list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Adam Resurrected on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Adam_Resurrected/269828/default.aspx Title: Adam Resurrected
Year: 2008
Director: Paul Schrader
Plot: A Jewish circus entertainer is kept alive by the Nazis to entertain Jews as they march to their deaths. He ends up in an asylum for Holocaust survivors, fighting to survive the madness around him.
Times Tagged: 6
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 16
Number of discussion threads: 1
SpoutRating: 1
]]>Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:01:13 GMTAdam Resurrected2008Paul SchraderA Jewish circus entertainer is kept alive by the Nazis to entertain Jews as they march to their deaths. He ends up in an asylum for Holocaust survivors, fighting to survive the madness around him.6Taggedy Taggged (6-10)21611http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s269828.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Adam_Resurrected/269828/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/3/9/40898.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 3/9/2009 10:01:13 AM
Body: There are those who think it’s time for a moratorium on Holocaust movies, and there are those who stand by the belief that there won’t be enough until there’s been 6 million produced and released. As of 2003, we were up to at least 442 titles, according to Annette Insdorf’s book Indelible Shadows. And due to last year’s boom of Holocaust-related features, it seems as though Insdorf could easily add another 100 more to the list in her next edition. But there’s no need to put an end to Holocaust films, anymore than there’s a need to cease making any genre of movie. A good film is a good film, no matter if it’s set in a concentration camp, features Nazis or merely alludes to the Shoah. And a bad movie is a bad movie, an exploitative movie is an exploitative movie and Oscar bait is Oscar bait. Beginning this Tuesday, when The Boy in the Striped Pajamas arrives on DVD, those hungering for more Holocaust movies will get another shot at seeing 2008’s contributions to the genre, but they’ll also start to see why critics were getting tired of these films. It wasn’t the subject matter, though, and it wasn’t necessarily the quantity so much as it was the quality. These days, Holocaust films are more dependent on clichés and are adversely affected by trends than ever before, even when they appear to be intent on breaking with conventions. Here is an excellent bit from a Mr.Cranky review of Defiance: Here’s the thing: the more bad Holocaust films you make, the more Holocaust clichés you employ, the more the Holocaust itself becomes a cliché. The first few Holocaust films had a message and were probably intended to be meaningful. The last hundred were commercial vehicles designed to play on audience sympathies and line the producers’ pockets with money. Ultimately, Hollywood has done what every Jew on the planet pleas desperately to never happen: made the Holocaust meaningless on a pop culture scale. As soon as filmmakers can completely abandon all ten of the following problems with the Holocaust genre, the better off we’ll be in getting to those 6 million titles without further protest. 10. The Academy Awards Cliché “The fact that it was recently nominated for a best picture Oscar offers stunning proof that Hollywood seems to believe that if it’s a ‘Holocaust film,’ it must be worthy of approbation, end of story,” wrote Ron Rosenbaum in a Slate piece earlier this year requesting that the Academy not to honor The Reader. Not every Holocaust film has a shot at winning or even being nominated for an Oscar, though. Notice the lack of Academy love this year for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Adam Resurrected, Good, Valkyrie and, most surprisingly, the documentary Blessed is the Match. But there is nonetheless continued reason to believe that Holocaust=Oscars. The Reader snuck in with some shocking nominations, and Defiance managed a single nod, while Kate Winslet proved her own Extras gag by winning one. And then there was the predicable honoring of live-action short Spielzeugland. Why is this tradition negative? Because it encourages too many safe, conventional, mediocre contributions to the genre produced solely and clearly as Oscar bait. It’s possible The Reader might have been better if Harvey Weinstein hadn’t rushed it for a release date that would be best at acquiring Academy recognition. And the rest of 2008’s titles could have benefited as well. Hollywood needs to go a couple years without handing out a single Oscar to any Holocaust film (even if Spielberg makes Schindler’s List 2 and it’s even better than the first) to break free of the genre’s reputation for Oscar favoritism. 