The International Documentary Association threw a party for and tribute to the filmmakers nominated for Oscars for short and feature length non-fiction films last night, and most of the best jokes of the night had to do with Man on Wire’s star wirewalker Philippe Petit. Sort of. In introducing a clip from the film, host Lily Tomlin asked, “What does it take to be arrested for the crime of the century? Apparently more than a meltdown on the set of I Heart Huckabees.” Cue insidery guffaws.

Earlier in the evening, IDA’s Eddie Schmidt tossed off a Petit joke that was less funny ha-ha than funny remarkable as an answer to a thrown gauntlet. Without naming names, Schmidt responded to Alexandra Pelosi’s claim to the New York Times that “it’s like a dirty little secret” that documentaries “are boring.” In the same story, Pelosi also proudly declared that she won’t make films longer than standard broadcast length, and refuses to submit them to film festivals — thus marking her supposed populism in firm opposition to the entire cinematic ethos that IDA was celebrating. Schmidt offered a rousing rebuttal: “The only person who is allowed to say that anything is boring is Philippe Petit, because he has walked on a tightrope between two buildings.”

Since nominee Werner Herzog was absent, Petit (seen above, apparently praying for a miniature version of the man behind him) was the most charismatic character in the room, and even after a year on the festival circuit, he and director James Marsh inspired a standing ovation. But it was a clip from Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World — the scene where the demented penguin goes his own way towards certain death — that got the biggest laugh of the night. Herzog’s schtick may sometimes seem to be bordering on self-parody these days, but the material it produces doesn’t get old.

Meanwhile, chatter over wine and tomato soup before the tribute program kept circling back to the recent sudden changes at Sundance. More than one person I talked express some degree of bemusement over a non-sourced, sort-of charticle on The Wrap, pegging Sundance programmers John Cooper and Trevor Groth, former AFI programmer Shaz Bennett (whose name The Wrap misspelled) and sometime Sundance programmer and current Without a Box guy Christian Gaines as the top contenders for Geoff Gilmore’s abandoned post. Cooper and Groth were at the event last night, but if either knew the what the future holds for their festival, they weren’t saying. When the topic came up, Groth simply smiled and said, “We live in exciting times.”

More pictures from the event after the jump.

…Read more

“It often seems that when there isn’t an obvious, populist pick in the Academy’s documentary feature category (such as Bowling for Columbine, March of the Penguins or An Inconvenient Truth), the field is rife for an upset,” points out Kris Tapley. This may, he suggests, be evidence enough that James Marsh’s Man on Wire, the presumed frontrunner in the Oscar Best Documentary category, is vulnerable to an upset. That makes sense. Slightly more aggravating: the substance behind Tapley’s suggestion that Wire doesn’t deserve to win.

…Read more

• Stu at Defamer takes a look at this year’s Oscar nominees that debuted at last year’s Sundance and predicts that An Education will receive Academy Awards recognition one year from now.
• One of this year’s Sundance films has already been nominated for an Oscar: the animated short This Way Up.
• And one of this year’s Oscar nominees almost wasn’t a Sundance selection: AJ Schnack samples from an IDA interview with Geoffrey Gilmore in which Man on Wire is said to have nearly been rejected.
• The Envelope points out three Oscar nominees who are at Sundace this week: Josh Brolin, Melissa Leo and Michael Shannon, the latter of whom stars in The Missing Person.
• Four directors/projects have been named winners of this year’s Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards.
• Anne Thompson’s summary of this year’s fest notices it was a “time of transition for both Sundance and the industry,” while also quoting manager Michael Sugar, who believes it was a return to the past: “This year’s fest started to recapture the intended spirit. It seemed back to being about the filmmakers.” Also at Variety, Todd McCarthy’s summary notes that An Education and Sin Nombre were the two emblematic films of the fest, and both fit in with the start of the Obama age.
• Manohla Dargis’ NY Times summary concentrates heavily on the presence of Sundance hero Steven Soderbergh, whose latest film she didn’t care for.

We’re less than two weeks away from receiving this year’s Oscar nominations, and though none of the major categories are completely predictable just yet, each has at least three or four certain favorites. Meanwhile, the final slots for Best Picture, Best Director and the acting and screenwriting categories may be simply a random grab from small handfuls of rotating contenders. As of now, it doesn’t appear we’ll be seeing any huge surprises come the morning of January 22nd, when the Academy announces the nominees. The Dark Knight is sure to become the first comic book film up for Best Picture, and it won’t even be a shocker if animated feature Wall-E is listed alongside it in the same category.

