Emmy Live Blogging: The Swine Flu Edition (Pt 1)

refresh your screen regularly

7:00 You guys. I am a mess. Can't shake this flu... two weeks now of S-I-C-K. I'm not sure how this live-blogging will go. Perhaps I'll only comment should a red carpet moment or acceptance speech rouse me from my feverish stupor? We'll see. As if to add insult to injury, the Boyfriend forced me to watch a whole episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit before flipping to the red carpet arrivals. I don't mean to spoil the episode for you but the bad guys all confessed and the libidinous were punished for their evil sex drives! An innocent escort's (he wasn't the perp) face was disfigured by the end of the episode and all was right with the world. My favorite quote from the episode

I knew if they had the chance, they would ravage me. I told Gary. It made him wild... an animal!

I hope Mariska wins tonight. It's so genius the way she waits till the other actors are done reciting their exposition before she recites her own exposition. Brilliance! [/sarcasm]

7:15 Jon Stewart is talking but he's just wearing a tux (men are so boring) so here's a picture of Damages "supporting" actress, Rose "I have more screentime than Glenn Close!" Byrne wearing a dress that I swore 17 people wore to the 2002 SAG awards. Champagne. I thought Rose was excellent in the indie Dead Girl but after the fact I realize that I just loved her in that because her patented miserabilism is only interesting in very small doses. She's like the television version of mopey Jennifer Connelly.

7:25 They just showed a commercial for Coco Before Chanel. When I hear Alessandro Nivola speaking French I'm totally Gomez on Morticia. Hot!, or rather, Chaud.

7:39 Ryan Seacrest to Two and a Half Men's Jon Cryer. "Your show is very provocative." Um... Is English Ryan Seacrest's second language?

7:53 I don't recognize half of these TV people. Where are the movie stars? My mind keeps flashing back to Julia Louis-Dreyfus's purse. DON'T OPEN IT, JULIA!


It's like her very own Lament Configuration. Julia Louis Dreyfus is Hellraiser!

8:05 Neil Patrick Harris is the man. People should not be allowed to host awards shows unless they can sing as well as NPH or dance as joyously as Ellen.


8:14 YAY! The cutest person in the universe Kristin Chenoweth wins Best Supporting Actress for Pushing Daisies. Squeaks her way through some sort of acceptance speech. So very deserved. It was apparently Amy Poehler's idea for all the nominees to wear glasses. Poehler is love. Did you see the gay penguins episode of Parks and Recreation?

8:25 Jon Cryer wins Best Supporting Actor for Two and a Half Men. That's provocative! And also, stupid. His acceptance speech is funny but it's so annoying that Neil Patrick Harris lost again. I wanted him to kiss David Burtka on live television. I've seen Burtka in two plays and he's talented, too.

8:37 Toni Collette wins Best Actress in a Comedy Series for The United States of Tara. I would like to scream "triple crown here she comes" but then I was forced to remember that she did not win the Tony when she did Wild Party, damnit. So really. She just has this one statue. But she deserves as many as Tara has personalities. You know she does.

8:49 Rob Lowe is making a joke about how he makes bad career decisions. This would be funny except that, you know, if you're still famous 25 years after pretending to sleep with your pretend sister Jodie Foster, you're doing something right.

8:53 Alec Baldwin wins Best Actor in a Comedy for 30Rock.

8:56 If we wanted dance routines on an awards show we would have called Debbie Allen. This is not helping my flu. If I didn't already feel sick, the combination of Jon Cryer and Hayden Panetierre as presenters would have convinced me to start coughing up phlegm.

New post. PART TWO
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Knowing Review

The new genre thriller Knowing begins with a prologue from 1959. We know because the titles tell us and because the students at a newly opened Grade School dress in cheerful colors and seem uniformly attentive and polite as they might in a Leave it to Beaver influenced universe. They answer every question with a metronome precise chant of “Yes Miss Taylor.” Miss Taylor is their teacher and they’ve been asked to draw visions of the future. They’ll bury their art in a time capsule to be opened exactly 50 years later by a future generation of schoolchildren in 2009 or, as the titles helpfully declare minutes later, “Present Day.” (What happens when people are watching this on DVD in January 2010? How can ‘exactly 50 years from 1959’ be 2010 be “Present Day”? It’s a question for Dr. Manhattan)

