When Heath Ledger passed away earlier this year, he left the planet as one of this generation's great actors; a guy who battled many personal demons off the screen, for sure, but one who gave everything to the role. And while we won't get to see his latest creation on the big screen until July 18th, early footage shows Ledger's version of Batman's arch-nemesis could go down as the darkest, baddest and craziest we've ever seen. My question to you, then, is: Will it be enough to land Ledger another Oscar nod come next year?
Sure, the Academy isn't all too keen on recognizing superhero movies unless we're talking about special effects or sound editing, but with bigger actors taking on riskier comic-related roles, isn't only a matter of time before one of these guys (or girls) turns out a performance worthy of a gold statue? Are these characters not meaty enough; are they not conflicted, troubled and crying out for a hug? If an Oscar can go to Javier Bardem for playing a sadistic, calculated murderer in No Country for Old Men, and Johnny Depp can be nominated for playing a sadistic, calculated murderer -- both in the same year -- I see no reason why Ledger's Joker can't be taken into consideration.
It's early still, I realize that -- but should this guy turn in the kind of performance we're all expecting, shouldn't he be recognized with an Oscar nomination? What are the chances here, folks?
I've been fortunate enough to have been able to go to Cannes for the past four years now, and I'm getting ready for my fifth. And, as I often say when explaining film festivals to people who've never been to one, it's not just an adventure; it's a job. Cannes is a "get-away" the same way running from a burning building is "a tour of the grounds"; there are plenty of movies, plenty of work, and the overall emotional tone of the event is a mix of exhaustion and exhilaration. The heady moments of pure movie magic come fast and furious with the muck-and-money reality of international financing and distribution happening all about you.
Going to Cannes means seeing at least 40, maybe 50 or more movies in 10 days, never mind actually thinking and writing about them; you'd think that that kind of pace would soon turn into a blur, and it does, but it's a glorious one. Here's some of my favorite movie going moments (highly subjective, of course -- I've not included last year's ridiculously strong quartet of Persepolis, No Country for Old Men,The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, as they're still so fresh in my mind) from the past four years of the Cannes Film Festival; think of these as the rushed recollections of a film critic who knows exactly how lucky he's been.
At GreenCine Daily, Dave Hudson brings word that the German Film Awards, also known as the Lolas, just awarded three of the top prizes to Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven. Akin has been recognized over the last decade for his explorations of the tensions between culture and religion, particularly as they pertain to German Turks. Edge of Heaven is no exception. A gorgeous survey of several interlocking tragedies, its deft structure puts Paul Haggis' Crash to shame. A German scholar struggles with his senile father's decision to bring a prostitute into their home. It gets complicated once the young man takes a liking to her. When sudden tragedy strikes, he sets out to find her next of kin for his own sense of closure. Smart without being too brooding, Edge of Heaven has a memorably epic scope. It's no wonder the Deutsche Filmakamie awarded Akin with Best Director and Screenplay awards, while Andrew Bird took home the Best Editing statue for his role in stitching the thing together.
Akin isn't the most accessible foreign filmmaker, but his movies speak to international concerns that are rarely explored in American cinema, which gives his work a unique feeling of immediately. Akin has five other features worth your attention, but don't miss this one: Edge of Heaven opens in New York on May 21, followed by a national roll-out.
Darned politics! It's always getting in the way of our entertainment. This year, there were Oscar worries due to the writers strike. Next year, there is going to be some presidential interference. Unless you've been living on a remote island under a rock, by now you should have caught on that there's a presidential race a-brewing to figure out who is going to replace Dubya in the White House. Whatever person gets picked will have their inauguration on January 20, 2008.
That's the day that the 81st Annual Academy Award nominees were going to be announced, like they are every year, on a Tuesday in mid-January. To completely avoid a showdown, The Hollywood Reporter posts that the Academy will ignore tradition next year and announce the nominees two days later -- Thursday, January 22 at 5:30 am, PST.
So, the Oscar schedule for next year is as follows:
December 1 - Credit forms are due. December 26 - Nomination ballots are mailed. January 12 - Ballots are due back. January 22 - Nominees are announced. January 28 - Final ballots mailed. February 2 - Annual nominees luncheon. February 7 - Scientific and tech achievement awards given. February 17 - Final ballots due. February 22 - Fancy-garbed actors and notables flock to the Kodak Theatre for the awards.