But the ballots don’t need to be mailed out until Monday, so I’m taking one last chance to reach out to the procrastinators within the Academy membership. If you still don’t know who and what to write in, and you’re unwilling to go the safe route and nominate the expected bunch of films and talent, then consider some of these underdogs, under-appreciated and pretty much unlikely possibilities:
…Read more

I’m still catching up on RSS feeds after a week away, but as movie blog talk increasingly moves towards Oscar prognostication (because what else are we gonna talk about between now and Sundance –– Bride Wars?), I’m noticing a sort of two-headed theme emerge in the last week of the year. One the one hand: While Slumdog Millionaire, Milk and Benjamin Button all have their fans, no one seems crazy enough about the front-runners for the final two best picture slots (Frost/Nixon, Doubt and, um … Revolutionary Road? Maybe?) to label any of them as a lock; on the other: this year, to be contrarian seems to be equivalent to being populist.

…Read more

AJ Schnack is publishing a series of year-end email interviews with non-fiction filmmakers. So far, he’s talked to Man on Wire director James Marsh, Trouble the Water’s Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, and Jeremiah Zagar of In a Dream; today’s interview is with Patrick Creadon, director of Wordplay and the Oscar shortlisted debt doc, I.O.U.S.A. Amongst other things, Creadon talks about a potential pitfall of having such a timely film on the festival circuit: his story balooned so fast that between its Sundance premiere and its theatrical release in August, I.O.U.S.A. was screened in four different versions.

This reminds me of something that I’ve been meaning to post about for awhile: there’s yet another version of I.O.U.S.A, a 32-and-a-half minute version which has been posted on YouTube. This authorized re-edit, according to its YouTube description, was “designed specifically for watching and sharing on the web - for free.” So have at it — I’ve embedded it above.

Great caper movies, of which James Marsh’s Man on Wire is one, are ultimately movies about stolen moments of ecstasy, in which the stars temporarily align to make the impossible possible, all the while rendering pedestrian notions of property and moral judgments about crime inapplicable. The best of them work not just because they so deftly calibrate tension across a meticulous breakdown of the process behind the crime, but because they make us feel like being privy to that process is equivalent to being let in on a life-changing secret. We’re made to understand that whatever felonies are committed (and whether or not the perpetrators are forced to face the consequences) are besides the point. The point is the relationship between the perpetrators, forged over long nights huddled over scale models and blue prints, tested over the plan’s execution in the face of unexpected hurdles, and confirmed in a giddy moment of “we really pulled it off” glory, a transcendent high which, we’re made to understand, is the only real reason for living.  It’s an intimate cycle — flirtation, consummation, afterglow — and as such, its as romantic as a Hollywood romance, and offers the same kind of vicarious pleasure. Stolen kisses or stolen cash, it’s pop about secular salvation.

…Read more

Never known for their radical choices (inexplicable, occasionally, but rarely daring), the National Board of Review split the difference with their 2008 honors, citing predictable crowd pleasers (Slumdog Millionaire was named the Best Film of the year) and well-feted indies (Man on Wire for Best Documentary, Frozen River for Directorial Debut), alongside a few actual, suprisingly surprising choices. Let the Right One In and Edge of Heaven for Best Foreign Film? Okay! Changeling as one of the 11 best films of the year? Aww, NBR — your milquetoast cred remains intact. Never change!

indieWIRE has the full list.

I’ve spent the morning combing the various Sundance line-up overviews, wherein reporters for a variety of publications digest the four competition line-ups announced yesterday in an attempt to find an overarching theme/predictive slant which they can then hand-deliver to their mainly mainstream audiences. One thing I’ve learned: such stories should never be read back-to-back.

“Sundance’s writers and directors are turning toward more uplifting narratives,” writes John Horn in the LA Times. Oh good! Oh, but wait — according to USA Today, “The comedies are dark, and the dramas are even darker at the annual showcase of low-budget moviemaking.” What am I supposed to believe?

But seriously, folks. One observation from Horn’s story is worth a ponder:

…Read more

Catherine Hardwicke hit one out of the park for female directors this past weekend, but she had a lot of help. Not only was she working with a pre-sold property, she also had a very manageable budget of $37 million. Quite different from the $2 million she had to work with on Thirteen a few years back. Of course, she had similar budgets on Lords of Dogtown ($25 million) and The Nativity Story ($35 million), and both were box office disappointments. Still, she’s going to keep on being trusted with more money — if Summit is smart they’ll keep her on for at least the first Twilight sequel, which will surely come with a higher price tag — and as long as she continues with genre films, she’s sure to remain a profitable director.

