BOILING POINT 14

The 84th Academy Awards have come and gone: let the bitching begin! As someone who is more of a genre fan than anything, I’ve never really cared too much about the Oscars, but that sure as hell doesn’t prevent me from complaining about them. Granted, over the years, some great films have won. I’m a big fan ofUnforgiven and I dug Shakespeare In Love. I just think far too many good films are ignored in favor of “Oscar movies.” I can’t say that I was particularly impressed with any of the films nominated this year, but there were a few categories were I feel like the little golden man statue when to the wrong film. Luckily, the internet exists and I can complain about it! First off, if I don’t bring it up below, it either means I agree or I don’t care. Best Picture While I’m not a fan of any of these movies for Best Picture, I’d give it to The Descendants over The Artist, but don’t feel too strongly. Best Actor A cute film with a neat premise doesn’t have much to do with acting. Here, Gary Oldman should have won forTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy or, if not him, then Demian Bichir – A Better Life. Best Original Screenplay Anything other than Midnight in Paris. I can’t believe this wins. This was a weakly-written film that was far too on the nose. There is nothing clever here, other than the idea, which I felt wasn’t even executed well. Accessible and average, across the board. Throw it to Margin Call. Best Achievement in Cinematography This is actually a tough one and I thought it was a good three way race between Hugo (which won), War Horse, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Personally I was leaning towards War Horse, but I just wanted you guys to think about how pretty these films were to look at. Best Achievement in Costume Design Really? The Artist was one of the weaker ones here. Costume Design almost always goes to old period films, which I think is unfair to modern films, but this one should have gone to Anonymous as the obvious choice or toJayne Eyre which I think were spot on in terms of color and tone regarding realism, which meant they weren’t showy and thus maybe that was held against them. Best Achievement in Make-Up + This is What’s Wrong With the Oscars Part 1 The make-up in Iron Lady was great, it was realistic, bravo. But really, so what? Aging Meryl Streep under 20 years isn’t that impressive. I’d rather see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 get the nod here because not only is there a TON of make-up work going on, it’s not just age make-up. Now, age make-up is notoriously difficult, but the Potter film deals with that to some extent. But beyond that, what you have to realize this is the Best Achievement in make-up and I think creating two dozen little goblin folk and a whole bunch of nasty looking people, all of whom are in layers of make-up, is a great achievement then doing a pretty realistic job on one person. This is what’s wrong with the Oscars – they are hesitant to reward commercial films. They are hesitant to reward films outside of the dramatic arena. Why aren’t more horror and science fiction movies included in Make-Up? Anything applied to an actor is basically considered make-up. Plenty of actresses get fake noses or other prosthetics, so really what is the difference between a nose and a werewolf face? Achievement in Sound Editing Hugo wins here, which is stupid. Drive was nominated because it was loud and realistic, but I don’t think that overcomes Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which created an amazing and realistic immersive experience that was well thought out. Say what you will about the movie or Bay, but the film is cutting edge and sounded amazing. Achievement in Sound Mixing Again, Hugo doesn’t hold a candle to Transformers. The action film is ignored because it’s perceived as being big, loud, and stupid, when it is actually big, loud, and technically crafted amazingly in several departments. Hate the film, you can’t ignore the layers of sound work here. Achievement in Visual Effects + This is What’s Wrong with the Oscars Part 2 The childish Hugo again wins, inexplicably. I don’t think Deathly Hallows had the consistency in its effects work to win here. Many were cheering Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but I don’t think that wins here either – what was the achievement? More facial mocap? Big whoop. The technology being utilized here is Lord of the Rings stuff plus the hair texturing of King Kong. It’s not groundbreaking. I liked Real Steel, which had some pretty great effects, but the king of the pile here is Transformers: Dark of the Moon. This is again what’s wrong with the Oscar’s. They don’t want to give Transformers an Academy Award, despite the fact that it is utterly amazing visually. Michael Bay has a bad reputation in some professional circles and a lot of people consider him to be a bad director – so what? This isn’t about good people and this category actually isn’t about “good” movies. Transformers is at least competent in every department, but when it comes to visual effects, this film is retardedly amazing. The robots move more realistically than the apes in Rise, and they seamlessly interact with the physical environment. The effects are blended perfectly. Further, the film breaks ground in processing power and what’s possible on the screen. Each of the Transformers is made up of hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of pieces that are animated. There was a time when just putting one of those guys on screen was impossible, yet now a battle can rage with dozens of Transformers fighting dozens of flying vehicles while buildings collapse in the background. This just isn’t about the robots, it’s about the entire digital landscape collapsing around them. Dark of the Moon was fucking robbed. What’s Wrong With the Oscars Part 3 Ho ho ho, man, this is already too long to delve into what’s really wrong with the Academy Awards; we’ll save that for next year, but I do want to throw out a few thoughts. Filmmaking has changed a lot throughout the years. We can tell stories today that were never possible before though the evolving technology. Scripts, directors, and actors will always be important and the prime movers of films, but the world around them, the tools available to them, have become such a huge part of the movies that we must recognize them and the stories they create. This means the Academy must recognize films outside of the typical dramatic films they currently reward. Movies like Alien, and The Thing should be recognized as best pictures, not just for effects or the occasional technical award. Monsters should be welcomed and celebrated. Alien should have been a Best Picture nominee, not just best effects (which it rightly won). I would love to live in a world where a film like Halloween or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly are films that have a shot at best picture. Nothing about being entertaining, or scary, or exploitative to some degree says that a movie can’t be fantastic and deserving of praise. Films like Transformers shouldn’t be shunned even if they do target the lowest common denominator. Great films are great films. Great effects are great effects. Realize what the award is truly for and give it out accordingly. Create new award categories too! Make-Up can be for realistic human make-up and you can create a Fantasy Vision award or something. So many films these days have out-of-this world elements that should be rewarded. In this day and age, the game of stunts has gone from daring men doing dangerous things to an elaborate technical achievement (that still features daring men doing dangerous things). If you want to spice up the Academy Awards, break the image of it being just about dramatic films. Throw in some places for a monster movie to take home an award. Nominate a scary ass picture for something. Bring in more science fiction. Add a stunt team category. The Academy Awards should be about celebrating everything in movies, not just one facet of the film world that is rapidly shrinking. From wrong winners to ignored films and missing categories, I can’t remember a year the Academy Awards didn’t send me past my boiling point. And the Award for Best Film School Rejects Column Goes To….