The 2008 Gen Art Film Festival has come to a close, and four very good films have emerged victorious. Their Grand Jury awards went to Jennifer Phang'sHalf-Life (feature) and The Ladies (short). Half-Life, which combines troubling global conditions and a dysfunctional Asian-American family together in this sort of mish-mosh, half real, half animation head trip, first premiered back in January at the Sundance Film Festival. It's a good flick that tries a tad too hard to get across its message, but nevertheless one you should definitely seek out.
The Audience Award for best feature went to my favorite film of the fest, Surfwise. The doc, which was funded -- in part -- by Mark Cuban, follows the Paskowitz family (aka the first family of surfing), who, lead by Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, traveled the coast with no money and big dreams. Whether or not you believe in what "Doc" Paskowitz did or didn't do for his family (not one of his nine children went to school), Surfwise is a powerful documentary -- funny, sad, hopeful, spiritual and tremendously engaging. Watch this one if and when you get the chance. Additionally, the Audience Award for best short went to A Day's Workand the Stargazer Award (which recognizes new, upcoming talent in front of the camera) went to Luis Chávez, from A Day's Work. (Gotta love a fest that rewards actors in its short films. Kudos Luis!)
You can check out another one of David Jr.'s fabulous video blogs from Day 7 of the fest (the night The Take screened) after the jump, or view one from each night over here. Check out Night 4 and keep an eye out for a familiar face ...
Montreal's Just for Laughs Comedy Festival turns 25 this year, but the well-established mecca of merriment isn't afraid to try something new. Organizers announced Tuesday that July's edition will include a brand-new industry conference called Just Comedy, and that in conjunction with it they've named Judd Apatow Comedy Person of the Year.
This will presumably be an annual award given out during the conference, which is aimed at industry types and filled with panels, workshops, etc. (unlike the festival as a whole, which is aimed at regular comedy audiences). Apatow is certainly an industry type, having established himself as the go-to writer, producer, and director for successful comedies. Given that the Just for Laughs folks wanted to establish a "Comedy Person of the Year" award, I don't know who else they could have given it to right now.
The 11th annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was held this weekend in Durham, N.C. -- four days devoted to nothing but nonfiction films covering a wide variety of topics. And the big prize winners turned out to be two of the films that were honored earlier this year at Sundance (where the docs have been superior to the narratives for years): Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Hurricane Katrina document Trouble the Water, and James Marsh's Man on Wire, about an unauthorized tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in 1974.
At Sundance, both films earned grand jury prizes, Trouble the Water in the U.S. category and Man on Wire (a U.K. production) in the world doc section. At Full Frame, Trouble the Water took the fest's top prize, called the Anne Dellinger Grand Jury Award. It also won the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights and split the Full Frame/Working Films Award with Please Vote for Me (about student elections at a Chinese elementary school). Man on Wire, meanwhile, was given a special jury prize in addition to winning the audience award.
Peter Morgan, screenwriter of The Queen, The Last King of Scotland and The Other Boleyn Girl, is fast becoming one of Hollywood's hottest commodities. Variety tells us that his latest, a supernatural thriller called Hereafter, has been sold to Dreamworks for seven figures. Morgan's prestige no doubt helped the sale, though Dreamworks may also have had a Pavlovian response to the fact that the screenplay is pitched as being "in the vein of The Sixth Sense."
Morgan has a unique and very valuable talent for telling stories that are hugely entertaining and "respectable" at the same time. The Other Boleyn Girl was a steamy, melodramatic soap opera that managed to worm its way into the arthouses, presumably because of its historical grounding. His play Frost/Nixon was a political gabfest that became a Broadway sensation and is now being adapted for the screen by Ron Howard. The Queen took a dry subject and transcended demographics on its way to several Oscar nominations. Studios understandably flock to him. I'm very interested to see if he can bring the same sort of aura of dignity to a ghost story. Maybe Hereafter's biggest similarity to The Sixth Sense will be that Morgan, like M. Night Shyamalan, will get the supernatural thriller genre some rare Oscar attention.
No more details about Hereafter are currently available -- it has nothing to do with this David Strathairn film -- but I'm keeping my eye on it.
I was glad to see Silent Light (Luz silenciosa) at the Portland International Film Festival last month. It was a rewarding cinematic experience (here's my review), and now, having seen it, I know why there was such an outcry when it (and several other worthy films) failed to make the Oscar foreign-language category shortlist. It's an extraordinary movie, not to mention another milestone in Mexico's current filmmaking golden age.
