881543400075412012-03-12T07:00:00.000-07:002012-03-12T07:00:11.429-07:00Cinematically Inclined: “Madeo” (Mother)<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nrX4zBmaMac/T1u0m9KfL7I/AAAAAAAABHM/-xzpc-5tgfM/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nrX4zBmaMac/T1u0m9KfL7I/AAAAAAAABHM/-xzpc-5tgfM/s320/A3.jpg" width="213" /></a><i>[Ed. N.: Obviously this has nothing to do with the titular mother in Albert Brooks’s amazing comedy Mother, which you can read all about <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/05/mama-said.html">here</a>.]</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">In the opening shot of the Korean thriller <i>Madeo</i> (that’s “mother” in English”), an elderly woman appears in a field. She comes slowly to the camera. There is a mountain range behind her, but nothing else indicates signs of life around her. The soundtrack cues a soft Spanish guitar and, after she faces the camera with a blank stare that betrays nothing, the woman sways gently to the music. Where is the music coming from, if this were not a music video? This is the first sign that this is not the typical “revenge” epic that we can expect from South Korea, and even then, the famed revenge trilogy by Park Chan-Wook is like nothing else you’ve ever expected and there is nothing typical about it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Do-Joon is not the brightest young man. He’s 27 years old and lives in a small seaside village in South Korea, miles away from the bright lights of Seoul. Here, everyone knows each other. His mother is some sort of apothecary, dispensing homemade herbal remedies and performing at-home acupuncture for village residents. He doesn’t appear to have a job and personifies the apt descriptor “a few bricks short of a load”. Obsessed with losing his virginity, it doesn’t help that he and his mother sleep in the same bed. She makes dishes that are designed to boost his virility. One night, he unsuccessfully chases a teenage girl in a desperate attempt to woo her. Because he is of less than average intelligence, he cannot recall what happened that night and is quite surprised to find himself arrested for the young girl’s murder. No thanks to inept local police forces and a worthless attorney, he lands in prison for 15 years. His distraught mother sets about finding out what truly happened, because she believes in the innate goodness of her son and doesn’t believe that he has the capacity to harm another human being.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xz6bZCnkUh8/T1u0mYpOR2I/AAAAAAAABHE/lM8iU0se95A/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xz6bZCnkUh8/T1u0mYpOR2I/AAAAAAAABHE/lM8iU0se95A/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a>Director Bong Joon-Ho, who made the stunning 2006 sci-fi horror thrilled <i>The Host</i>, removes the sci-fi element and places the horrors of people’s actions into the most unassuming setting. The trespasses and transgressions committed here are only between one another. Despite the penchant for Korean films to seamlessly incorporate elements of Christian theology into such cinematic masterpieces like 2006’s <i>Sympathy For Lady Vengeance</i>, this is a town that seems untouched by the Divine, a remote outpost in a godless universe where we are responsible for our own actions and inflict unspeakable horrors of the more mundane but no less horrific kind unto one another. Bong’s settings are drab, awash in shades of grey, whites and blacks. This is the kind of town where you can see lifers spending their entire existence without ever leaving.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are extraordinary revelations in the latter half of the film. In a more conventional (I am trying not to say “American”) film, this would have been a straight-up revenge epic, with bloody retribution in the end. <i>Madeo</i> is structured more like a mystery, and as we find out more about the murder, we are slowly fed information about the poisonous relationship between mother and son, the dead girl’s life, the way minor players figure into the mystery, and it all ends in a whopping half-hour where everything becomes unambiguously clear. The effect is stunningly unsettling, if not downright upsetting. There is no cheap emotional payoff. Let’s just say that if this were remade in Hollywood, the go-to actress to play the mother wouldn’t be Ashley Judd, but Tilda Swinton.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">Veteran actress Kim Jya-He plays the unnamed mother with extraordinary dedication and deep commitment. It is not enough for her to dress the part. The way the rumpled mismatched clothing, no doubt rescued from their local church donation bin or from years gone by, it’s as if she were born into the role wholly and completely. Kim, with her wearied gaze and all-consuming quest to clear her son’s name, always teeters quietly on the edge of insanity. She doesn’t even have a proper name in the film, for names won’t do her justice, as she exists purely in relation to her son and nothing else. Kim could quietly, politely speak at the young girl’s funeral – which she is just crazy enough to attend out of genuine respect for her son’s alleged victim – and unleash an unreal primal scream of a banshee wailing in moments of extreme crisis. It’s one of the most challenging cinematic roles of the last few years and Kim knocks it out of the park.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QrareDLEd3s/T1u0nm9TLDI/AAAAAAAABHU/6B2vAhSgxj0/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QrareDLEd3s/T1u0nm9TLDI/AAAAAAAABHU/6B2vAhSgxj0/s320/A6.jpg" width="320" /></a>Bong doesn’t end his film in any way you expect it to, or unfold in a manner you could see coming from a mile away. Everything is painted in shades of gray, although sometimes you don’t know if you are in darkness staring at the light or vice versa. Nor would you want it to. Without giving anything away, we eventually arrive at a point in the narrative where all seems to be resolved, and the opening shot comes up again to inform what we initially saw. There’s context and closure, no matter how unseemly things might be. The final shot, despite what you see, has a dark undercurrent emerging from a demented mind informed by Greek tragedy. The Oedipal undertones in the film are not accidental. And the titular mother’s sacrifices for her son become alarmingly crystal-clear.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Madeo</i> was one of the finest films of 2009 and was the official South Korean entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It is available on Netflix. You can view the trailer below.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/KPcijFQ4PpU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-84990533612577974772012-03-09T11:27:00.001-08:002012-03-10T18:20:54.702-08:00Eurovision 2012: Russia’s Buranova Babushkas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z9ZTRKUkERk/T1pZnYg6lsI/AAAAAAAABG8/QpJkjtVygrQ/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Z9ZTRKUkERk/T1pZnYg6lsI/AAAAAAAABG8/QpJkjtVygrQ/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">With the impending return of spring comes, across Europe, the first signs of an annual ritual casually making itself known on the cultural calendar once again. That’s right, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest, which I spotlighted in a piece you can read more about <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/05/guilty-pleasure-eurovision-song-contest.html">here</a>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Russia first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 and has competed continuously every year since 2000. They even hosted the competition in 2009, as part of the reward for winning the Contest the previous year. They take this contest seriously there. With the increasingly larger presence in the global market Russia continues to occupy, it follows that they would attempt to participate in the cultural climate, as well. They’ve largely stuck with English-language hits to generate greater appeal and potential crossover success on the pop charts. Russia has done well in the last decade and a half, winning in 2008 for native pop singer Dima Bilan’s pan-European smash ballad “Believe” (which included a memorably bizarre appearance from Olympic champion Evgeny Plushenko), and placing in the top three five times total. At one point, the faux-lesbian pop duo t.A.T.u. came in third, around the same time that they briefly enjoyed American success with their hit “All the Things She Said”. Last year’s entry, Alex (Vorobyov) Sparrow’s “Get You”, was even produced by RedOne, the man who co-produced Lady Gaga’s blockbuster album <i>The Fame</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A word must be said about the selection process for each country’s entry. Usually left to their own devices to choose the entry, the winner is often selected by popular vote, depending on the nation. While the Russians have generally favoured high-gloss pop music, their selection this year is downright bizarre. The winning entry is Buranova Babushkas and their song “Party for Everybody”, which was chosen by the public over returning favourite Bilan and t.A.Tu.’s Julia Volkova and their blockbuster duet, amongst others.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">For those of you who speak Russian, yes: “babushka” as in grandmother. These eight women hail from a tiny village called Buranova in Udmurt Republic in the Urals. Having competed in the Eurovision selection contest in 2010, these grandmothers came third in that national competition and have won the right via public vote to represent Russia at the big contest in Baku, Azerbaijan in May. The song isn’t even in Russian, but in Udmurt, with the chorus in English. My Google skills tell me that the non-English lyrics generally sing of the routine in daily life in that village: kneading dough, lighting the oven, laying out tablecloth while waiting for the children to come home. It is light years away from the flush of new wealth in cosmopolitan Moscow and is much closer to the simpler existence in small villages in Soviet Russia (or one might imagine).