Not every talented filmmaker does well with more money. Danny Boyle, for instance, typically bombs with bigger budgets. And a lot of foreign auteurs strike out when handed costly studio-produced genre or franchise pics (Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection is a favorite example). But there’s the occasional filmmaker who, like Steven Soderbergh or Christopher Nolan, can make something worthwhile out of any budget they’re allotted. And then there are the many indie filmmakers who quickly find themselves at home with modestly priced broad comedies, such as the case with Seth Gordon easily transitioning from the Slamdance doc The King of Kong to the star-studded Hollywood holiday pic Four Christmases, out this week.

Who will be the next small-scale filmmaker to successfully rise up and prove him or herself worthy of bigger budgets? SpoutBlog has selected five directors we’d like to see given an economic boost, each because he or she would likely deliver something more interesting and popular than the usual Hollywood product.

…Read more

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces a shortlist for one of its Oscar categories, many critics immediately focus on what titles are missing. Religulous was snubbed! Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired was punished for having a “secret” qualifying run! The Academy’s rules for eligibility must be amended! Such reactions were seen all over the web last week as awards season pundits looked at the narrowed-down list of 15 Feature Documentary hopefuls and criticized the Academy for its omissions.

But the better response (which is the one SpoutBlog had) is to primarily address and celebrate the included films, not just for being contenders for the Feature Documentary Oscar but also for being showcased in general. The wonderful thing about shortlists is that they expand further the idea that it’s great just to be nominated. For feature documentaries, particularly those without a lot of media and major distributor attention, it is also great just to be shortlisted. Non-fiction film fans may now see this as an opportunity to take note of some documentaries that weren’t previously on their radar (unfortunately none of these films are actually allowed to advertise their recent achievement of being shortlisted).

But the Academy Awards are, of course, still a competition. So, while we take notice of the 15 semi-finalists for the Feature Documentary Oscar, we shall also weigh their chances of being selected for the final five and predict which titles are likely to be announced as nominees on January 22.

…Read more

AJ Schnack has posted the Academy’s shortlist for the Best Documentary Feature nomination. As expected (at least, by me), Ellen Kuras’ The Betrayal, Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, Errol Morris’ Standard Operating Procedure, and Sundance winners Man on Wire and Trouble the Wire all made the cut. It’s also nice to see a few smaller films on the list, including In a Dream and They Killed Sister Dorothy. But there are also a few notable omissions, including Religulous and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, both of which had their semi-secret shortlist qualifying runs at the Creative Entertainment Coliseum Quad on 181 Street in the nosebleed section of New York City. Coincidence?!?? Probably! (For what it’s worth, Expelled, Religulous‘ political polar opposite, also failed to make the cut.)

The full list can be found here. Expect chatter and analysis in the days to come (probably not least from the snubbed Bill Maher).

Ry Russo-Young, who many will remember from her role in Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes the Stairs, was a prize winner at two of the last three SXSWs - she won the jury award for best experimental film for her Psycho deconstruction Marion at the 2006 fest and shared a special jury prize for Orphans at the 2007 edition. Orphans hits DVD next week via David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s brand new label Carnivalesque Films. She chatted with us this week about Why Does Herr R Run Amok?, what working with the band “The Virgins” on her new film You Won’t Miss Me was like and why concert films aren’t really for her unless Amy Winehouse or The Rolling Stones are in them. …Read more

• As if I really needed a reason to see my favorite film of 2008, Man on Wire, again: beginning this Friday, the Landmark cinemas showing the documentary in L.A. and NYC will include with the film an animated short from 2005 titled The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, which features narration by Jake Gyllenhaal. Although not as appealing as a sing-a-long version (I can’t help but annoyingly hum along to Eric Satie as it is), Magnolia Pictures is hoping for a bump in family attendance.
• The Fox vs. Warner Bros. trial over the rights to Watchmen has been set for January 6, and here’s hoping it’s well-covered by the appropriate stations. I’d like to be able to flip back and forth between the actual trial — on truTV — and footage of the expected comic geek protesters outside — on G4.
• Get ready for unnecessarily computer-generated gorillas and African tribesmen: Stephen Sommers (The Mummy; Van Helsing) is in negotiations to direct Warner Bros.’ new Tarzan movie, from a script by Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) expected to be “an entirely new approach” to the character.
• The latest children’s book series hoping for a Spielberg-directed first film is called “The 39 Clues,” and it may happen with Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can; The Terminal) adapting the initial book, called “The Maze of Bones,” for DreamWorks.