One of the students is not a ‘50s Stepford Child. Her name is Lucinda Embry (Lara Robison) and she looks just as wan, forlorn and dead-eyed as the actress Rose Byrne always does (kudos to the casting director, the resemblance is truly uncanny). Knowing’s female lead will be playing an Embry descendant in the present day. Little Lucy hears creepy, loud and overlapping voices which drive her cuckoo. They’re later referred to as “whisper people” though the decibel level the sound team chooses for these voices suggests not such much whispering as “shouty people with lisps”. The voices are feeding her information and the information isn’t pleasant. She scribbles seemingly nonsensical numbers frantically for two pages until her teacher pulls the sheet out from under her preventing its completion. Miss Taylor is annoyed that Lucy didn’t follow the “draw the future” assignment. Chant it with me now “But she did Miss Taylor, she did!"

In the present day we meet a sad widower Professor Koestler (Nicolas Cage) and his hearing impaired son Caleb. We know it won’t be long before they discover Lucy’s “drawing” and all hell breaks loose. We know this because Knowing is the furthest thing from subtle in mood or gradual in its foreshadowing. As early as the prologue the filmmaker makes no differentiation between the creepy parts and the mundane. It’s all scored and shot the same negating the twisting effect of true creepiness. Thriller music, spooky production design choices and low camera angles prevail. Professor Koestler and his son don’t just live in a normal house where we might see their world unravel as the thrills emerge. Their world is already creepy and doomed. They live in a house that could be the Amityville Horror‘s cousin. It’s out in the foggy woods. Of course it is!

Most embarrassing is Knowing’s intimate familiarity with extremely loud “SCARE” sound cues. Sometimes this desperate tendency botches the suspense entirely. There’s one shot in the film involving a piece of furniture that should be a genuinely unsettling “reveal” It’s preceded by a THIS IS SCARY sound cue so eardrum crushing loud I felt my seat vibrating. But instead of timing it to the reveal, it happens before. We’re actually still looking at Nicolas Cage looking at something when we're told to be very afraid. When the edit hits and we see the scary thing for ourselves it's still creepy but way anticlimactic. The movie was scared for us so we don't have to be.

An early scene of Koestler giving a lecture to his class attempts to establish an underlying theme for the film in the question “Determinism or Randomness?” but it’s a red herring of the most cynical variety. The film is crushingly deterministic and besides, no mainstream Hollywood thriller would ever opt for randomness when “everything happens for a reason” is on offer. It’s not the comfort motto of the masses for nothing. This sad man believes in randomness. His wife’s death has killed his faith. Movie stars playing characters who’ve lost their faith before the movie begins always regain it before the end credits. It’s a rule. Just ask Mel Gibson in Signs.

(some spoilers now)

Lucy’s list of numbers is revealed to be prophetic codes to past and future catastrophes with large body counts. Those whispering voices are soon embodied by mysterious blond child-stalking men. Numbers in thrillers always means code breaking which always means Determinism. When will Professor Koestler shuck his “Randomness” preaching and join Team Determinism? Very soon, moviegoer, very soon.

Once Koestler gets his paws on the Lucy’s disaster clock paper, he immediately starts underlining and circling groups of numbers with a big fat red marker. He breaks the code. He becomes a daredevil throwing himself in harm’s way repeatedly to save lives since he knows where and when the disasters will happen. Huge budgeted special effects follow – the first setpiece is the most successful and startling, probably because it’s the only one that the movie hasn’t relentlessly prepped us for. The unknown is always scarier than the known. Which is why people prefer the known (Determinism!) to the unknown (Randomness!). Some of the disasters are well realized but the effect isn’t so enjoyable. The director Alex Proyas sinks low, even panning up to an American flag blowing in the wind, as the end note of a New York City disaster sequence. Cheap shot Proyas, cheap shot. More troubling is the dehumanizing dumb religiosity of the whole enterprise, capped by one of the silliest endings I can recall seeing in a movie theater. Knowing’s spectacle of death and disaster and that final scene will probably be a huge hit with apocalypse-loving evangelical Christians considering its commitment to doomsday prophesies. Watch the world burn –we knew it would!!!

Nicolas Cage charts his acting process.

