It's Pitchy, Slumdawg

Just in time for Oscar®:

Which is why Danny Boyle's frivolous, exploitive, essentially unforgivable Slumdog Millionaire is such a blight. Nobody likes a downer, and sure enough Boyle's latest folly is an uplifting piece of crap that combines two of our favourite pastimes: winning the lottery and cultural obliviousness. If Boyle and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy were contemporaries of Leni Riefenstahl, rest assured they would have made a happy-go-lucky triumph of the will piece starring the involuntary residents of Auschwitz in the world's most inappropriate game of "You Bet Your Life". It's the sort of film that wins awards this time of year because it's the sort of film that encourages audiences to applaud themselves for their tolerance of blacks/retards/Jews/fags from the safety of a theatre full of people of the exact same socio-cultural strata.

Read Walter Chaw's full review here.

Basterds Pussycat Kill Kill

The trailer for Inglourious Basterds [sic] is now online. Discuss.

I confess I read the script last summer, and let's just say it's fitting that the first title card in the trailer reads "Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France."

Not sure how I feel, though, about Eli Roth being the first thing we see after the greenband and studio logos.

La Booque

(cover art subject to change)

As an anonymous poster seemed caught off-guard in the comments section of the previous thread, I suppose we should make it official: yes, we're putting out a book this year; we even have a projected publication date: June 1st. Since we didn't do one last year, this will collect both our 2007 and 2008 reviews into one thick-ass tome we're calling a "superannual."

I got an e-mail from a reader not too long ago asking if we'd started purposely withholding content for the books, since he'd noticed that our coverage of theatrical releases had sputtered to a near standstill. The answer is an emphatic "no": the truth is, as we get older, our personal obligations grow, and I know it's simply harder for Walter to keep the pace he once did. Moreover, the studios pre-screen a lot more selectively now than they did just a few short years ago, sometimes because they're embarrassed and sometimes because they deem the smaller markets to which we have access utterly negligible. As the professional film critic goes the way of the dodo, perhaps the press screening as we know it will, too.

This is a long way of assuring you there's no conspiracy surrounding the fact that the "Superannual" will sport a good deal of exclusive content we're generating now. Very little that gets written for the mothersite goes unpublished, but as we miss theatrical release dates for one reason or another and films are hastily shunted out of theatres, we often lose a context for bothering to play catch up that the books--as reference guides and journals of record--subsequently provide.

Because the Superannual's going to be a little more expensive than usual--not only to purchase but also to produce (due to the substantially increased page count)--I thought I'd try an experiment: from now until May 1st, anyone who donates $10 or more to Film Freak Central through one of our many PayPal links conveniently located throughout the site will automatically be entered to win a free copy. To make this even more enticing, donors who so choose will be listed as a patron in the book.

More news as it develops. Thanks for your support, and feel free to ask any questions you might have or to make suggestions below.

If the Keeper of Time Runs Slowly...

So Warner and Fox made up, and Watchmen is back on schedule. Whoopee.

I mean, don't get me wrong. No matter how it turns out, there's no way I'm going to miss a cinematic adaptation of one of my favorite works of fiction. And even when taking a strictly cynical perspective, there was already plenty of reason to be wary, and the discussion had already started with that first preview trailer: the chilling image of a giant blue Adonis laying waste to the Viet Cong with a wave of his hand, recreated in such a way that the expected reaction would be closer to John Lichman's priceless "director commentary." "HOLY SHIT DID HE JUST BLOW THAT MOTHERFUCKER UP WITH HIS MOTHERFUCKING FINGER?! THAT SHIT IS AWESOME!!!" But it's a trailer, and trailers can be deceiving. It wasn't until I saw the image above--attached to an article announcing that the two rival studios had reached an agreement--that I really began to worry. For those who haven't read Watchmen and don't mind having a minor spoiler tossed their way, this is more than likely the moment when Edward Blake, the Comedian, pulls out his service pistol and kills his pregnant mistress at the end of a victorious Vietnam War. And in this promotional image, it's presented as something dead sexy.

