The FB Awards Begin: BEST ENSEMBLE 2009

It's the tenth anniversary of this site's awardage. For new readers, a little history, Nathaniel (c'est moi) started a Zine in the 1990s (a Julianne Moore centric issue to your left) called "FiLM BiTCH" which became a website and then was renamed The Film Experience in 2000 because "bitch" is soooo 90s... unless it's pronounced "bsssh, please". Also: bitch misses the point since the awards are not snarky takedowns of movies but a celebration of the year's best. But I've never changed the name of the awards for nostalgia's sake. Enough with the history lesson...

[insert drumroll here]

BEST ENSEMBLE ! SAG went for An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Nine and Precious which are respectable or understandable choices -- SAG goes crazy for big casts and star-heavy films. The BFCA chucked a couple of those titles for casts both big (Star Trek) and small (Up in the Air). Oscar doesn't have this category -- and I've always been okay with that though I have wondered why there's never been a prize for casting directors.

What I look for in an ensemble is multiple actors acting as a cohesive unit as opposed to a lot of people acting within the same movie. Which is why, for example, I'd never vote for Nine even though I like the movie more than most people. That musical has a large cast but they're basically performing solo and then the scenes are tied together. If only Guido's women had put on roller skates and body-slammed each other.

Whip It a FiLM BiTCH Best Ensemble nominee

Give me several people in a frame and I'm as happy as a clam. Long live the wide shot! God I miss Robert Altman whenever this topic comes up.

Here are my nominees.

Obviously, I'd love to hear yours, too.
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Where We're At: Supporting Actress

We haven't seen anything yet. Or not much of it at least. Particularly when it comes to Oscar's Supporting Actress race. With so many presumed giants on their way whose cast lists tilt female (Nine, The Lovely Bones, Up in the Air, Precious) it's quite possible that not one future Oscar nominee has arrived in theaters yet. That's kind of a shame for those of us who enjoy actresses year round.

If you had a ballot sitting in front of you right now, for example, and the only films that were eligible were films that had already opened (at least on the coasts -- we'll cheat and include next week's Precious) which supporting performances would be on your ballot? The pickings might be arguably slim but I'd probably choose from these ten. Which boxes would you check off?

Marion Cotillard, Public Enemies
Diane Kruger and Melanie Laurent Inglourious Basterds
Kerry Fox, Bright Star
Juliette Lewis and Marcia Gay Harden, Whip It
Rosamund Pike and Emma Thompson, An Education
Carrie Preston, That Evening Sun (and Duplicity)
Mo'Nique, Precious

Or maybe you can't bring yourself to care yet. You're only thinking about Nine and how you hope it clogs up 150% of your personal ballot in all categories.

Recently Update Oscar Predictions: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original and Adapted Screenplays and more

Box Office Blues (And Golden Browns)

I almost never cover box office here for these reasons:

• It's covered so extensively elsewhere you'd think it was the most important thing about movies. It's not.
• $$$ has zero correlation to quality. And sometimes even not that much correlation to perceived quality (Witness how many people flock to sequels of films they didn't love, expecting not much at all. I'm guilty here, too... I've dubbed it The Blockbuster Loop)
  
• Covering it only adds to the problem of 'the tipping factor', wherein something that is successful becomes even more successful (even if total crap) merely because people see the success and intuit that they're supposed to be into it (Twilight, anyone?).
  
• I find it nearly impossible to manipulate the masses to my way of thinking. Curses! They wear deflector shields to ward off my psychic will. If I ever find a chink in those shields, suddenly everyone will be buying tickets to films about women (yay), films with auteurial points of view (respect!) and films that get more thrills from acting, costumes, art direction and cinematography than from lazy CGI (yes) and, ummm, musicals (doo-wah).
  

But despite all this I do look at the box office tallies every other week or so and am genuinely curious about how TFE readers feel about the whole matter of box office / success / failure. I do feel it's important to check in once in awhile with ticket sales. So here we go. Let's discuss the weekend's top 20.