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s face it: this selection is the American equivalent of choosing notorious <i>American Idol</i> also-ran William Hung to represent the country, should the U.S. actually participate in Eurovision. They are not professional singers by any means, nor are they accomplished vocalists, with the production overwhelming the voices and a beat that could have come from having a karaoke machine make love to a drum machine. The costumes are traditional and are likely hand-made. And yet, as with so many reality-show contestants, the Buranova Babushkas have a compelling back story. Their only purpose for entering Eurovision is to raise awareness and money to build a new church in the village of Buranova, which numbers only 650 in population. And let’s face it, it’s rather endearing to hear this story and watching them dance with abandon, much like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF5WYaoWXI4">this remarkable Mandarin remake of “Bad Romance” with seniors</a>. I’m just saying that they likely don’t prioritize public opinion other than for the purpose for which they came to Eurovision. Plus, after the first minute or so, the clip is immensely catchy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How will the Buranova Babushkas fare at Eurovision? Just remember that Alex Sparrow’s entry was designed to win the contest outright, given how American it sounded, and it placed fourteenth. Also remember that an outright bizarre entry like <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/11/guilty-pleasure-verka-serduchka.html">Verka Serduchka</a> almost claimed pole position in 2007.</div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-82584517403807295342012-03-02T12:12:00.001-08:002012-03-02T12:17:32.945-08:00Oscar 2012: the Aftermath<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TO5fmeuks2g/T1EnH4DQKaI/AAAAAAAABGQ/xKSnfc4He6w/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TO5fmeuks2g/T1EnH4DQKaI/AAAAAAAABGQ/xKSnfc4He6w/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Best Actress and Best Actor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Less than a week after the most epic of parties, with the red carpet all rolled up, and the stars all (hopefully) back at work, here are some random notes on this year’s Academy Awards aftermath. I’m not concentrating on the actual show itself, but discussing the ultimate question: what does it all <i>mean</i>?<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Let’s discuss the success of <i>The Artist</i>. It wasn’t a clean sweep, <i>Lord of the Rings</i>-style. It was more like a respectable showing, a la <i>Chicago</i> in 2002. This doesn’t mean that studios are rushing to make eclectic projects like this one. Harvey Weinstein is not overcome with a sudden urge to bring back silent movie <i>en masse</i>. What this does mean, as a business model, is that the major studios and boutique shops (like The Weinstein Company and Focus Features) will continue to attend film festivals and acquire domestic distribution rights to worthy projects, dress them up in critical praise, and create Oscar campaigns for them. No, the major studios are still producing <i>Transformers</i> sequels and busily re-booting tried-and-true franchise options. (Unless you’re Christopher Nolan or Steven Soderbergh and can do whatever the hell you want.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RmyC5hVB9qM/T1EnIeX_jTI/AAAAAAAABGY/R0HLck_ustE/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RmyC5hVB9qM/T1EnIeX_jTI/AAAAAAAABGY/R0HLck_ustE/s320/A3.jpg" width="320" /></a>Jean Dujardin will continue to be a star in France, and his next few projects might get limited release in North America, but people here may forget he exists. The real test of longevity will be how he navigates his career without TWC’s direct involvement. He’s charmed everyone by appearing on talk shows, participating in that hilarious Funny or Die video, and he’s sexy to boot. He will now have to decide if an American project might entice him and he can become a domestically-recognized movie star, or if he’ll continue in French films exclusively. He may want to call fellow French Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, for tips. She’s continued working in their native France while also taking on strong supporting roles in such prestige projects as <i>Inception</i>, <i>Nine</i> and <i>Midnight in Paris</i>, all of which were nominated for or won Oscars. Dujardin will have to choose wisely, and I can’t wait to see what he does next. In the interim, it’s likely that his next film <i>Les Infideles</i>, which caused some controversy in France due to its outrageous movie poster, will be given a local release.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now that Meryl’s won an Oscar for her outstanding performance in <i>The Iron Lady</i> – a film I did not love but in which she was tremendous – the pressure’s now off to give her a third Oscar, something people have been buzzing about since at least 1985. She still has more nominations than any performer, living or dead, and as many Oscars as Jack Nicholson and Ingrid Bergman, one away from Katherine Hepburn’s all-time record. However, the next person in line for the Best Actress award will be none other than fellow nominee Glenn Close. Seeing Close on the red carpet for the first time in years, looking beautiful but also age-appropriate given the lack of any (obvious) plastic surgery, should remind the Academy to take notice of the outstanding work she’s done since her last Oscar nomination 23 years ago. She’s since won two Tony Awards and three Emmy Awards (and countless nominations) for, amongst others, a political stage play, a big-budget Broadway musical smash, noted miniseries and excellent ongoing work for serious, prestigious television series such as <i>Damages</i> and <i>The Shield</i>. Heck, <i>Damages </i>just might be her signature role and may outclass almost about everything she’s ever done in film. She’s now lost at the Oscars six times. She is <i>due</i>. Her next project is <i>Th</i><i>ér</i><i>èse Raquin</i>, currently in pre-production. This is an adaptation of an oft-performed Emile Zola play and novel, smells of prestige, and is due out next year. Close for Oscar, 2014? It could happen.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tJLgnuw6qik/T1EnI1N78DI/AAAAAAAABGg/_LTLIU_y-Cg/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tJLgnuw6qik/T1EnI1N78DI/AAAAAAAABGg/_LTLIU_y-Cg/s320/A6.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We rock: the cast of <i>Bridesmaids</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">I did not say that Viola Davis is next in line, or that she is due. Her work alone on <i>The Help</i> was far worthier than the “she’s due so let’s give her one” vibe that has followed Streep’s body of work for years. This is not a dig at her career choices, but simply a reflection of the critical buzz that has necessarily accompanied her work over the last 30 years. I worry that while Streep is still entertaining scripts, Davis might not have a film role worthy of her immense talent. Her next project is the big-budget adaptation of the sci-fi novel <i>Ender’s Game</i>, but her role is “Major Anderson”. Does this sound like a juicy part to you? Unless it’s hailed as a cinematic classic or a major sci-fi work, she might not have her Oscar anytime soon. There are frequent comments that it’s hard for a woman of a certain age to land a meaty film role, but what’s not often spoken is that it’s even more difficult for ethnic minorities to get them when so many of the scripts seem to be written expressly for Caucasian actors. These of course only speak to the truly substantive parts. I think Davis should go the TV route for now by landing a long-term, ongoing role on a high-quality series, pick up a stack of Emmys like Close did, and then return to the Oscar race with a body of work that will make the Academy sit up, take notice, and bang the drum for her to take home the statuette.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ctxz_wKOIaQ/T1EnJGdPzEI/AAAAAAAABGo/iArMmc_tjS0/s1600/A8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ctxz_wKOIaQ/T1EnJGdPzEI/AAAAAAAABGo/iArMmc_tjS0/s320/A8.jpg" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You guys! Dean Pelton won an Oscar!<br />
Take that, NBC!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">Speaking of television, there was a bigger presence than before this year than at previous Oscars ceremonies. The entire TV-bred cast of <i>Bridesmaids</i>, including SNL writer-performers Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, made mincemeat of the comic material they were provided for their awards presentations. Joining them were Oscar nominee / Emmy winner Melissa McCarthy of TV’s <i>Mike & Molly</i>, Ellie Kemper of <i>The Office</i> and Emmy nominee Rose Byrne of <i>Damages</i>. These are all great parts, no matter your opinions on these series. It seems that asides from this project, the meatiest role for Hollywood actresses appears to be on the small screen. Additionally, Jim Rash rocked the forced hiatus of NBC’s brilliant comedy <i>Community</i> by winning Best Adapted Screenplay. Bret McKenzie, officially half of the <i>Flight of the Conchords</i>, won Best Original Song. And Tina Fey killed it during her presentation and on the red carpet, playing along with Sacha Baron Cohen’s joke by bowing to the fake ashes of Kim Jong-Il (Ryan Seacrest, are you listening?). Perhaps it’s time for the major studios to continue using TV actor-writer-performers more often, rather than casting based entirely on the cover subjects of Maxim or who’s trending on MTV and Twitter.