Closer inspection reveals that Blake's fresh facial wound--the catalyst for this moment--is no longer a life-altering disfigurement, a fountain of blood that results in a perpetual sneer at humanity. It's a wartime scar, awesome and admirable without any context necessary. The Comedian has always been a fascinating character because, particularly when seen exclusively in retrospect, it's frightening to consider how amoral figures affect our lives. But ultimately, that's all the Comedian was--a public figure... while Blake was a monstrous coward who used nihilism as an excuse to indulge in his ugliest impulses. With that picture staring me in the face, I'm afraid that Snyder has integrated him into the same culture of cool he offered to Leonidas and his band of chest-pounding Spartans. "YOU SEE THAT BITCH HIT THE GROUND?! FUCK YEAH!!!" That scares me to no end. To be fair, Snyder offered a reasonably accurate depiction of Frank Miller's mania, and he could certainly be aiming for an ironic look at our own admiration of the wrong cinematic icons. But even if that's the case, isn't he already part of the problem? If the trailer's any indication, he's going to go for slow motion during every iconic moment--which, in Watchmen's case, would mean the most violent, catastrophic events--and I'd like to know how it's not going to come across as another testosterone fever dream.

Speaking of which/whom, I hope all of you know by now that The Spirit is fucking awful, because that fact didn't quite crack through my thick head until I dared to see it a second time. It was a decision that I almost immediately regretted. I knew it was jaw-droppingly bad, but the movie stuck in the back of my brain after a Christmas Day showing because it reminded me of my former adulation of the ultra-high-concept: Once Upon a Time in the West appealed to me because it represented the western in its most undiluted form, all of the gritty one-liners and clever setpieces crammed into one three-hour epic. I used to think of Darkman the same way, actually, this movie that screamed its mad, over-the-top intentions to the rafters. Amazing stuff, right? But I got older and realized that while those aspects certainly have merit, they wouldn't have much weight if there was nothing flowing in the undercurrent. I was lucky enough that many of my favorite movies held up to the scrutiny: Once Upon a Time in the West is pretty well defined by a cast of characters trying and failing to escape their predetermined identities; and Darkman is a work of unbelievable insanity, but it's given credence by its immense sadness and almost mocking parody of superhero conventions.

I should have seen it coming, given Walter's dead-on review, but that melting feeling that crept up on me after The Spirit unspooled was inevitable. It's the final nail in the coffin containing any lingering sense of doubt... the feeling that, as an adult, I was missing the point by tossing these maniacal works through the furnace flames of detailed analysis. That I somehow refused to touch base with my inner child by doing so. Fedoras, superfluous slow motion, blood-red ties, six-shooters and kicking the shit out of Nazis... S'cool and all, but at last we've been exposed to the apotheosis/nadir of that icon worship, and it just dismantles the "awesome for awesome's sake" argument beyond repair. I hope you took the time to read through the comments section of Bill's wonderfully sarcastic Oscar predictions--which were, ultimately, preferable to reality--because "theoldboy" delivered a real gem when he took a stab at Frank Miller's acceptance speech for Best Picture:

"I had no choice but to bring my vision of Rob Rodriguez's vision of my vision of his vision to the screen. Also I'd like to graciously thank whores, and grit, but mostly whores, for making this possible."

A brilliant summation, really, because where's the basis in reality that's supposed to make the grit and the whoreswhoreswhores hit so close to home? The Dark Knight Returns was supposed to have originated from Miller's bitter realization that he would grow older than his boyhood hero, "perpetually twenty-nine," and eventually be lost to the sands of time. So what the hell happened? Here's a dude who has immersed himself so thoroughly in his fantasy world that he has managed to deny the full weight of aging and violence and crime--now he keeps a death grip on the Goddamn Batman because everyone berates him for it. Okay, you want to pay tribute to film noir; deep shadows and gritty dialogue are a good start--do you have anything else?

The layers of homage and imitation just keep building until you have no idea where anything originates. Sex, love and death lose all meaning as angular, monochrome action figures beat, maim and perforate each other without consequence. When Sam Jackson dresses up like Himmler to interrogate and torture his quarry, is there any relationship to the unspeakable acts that made the Nazis such popular villains, both during and long after the war? I think it was Thomas Pynchon who said that science fiction was difficult to take seriously as a legitimate form of literature because there were so many ways to circumvent death... cloning, time travel and delusions of immortality. Now that there are sizable audiences and brilliant writers who are forging a symbiotic understanding of the various fantasy genres, that's been steadily changing over the last few decades. These entertainments are proving to us that they can shed some light on the mysteries of how and why we live and die--but guys like Miller certainly don't make that quest any easier by crawling into their impenetrable shells of self-satisfaction at any cost.

I guess my point is that nobody saw The Spirit, but--to preempt the soon-to-be-ubiquitous headline in entertainment journalism--everyone will watch Watchmen, and the price of escapism is getting higher every day. When and where, precisely, does a desire to inhabit a "pure" world of art detach itself from reality completely? Only Charlie Kaufman knows for sure. I just hope that, even without Hollis Mason's memoir or Sally Jupiter's scrapbook, Snyder won't lose sight of the moral obligation that Moore and Gibbons explored with no small amount of fear and doubt.