It would seem the Mexicans agree, as Silent Light took home five trophies -- including best picture -- at Tuesday's Ariel Awards. (The Ariels are the Mexican equivalent of the Oscars.) Carlos Reygadas, who wrote and directed the film, won awards for both of those jobs, while Maria Pankratz was named best supporting actress. Alexis Zabe's cinematography was also awarded, and with good reason -- the images in this film are breathtakingly beautiful.
We told you a couple ago about the Cinema Eye Awards for documentary filmmaking, the brainchild of director/blogger (and all-around great guy) AJ Schnack and IndiePix. The awards were held last night at the IFC Center, and thanks to former Cinematical editor/current Spout queen Karina Longworth and her impressive Twittering skills, I was able to feel almost like I was there at the awards, instead of sitting here at home continuing to nurse this seemingly endless SXSW cough-from-hell I've been fighting all week.
Here (well, after the jump) are the award winners, per Karina. For the far more entertaining version, you can read the text of her live-posting over on her Twitter site as well. I expect the Cinema Eye folks will add a list of the winners to their site once the open bar closes at the after party, or at least sometime today, so here's a link to the official site as well. We at Cinematical appreciate both Karina's tenacity and her ability to provide entertaining awards coverage in 140-character Twitterings while, presumably, also enjoying the open bar at the party. That's dedication.
Held in conjunction with the Hong Kong International Film Festival and Hong Kong Filmart, the Asian Film Awards celebrated their second edition by handing three top honors to Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine, according to Variety. The film won awards for Best Asian Film, Best Director, and Best Actress (Jeon Do-yeon). Secret Sunshine began receiving accolades at Cannes last year and the positive press has never let up as it's played the festival circuit worldwide. Sad to say, it has yet to be acquired for US distribution, so if you want to see this highly-acclaimed family drama, you'll have to pony up for an import DVD from overseas.
Best Actor prize went to the great Tony Leung Chiu-wai for Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Our own Jeffrey M. Anderson didn't like the film overall, but was mighty impressed by Leung's performance: "In one great sequence, he reacts to a bit of news only with his eyes and then his feet, and it's an astonishing bit of acting." Joan Chen (Twin Peaks, Saving Face) won as Best Supporting Actress for Mainland Chinese arthouse flick The Sun Also Rises. Sun Honglei received Best Supporting Actor award for his work in Mongol, a movie that Picturehouse will open in limited release on June 6.
Other films that were awarded include Mad Detective (Screenwriter), Help Me Eros (Cinematography), Eye in the Sky (Editor), and The Assembly (Visual Effects). India's Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani shared the Best Composer award. The awards are decided upon by an 18-member jury composed of critics, festival programmers, and other film experts.
Welcome to the 2008 SXSW Awards Presentation! With much help from unpaid Cinematintern Willy Goss, we bring you the award winners LIVE!!
6:38pm -- Will announces that there's a pigeon loose inside the building. No awards just yet.
6:42pm -- Goss has some texting issues as the shorts winners are announced. We'll get 'em up ASAP.
6:54pm -- In the documentary competition, They Killed Sister Dorothy takes the grand prize, while a special jury prize goes to Full Battle Rattle.
6:59pm -- Narrative Feature / Special Jury Prize for Cinematography: Explicit Ills. Special Jury for Ensemble: Up with Me. Narrative Grand Jury Prize: Wellness.
7:06pm -- Audience Awards!! (Emerging Visions category) In a Dream. Audience Doco Pick: They Killed Sister Dorothy.
7:10pm -- Audience Award for Narrative Feature: Explicit Ills! Congrats to Mark Webber and company!
Usually I am all over the SXSW opening-night festivities, but this year I decided to try something different: the annual Texas Film Hall of Fame Awards at Austin Studios. I snapped red-carpet photos of many celebrities presenting or receiving awards, then had a break in the lobby during the dinner and auction (a set visit for Will went for $5K; a set visit with extra trimmings for King of the Hill went for an even more phenomenal amount). I ducked back into the big dining area for the awards themselves.