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jvBqXYeg3mY/T1EoLbldlvI/AAAAAAAABG0/iP1qHn9x6sw/s1600/A9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jvBqXYeg3mY/T1EoLbldlvI/AAAAAAAABG0/iP1qHn9x6sw/s320/A9.jpg" width="219" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tina Fey on the red carpet, "bowing"</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">I am not worried for either Supporting Acting winners. Plummer is so charming that even at age 82, he’ll keep getting roles as a working actor. Everyone wants to work with him and be around him. Similarly, Octavia Spencer’s popularity didn’t become obvious until she collected her Oscar to a standing ovation last Sunday. I had mentioned her insane popularity amongst her peers, and her well-deserved victory and its reception was testament to this. She’s appeared in all types of projects, taking on more typecast roles in <i>Beauty Shop</i> and tiny speaking parts in horror schlock, and built a vast support and business network that way. She will have no trouble continuing to find work, but here’s hoping that she’ll be taken more seriously and given roles worthy of her talents.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My suggestion for next year? Get the <i>entire</i> cast of <i>Bridesmaids</i> to take turns hosting the show, with Tina Fey writing, the Conchords performing all musical interludes, with Jim Nash announcing. Heck, forget the Oscars and get them all to do a make-over of the Emmys this way. Why wait another year when the Emmys are on in six months’ time?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Another year, another Oscars. Still no repeat of the infamous swan dress. See you all at the end of November, when this madness starts all over again!</div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-45735433945283103522012-02-24T00:01:00.000-08:002012-02-24T00:01:01.406-08:00Oscar 2012: A Personal Ballot<div class="MsoNormal">I’ve been writing all about who I think will take home Academy Awards this year. While some of my own choices overlap, let’s face it, the Academy doesn’t give a fat flying turd what I think should win. And quite frankly, writing letters to the likes of Gavin MacLeod, Jaclyn Smith and Erik Estrada (yes, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/academy/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-html,0,7473284.htmlstory">they’re all Academy members!!</a>) isn’t going to change that.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So, purely for the pleasure of entertaining and horrifying readers, here are my choices for the major categories. As usual, I’ve attached links to the original reviews for some of these films. </div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b>Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay: <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/07/cinematically-inclined-midnight-in.html">Midnight in Paris</a></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-76rkksZXJBs/T0GrBgMzMkI/AAAAAAAABFg/ZxqWZYVjUcA/s1600/A11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-76rkksZXJBs/T0GrBgMzMkI/AAAAAAAABFg/ZxqWZYVjUcA/s320/A11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I could watch this movie over and over and over again, and repeat. When I was an English major over a decade ago, I fantasized about traveling to a time period when I could rub shoulders and befriend the literary glitterati of a certain era. For me, that was the Bloomsbury Group in the 1930s in the UK. I used to daydream about watching Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey act like the early frontrunners of Will & Grace, warding off E.M. Forster’s advances, listening to Vita Sackville-West read out her letters and trying gently to tell Virginia Woolf to stop bumming everyone one before putting her on the train and returning to the café and gossiping about the similarly-themed Algonquin Table in New York. Woody Allen dreamed of Paris, and he made it come true. This was the screenplay I wished I had written all those years ago, and he did it better than I could ever write it. It may not be an earth-shattering achievement with political substance like <i>Milk</i>, or a genre masterpiece like <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i>, or a game-changer like <i>Inception</i>, but Woody Allen’s <i>Midnight in Paris </i>easily, comfortably sits amongst his masterpieces.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Art Direction: <i>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zvSem6VjOXI/T0GrDqj5ufI/AAAAAAAABGA/KEUk2w1lmoo/s1600/A9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="173" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zvSem6VjOXI/T0GrDqj5ufI/AAAAAAAABGA/KEUk2w1lmoo/s320/A9.jpg" width="320" /></a>Tomas Alfredson’s quiet spy game is unquestionably one of the greatest espionage films ever made. This was what that whole world was really like: men in stuffy suits sitting in soundproof war rooms, barely getting to see the sun let alone run around the world cracking Russian war codes and chasing rogue agents with guns and surviving ten-story falls. Spy work, while exciting, could also be exacting, and absolutely requires that only a mind well-suited to playing chess could or would survive in that environment. Gary Oldman gives a brilliantly muted performance as the immortal George Smiley, carrying on with an intelligence burning like an eternal flame behind his eyes, yet saying or giving away nothing. The labyrinthine script by Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O’Connor requires your full attention, and sometimes you may be confused by what you hear, but it is assembled like a Monet: up close, you can’t make sense of it, but far away, it makes perfect sense. And Maria Djurkovic’s period art direction doesn’t look like a fancy movie set: it looks like the entire era had been lifted wholesale and put into Shepperton Studios. It’s an incredible film that I’ll be returning to repeatedly.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Costume Design: <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/12/silence-is-golden-artist.html">The Artist</a></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0d_COVGPmPs/T0GrBWxsu3I/AAAAAAAABFY/bdXZBYVuJds/s1600/A10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0d_COVGPmPs/T0GrBWxsu3I/AAAAAAAABFY/bdXZBYVuJds/s320/A10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">Consider this a pair of valentines for the husband-and-wife team of Michel Hazanavicius and Bérénice Bejo. Everyone has been going on about this lovely diamond of a film’s star Jean Dujardin, which I will not question, but Bejo is the find of the picture. She’s its heart and without her soulful presence, the whole thing might have been more sentimental than it had any right to be. Hazanavicius created this lovely homage without giving a damn about its commercial viability and made one of the most charming, all-out entertaining films in a long time. I could show this to my relatives who don’t speak a lick of English and they would understand everything and enjoy it. It helps that the period’s costume design by Mark Bridges never feels over-the-top, but appropriate to the period without overwhelming the rest of the visuals (and they’re stunning). I reward his gumption, dedication and execution, and I found few other performances by anyone, male or female, to be this breathtaking all year.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><br />
</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, both for <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/11/cinematically-inclined-melancholia.html">Melancholia</a></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cfnmZXZsbas/T0GrCFFfs_I/AAAAAAAABFo/MOEXM6BBTJY/s1600/A6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cfnmZXZsbas/T0GrCFFfs_I/AAAAAAAABFo/MOEXM6BBTJY/s320/A6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">This is a film about depression, and yet it’s one of the most searing masterpieces of this or any year. Dunst makes a ferocious comeback performance as the depressed bride Justine, who cannot find purpose or joy on her wedding day, and does and says things to spite people and just to feel, well, <i>anything</i>. Having seen friends gone through the same process, I can say that Dunst has it exactly right. It’s so powerful a work and a performance that those same friends of mine (no names mentioned) refuse to see this film no matter how well they are doing, because it may trigger something. And Gainsbourg, one of the most adventurous, toughest, courageous actors of our time, matches Dunst as the uptight sister who, in the face of inevitable cosmic peril, finds that all of her faculties, intelligence and talents fail her in a moment of extreme crisis. I reward them both with my Best Actress prize because one could not have existed without the other.<br />
<br />
More categories and who I predict to win the Oscars, after the jump.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Best Supporting Actor, Best Make-up and Best Visual Effects: <i>Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 2</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Dd1a4uwhzs/T0GrCqqJYwI/AAAAAAAABFw/42Tou_XOneY/s1600/A7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Dd1a4uwhzs/T0GrCqqJYwI/AAAAAAAABFw/42Tou_XOneY/s320/A7.jpeg" width="320" /></a>Each of these is a valedictory prize. The make-up and visual effects have always looked lived-in and organic to J.K. Rowling’s world and the story. Nothing looks over-the-top. This is unquestioned. But the real star of these films is the extraordinary Alan Rickman, whose morally conflicted Professor Severus Snape has always been the lightning rod in the Harry Potter series and, it is finally revealed, its bleeding, broken heart. One does not understand the sacrifice he has made until all is revealed in this chapter, and Rickman masterfully underplays the role, rather than making it an excuse for histrionics. Watch the whole series through again and you’ll see his character in a whole new way. This was how I imagined Snape would be in the books when I devoured them, and Rickman understood and honours his character with respect and love.