Professional Commentary on the Oscar Nominations

Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button = the lesser of 5 evils?
Frost/Nixon = barf
Milk = yawn
The Reader = purchased by a Weinstein
Slumdog Millionaire = barf

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Richard Jenkins for The Visitor = whatever
Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon = fine
Sean Penn = fine
Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button = curious case
Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler = yay

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married = yawn
Angelina Jolie for Changeling = really?
Melissa Leo for Frozen River = fine
Meryl Streep for Doubt = telegraphed
Kate Winslet for The Reader = tolerable

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Josh Brolin for Milk = yay
Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder = yay
Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt = fine
Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight = yay
Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road = yay

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Amy Adams for Doubt = who'm I kidding, I love her
Penélope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona = I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats
Viola Davis for Doubt = fine
Taraji P. Henson for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button = dubious
Marisa Tomei for The Wrestler = yay

Best Achievement in Directing
Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire = barf
Stephen Daldry for The Reader = whatever
David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button = delayed reaction to Zodiac
Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon = barf
Gus Van Sant for Milk = yawn

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Frozen River: Courtney Hunt = LOL
Happy-Go-Lucky: Mike Leigh = yawn
In Bruges: Martin McDonagh = haven't seen, forecasting a yawn
Milk: Dustin Lance Black = absurd
WALL·E: Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon = yay with caveats

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Eric Roth, Robin Swicord = embarrassing
Doubt: John Patrick Shanley = yawn
Frost/Nixon: Peter Morgan = barf
The Reader: David Hare = yawn
Slumdog Millionaire: Simon Beaufoy = barf

Best Achievement in Cinematography
Changeling: Tom Stern = uh, no
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Claudio Miranda = yay-esque
The Dark Knight: Wally Pfister = yay
The Reader: Roger Deakins, Chris Menges = yawn
Slumdog Millionaire: Anthony Dod Mantle = you gotta be fucking kidding me

Best Achievement in Editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter = it was edited?
The Dark Knight: Lee Smith = yay
Frost/Nixon: Daniel P. Hanley, Mike Hill = barf
Milk: Elliot Graham = whatever
Slumdog Millionaire: Chris Dickens = barf

Best Achievement in Makeup ("yay" across the board)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Greg Cannom
The Dark Knight: John Caglione Jr., Conor O'Sullivan
Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Mike Elizalde, Thomas Floutz

Best Achievement in Visual Effects (ditto)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
The Dark Knight: Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Timothy Webber, Paul J. Franklin
Iron Man: John Nelson, Ben Snow, Daniel Sudick, Shane Mahan

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Bolt: Chris Williams, Byron Howard = fine
Kung Fu Panda: John Stevenson, Mark Osborne = no
WALL·E: Andrew Stanton = yay

Best Documentary, Features (a bizarrely respectable category)
The Betrayal - Nerakhoon: Ellen Kuras, Thavisouk Phrasavath
Encounters at the End of the World: Werner Herzog, Henry Kaiser
The Garden: Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Man on Wire: James Marsh, Simon Chinn
Trouble the Water: Tia Lessin, Carl Deal

Skipped Foreign because only two of those movies have reached my neck, Music because I only remember one of last year's scores (WALL·E), and the rest for either holes in my viewing (the shorts) or blind spots in my movie eye (see: Costumes, Art Direction).

Oscar Predix for the Four Majors

We'll see how right I am in the morning...

Best Actor

• Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
• Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
• Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
• Sean Penn, Milk
• Zac Efron, High School Musical 3

Best Actress

• Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
• Camilla Belle, 10,000 BC
• Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road
• Meryl Streep, Doubt
• Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky

Best Director

• Andrew Stanton, WALL•E
• Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
• Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
• Jon Avnet, 88 Minutes
• Jon Avnet, Righteous Kill

Best Picture

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• Gran Torino
• Slumdog Millionaire
• The Spirit

Golden Globes

Okay. So this means that Slumdog is a shoo-in, right?

The Golden Globes, a party thrown by the old biddies of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has come and gone and bestowed upon one of the most appalling films of the year its stamp of approval. And so it goes. . . Me? I'm still high from the Oscars getting it right last year with No Country for Old Men.

So - comments on the nods last night - or the show? I didn't watch it.

And predictions for Oscar noms in a few days?