Dan Rather emceed the ceremony this year -- I'd never heard him being this funny before. Tess Harper presented an award to Morgan Fairchild, who reminisced about a Sixties fling with a drummer for ZZ Top. Jayne Mansfield's daugher, Mariska Hargitay (Law and Order: SVU) accepted an award on behalf of her mother. Debra Winger accepted an ensemble award for Urban Cowboy, reminding us all of the days when mechanical bulls ruled certain watering holes. Luke Wilson, describing himself as a half-crazed megafan of ZZ Top, inducted the trio into the Hall of Fame. And finally, the Ann Richards award went to filmmaker Mike Judge -- when a clip was shown from Office Space, the whole audience whooped and cheered. (They were less enthusiastic about Beavis and Butthead.)
Today, I need to catch up double-time on movies, since the awards took up all of my Friday evening. Today I'm hoping to see The Order of Myths, Margaret Brown's movie about Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama; Josh Brolin's short film, X (and hopefully Brolin himself, mmm); and Dreams with Sharp Teeth, the doc about Harlan Ellison. There's also a chance for a happy hour where I hope to run into the rest of the Cinematical gang.
If you ask my mom about Robert Redford, she'll cite his dreamy blue eyes and his charismatic performances in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. If you ask someone my age about him, though, I bet the Sundance Film Festival is the first thing that will come to mind. For a lot of us, the Sundance Institute has been so influential and important that it overshadows the earlier days, when Redford was "only" a movie star.
Variety reports that the industry convention ShoWest will honor Redford with the Visionary Award when it convenes next week in Las Vegas, a tribute to the Sundance Kid's extraordinary contributions to the world of independent film. Sundance is the largest, most influential film festival in the United States, and it has launched the careers of dozens of filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh. What's more, the Sundance Institute's workshops for screenwriting, documentary filmmaking, and other crafts have helped countless individuals hone their skills.
This will be the first time ShoWest has given out a "Visionary Award," and Redford seems like a mighty fine choice to me. Those dreamy blue eyes have seen a lot of great things happen in the movie world.
The Sunny D-drinking Juno might not have gotten any Genie nomination love, but that left the door wide open for two other Canadian pictures, both of which swept the Genie Awards last night. Sarah Polley's Away From Her and David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises led the evening, with each picking up seven honors. But it was the young, new director who really stole the spotlight.
I'm happy to say that while Sarah Polley didn't get any winning Oscar love, she did score the biggies last night -- Best Motion Picture, Achievement in Direction, and Adapted Screenplay, while star Gordon Pinsent won for best actor, Julie Christie for best actress, and Kristen Thomson for best supporting actress. With Polley's Claude Jutra Award, that's seven. So, while the number of wins might have been even for both Polley and Cronenberg, Sarah made an impressive impact on the ceremony.
Eastern Promises, meanwhile, picked up Genies for cinematography, editing, original score, supporting actor for Armin Mueller-Stahl, overall sound, sound editing, and original screenplay. There was also a little love for flicks like Fido and Silk in the few awards that remained once the other two cleaned house. Things might have been a bit different if Juno was in the running, but I'm thrilled to see Polley's film sweep all the big awards. How about you?
At GreenCine Daily, 
Darned politics! It's always getting in the way of our entertainment. This year, there were Oscar worries due to the writers strike. Next year, there is going to be some presidential interference. Unless you've been living on a remote island under a rock, by now you should have caught on that there's a presidential race a-brewing to figure out who is going to replace Dubya in the White House. Whatever person gets picked will have their inauguration on January 20, 2008.
Montreal's Just for Laughs Comedy Festival turns 25 this year, but the well-established mecca of merriment isn't afraid to try something new. Organizers announced Tuesday that July's edition will include a brand-new industry conference called Just Comedy, and that in conjunction with it they've named 
The 11th annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival was held this weekend in Durham, N.C. -- four days devoted to nothing but nonfiction films covering a wide variety of topics. And the big prize winners turned out to be two of the films that were honored earlier this year at Sundance (where the docs have been superior to the narratives for years): Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Hurricane Katrina document 
Peter Morgan
I was glad to see 
We told you a couple ago about the 
Held in conjunction with the 
If you ask my mom about Robert Redford, she'll cite his dreamy blue eyes and his charismatic performances in 
The Sunny D-drinking Juno might not have gotten any 
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SCOOP: Spider-Man 4 and 5 Might be Shot at the Same Time!
Cinematical Seven: Disney's Awesome Live-Action Kid Adventures