01 Where the Wild Things Are new $32.6
It wasn't just the cinematography that was golden. This opening take made JA feel groovy, got people talking crazy, and as the Big Picture notes, the latest from Spike Jonze didn't even have to lie about what sort of movie it was. Truth in advertising. What a concept! It cost $100ish million to make though so it's going to be a long road to actual profit. Still, wasn't it great to see actual puppets again as opposed to weightless CGI? That in and of itself was pretty thrilling. I loved those shots of Max burying his face in the brown ratty-looking puppet hair, so tactile and inviting -- like a stuffed animal you've dragged with you everywhere. You can't let go of it even after it's germ laden and smelly from your play time adventures.

02 Law Abiding Citizen new $21
Gerard Butler, King of Bad Movies

03 Paranormal Activity $19.6 for a total of $33
Previously covered by JA here. Even though I'm not into horror I'm curious because I loved The Blair Witch Project to which this is often compared.

04 Couples Retreat $17.2 for a total of $62.6
Or nearly double what (500) Days of Summer has made in its entire run. Honestly, American peoples... WHY?!?

05 The Stepfather new $11.5
Is any audience more faithful than the slasher audience on opening weekend? I'd guess no.

06 Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs $8 for a total of $108.2
It's holding very well which leads me to believe it has a real shot at the animated Oscar nomination. It's currently the #20 film of the year but still behind four other animated titles as 2009 money grabbing goes... including G Force. Weird, right?

07 Zombieland $7.6 for a total of $60
Did you know that this is the highest grossing zombie film of all time? That totally surprised me. Given the amount of zombie films we've seen this decade you would think there was some gargantuan blockbuster take in recent years that every studio was hoping to recreate.

08 Toy Story (double feature in 3D) $3 for a total of $28.5
It's all gravy. The first two Toy Story films had already earned $847 worldwide + the a few pennies from merchandise I suspect. I love the movies so why aren't I more exciting about #3? Oh, yes. Third Films = Quality Drop. It's a movie rule.

09 Surrogates $1.9 for a total of $36.3
10 The Invention of Lying $1.9 for a total of $15

"We're number two! We're number two!!!"

11 Whip It $1.5 for a total of $11.3
Actually Hurl Scouts, you're #11 in your third week because people hate fun movies that are not based on comic books, other movies or tv shows. The masses also (supposedly) don't like films about women unless they're romcoms with bankable A listers or films starring the Queen of the Universe Meryl Streep. Nothing wrong with romcoms (unless they're bad) and definitely nothing wrong with the Streep... but women make up more than 50% of the population so there has to be more to female driven cinema than that. I still can't quite figure the standoffishness that greeted this film. You can do -- and people do do -- much worse for an evening's entertainment when you hit the multiplex. Maybe Joe Reid is right. Maybe it should have been a television series instead?

12 Capitalism A Love Story $1.4 for a total of $11.6
Michael Moore continues to be the only documentarian who can guarantee a sizeable gross. His films make up 50% of the top grossing political docs ever. His box office pulls seems to be waning these days but still... Documentaries rarely gross in the 7 figures let alone the 8s.

13 The Informant $.9 for a total of $31.7
For some reason I was under the impression that this Soderbergh / Matt Damon comedy had flopped. $31 is respectable for smart laughs, I think. It surely helps that Soderbergh doesn't often overspend on his movies.

14 Fame $.9 for a total of $21.7
I assume this is not the kind of gross they were hoping for a franchise reboot. I enjoy musical performance films that aren't musicals as much as your average citizen (probably) but maybe reality competition shows have oversupplied for this very particular demand. Plus, there's GLEE which is JOY for free on your telly.

15 A Serious Man $.8 for a total of $1.8
Great per screen averages for this Coen Bros film (still in less than a 100 theaters) and Focus is obviously being careful with it. But aren't the Coens, who have been championed for many years by movie fanatics, at least kind of well known in the mainstream now after the consecutive relatively big grosses of Burn After Reading and No Country For Old Men and the ongoing obsessive fandom from their earlier work? It would have been interesting to see how well this could have done --even without movie stars -- if it had opened wider (if not wide).