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Best Documentary, Best Foreign Film and Best Editing: <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/02/cinematically-inclined-pina.html">Pina</a></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ita5h3FydMc/T0GrDD1K5vI/AAAAAAAABF4/mRIQVaZ3anY/s1600/A8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="202" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ita5h3FydMc/T0GrDD1K5vI/AAAAAAAABF4/mRIQVaZ3anY/s320/A8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">A stunning achievement, it’s incredibly gutsy to make a free-flowing art-house dance film with no narrative and obscure material, let alone make it in 3-D. Wim Wenders’s towering film is the future of the medium, at once rescuing the use of 3-D and making it artistically purposeful, while paying homage to a great figure of the dance world. Everything is cut just right in the dance sequences, so that unlike musical dance films in the past, they don’t cut away from the sequences and we see the bodies in movement, from the right angles. This film is not for the uninitiated, but those who want to see experimental art, this is for you. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Best Original Score and Best Sound: <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i>.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First of all, I can’t tell the difference between Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. I don’t know if I could understand unless I actually become a sound designer. All I know is that the Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross score is probably the most badass original music created for film in the last few years, and the sound design makes clever use of even the smallest motions, like the closing of a window in a windstorm, sound like a cry for help. Every time we hear something to break the silence, it sounds like someone is stifling a scream. Should we be worried? It’s these technical aspects that helped elevate the film’s source material and make it the equal of the magnificent original film.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And now, my own personal ballot on who I think <i>will</i> win this year’s Oscars. I usually average about 15 to 18 a year, but last year I went all-in on <i>The King’s Speech</i> and got just 11 of 22 correct. How will I do this year?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Best Film, Director, Actor, Original Score, Costume Design, Editing: <i>The Artist </i>(6)<br />
Best Art Direction, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects: <i>Hugo </i>(4)<br />
Best Actress, Supporting Actress: <i>The Help</i> (2)<br />
Best Supporting Actor: <i>Beginners<br />
</i>Best Original Screenplay: <i>Midnight in Paris</i><br />
Best Adapted Screenplay: <i>Moneyball</i><br />
Best Foreign Language Film: <i>A Separation</i><br />
Best Documentary: <i>Paradise Lost 3</i><br />
Best Original Song: <i>The Muppets</i><br />
Best Make-up: <i>The Iron Lady</i><br />
Best Documentary Short: <i>Saving Face</i><br />
Best Live Action Short: <i>The Shore</i><br />
Best Animated Short: <i>La Luna</i><br />
Best Animated Feature: <i>Rango<o:p></o:p></i></div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-1634456584582768872012-02-22T07:00:00.000-08:002012-02-22T07:00:08.978-08:00Oscar 2012: Best Picture<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R3DJiISCW-o/T0FqDSG2bLI/AAAAAAAABFQ/bKamQL5HP0E/s1600/A5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R3DJiISCW-o/T0FqDSG2bLI/AAAAAAAABFQ/bKamQL5HP0E/s320/A5.jpg" width="320" /></a>For my entire coverage on the Academy Awards, click <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/search/label/Oscar">here</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A few ground rules on the likely Best Picture winner. In Oscar history, the winner almost always takes Best Director as well, or is at the very least nominated in that category. It is also often a nominee or winner for Best Screenplay (either Original or Adapted). Remember the rules that I had mentioned in <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/02/oscar-2012-best-director.html">my post on Best Director</a>, they are for the most part true. Taking this rule into consideration, we can realistically remove several of this year’s nine Best Picture nominees out of contention for the big prize: <i>The Help</i>, <i>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</i>, <i>War Horse</i>, <i>Moneyball</i> and <i>The Tree of Life</i>. That leaves us with four viable Best Picture contenders: <i>The Artist</i>, <i>Hugo</i>, <i>The Descendants</i> and <i>Midnight in Paris</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">With such a huge crowd, going through each nominee with the above hard-and-fast rules and applying to each nominee, we can whittle down the likelihood of each nominee’s chance to win the big prize.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First off, let’s forget the jaw-dropping inclusion of <i>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</i>. Stephen Daldry’s surprise nominee was supposed to have been Oscar bait, with across-the-board nominations and big box office to go with it. It touches on the sensitive legacy of 9/11 and is the first tackling the subject to get into the final group. But with its below-average critical reviews and soft box office (even with big stars like Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock it pulled in barely $30 million), it looks like a prestige project that disappointed. Without directing or writing nominations, it’s the first rank outsider.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ofrZ6OgZL00/T0FqBXAX24I/AAAAAAAABE4/Zu1c2Nv4ba8/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ofrZ6OgZL00/T0FqBXAX24I/AAAAAAAABE4/Zu1c2Nv4ba8/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a>We can also knock off <i>The Tree of Life</i>. It’s a big-budget film several years in the making, brought in a small box office take, and despite overall strong critical notices, those who didn’t like the film outright <i>hated</i> it: viciously, passionately, vociferously. It’s just too “out there” for more conservative Academy members. It’s out.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Next to be removed from the list is another big-budget Oscar-bait prestige project, Steven Spielberg’s <i>War Horse</i>. It had the pedigree of a likely winner: Pulitzer Prize-winning source material, one of the most popular film directors of all time at the helm, and it performed strongly and steadily commercially. Without directing or writing nominations, however, and a near absence from the winning circle at the guilds, it’s just an also-ran. Note that of its six nominations, five are in below-the-line technical categories.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m going to also remove <i>Moneyball</i> on the basis that despite six nominations including four high-profile ones, it didn’t win any of the precursor Best Picture awards and lacks a directing nod for Bennett Miller. Had he made it into that category, this popular and critical favourite would have made a much stronger case.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BM4O8zvhqLE/T0FqC5rzKwI/AAAAAAAABFI/SegPgN4qlak/s1600/A4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BM4O8zvhqLE/T0FqC5rzKwI/AAAAAAAABFI/SegPgN4qlak/s320/A4.jpg" width="320" /></a>I’m reluctantly removing <i>The Help </i>from consideration as well. I had previously thought it had the mileage to go the distance, since it’s a big box office success and tackles race issues in America. The closest parallel I had with it was <i>Crash</i>, which was the upset winner six years ago, but even that had directing, writing and editing nominations to go with it. <i>The Help</i> doesn’t have any of it. Its other close parallel was 2009’s <i>The Blind Side</i>, but it also lacked these nominations and its popularity alone couldn’t let it get past <i>The Hurt Locker</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s turn to the remaining contenders, which you can view after the jump.</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YXkv5uslnG8/T0FqCfLCWWI/AAAAAAAABFA/r0lmDUZX9S8/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YXkv5uslnG8/T0FqCfLCWWI/AAAAAAAABFA/r0lmDUZX9S8/s320/A3.jpg" width="320" /></a>Once we eliminate these five, there are four really viable options left in play. Another hard-and-fast rule is that the most nominated film often wins Best Picture. While this was the norm for a long while, the last few years have produced winners that didn’t fit this statistic but nevertheless swept through their categories and ended up going home with the most trophies anyway (<i>Slumdog Millionaire</i>, <i>The Departed</i>, <i>Million Dollar Baby</i>). That brings us to Martin Scorsese’s <i>Hugo</i>, the winner at the National Board of Review, a finalist for every major award possible, and an ode to the history and love of the cinema. It won’t win, however, because the Best Picture winner is usually a box office hit, or at the very least can’t be seen as a flop no matter how low its gross is. This was how <i>The Hurt Locker</i> won: it made almost no money, but since it was so low-budget and artistically adventurous, it turned out a small profit anyway. <i>Hugo</i>, on the other hand, hasn’t even grossed half of its estimated $150 million (at least, not domestically) budget, and the Academy likes to reward a box office winner with its top award. So <i>Hugo</i> is out. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">Turning to <i>The Descendants</i>, I note that its nominations hit the four key categories perfectly: picture, directing, acting, screenplay and a surprise inclusion in editing (generally a nomination also awarded to a Best Picture winner). It won the L.A. Film Critics Award and has been short-listed for several other awards in this category. It’s the only Best Picture nominee that is still in the top ten of the box office, and continues to play well three months after its initial release, with solid grosses that have been gradually accumulating. It was produced on a modest budget and is the kind of intimate character drama reminiscent of previous Best Picture winners such as <i>Ordinary People</i>, <i>Driving Miss Daisy</i> and <i>A Beautiful Mind</i>. It may not win, however, because it needed to win the Directors Guild or Producers Guild to make a solid case for itself. Oscar also likes to sweep and unless it takes up Best Actor and / or Screenplay with it, it doesn’t have the momentum to take the biggest prize.