The days of Nicolas Cage’s sensitivity and risk-taking as an actor have been over for so long it’s hard to get worked up about a new lame performance. But I’ll try. He makes only the broadest of acting choices. He MOPES in capital letters. He DRINKS in capital letters. He SHOUTS whenever he can get away with it (the late film bad acting shouting duet with Rose Byrne is especially funny). When the movie needs him to cry he doesn’t cry so much as hunch his shoulders and jam his eyelids together as if he can force tears out physically. He’s like a Terminator mimicking emotions they’ve seen humans express that they don't quite grasp. Cage doesn’t just overact. He overacts and then underlines. Then he starts circling his emotions with a big fat red marker. For years he’s collected massive paychecks as a student of the Joey Tribiano “I smelled a fart” school of acting. He who smelt it, dealt it. This time Cage has an excuse for the face pulling. The movie stinks. D

We Can't Wait #12 Sunshine

The crew of the 'Icarus 2' check out the new Death Star... our sun

Director Danny Boyle has brought us hacksaw wielding London roomates (Shallow Grave) toilet plunging heroin addicts (Trainspotting) Cameron Diaz doing...um.. something (A Life Less Ordinary), American tourists going mad in the tropics (The Beach), Londoners fighting zombies (28 Days Later) and saintly little kids with bags o' money (Millions). Let's just say that filmography is unpredictable. So what is he up to with astronauts and Sunshine?

Any clues?

Gabriel: Not really, but boy, that trailer is gorgeous. Looks like Kubrick or Tarkovsky, high-minded sci-fi. And with Michelle Yeoh in the cast, it's got potential to be incredible.

Nathaniel: Love her. I really thought we'd see more of her after Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon but the career has been sparse.

Joe: Jeez, looking at his filmography, I suppose I shouldn’t be as devoted to the man as I am, but I do believe I’d follow Danny Boyle to the center of the sun. Which is such a coincidence, if you think about it. A compelling sci-fi premise combined with an entirely new canvass for Boyle to paint? Awesome. I still think 28 Days Later is one of the best and most underrated movies of the decade, so here’s hoping Boyle does his best work with post-apocalyptic genre material.

JA: Plus, Boyle earned more of my respect by moving on to something totally different and not directing 28 Days Laterer (aka 28 Weeks Later), the sequel that I fear will only, inevitably, piss on the original's memory.

Nathaniel: It's weird to me that Rose Byrne is starring in both this AND 28 Days Laterer (your title is better). She's having an extended Boyle moment this year.

JA: With Sunshine, it's all about that cast. And Boyle. And that terrific trailer. And the possibility that Chris Evans will reenact the opening sequence of Barbarella and strip naked in zero gravity.

Lulu: I'd be even happier if Troy Garrity did the Barbarella homage... Woof


Nathaniel: Shouldn't there just be an entire omnibus film as Barbarella homage? Imagine what, say, 10 directors with 10 luscious movie stars could do with it.

UPDATED: new gallery of stills highlighted by Cinematical

previously on "we can't wait"
#13 Southland Tales
#14 300
#15 Hot Fuzz
#16 Stardust
#17 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
#18 Spider-Man 3
#19 Rendition
#20 The Bourne Ultimatum
Intro -films that didn't make the list

We Can't Wait #12 Sunshine

The crew of the 'Icarus 2' check out the new Death Star... our sun

Director Danny Boyle has brought us hacksaw wielding London roomates (Shallow Grave) toilet plunging heroin addicts (Trainspotting) Cameron Diaz doing...um.. something (A Life Less Ordinary), American tourists going mad in the tropics (The Beach), Londoners fighting zombies (28 Days Later) and saintly little kids with bags o' money (Millions). Let's just say that filmography is unpredictable. So what is he up to with astronauts and Sunshine?

Any clues?

Gabriel: Not really, but boy, that trailer is gorgeous. Looks like Kubrick or Tarkovsky, high-minded sci-fi. And with Michelle Yeoh in the cast, it's got potential to be incredible.

Nathaniel: Love her. I really thought we'd see more of her after Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon but the career has been sparse.

Joe: Jeez, looking at his filmography, I suppose I shouldn’t be as devoted to the man as I am, but I do believe I’d follow Danny Boyle to the center of the sun. Which is such a coincidence, if you think about it. A compelling sci-fi premise combined with an entirely new canvass for Boyle to paint? Awesome. I still think 28 Days Later is one of the best and most underrated movies of the decade, so here’s hoping Boyle does his best work with post-apocalyptic genre material.

JA: Plus, Boyle earned more of my respect by moving on to something totally different and not directing 28 Days Laterer (aka 28 Weeks Later), the sequel that I fear will only, inevitably, piss on the original's memory.