16 Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself $.5 for a total of $51.3
Perry is such a consistent force. You have to give him that. It's probably easy to raise your production budget when you can safely expect a $40-$60 style gross for each outing.

17 Love Happens $.5 for a total of $22.4
Or... twice as much as Whip It has made. I bet you anything that Jennifer Aniston fans don't remember this movie in two years while Whip It will be in thrice as many DVD collections.

18 GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra $.4 for a total of $149.6
19 Good Hair $.3 for a total of $1.7

20 Bright Star $.3 for a total of $3.5
There will be those who claim that the new distributor Apparition should have waited to release this fine romantic drama closer to Oscar season but those people can never seem to grasp that not every movie can or should arrive in December with every other movie. There aren't enough theaters and there also aren't enough pages and blogs and television programs to give 75 Oscar contending films their due all in the same month. At least this way it got some attention. And a $3.5 take (so far) for a quiet period piece without any "names" is not a bad tally at all in this day and age. Well done Apparition. The question now is: can they keep it open for awhile longer to gird up for that Oscar campaign?

Thoughts?

Katey and Nathaniel Don't Have Funny Skating Names

So, it turns out Katey has actually been to the Roller Derby so she knows of what she speaks when it comes to Drew Barrymore's Whip It. Katey is so cool.

Now I've already reviewed Whip It but Katey and I hadn't seen each other in way too long (long boring offline story) so we laced up and skated from Brooklyn (Katey) and Harlem (Nathaniel) and met in the middle. That last part isn't strictly true but you can pretend that is is since we wore protective gear.



Whip It ! Y'all were so suspiciously quiet when the review hit. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

Whip It Real Good

Whip It is based on a novel about a young girl who joins the roller derby.
Whip It is not based on the classic Devo tune. But still...♫ "Whip It good!"

Girl Fight! Don't worry. Drew even uses herself as comic punching bag

For her fictional novel turned movie, writer Shauna Cross drew from her own experiences as derby girl "Maggie Mayhem" and imagined what it would have been like to discover this alternative grrrl world as a young woman. So Whip It introduces us to Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), a sad eyed highschooler who is eager to get out of BoDeen Texas and into the big city. In this particular case that's Austin, Texas, which just happens to be the spot where roller derby resurrected itself a decade ago. Bliss doesn't share her mom's (Marcia Gay Harden) tenacious dream of beauty pageants. She doesn't even exactly share her best friend's (Alia Shawkat) college plans. Bliss is basically a dreamer without a dream, until a serendipitous sighting of derby girls passing out homemade competition flyers sparks a fire inside of her.

Bliss hungrily learns everything about this new world of self-made skating "stars" like Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore) and undefeated derby champ Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). With their oversized personalities and theatrical names, it's rather easy to view all of this as an elaborate drag competition on skates...

Read the rest of my review at Towleroad
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Juliette Lewis IS "Iron Maven"

Below is my fav shot from the Whip It trailer below. Ellen Page is all serious and ready to go. She's willing to sweat for her leading lady status. But it's Juliette Lewis who's hogging the attention, sticking her tongue out, coarsely flirting with the camera. The girl can't help it.

Juliette Lewis "Iron Maven" and Ellen Page "Babe Ruthless"

When I first saw the trailer, I got all tingly thinking about seeing the elusive 90s star again but resigned myself to what was sure to be a short raucuous and welcome cameo. The film has a ton of characters and surely Ellen Page (star) and Drew Barrymore (director/producer/co-star) would eat up the running time!

I am elated to report that I was wrong. Juliette has plenty of screen time as the tough chick star of the Texas derby, "Iron Maven". The actress even won considerable applause during the end credits from the appreciative mixed crowd last night (some critics, some civilians, some roller derby types).