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;">I’ve had my eye on Woody Allen’s <i>Midnight in Paris</i> for a very long time. While it hasn’t won any of the major prizes, it’s also received high reviews and those who have seen this film, the highest-grossing in Allen’s career, speak of it in glowing terms. It’s been a strong finalist in major categories all season long, even if it hasn’t won too many major prizes. Should the votes be split up into separate camps with no consensus winner, then <i>Midnight in Paris</i>, which many are considering a “top ten” if not a #1 choice, might pick up more neutral or apathetic voters’ default votes and pull off a shockeroo win. It’s not likely, but I have a feeling that it has more support than one might think.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P_m2qQOKaTo/T0FqBPWxh-I/AAAAAAAABEw/8qAt5W5dmvg/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P_m2qQOKaTo/T0FqBPWxh-I/AAAAAAAABEw/8qAt5W5dmvg/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a>This brings us, by process of elimination, to the likely Best Picture winner, <i>The Artist</i>. It’s won top prizes at the SAG, DGA and PGA awards. It cleared the board at the increasingly-influential BAFTAs. The only reason it didn’t win the Writers’ Guild of America is because its writer is not a member of it, and only WGA members could be nominated (I once spoke with the screenwriter of a very highly-regarded film who confirmed this was what disqualified his film from even being nominated for the WGA prize). Despite a soft start, box office has picked up and it’s doing modest but steady business. Its’ a movie about show business, and it’s such a throwback that it’s silent! It is the likely winner in several other categories like music, editing and costumes, and the Academy likes a sweep winner. Voters often see the same film appear in several categories and if it’s a buzz-worthy film they love, they’ll go for it all the way down the line. While contemporary audiences may not want to see a silent movie, the average age of Academy members is 62 years old, and they are more likely to enjoy an <i>homage</i> to classic cinema.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;"><b>The Best Picture Oscar will be awarded to: <i>The Artist</i>. <o:p></o:p></b></div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-25083332379693736962012-02-19T11:57:00.000-08:002012-02-19T11:58:22.606-08:00Oscar 2012: Best ActorThis year’s Best Actor Oscar race is similar to the Best Actress contenders. There are two main contenders neck-and-neck at the front, with a possible spoiler, a veteran dark horse, and a surprise nominee. In other words, as with Best Actress, we’re looking at a nail-biter down to the finish line, making this first time in years where there is no clear winner or obvious choice.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Here are the nominees for this year’s Best Actor Oscar.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Demi</u></b><b><u>án Bichir for <i>A Better Life</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anI3qQONU-g/T0FTseCFqmI/AAAAAAAABEI/zOUPdBiHMiA/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-anI3qQONU-g/T0FTseCFqmI/AAAAAAAABEI/zOUPdBiHMiA/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>For him:</u></b> A shock nominee, many feel that he took a spot that may have been meant for a bigger star (cf. Leonardo DiCaprio in <i>J. Edgar</i>). His little-seen art-house film, for those who have actually seen it, is beloved by a small but vocal group of voters and word is that those who’ve seen his performance declare his work to be the best, hands-down. He received a surprise SAG nomination as well, indicating popularity and support amongst his actor peers.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> Very few people saw this film, which is streaming on Netflix after an unremarkable theatrical run. SAG nod aside, he received no other recognition this season. The film, about the immigrant experience in America, is topical and challenging, and may be a bit too political for more conservative voters’ taste. He also represents the lone nomination for his film and at least three of his nominees are front-and-center in Best Picture nominees. For Bichir, the nomination is the reward.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>George Clooney for <i>The Descendants</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5OShq93a07o/T0FTswUmBcI/AAAAAAAABEQ/H7d04ImP3WE/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5OShq93a07o/T0FTswUmBcI/AAAAAAAABEQ/H7d04ImP3WE/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>For him:</u></b> I’ve referred to him as “Mr. Popular” more than once, and indeed he has support from critics, audiences and the Academy alike. He’s won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice and National Board of Review honours this year for his role. Clooney has career-best notices and he’s in a Best Picture nominee with broad-based support. He’s proven his versatility by having received seven career Oscar nominations (to date) in the fields of writing, directing and acting. He’s even nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for his well-received directorial effort <i>The Ides of March</i>. Somehow he’s straddled the gossip pages and the critics’ notices, winning respectability while also gracing magazine covers. Although he has a Supporting Actor prize already, for a leading man of his stature, it’s only fitting that he one day win the Leading Actor award as well. Is it time? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> He’s already got an Oscar. It may be too much, too soon, and it’s not like he won’t have any other chances later on in his career. He’s got to watch his back as there’s a great challenge in the form of exciting newcomer (on this side of the pond) Jean Dujardin and his good friend Brad Pitt, both of whom are nominated and are leads in Best Picture nominees. Perhaps Clooney will one day be recognized for directing or writing, instead? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Jean Dujardin in <i>The Artist</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5At_semZVKQ/T0FTt1jhHfI/AAAAAAAABEo/s-sWu7RtdXs/s1600/A5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5At_semZVKQ/T0FTt1jhHfI/AAAAAAAABEo/s-sWu7RtdXs/s320/A5.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>For him:</u></b> Not initially the frontrunner, this charming Gaelic superstar – who’s as big as Clooney and Pitt in France – added to his Cannes Film Festival award by sweeping the Golden Globe, SAG and BAFTA prizes within the last month. He faces an acting challenge that no one else in the category takes on in that the role is a silent one. Dujardin didn’t even speak much English a year ago, and yet he learned it in a crash course and has been hitting the American talk show circuit to promote the film tirelessly, even hosting <i>Saturday Night Live</i>. That, folks, is dedication. The mighty Harvey Weinstein’s TWC is behind the campaign and they <i>get </i>results. He could win his award a la Roberto Benigni’s surprising victory for <i>Life is Beautiful</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> The Benigni comparison is a double-edged sword, as it is one of the more derided and criticized Oscar wins in the last twenty years. Dujardin has not yet signed on for any roles in Hollywood, which might make Academy members who are prone to cronyism a bit cagey about choosing a foreigner for the prize. (Then again, that didn’t stop them from choosing all-foreign winners in 2007.) Since the role is silent, they may also wait until they see him in a speaking role before rewarding him. Some Academy members may be resistant to seeing a high-concept silent movie.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Gary Oldman in <i>Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1e5Zn72NWYI/T0FTtmFNu2I/AAAAAAAABEg/yw5Cd0sj8T8/s1600/A4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1e5Zn72NWYI/T0FTtmFNu2I/AAAAAAAABEg/yw5Cd0sj8T8/s320/A4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>For him:</u></b> One of the most revered film veterans, a one-time experimental and still-edgy British actor, Oldman has switched effortlessly between independent films such as <i>Withnail and I</i> and big Hollywood blockbusters like <i>Bram Stoker’s Dracula</i> and the <i>Harry Potter </i>franchise. It’s been widely noted that this is only his first career Oscar nomination and that might lead some to vote for him as a <i>de facto</i> career award.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> He was MIA from all of the precursor award shortlists and needed at least one major win to make a stronger case for him here. He was the frontrunner for BAFTA, his one solid shot all season at a major acting prize, but he still lost when Dujardin and <i>The Artist</i> cleared the board there. With so many of his fellow nominees in Best Picture nominees, it’ll be tough to make a case for his win. He’ll be back.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Brad Pitt in <i>Moneyball</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kkOeVXFVu7Y/T0FTtdfXR2I/AAAAAAAABEY/Ll7C9c97sW0/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kkOeVXFVu7Y/T0FTtdfXR2I/AAAAAAAABEY/Ll7C9c97sW0/s320/A3.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>For him:</u></b> Like Clooney, he’s insanely popular, a global superstar with few peers. He’s also a multiple nominee this year, as he’s credited as a producer on Best Picture finalist <i>Moneyball</i>. Won the notoriously tony New York Film Critics and National Society of Film Critics best actor awards, indicating that they fully support his artistic choices. And with his role in <i>The Tree of Life</i>, he’s the only nominee in this category to appear in <i>two</i> Best Picture nominees, speaking to the adventurousness of his roles and its artistic payoff. It may be irresistible to Academy voters to give him a statue, as longtime spouse Angelina Jolie has one as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> He may be too much of a tabloid favourite to get Hollywood’s most glittering prize. With Clooney and Dujardin winning the lion’s share of awards in the last month of the season, and both their films still playing in theatres, Pitt might have lost some momentum for <i>Moneyball</i>. It’s a talky role, with lots of long monologues, but doesn’t have the big emotional breakdown or typical “Oscar clips” that his main competition has. Perhaps like Robert Redford, to whom he has often been compared, he’ll win for producing or directing one day, instead? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>The lowdown</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I mentioned that the race was a parallel to Best Actress. In terms of the winners’ chances, here’s how I break them down:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Jean Dujardin = Viola Davis – the likely winner, a mid-career character actor in a Best Picture nominee<br />
