Two more days until we find out who wins this year’s Academy Awards! Okay, so the exclamation point is more than forced. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve had even an ounce of excitement about the Oscars. But we mustn’t let predictability get us down. Sure, even the still-uncertain races (Penn vs. Rourke; Winslet vs. Streep; Man on Wire vs. Trouble the Water) are anything but interesting, because the everyman of 2009 couldn’t care less about who gave the year’s better performance and would probably be fine shrugging his shoulders at the TV screen in the event of a tie (or, better yet, irresolution). However, there’s one thing people keep forgetting about the Academy: they’re full of surprises.
So, rather than just go with the easy, “predictable” predictions, we attempted to guess who and what will Crash the Oscars this year with a surprise victory — preferably the kind that adds an “ing” to “upset.” And once again, we’d like to extend the forecasting fun to you. What surprises do you expect and/or hope for? Or, if you’re down with the boring route, what “certain” winners do you truly believe in? And why? The most accurate comments will be reprinted in our final Oscar column on Monday. …Read more
…And the Oscar for most sorrowful face goes to… Mickey Rourke! Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler grabbed our heart, slammed it to the mat, and showered it with tears. But does Mickey Rourke’s resurrection have what it takes to beat Sean Penn’s transformation in Milk?
Karina gives an update about IFC’s Festival Direct, a way to be among the first to see new indie films even if you can’t spring for a festival pass. Also, an odd run-in with Steven Soderbergh, who may or may not have a bone to pick with our intrepid blogger.
We debate which is the most absurd piece of Che merchandise sent in by listeners, and respond to feedback about usefulness of subjecting terrible, exploitative horror movies to the rigors of film criticism.
With a few more days left before the Oscar nominations are revealed, it is time to look at what the non-professionals anticipate will be among those contenders announced Thursday morning. Last Monday, we posted our own predictions for the Academy Award nominees and invited readers to weigh in with their own forecasts. A lot of comments concentrated on what shouldn’t happen, like The Dark Knight shouldn’t be nominated for Best Picture and Dustin Lance Black shouldn’t be nominated for his screenplay for Milk. And apparently The Curious Case of Benjamin Button could be this year’s Dreamgirls. However, there were some interesting trends among the many who chimed in. Check out some highlights after the jump. …Read more
The Golden Globes have been handed out, and the last of Oscar ballots are to be postmarked by today. So, that’s it, the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards are being figured out as we speak, and campaigning is over until the official contenders are announced on January 22. Hopefully a few Academy members took notice of our unlikely last-minute suggestions, but it’s more probable that we’ll be looking at an unsurprising crop of films represented in the major eight categories. As you’ll see after the jump, we predict that two heavily-buzzed supporting performances will be snubbed. Of course you’re likely to disagree with these foreseen omissions. In fact, we welcome all you readers to make your own predictions in the comments section — what you think will be nominated, not what you want nominated. And on Monday, January 19, SpoutBlog will feature a post highlighting the best of these comments and predictions.
Making her way to Sundance next month with her debut feature, Palestinian/Jordanian-American director Cherien Dabis, who was on the festival circuit last year with her terrific short Make a Wish, tapped her experiences growing up Arab in a small Ohio town during the first Gulf War when writing Amreeka, a bittersweet, comedic look at otherness. The film, which went through Sundance and Film Independent’s various talent development programs before going in front of cameras last year, will bow at the Eccles later this month. In the meantime we caught up with Dabis to discuss what she watched while prepping her new film, learning about classical music and just what Wong Kar Wai and Prince could do together. …Read more
In 2008 we began the year in entertainment by bidding a premature goodbye to hottie Heath Ledger, his death casting a shadow on summer blockbuster The Dark Knight; and ended it by delivering a fond farewell to “The Dark Angel,” the Marilyn Monroe of the fetish world, “Queen of Pin-Up” Bettie Page. In between we lost numerous other screen sizzlers: Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Suzanne Pleshette, even Vampira! But since the New Year is a time to look forward as well as pay tribute to the sexy stars we leave behind, I’ve compiled my wish list for a very steamy 2009.
1. Woody & Bond Make a Porno
In 2009 Woody Allen must continue his 2008 sexy success with Vicky Cristina Barcelona by directing a porn flick. Preferably starring Daniel Craig.
Yup, 2008 was the year Woody Allen figured out that casting hot tamales like Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz can do wonders for your onscreen sex life. So now that the Woodman’s discovered the cinema equivalent of Viagra, it’s time for him to take the next step: toss that neurotic crutch into the Hudson (or Thames or Seine) and finally shoot his long-awaited, hardcore remake of Bergman’s The Passion of Anna.
Bad weather is being blamed for weak box office results this weekend from new wide releases Yes Man, Seven Pounds and The Tale of Despereaux, all of which performed worse than expected. Because there’s no other reason why moviegoers would just choose to avoid seeing lame-looking movies from Jim Carrey, Will Smith and Universal’s animation department. It is actually sad for Smith, who hasn’t seen an opening this bad since 2001’s Ali. And Seven Pounds marks only his third film to debut with less than $20 million since his blockbuster breakthrough in Independence Day.