Turns out "Iron Maven" is Juliette's best role in years. It's speaking her language baby! She knows it and, god bless Drew Barrymore, the director knows it, too. Judging from the trailer and marketing, she'll be the movie's secret weapon... until Friday at least.

I'd scream "Welcome Back Juliette!" from the rooftops but I'm a little scared of Iron Maven, and as you'll see on Friday, she doesn't like suck ups.

Whip It opens Friday, my review is coming soon.

For old time's sake...


Damn, I love that woman.
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TIFF 09 Coverage Concludes: Whip It, Mother and Child, Up in the Air

As promised here's the final installment of this year's Toronto Film Festival coverage. My anonymous friend (txt critic) saw 26 movies in half a week (I know!) and agreed to rank them all upon his return.

Here's his last few capsules and rankings

1. A Serious Man A+ (previous post)
2. Precious A (previous post)

3. Up in the Air A
The recipient of the most ejaculatory pre festival hype, I think Jason Reitman’s film’s low-key aspirations, and the small-scale story it tells, will perhaps not benefit from being oversold by everyone and their mother (most random Torontonians I waited on line with over the course of the week told me they thought it was “very good, not great”). So, while adding to the hype is to the movie’s detriment, I have to report that I completely swooned for the movie. I can already see the backlash coming, as the movie’s conventional story arc (man-as-an-island bachelor starts to see the value in having other people in his life) will be easy to bemoan. What really sells it all is that it avoids sentimentality and seems to come from a sincere place of honest emotion. It's also extremely funny, never losing its designation as a comedy, even as the resonance starts to approach around the midway point. What’s perhaps most impressive about Reitman’s direction is the handling of this shift and balance of tone: there aren’t “serious” beats, and the film doesn’t jarringly turn into a drama halfway through. It grows subtly more weighty as it goes along, until you're misty-eyed. George Clooney gives one of his best performances, while still staying in his comfort zone. There will be much bigger, showier performances than this, but the film wouldn’t work without his deft handling of the character’s arc. This isn’t a blow you away emotional movie or Juno-esque crowd-pleaser -- the two prevalent adjectives in my mind are “quiet” and “bittersweet” -- but it’s the sort of thing that’s going to entertain and touch a lot of people, and for once, actually earn the feelings it arouses. Oscar nominations for picture, director, actor and adapted screenplay all seem assured.

4. Mother and Child A
Following up Nine Lives and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her with yet another female-driven ensemble film that happens to be his best yet, Rodrigo García’s latest is an openly emotional, fascinating, complex tale of three different women whose lives may or may not cross but, at the least, run parallel. All three (played by Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington), have had their lives impacted by adoption -- Bening gave birth at 14 and put the girl up for adoption, Watts is her grown-up daughter who’s never met her mother, and Washington is infertile, trying to adopt with her husband. While you emerge from the theater extremely satisfied, no easy answers are found and the film acknowledges the messiness of the emotions / situations entailed in such situations.

Rodrigo García directs The Bening

Watts, Washington and Samuel L. Jackson (in a very small, understated role) are terrific, but the powerhouse performance here belongs to Bening. Starting the film out as an (seemingly) impenetrable bitch, Bening slowly makes us understand the character, and the decisions and emotions that have informed her life. By the time the film ends, you understand why this character ends up in the emotional place that she does. It never feels unrealistic or like a cheat. I don’t know if the film will get distribution before the end of the year but if it does, Bening will unquestionably be one of the five nominees for Best Actress.

5. Micmacs A-
6. The Road A-
7. The Informant! A- (previous post)
8. Harry Brown B+

9. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans B+
One of the best midnight movies I’ve ever seen (a cult following is already assured), this Nicolas Cage vehicle from Werner Herzog -- using the title and pretty much nothing else from the Abel Ferrara-Harvey Keitel film -- has a warped, nutso energy running through it that had me frazzled when I wasn’t busy laughing. Cage’s off-the-wall performance as a cop addicted to pussy, coke, and back-pain pills is a live-wire tour de force, that for once, utilizes the actor’s over the top inclinations for a character they actually work for. The film’s truly a blast. You alternately gasp and laugh in disbelief, waiting to see what Cage (and Herzog) will do next. My personal favorite moment is a TWO-MINUTE-LONG shot of iguanas Cage is looking at, made all the more brilliant when it’s revealed by another character that said iguanas aren’t even there. This won’t play with Cage’s National Treasure fans, but this is an audience movie if there ever was one.