George Clooney = Meryl Streep – the megawatt star who was the early frontrunner, but will be recognized again in the future<br />
Brad Pitt = Michelle Williams – the spoiler who could sneak through if the two leaders cancel each other out<br />
Gary Oldman = Glenn Close – respected veteran who could have won had his / her film received more support (coincidentally, both films have three nods apiece)<br />
Damien Bichir = Rooney Mara – surprise nominee and out-of-left-field shock winner if this happens, and neither name slips off the tongue easily</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m forecasting a win for Dujardin, but won’t be surprised if Natalie Portman reads out “George Clooney” instead.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>The Oscar will go to: Jean Dujardin for <i>The Artist</i>.<o:p></o:p></b><br />
<br />
For more Oscar-related coverage on this blog, click <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/search/label/Oscar">here</a>.</div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-63723602401422793192012-02-16T14:49:00.000-08:002012-02-16T14:49:28.171-08:00Oscar 2012: Best Director<div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">To start, there are a few simple rules for predicting the Best Director Oscar winner. In general, here they are:</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><ol><li>The winning director has almost always won the Directors Guild of America (“DGA”) prize a few weeks before the Oscar ceremony.</li>
<li>The Best Director Oscar often goes hand-in-hand with a Best Picture win for the same film.</li>
<li>If the DGA and Best Picture Oscar don’t match, the Best Director often goes to the DGA winner anyway (cf. <i>Born on the Fourth of July</i>, <i>Saving Private Ryan</i>, <i>Brokeback Mountain</i>).</li>
</ol><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">And now, as with all rules, there are a few exceptions. These aren’t hard-and-fast loopholes or rules, they just … happened when the envelops were opened and the winner announced.</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><ol><li>The first instance of the DGA prize not matching up with Oscar was at the 1968 awards, when DGA winner Anthony Harvey lost for <i>The Lion in Winter</i> to Carol Reed for <i>Oliver!</i></li>
<li>Further to exception #1, there have been a few instances when the match-up failed to materialize: 1995 (Mel Gibson over Ron Howard); 2000 (Steven Soderbergh over Ang Lee); 2002 (Roman Polanski over Rob Marshall).</li>
</ol><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">In other words, all things being equal, the DGA winner is the single most powerful prognosticator of who may win the Best Picture Oscar. Last year, David Fincher looked absolutely unstoppable for the Oscar, until Tom Hooper scooped the DGA and went on to claim the Oscar, and <i>The King’s Speech</i> outdrew <i>The Social Network</i> for the top prize. In other words, the DGA is almost absolutely authoritative when it comes to predicting the Oscar, like a Supreme Court decision with little to no room for appeal. It also has a domino effect, as the prize also often dictates the Best Picture winner, and may have a trickle-down effect in the lesser categories, resulting in a <i>Slumdog Millionaire</i>-style sweep.</div><div class="MsoNormal">We already know that Michel Hazanivicius won the DGA for <i>The Artist</i>. This already gives away who I think will take home the Oscar. But in the event of an upset – such as the jaw-dropping victory Roman Polanski pulled off in 2002 for <i>The Pianist</i> over <i>Chicago</i>’s Rob Marshall – let’s consider how the other nominees stack up against him.</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Michel Hazanivicius for <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/12/silence-is-golden-artist.html">The Artist</a></i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2EVGET5kF8/Tz2HK5Ngz2I/AAAAAAAABEA/9p1_yBRCBmA/s1600/hazanavicius_michel01.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2EVGET5kF8/Tz2HK5Ngz2I/AAAAAAAABEA/9p1_yBRCBmA/s320/hazanavicius_michel01.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>For him:</u></b> DGA winner. Also just scooped up the BAFTA. He has been responsible for the entire picture, from writing the script to directing it, and even editing it long after production ended. Hazanivicius is nominated for three, count’em <i>three</i>, Oscars this year, for each of those efforts. It shows creative complete control from beginning to end, short of actually coming up with the funds to produce the picture. In terms of money, it helps that Hazanivicius made his film for a lean, mean $12 million and it’s already turned out a tidy profit.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> In the event that the Academy sees fit to award him Best Original Screenplay instead, and he’s the shoo-in for Best Editing, they may elect to give the prize to someone else in an effort to spread the wealth. Plus, no one in Hollywood seems to be able to pronounce, let alone spell, his name correctly. (Think about the presenter who may flub it up at the podium.)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Alexander Payne for <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/11/cinematically-inclined-descendants.html">The Descendants</a></i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A_VTaMP83RM/Tz2HJemISJI/AAAAAAAABDw/A4D9qGWJYa0/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-A_VTaMP83RM/Tz2HJemISJI/AAAAAAAABDw/A4D9qGWJYa0/s320/A3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>For him:</u></b> Critical darling who made three back-to-back Oscar-recognized films, including 2004’s Adapted Screenplay winner <i>Sideways</i>, returns with a slice-of-life dramedy made on a shoestring budget, yet with a major star, and turns it into a critical and commercial success. Payne is recognized as being one of the medium’s best writer-directors, and actors clamor to be in his character-based films the way they do for Woody Allen.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> He’s already won in the past, and there may be a perception that his greater strength might seem to be in screenwriting rather than in directing. The small character-based <i>Descendants </i>has the look and feel of an intimate drama, and up against period pieces and experimental, avant-garde competition, looks relatively small in comparison. He’ll have a better shot at Adapted Screenplay, where he’s one of the front-runners.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Martin Scorsese for <i>Hugo</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aQGjefIGdzI/Tz2HKdTIiAI/AAAAAAAABD4/QK4PW5hY0iA/s1600/A4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aQGjefIGdzI/Tz2HKdTIiAI/AAAAAAAABD4/QK4PW5hY0iA/s320/A4.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>For him:</u></b> Ah, Marty! He has the Golden Globe and National Board of Review prizes to back him up, and his film is up for a leading 11 nominations, more than for even purported front-runner <i>The Artist</i>. He’s an industry legend who lost for such landmark films as <i>Goodfellas</i>, <i>Raging Bull</i> and <i>Taxi Driver</i>, and he’s worked with just about everyone in Hollywood. One of the industry’s favourite sons, his victory for <i>The Dpearted </i>five years ago was greeted with one of the longest standing ovations in Oscar history and was a popular win.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> He’s already had his Oscar payday, and <i>Hugo</i> was a $150 million money pit that couldn’t turn great reviews and critical prizes into long box office play. Hollywood doesn’t really like to honour films that don’t make money, or at the very least break even. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Woody Allen for <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/07/cinematically-inclined-midnight-in.html">Midnight in Paris</a></i></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HMLxR1zdRgE/Tz2HJF4pzBI/AAAAAAAABDo/zJjcCXWwOZg/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HMLxR1zdRgE/Tz2HJF4pzBI/AAAAAAAABDo/zJjcCXWwOZg/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>For him:</u></b> Nominated for just about every single precursor award, he made his highest-grossing film ever on a relatively flimsy budget, and garnered some of the best reviews of his career along the way. A frequent nominee in this category (this is seventh attempt) he’s won just once, for 1977’s <i>Annie Hall</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> If Allen is true to form, he won’t even show up to collect his Oscar if he were to win (he’s only ever gone to the Oscars once, in a 9/11 tribute for the 2001 awards). The Academy likes to see winners gush, and even Scorsese turned up every single time he was nominated and faced his losses with good humour and on-camera. This is not to say that Allen’s a sore loser, it’s just to say that the Academy Awards just aren’t his thing, and maybe that perception might hurt him. Plus, he’s one of the front-runners for Best Original Screenplay and already has three career awards, indicating that there may be no need to honour him here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Terrence Malick for <i><a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/06/cinematically-inclined-tree-of-life.html">The Tree of Life</a></i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TkoBeHAoqsQ/Tz2HIhIqDVI/AAAAAAAABDg/SADkHj8jL0g/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TkoBeHAoqsQ/Tz2HIhIqDVI/AAAAAAAABDg/SADkHj8jL0g/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>For him:</u></b> He swept through the critics’ prizes, winning more awards than just about anyone this year. He’s a previous nominee who hasn’t won yet, despite his reputation for being a true <i>auteur</i> and a major force in American filmmaking. The film is a searing, uncompromising vision signaling complete artistic freedom, with minimal studio interference, which a lot of directors will recognize and respect.