The 87 Most Interesting Movies of the 2012 European Film Market (or 87 Movies You Probably Haven’t Heard of But Need On Your Radar) Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:23 AM PST There’s a solid chance that you haven’t heard of most of these movies. Yet they exist – out there somewhere as a thorn in the side of movie fans trying to see as much as possible. Nuggets of potential waiting to be picked up from the movie orphanage by a distributor and given a warm home with cup holders in every seat. The European Film Market is fascinating for that reason and for the way people attend it. Tickets this year were around $600, but that’s a reasonable price for companies sending representatives trying to find the next moneymaker for their company or the hot movie to bring to their festival. That means screenings come complete with people on cell phones and unimpressed buyers walking out after ten minutes to hustle next door to see if the other movie playing has any promise to it. It’s a bizarre way to watch movies, but it makes a kind of sense given the massive size of the movie list compared to the tiny amount of time to see everything. There were upwards of 675 movies in the EFM this year, all of them with their own selling points. Here are the 87 most interesting-sounding with descriptions found in the official catalog. For the most part, I haven’t seen these movies (and didn’t even know about many of them until the Berlin Film Festival), but they all have something going for them that should earn them a spot on your radar. 4:44 The Last Day on Earth The Pitch: “A loving couple lives in a beautiful apartment. It’s just a normal afternoon – except that tomorrow, at 4:44, the world will come to an end.” The Point: Director Abel Ferrara and star Willem Dafoe, with an intriguing (if not Von Trier-ian) concept. 5 Broken Cameras The Pitch: “5 Broken Cameras looks at Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who has been documenting his village’s resistance to advancing Israeli settlements since 2005, using the 5 cameras of the title. Each camera tells a part of the story.” The Point: A doc with an interesting angle, timely subject matter, and a reluctant storyteller who ends up getting a new camera every time one is broken in the conflict. The 25th Reich The Pitch: “Five American GIs stationed in Australia in 1943 get caught in a secret OSS time-travel mission gone awry. Sent 50,000 years back in time, they must retrieve an alien spaceship that may help to win the war against Hitler.” The Point: Did you just read the pitch? Awesome. 1911 The Pitch: “Based on the Chinese Revolution, 1911 follows Huang Xin (Jackie Chan) & Sun Yat Sun (Winston Chao) fight for a better life for the people of China and lead the revolt against the deteriorated Qing Dynasty.” The Point: Already out on DVD with a Hunter seal of approval, they’re most likely looking for distribution in other markets, or perhaps a theatrical here in the States. Ace Attorney The Pitch: “In 20XX, to prevent the rise of vicious crimes, the government introduces a new justice system where the defense and prosecutor go head-to-head in open court. Within just three days, a guilty or not guilty verdict is decided…” The Point: Directed by Takashi Miike… The Adopted The Pitch: “Melanie Laurent teams up with her Inglorious Basterds co-star Denis Menochet in her directorial debut. A heartfelt, hopeful and bittersweet take on love and rebirth.” The Point: The premise is generic-sounding, but Laurent is an impressive actress who deserves some attention for being on both sides of the camera now. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry The Pitch: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is the inside story of a dissident for the digital age who inspires global audiences and blurs the boundaries of art and politics.” The Point: A firebrand, bizarre activist with a mind for design and sculpture, Sundance Selects has recently picked it up to show in theaters near us. Alois Nebel The Pitch: “Love, trains, insanity and history all descend upon a railway dispatcher deep in the heart of Central Europe…” The Point: This is the rotoscope animation project that had a trailer last year. I have it on good authority that it’s a slow-burning revenge thriller with an engaging visual style. Arbitrage The Pitch: “Hedge-fund magnate Robert Miller is desperately trying to complete the sale of his trading empire before the depths of his fraud are revealed. An unexpected bloody error forces him to turn to the most unlikely corner for help.” The Point: Richard Gere stars with Susan Sarandon and Tim Roth. Plus, it’s the first feature narrative fromNicholas Jarecki – the guy who wrote, and was then kicked off of, The Informers. As Luck Would Have It The Pitch: “An unemployed advertising executive decides to take advantage of an accident he has, after yet another humiliating work interview.” The Point: New Alex De La