10. Antichrist B+ (previous post)

11. Whip It B+
Drew Barrymore’s roller-derby directorial debut is perhaps most surprising for the fact that it’s more than “fun,” it’s actually “good.” Showing an assured hand on her first go-round, Barrymore more than capably handles every aspect of the story without short-shrifting any of them: the sports elements work (the derby scenes, violence and all, are insanely fun and well-shot), the coming of age story and love story never feel like bullshit, and the family relationship drama actually proves touching.


Whip It never lets Marcia Gay Harden’s overbearing mother become a caricature or a shrill harridan and allows Daniel Stern, of all people, to be the film’s warm, fuzzy heart. Ellen Page is strong in the central role that can't have been well defined on the page, and the supporting cast is aces, most notably Kristin Wiig in her first screen role (besides, maybe, Ghost Town) that allows her to be as funny as she can be.

12. Perrier’s Bounty B+ (previous post)
13. The Trotsky B (previous post)
14. Daybreakers B
15. Chloe B (previous post)
16. Jennifer’s Body B (previous post)
17. Ondine B-
18. Leaves of Grass B- (previous post)
19. Good Hair B-

20. The Hole C+ (previous post)
21. Solitary Man C
22. George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead C (previous post)
23. The Joneses C (previous post)
24. Creation C- (previous post)
25. Get Low C-
26. Capitalism: A Love Story D+ (previous post)

Would you all join me in a rousing chorus of "Release Mother and Child!" I need The Bening back in my life. It's torture that festivals dangle these goodies and the distributors look around like "who, me?"

I hope you've enjoyed this year's TIFF coverage and please join me in thanking txt critic, MattCanada and Lev for sharing their thoughts! Maybe next year I'll even make it there myself.

Whip It Kiss It

Drew & Ellen K-I-S-S-I-N-G (from Marie Claire)

Nitflicky calls this the "photo of the day" but I'm more inclined to say "photo of the week" ...month?. For reals. It only makes me love Drew and Ellen more. I'm practically a straight man when it comes to girls kissing. More, please.

That said, the cover of the magazine is the typically boring airbrushed / heavily made up star portraiture. For a split second in this kissing photo (not the cover) I thought Ellen was Keira Knightley. I'll give you a moment to imagine Keira and Drew snogging.

stop it!

I'm not sure what it is exactly but I h-a-t-e seeing Ellen Page done up like any other young actress. I always feel like she wants to be makeup free and wearing pants. Did I read her pants-favoritism in an interview or am I projecting? Not every starlet needs to look the same. If you want to wear pants, wear pants. Think Katharine Hepburn and just go for it. Even on the red carpet. There are worse icons to take notes from. It seems like it's been a long time since we had a young female star who refused the typical red carpet looks.

Break free, Ellen, break free! Next time you're at an awards show, I want slacks! Or even a full suit.

<-- More cuteness from the derby girls

I'm so excited to see Whip It, I have an absurd and possibly fatalistic desire to roller skate to the theater on opening night. I blame this stupid desire on loving Xanadu during my formative years.

Xanadu can be blamed for any number of things.
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WHIP IT! Trailer

Yet another example of how I don't understand movie marketing at all.



I lurve this concept for a movie but the trailer feels too generic. Like a lukewarm "find yourself!" comedy. Even if it is lukewarm (it might be), you're supposed to disguise that. The way they disguise everything and sell the wrong movie constantly. Like that trailer for The Road (which is 100% ridiculous since big action setpieces and thrills is not the tone of the movie whatsoever. People will be so angry when they're watching it.)