Apparently snow couldn’t stop The Wrestlerfrom achieving a screen average of more than $52,000 over the weekend. But isn’t that just because people in NYC don’t have to drive to the movies? Fox Searchlight’s other film, Slumdog Millionaire, finally broke the Top 10 after expanding to 589 screens. And although Searchlight’s stellar buzz team claims the Oscar-contender was “selling out everywhere,” its own average was actually embarrassingly below that of Seven Pounds.
We’re going to need a modern day Edward Arnold if Bernard Madoff-types are going to be the hot villain for ‘09.
You know your comic book publisher didn’t get the best production deal when it announces that its first adaptation stars Kevin Sorbo. Meanwhile, you know you’re experienceing a slow news day when that’s one of four stories worth bulletpointing.
From the first scenes of The Wrestler, in which Maryse Alberti’s handheld camera follows Mickey Rourke from behind as his Randy “The Ram” Robinson goes through the closing motions of what we’re to understand is a typically trying day, director Darren Aronofsky announces that he’s picked up a new set of aesthetic references since his last film, the non-linear effects extravaganza The Fountain. It’s apparently impossible for contemporary directors to adopt the technique described aboce without someone suggesting that they ripped it from a film by the Dardennes brothers, but its use in The Wrestler feels very different from its use in, say, L’Enfant: it doesn’t produce the same sense of a tension that could break if the camera ever allowed its subject to get too far away. In fact, several times, the camera just stops while Rourke keeps moving, allowing us to appreciate the full physicality of the actor’s performance long before we ever see his face.
There must be a cerebral component to the way Rourke approached becoming the aging wrestler at the center of this film, because otherwise I doubt he’d have been able to so deftly navigate the character’s expansive emotional arc while still nailing all the jokes. But this performance goes way beyond the brain, or the precision with which Rourke transformed his appearance, or even the naturalism with which he performs the wrestling choreography. This is a performance that seems to start and end in the cardiovascular system, making everything Rourke actually does seem effortless. As if he’s just breathing it.
Most porn is about as titillating as a Yule log on a loop, which is why I never watch it. Except if I happen to be flipping channels on a Friday night, when World Wrestling Entertainment broadcasts its Friday Night SmackDown, a steroid-enhanced, S&M-laced, hard-bodied orgy of enormous proportions. It’s long been my fantasy to sit ringside, to smell the virile sweat and gape in awe at the blown up muscles, so freaky they’re sexy, akin to any porn star’s massively inflated tits. The homoerotic, dominant man on dominant man action, each bulging star vying to become the ultimate top, to slam his rival to the mat and make him his bitch, drives me wild. To this day The Rock’s The People’s Champ still ranks right alongside the remake of Casino Royale as my favorite gay porn.
So naturally I breathlessly awaited the press screening of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke – who decades ago honed his S&M chops in 9 1/2 Weeks – as Randy “The Ram” Robinson. …Read more
There are two kinds of people in the world: hardcore fans of professional wrestling and those of us who think the “sport” is a big joke. But Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler may change all that. It may not influence the WWE’s television ratings or increase pay-per-view sales for the next Wrestlemania, but it could create more sympathy for the staged spectacle. And this is something that hasn’t really been achieved with past attempts to showcase the sad realities found within one of the fakest forms of showbiz there is.
I’ve listened to the audiobook of Hulk Hogan’s memoir, mostly for laughs. And I’ve seen the great documentary Beyond the Mat and learned enough of the truth to have gained some appreciation for wrestlers like Mick “Mankind” Foley, though it mostly made me feel bad for that guy’s wife and children. Meanwhile, the should-have-been most heartbreaking story from that film, Jake “The Snake” Roberts’ confession that he’s the product of incest, is so unbelievable that it’s hard to take completely serious. I hate to say it, but I couldn’t help laughing then, too.
Darren Aronofky’s handheld camera follows Mickey Rourke from behind for the first several scenes of The Wrestler. It’s apparently impossible for contemporary directors to use this technique without someone suggesting that they ripped it from a Dardenne film, but its use in The Wrestler feels very different from its use in, say, L’Enfant: it doesn’t produce the same sense of a tension that could break if the camera ever allowed its subject to get too far away. In fact, several times, the camera just stops while Rourke keeps moving, allowing us to appreciate the full physicality of the actor’s performance long before we ever see his face. There must be a cerebral component to the way Rourke approached becoming aging wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson, because otherwise I doubt he’d have been able to so deftly navigate the character’s expansive emotional arc while still nailing all the jokes. But this performance goes way beyond the brain, or the precision with which Rourke transformed his appearance, or even the naturalism with which he performs the wrestling choreography. This is a performance that seems to start and end in the cardiovascular system, making everything Rourke actually does seem effortless. As if he’s just breathing it.