Nathaniel: It's weird to me that Rose Byrne is starring in both this AND 28 Days Laterer (your title is better). She's having an extended Boyle moment this year.

JA: With Sunshine, it's all about that cast. And Boyle. And that terrific trailer. And the possibility that Chris Evans will reenact the opening sequence of Barbarella and strip naked in zero gravity.

Lulu: I'd be even happier if Troy Garrity did the Barbarella homage... Woof


Nathaniel: Shouldn't there just be an entire omnibus film as Barbarella homage? Imagine what, say, 10 directors with 10 luscious movie stars could do with it.

UPDATED: new gallery of stills highlighted by Cinematical

previously on "we can't wait"
#13 Southland Tales
#14 300
#15 Hot Fuzz
#16 Stardust
#17 The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
#18 Spider-Man 3
#19 Rendition
#20 The Bourne Ultimatum
Intro -films that didn't make the list

Hot Group Action

Made you look.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ENSEMBLE
My nominees are posted. The reasons you'll always hear me complaining about SAG's choices in this category is because I think they're not paying attention to what an "ensemble" means (or maybe, more generously, they just don't have the same criteria as I do) To me "best ensemble" does not conjure up big casts with one scene stealing standout or simply big casts. To me examples of superior ensembles would be groups of actors who are tonally in balance with each other (everyone feels like they're in the same movie) and groups that use their internal chemistry in the scene work to elevate the movie.

This is one of the reasons I've always been a Robert Altman nut. He actually lets you see more than one performance at once. Most filmmakers cut so often to back and forth reaction shots that you miss the chance to see actors create the character dynamics in tandem. To me that's a shame.

In semi related news...

I had been planning on a post detailing my thoughts on The Dead Girl but it's obviously never going to see the light of day so an "ensemble" discussion is as good a place as any to talk about it: You'll notice that it's not in my nominee lineup. I know some people were plenty fond of its cast and I'll happily agree that three of them work wonders. I'm talking about the always wonderful/beautiful/awesome Kerry Washington, ISA Nominee Mary Beth Hurt and (surprise) Rose Byrne. But it's not much of a cohesive ensemble -- it's more like solo pieces strung together. And the unimaginative casting made me wince more than once. Toni Collette as an ugly unloved girl again? Brittany Murphy as a wildchild. Marcia Gay Harden as an uptight woman. And, worst of all, Piper Laurie all but reprises her Carrie role (only without the advantage of that hilarious final monologue)

He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and I liked it. I liked it!

I could babble about these actresses for hours, but I'll spare you turn it back over to you. What's your idea of hot group action in a movie -- which were your favorite ensemble this year? Anything like mine?

Hot Group Action

Made you look.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ENSEMBLE
My nominees are posted. The reasons you'll always hear me complaining about SAG's choices in this category is because I think they're not paying attention to what an "ensemble" means (or maybe, more generously, they just don't have the same criteria as I do) To me "best ensemble" does not conjure up big casts with one scene stealing standout or simply big casts. To me examples of superior ensembles would be groups of actors who are tonally in balance with each other (everyone feels like they're in the same movie) and groups that use their internal chemistry in the scene work to elevate the movie.

This is one of the reasons I've always been a Robert Altman nut. He actually lets you see more than one performance at once. Most filmmakers cut so often to back and forth reaction shots that you miss the chance to see actors create the character dynamics in tandem. To me that's a shame.

In semi related news...

I had been planning on a post detailing my thoughts on The Dead Girl but it's obviously never going to see the light of day so an "ensemble" discussion is as good a place as any to talk about it: You'll notice that it's not in my nominee lineup. I know some people were plenty fond of its cast and I'll happily agree that three of them work wonders. I'm talking about the always wonderful/beautiful/awesome Kerry Washington, ISA Nominee Mary Beth Hurt and (surprise) Rose Byrne. But it's not much of a cohesive ensemble -- it's more like solo pieces strung together. And the unimaginative casting made me wince more than once. Toni Collette as an ugly unloved girl again? Brittany Murphy as a wildchild. Marcia Gay Harden as an uptight woman. And, worst of all, Piper Laurie all but reprises her Carrie role (only without the advantage of that hilarious final monologue)

He took me, with the stink of filthy roadhouse whiskey on his breath, and I liked it. I liked it!

I could babble about these actresses for hours, but I'll spare you turn it back over to you. What's your idea of hot group action in a movie -- which were your favorite ensemble this year? Anything like mine?