And why the missed opportunity to have like character freeze frames and make it look raucously entertaining / funny like "Drew Barrymore is 'Smashley Simpson!'" etcetera. For the millionth time I find myself perplexed that movies spend so much money on reasonably famous people (rather than unknowns for scale) and then never mention that they're in the movie?! Eve? Juliette Lewis? Kristen Wiig? Marcia Gay Harden? You don't wanna mention their names? Weirdness.

But I still can't wait to see it.

RCL: Foxy Licorice Roller Derby Edition

Time for another edition of Red Carpet Lineup wherein we gather up actresses who were photographed at events during the week... and talk about them.


First up is Famke Janssen because I've been waiting for her Turn the River follow up ever since the terrific one-on-one I had with her in early 2008. She's on set in Monaco... for which movie I do not know. Where Famke goes her puppy Licorice is never far behind, so I had to include him (her?) too. It was recently announced that she'll be reprising her transsexual "Ava Moore" role for the series finale of Nip/Tuck.

Megan Fox is a phenomenon I haven't yet grasped. I've been playfully arguing about her on twitter. Screen Rant implied that she should hold her tongue in interviews, since people will lose interest if they start noticing what comes off of it. I say her faux shocking sound bites are the only interesting thing about her. After all, "Fuckability" is generally and crassly accepted as a pre-requisite for screen actressing. If you really stop to think about it this means that virtually every famous actress is (or was) a major turn-on for at least some sizable segment of the audience. In a world (i.e. the movies) where everyone is sexy, don't you have to bring something else to the table? What "else", I must ask, is she bringing?

Miranda Otto of "I am no man" fame didn't end up a huge movie star like so many of her fellow Australian ex-pats but I thought she'd at least end up a TV star. I'm terribly disappointed that her TV pilot "A Marriage" wasn't picked up. It was by the Thirtysomething, My So-Called Life, Relativity and Once & Again team of Marshall Herskovitz & Edward Zwick who are geniuses of the small screen. They have proved time and again to have an enviable grasp of the daily drama of family/marital dynamics. If this new pilot, which co-starred Bruce Greenwood as Miranda's husband, had the depth and humanity of those shows it's a large unseen loss for the audience.

Nicll Kihthhmn! sorry, my speech is apparently unintelligible through the fanboy drool ("anonymous" says it so it must be true!). I'm still so excited about The Lady of the Locks: The Return of The Ginger. That's another photo from the set of Rabbit Hole. [via] Nicole Kidman ... there, I've wiped away the spittle.

Marcia Gay Harden turns 50 this August. Her career is going better than ever: A Tony for God of Carnage, a great turn on television's Damages (will they bring her back for Season 3?). Her new film The Maiden Heist is a comedic caper with Morgan Freeman. It was apparently shelved due to financial problems (boo) but we'll see her next in Drew Barrymore's roller derby movie Whip It! We assume Marcia isn't one of the tough derby bitches but we hold out hope that she miraculously is. Wouldn't it be great to see her body slam into Ellen Page?

Bebe Neuwirth is busy. She just got married last month, introduced the in memoriam section at the TONYs, and next she'll play Morticia Addams in the Addams Family stage musical (Spring 2010). She's already training for the part by draining herself of all remaining pigmentation. We see a possible third TONY Award coming her way. She's previously won for Sweet Charity and for her hugely successful reworking of "Velma Kelly" in Chicago before Catherine Zeta-Jones got her eager hands on the role. Showbiz careers are so weird. Isn't it a bit curious that Bebe hasn't had a major slam dunk television role since "Lilith" on Cheers/Frasier for which she won two Emmys? Or a worthy film follow up to her excellent work as a sly cougar in the indie Tadpole for which she won the Seattle Film Critics Award and a FB nomination here.

• Would you pay to see Marcia Gay Harden on roller skates?
• Can you see what Megan Fox brings to the table?
• Is there any point in anything Addams Family without Christina Ricci on board?

Speak up. Don't make me talk to myself.
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