A wrestling superstar in the 80s (famous enough, at his peak, to have his own 8-bit representation jumping off the ropes in a Nintendo game), 20 years later Randy is barely holding it together, sleeping in a van when his trailer is padlocked for failure to pay rent, unloading boxes at a supermarket to make the cash from small-time meets stretch to cover his bleach, tanning and human growth hormone habits. Randy remains fiercely committed to the sport, even though his body’s not what it used to be, and even though the sport –– at least on a mainstream, big-money level –– no longer has much interest in him. With the 20th anniversary coming up of Randy’s biggest fight, a face-off with an Iranian flag-waving wrestler by the name of The Ayatollah, Randy’s producer approaches him with “two words: Re. Match.” This gives Randy something to work on other than the hot-and-cold affections of aging stripper Pam (Marisa Tomei), but when a particularly intense fight results in serious injury, Randy has to turn off autopilot and reevaluate his options.
That this all manages, for the most part, to avoid sports film fall-rise cliches and veer into unexpected directions whilst exploring a wide range of feeling, is a minor miracle. It’s a cliche to say that Rourke’s performance is “fearless” but, well, it is. But it only works as well as it does because of the economy of The Wrestler’s construction, and the stealthiness of Aronofsky’s craft.
I’ve been sitting here for two hours trying to figure out how to shoehorn press conference quotes into a review of The Wrestler, the NYFF closing night film which screened for the press this morning. But Stu at Defamer already beat me to posting the money quotes from star Mickey Rourke. Here’s the part that I planned to use to great dramatic effect, which Rourke spat out in response to the last question of the session, all the while gesticulating with what appeared to be a half-smoked, unlit cigarillo:
“I mean, if I knew it would take me 15 years to get back in the saddle and work again because of the way I handled things, I really would have handled things differently,” he told the crowd. “I just didn’t have the tools. I’m doing things differently this time around — understanding what it is to be a professional, be responsible and to be consistent. Those are things that weren’t in my vocabulary back then. Change for me didn’t come easy; I didn’t wanna change until I lost everything until I realized that you better change, or, you know, blow your fucking brains out. Either you change and go on with life, or you’re just a piece of shit.”
The film finds interesting ways to invert that life lesson. More in a bit. In the meantime, you can read Stu’s full report here.
With the first weekend of the 2008 Toronto International Fim Festival now in the dustbin of history, here are a few notes from the ground:
Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler premiered here last night, fresh off its Golden Bear win in Venice, and nary a negative word has so far been heard. In the interest of time management, I’m going to wait until NYFF to catch it, but a reliable source told me after the screening that the film “is fucking awesome.” Apparently Fox Searchlight agrees––this morning they locked a deal to domestically distribute the film and finance a major Oscar push for star Mickey Rourke.
A film at the polar opposite end of the buzz spectrum is Spike Lee’s The Miracle at St. Anna, which even admirers of Spike’s provacations are calling a waste of time. Our own Kevin Kelly was at the film’s junket, which he says devolved into “The Elect Barack Obama Show” when neither journalists nor the filmmaker could keep the conversation focused on the movie. Kevin will have a report from the junket coming soon.
Somewhere in between in terms of audience reaction: Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married. It’s my favorite film in Toronto this far, and a small contingent of journalists are also all about it. Still, some are (bafflingly, to my mind) pejoratively comparing it to Margot at the Wedding (the titles share a word, so apparently such comparisons are fair game), and rumor has it that the NYFF selection comittee unanimously rejected it for inclusion.
Magnolia hasn’t officially announced it yet, but everyone is saying that they’ve settled on a deal to distribute Che. The NY Post says Mark Cuban’s distribution arm is “already booking theaters.”
In what is something like the 27th lawsuit to arise from New Line’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate is suing the film studio for $150 million, based on claims that “the trust has not received any of its gross profit participation payments for the three films based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.” The estate also wants to sever all ties between Tolkien’s works and New Line, which means bye-bye to The Hobbit if the suit is successful.
In more franchise news, the new 3D animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars will debut in theaters this summer before moving to several Turner-owned cable networks in the fall. And for the first time, George Lucas is partnering with Warner Brothers instead of Fox to get his robot drivel works of genius to the masses.
And you thought the reviews of Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead skewed skeevy…Marisa Tomei will play a stripper in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.
There’s good news and bad news for Darren Aronofsky fans, reports Twitch’s Todd Brown from the American Film Market. The good news is that the filmmaker has overcome the financial disappointment of The Fountainto work again. The bad news is that he seems to have foregone personal projects for the time being in order to direct a movie about “a washed out WWF wrestler”, starring (gulp) Nicolas Cage.
Speaking, no doubt, for many, Brown says “the idea of Cage playing a wrestler fills me with immense dread of the existential, I think I’m about to begin a slow transformation into a cockroach variety.” But Brown also notes that the project bears the mark of Aronofsky’s personal production company, which would indicate that “this is not a for-hire job put on him from outside but something developed internally.” We shall see.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
Bad weather is being blamed for 
I’ve been sitting here for two hours trying to figure out how to shoehorn press conference quotes into a review of 
With the first weekend of the 2008 Toronto International Fim Festival now in the dustbin of history, here are a few notes from the ground:
In what is something like the 27th 