Iglesia? Yes, please. Battle of Warsaw 1920 The Pitch: “From Oscar-nominated director, Jerzy Hoffman, and Oscar-nominated cinematographer, Slawomir Idziak, comes an epic tale of bravery and love that depicts the Polish battle for independence against the Bolsheviks after World War I.” The Point: Hoffman was nominated for Best Foreign Film back in 1974 for The Deluge – another historical drama. Here, he’s teaming with Idziak, who’s nomination was for shooting Black Hawk Down. That’s one hell of a partnership, especially if the veteran still has some skill left in him. Below Zero The Pitch: “A writer locks himself in a meat cooler, determined to finish his screenplay. As the temperature drops, the lines between fiction and reality blur and Jack’s script comes dangerously to life.” The Point: Edward Furlong stars, but it’s really Michael Berryman‘s grisly, Hills Have Eyes-face that gets the blood boiling, even if the premise is just ridiculous enough to be (sorry) cool.

‘The Artist’ Winning Best Picture is Proof That Indie Movies are Taking Over Posted: 27 Feb 2012 06:28 AM PST The Independent Spirit Awards and the Oscars never agree. Well, almost never. In 28 years of co-existing, the two organizations have only agreed once before – on Oliver Stone’s Platoon back in 1986. It’s not surprising since the Spirit Awards focus on celebrating a particular method of filmmaking that is often overlooked by the red-carpet-ready Academy Awards, but if both honor prestige movies, it seems at least likely they’d agree from time to time, right? They didn’t until last night. The more-than-two-decades-long drought was finally broken when The Artist took home Best Picture less than a week after bringing home the top Spirit prize. It became the first movie since 1986 to win both the Oscar and the Indie Spirit Award. One was in an ornate theater, the other was in a tent on the beach, but the implication is clear: independent movies are breaking more and more into the mainstream. It’s not wholly unexpected. The politicking from Team Weinstein is a factor, of course, but the trend was building this way on a bigger scale regardless of how many hands were shaken by one giant producer. In fact, the Spirts and the Oscars have had more chances to agree in the past few years than ever before. After Platoon in 1986, The Indie Spirits and Oscars didn’t even agree on a single nominee until 1994′s Pulp Fiction (which won the Indie) They also agreed on nominating Fargo in 1996 (which won the Indie), the only other film of the 90s to match up From 2000-2012, they’ve agreed on a whopping 15 nominees Whenever there’s an overlap in nominees, the Indies always pick one of the overlapping films as a winner From 1 in the 80s, to 2 in the 90s, to 15 in the last decade and change. It’s an explosion of agreement from two disparate organizations with two different goals. With opportunities for Brokeback Mountain, Little Miss Sunshine, and Precious, it was just a matter of time before they’d celebrate the same Best Picture. It could have been last year. In 2010, both awards had Black Swan, The Kids Are All Right, 127 Hours, andWinter’s Bone on the ballot. Even so, it was the year the Oscars lauded twice the amount of Best Picture nominees, and the move was seen broadly as an attempt to pay lip service to overlooked movies. The Artistobliterates that argument. Sure, it was a movie with buzz for months, but it’s also a 1) foreign 2) silent film from 3) an arguably unknown director produced 4) far outside of the studio system. Even without all those qualifiers, the bloated nominee list can’t be a hollow pat on the back, because they handed out gold. They made good. The movie praised by Film Independent was raised up on the shoulders of the Academy. If it weren’t an isolated incident, it could be dismissed as a delightful diversion from the usual, but it comes at the end of a large wave of independent films crashing the mainstream of the Academy. It’s the culmination of a trend, not the outlier it might appear to be. Independent movies increased their presence on Oscar nomination lists, and the result was bound to be an overlapping winner sooner or later. Will it mean more silent films get made? Probably not. Will it mean any huge tectonic shift in the way movies are made or distributed? Not a chance. This is a slow-burn revolution where the prize isn’t dominance, but a fairer share of the viewing space. Independent movies are taking over to fill a void (similar to the early 1990s whenPulp Fiction‘s nominations were watershed moments), and it’s just an issue of momentum and time. The Artistisn’t the cause; it’s the effect. With options from Fox, Warners, DreamWorks, Paramount, and Sony, the stuffy old Caucasians of AMPAS chose an outsider without Hollywood headliners. Chalk it cynically up to the Weinstein touch, dismiss it because of its appeal to classics, but no matter the caveats, two organizations that haven’t agreed in over 25 years, just did.