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against him:</u></b> He’s <i>painfully</i> slow at releasing movies, at one point taking 20 years between films. His uncompromising vision is also a complete turn-off for a lot of people who flat-out despise his work. Malick doesn’t make crowd-pleasers and he is not a journeyman director who could happily switch between blockbusters and artistic offerings (cf. Martin Scorsese). He also didn’t make the DGA shortlist, indicating a lack of industry support. But if anyone’s going to pull off an upset, it just might be him.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>The lowdown</u></b><u><o:p></o:p></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Team France! Hazanavicius has this in the bag, but I’m going with a no-guts-no-glory call for Malick should Hazanavicius’s name not be the one called out on Oscar night.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>The Oscar will go to: Michel Hazanavicius for <i>The Artist</i>.<o:p></o:p></b></div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-27534984757873769312012-02-15T20:51:00.000-08:002012-02-15T20:55:08.990-08:00Oscar 2012: Best ActressIn our continuing coverage of the Oscars, we break down the nominees for Best Actress. Here are the candidates, and the reasons why and why they may not win the Oscar. Fasten your seat belts, as Bette Davis once said: this just might be the most competitive category of the night.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Glenn Close in <i>Albert Nobbs</i><o:p></o:p></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>For her:</u></b> Unbelievably, this is Close’s <i>sixth</i> career nomination and she has never won an Oscar, despite landmark performances in <i>Fatal Attraction</i> and <i>Dangerous Liaisons</i>. She’s already won just about every major acting accolade over her career, including three Emmy Awards and three Tony Awards. <i>Albert Nobbs</i> is a passion project, as she played the role on the stage in the early 80s and took nearly thirty years, due to unforeseen stops and starts in production, to bring her pet project to the screen. Close also co-wrote the film’s script and theme song, showing her dedication to the project. Oscar loves a gender-bending performance, as evidenced by wins in the past for Gwyneth Paltrow, Hillary Swank and Linda Hunt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DdhRDoRfXS8/TzyK2IsZbuI/AAAAAAAABDE/pmVMwiNyRWA/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DdhRDoRfXS8/TzyK2IsZbuI/AAAAAAAABDE/pmVMwiNyRWA/s320/A3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><u>Against her:</u></b> The film performed poorly at the box office and received tepid reviews, some of them for Close herself. Even the excellent notices she received were overshadowed by higher praise for her nominated co-star Janet McTeer, who is also performing in a gender-bending role. While there is considerable love and respect for Close, there’s no groundswell of critical or public consensus to bring her the big win. With Viola Davis and Meryl Streep running neck-and-neck with Michelle Williams a close third, Close just doesn’t have enough momentum to overcome her competition. And while short-listed for various prizes including the Globe and SAG, Close herself hasn’t won any for this particular performance. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Viola Davis in <i>The Help</i></u></b><u><o:p></o:p></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-czJm6ltRWgQ/TzyK1P3nngI/AAAAAAAABC0/_lkEeZwGvTQ/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-czJm6ltRWgQ/TzyK1P3nngI/AAAAAAAABC0/_lkEeZwGvTQ/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>For her:</u></b> A previous nominee, Davis is also the front-and-center star of one of the year’s Best Picture nominees, and a popular one at that. It’s the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee this year, likely seen by just about the entire voting body. She’s won <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/01/oscar-2012-sag-award-winners.html">SAG</a>, <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/01/oscar-2012-golden-globe-and-critics.html">Critics Choice</a> and <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/12/oscar-2012-national-board-of-review.html">National Board of Review</a> prizes for individual and / or cast performances. She’s the only nominee here to star in not one, but <i>two </i>Best Picture nominees (the other being <i>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</i>), speaking to the quality of the films in which she chooses to appear. While the film caused some controversy over its depiction of race relations in the Deep South, even the film’s detractors conceded that Davis’s work transcended the material. There’s also a political dimension at play, as the only African-American to ever win this category did so ten years ago – Halle Berry – and the Academy might want to correct that imbalance.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against her:</u></b> Fierce competition from her good friend and former co-star Streep, who once said in a speech that “someone should write this woman a movie!” There are some critics who don’t like how the role was written, as it may have (inadvertently or otherwise) tapped into some racial stereotypes. The Academy may wish to steer clear of racial politics, but that hasn’t stopped them from awarding a controversial film with its top prize before (cf. <i>Crash</i>). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Rooney Mara in <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i></u></b><u><o:p></o:p></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kU5dV393ksE/TzyK3O2rXfI/AAAAAAAABDU/WmF1mTpZfQo/s1600/Rooney-Mara-by-Merrick-Morton.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kU5dV393ksE/TzyK3O2rXfI/AAAAAAAABDU/WmF1mTpZfQo/s320/Rooney-Mara-by-Merrick-Morton.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><b><u>For her:</u></b> The year’s big breakout role and surprise nominee, Mara is the youngest nominee this year and one of the youngest ever. It’s the first of three films in which she’ll embody the character Lisbeth Salander, considered one of the most iconic figures in contemporary literature and film, and the Academy loves to honour ingénues. The performance is also considered physically demanding: she bares her body and has a graphic rape scene that is arguably the most challenging since Hillary Swank’s winning turn in <i>Boys Don’t Cry</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against her:</u></b> The memory of the original <i>TGWTDT</i> is still fresh for a lot of viewers, many of whom preferred the performance of its original star, the un-nominated Noomi Rapace. Given that she’s got two more films to make in the trilogy, Mara will have another opportunity to perform the role and potentially be nominated for an Oscar. She has a bright future and with so much competition by veterans and more distinguished actors, she is the one rank outsider in a tight field. There are also those who believe that she took a spot meant for <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/01/great-scot-tilda-swinton-in-viktor-rolf.html">Tilda Swinton</a>, unrecognized for her work in the acclaimed <i>We Need to Talk About Kevin</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Meryl Streep in <i>The Iron Lady</i></u></b><u><o:p></o:p></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z2-lBKod490/TzyK1eCXLkI/AAAAAAAABC8/candZh5MTKM/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z2-lBKod490/TzyK1eCXLkI/AAAAAAAABC8/candZh5MTKM/s320/A2.jpg" width="213" /></a><b><u>For her:</u></b> Another year, another parade of prizes for Streep for a great performance. This year, her count includes a <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/01/oscar-2012-bafta-nominations.html">BAFTA</a> (her first since the 80s), a Golden Globe and the <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2011/11/oscar-2012-new-york-film-critics-circle.html">New York</a> Film Critics, amongst many others. Oscar likes to reward actors in biopics who age and die and / or go insane, and this role has it all (except for the death part). Streep also affects a British accent for the first time in a long while, and her impersonation is considered spot-on. There’s been a campaign reminding voters that it’s been 29 years since she last won, for her legendary performance in <i>Sophie’s Choice</i>, which may remind voters that it’s finally time to honour the current consensus as the greatest living actress.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Against her:</u></b> The film received some terrible reviews and, despite initially promising box office, did not perform well, at least not in North America. While most critics have raved about her work, those who hated the film also dismissed her performance. Streep already has yet <i>another </i>award-worthy work lined up, the leading part in the forthcoming <i>August: Osage County</i>, in the role that won its original star a Tony Award and is considered another opportunity for her to showboat and do what she does best. It might be perceived by voters that there will always be another chance to reward Streep, even without actually giving her the award. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Michelle Williams in <i>My Week with Marilyn</i><o:p></o:p></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>For her:</u></b> A career-transforming role, Oscar happens to like biopics and that’s why both she and Streep are in the race. Williams, at age 32, is the youngest American actor to receive three Oscar nominations at that age, beaten only by Brit Kate Winslet, who accomplished the same feat by age 26. Williams has successfully graduated from being a <i>Dawson’s Creek</i> alumnus into an accomplished and adventurous actress. Add to this several prizes this season for her role, including the Golden Globe, and she’s been short-listed for every other major prize out there. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Wxo2zgjXN7Q/TzyK2bLcd2I/AAAAAAAABDM/rQe5sJ46Dxo/s1600/A4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="284" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Wxo2zgjXN7Q/TzyK2bLcd2I/AAAAAAAABDM/rQe5sJ46Dxo/s320/A4.jpg" width="320" /></a><b><u>Against her:</u></b> There are still some, believe it or not, who might consider her a “TV actress” who made good. While her reviews for <i>Marilyn</i> were excellent, the film’s notices overall were not as enthusiastic. Many have considered her performance an “interpretation” rather than a total mimicry, and that has led less kind critics to say that the role is not “on the nose”. In a year when she’s going toe-to-toe with Davis and Streep, she might be overlooked if she doesn’t benefit from a split vote. She’s a strong third-place, but may not have overall support for her film to make it to the winner’s circle. Plus, with such an impressive resume at such a young age, it’s more than likely that she’ll get nominated again, and like win.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>The lowdown:</u></b> It’s Davis vs. Streep in a photo finish, with Williams being the tiebreaker. I’m calling it for Davis, but wouldn’t be surprised to see Streep take Oscar home for the third time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>The Oscar will go to: Viola Davis for <i>The Help.</i></b></div><script type="text/javascript">
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</script><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/rowEa</div>HerrMozarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858605881230841101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2744454461119641649.post-1380698317157497982012-02-13T09:00:00.000-08:002012-02-13T12:52:20.400-08:00Oscar 2012: Best Supporting Actor<div class="MsoNormal">Let us have a moment for Albert Brooks. Despite winning a slew of critics’ group prizes, including the New York Film Critics Award (the first given out all season) and short-listed for Critics Choice and the Golden Globe, he was not nominated for an Oscar. Without him, the competition just got a little duller as he was one of the main challengers for the award and delivered one of the very best performances in the last ten years on film, only to be left unnoticed by the Academy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">With that in mind, let’s assess this category with the five performers who did make the list.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Kenneth Branagh for <i>My Week with Marilyn</i></u></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4w4nE-IbZwM/TzIcD0eJdxI/AAAAAAAABBA/z7-K0cHftNw/s1600/A2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4w4nE-IbZwM/TzIcD0eJdxI/AAAAAAAABBA/z7-K0cHftNw/s320/A2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>For him:</u> The versatile writer-performer has often been compared to Sir Laurence Olivier in his career, and now he plays him in this film! In all seriousness, this is Branagh’s fourth career nomination, having been shortlisted before for acting, writing and directing. He’s distinguished himself by appearing in small independent productions, Shakespeare adaptations and big-budget Hollywood films. Branagh is also notable as being one of the few performers who can comfortably transition behind the camera and appear as a journeyman director, while still leaving his artistic credibility intact.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Against him:</u> His work here has been overshadowed, despite his being shortlisted for all the important guild prizes, by his co-star Michelle Williams, one of the Best Actress front-runners. He’s also up against two very respected veterans, each of whom makes a more compelling case for being rewarded for an Oscar, performances aside. It may not be his time, at least not yet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Jonah Hill for <i>Moneyball</i></u></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FiZowDP9HCk/TzIcFSI51zI/AAAAAAAABBQ/R0Zi4QAxyrM/s1600/A4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FiZowDP9HCk/TzIcFSI51zI/AAAAAAAABBQ/R0Zi4QAxyrM/s320/A4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>For him:</u> Famous funnyman turns serious actor and is rewarded with a nomination. He appears alongside Brad Pitt in a Best Picture nominee and, if that film pulls off a mini-sweep, he may be swept up along with it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Against him:</u> His body of work to date. Known as a comedy star appearing in <i>Knocked Up</i>, <i>The 40-Year-Old Virgin </i>and <i>Forgetting Sarah Marshall</i>, Academy members may not take him seriously due to his previous work in comedy. It’s unfair of course, but voters may wish to wait a while until he further proves his versatility in other dramatic roles before rewarding him. He’s up against some tough competition, mainly longtime veterans with considerable support in the Academy’s ranks.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Nick Nolte for <i>Warrior</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w7NYbpHE-Co/TzIcHIXk8CI/AAAAAAAABBY/UBIj_zSXZZU/s1600/A5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w7NYbpHE-Co/TzIcHIXk8CI/AAAAAAAABBY/UBIj_zSXZZU/s320/A5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>For him:</u> Now on his third nomination, Nolte has long been respected for his work and it may finally be time for him to win an Oscar.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Against him:</u> Unfortunately, it may also be time for two other veterans – namely Plummer and von Sydow – to also win Oscars for their performances in films that are more widely seen. Nolte needed critical prizes to boost his campaign, and he is his film’s sole nomination, indicating perhaps a lack of support for <i>Warrior</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Christopher Plummer for <i>Beginners</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hrcXDrctHfY/TzIcDQ3-x3I/AAAAAAAABA4/mv-ORF6wsUs/s1600/A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hrcXDrctHfY/TzIcDQ3-x3I/AAAAAAAABA4/mv-ORF6wsUs/s320/A1.jpg" width="320" /></a><u>For him:</u> One of the juiciest roles of the year, Plummer plays a father who comes out of the closet and finally lives the life he wanted after half a century in the closet. This role requires him to deliver heartfelt speeches, take on a unique character and have a death on-screen. Plummer won the lion’s share of critics’ awards that Broos didn’t pick up, plus awards from <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/01/oscar-2012-sag-award-winners.html">SAG</a>, <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/01/oscar-2012-bafta-nominations.html">BAFTA</a>, <a href="http://artfulintel.blogspot.com/2012/01/oscar-2012-golden-globe-and-critics.html">Globe and Critics Choice</a> to boot. Plummer’s role may have been in a comedy, but it’s of the dramatic variety and that’s somehow OK to Oscar voters than a raucous laughfest. Plus, the Academy might just enjoy the tantalizing opportunity to reward Captain von Trapp of the beloved <i>Sound of Music</i>. A win here could give the previous nominee de facto career victory. So how could he lose?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Against him:</u> He could lose to another veteran with a career as long as he’s had, that’s how. He could split the beloved veteran vote with Max von Sydow, and given that he represents <i>Beginners</i>’s sole nomination, there may not be enough widespread support for the film overall to give him the big win.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Max von Sydow for <i>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</i></u></b><u><o:p></o:p></u></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><i><br />
</i></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m2MU6rxeORU/TzIcEowf2MI/AAAAAAAABBI/9veg8_EGB4U/s1600/A3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m2MU6rxeORU/TzIcEowf2MI/AAAAAAAABBI/9veg8_EGB4U/s320/A3.jpg" width="320" /></a><u>For him:</u> With a long career including roles in Ingmar Bergman’s most iconic films, Hollywood classics such as <i>The Exorcist</i> and prestige projects like <i>Pelle the Conqueror</i>, for which he received his only previous nomination, von Sydow could pull a surprise win here as the equivalent of a career victory, much like Plummer. His advantage over Plummer is that he’s appearing in a Best Picture nominee, much like Hill, and could be the film’s only legitimate shot at an Oscar win.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Against him:</u> His film, despite the nomination, was widely panned and didn’t gain the traction at the box office many predicted. Voters may also consider that this particular film, measured against his other works, may simply not measure up in stature and may not be the appropriate vehicle to give him an Oscar. Even Plummer’s film was met with enthusiastic critical response and wasn’t a box office flop like <i>Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close</i>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Prediction</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s going to be a tight race between Plummer and von Sydow for the award, and only Branagh has a real shot to come between them. Nevertheless, I’m betting that all that talk of an Oscar for Plummer since his film opened last summer will be realized on February 26.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>The Oscar will go to: Christopher Plummer for <i>Beginners<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><script type="text/javascript">
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