9. Music Cues That Stress Tragedy There are a few Holocaust movie clichés that are fine to stick around. Trains carrying Jews to their doom is an easy symbol for any WWII-set film that doesn’t directly involve concentration camps yet wants to remind the audience that it’s going on. Bleak cinematography and production design and costuming limited to a cold color scheme, particularly blues and grays, just fits the history and the tone of these films too well to eliminate (a bright, colorful Holocaust movie is so wrong that it goes passed the point of breaking conventions to instead demolish recognized truths). However, music cues in Holocaust movie scores (such as Marius Ruhland’s for The Counterfeiters) that are used to stress specific tragedies or emphasize especially harrowing moments are unnecessary and distracting. After all, these are Holocaust movies, and nothing will ever be more tragic or harrowing in the Western consciousness than the extermination of 6 million Jews. So there’s no need to enunciate the melodrama of a single character being shot or a certain event occurring, because the audience should already be feeling emotional and, unless they are robots, will respond appropriately to what’s shown rather than from what’s cued. This is of course an issue to be had with many Hollywood movies, but applies especially to their Holocaust films. 8. The Child’s Perspective While it makes sense for a lot of Holocaust films to be seen through the eyes of a child, because those children grow up to ultimately tell their Survivor story, it’s also a major cliché of any film about intolerance to involve a children’s perspective merely for the sake of having an innocent, naive and possibly precocious view of what’s happening. Certainly no youth has ever abstained from asking, “Why are they being mean to that black man, Mommy?” or “When will the Russians rescue us, Daddy?” However, such characters are more often mere narrative tools useful to filmmakers who prefer to pander to the audience, via other characters’ pandering to these children. Even a film that has the guts to have a prominent child character die in the death camps will counter with a child on the other side of the fence who has to ask the unnecessary question of, “Why are we killing the striped pajama boy, Father?” 7. The Happy-Go-Lucky Concentration Camp Prisoner Fortunately, there hasn’t been much to this trend since Robin Williams tried his shtick in the ghetto in the Jakob the Liar remake, but it’s enough that it existed. And enough that Life is Beautiful was actually quite popular. And should have been enough when Jerry Lewis tried bringing comedy to the concentration camps in The Day the Clown Cried. But Hollywood will probably resurrect the death camp comic relief for some film or other, because there’s just so much desire to lift the tension and actually entertain audiences. Yet Holocaust movies aren’t for entertainment, no matter if there were indeed some prisoners in real life that told a joke or goofed around once in awhile in order to remain positive. So Hollywood, Roberto Benigni and everyone else need to knock it off with this trend and keep the stories sad. It’s not like they put harrowing concentration camp scenes in broad comedies, after all. So why do the opposite? 6. The Good Nazi As with the happy-go-lucky prisoner, good Nazis may have existed in real life. But cinema is not supposed to be a complete representation of real life anyway, and everyone is better off just holding on to the idea that all Nazis were bad guys. The very word “Nazi” is forever equated with evil, and for eternity it will be easy to involve Nazis as villains, even in fantasy films set in modern times, without the audience questioning whether or not this one or that one was really a kindhearted man who was just doing his job or being forced to be a Nazi by his government. Good Nazis have turned up recently in the varied forms of the not-quite-Schindlerific Bernhard Kruger (Devid Striesow, pictured above) in The Counterfeiters, the relatively saintly and sexy Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch) in Black Book and, of course, the half-blind, wannabe Hitler assassin Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) in Valkyrie. 5. The Morally Ambiguous Nazi Supporter Even more prevalent lately than the good Nazi is the morally ambiguous or ambivalent character who is either a Nazi or working for the Nazis in order to survive and/or because he or she will later claim ignorance to the evils being committed. Examples include Kate Winslet’s character in The Reader, to an extent, as well as Ronnie (Halina Reijn, pictured above) in Black Book and the protagonist of The Counterfeiters, Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics). Again, it might have been a common reality for such persons to exist, but they shouldn’t be so populous in every Holocaust film made nowadays, because then it seems more excusable to believe that a good percentage of opportunist Nazi supporters weren’t all that bad. 4. The Really, Really Bad Nazi It seems that this stereotype has become a modern Holocaust movie cliché due to the increased employment of both good Nazis and morally ambiguous Nazi supporters. In Black Book, for instance, the sadistic Gunther Franken (Waldemar Kobus) is the yang to Muntze’s yin, and similarly in The Counterfeiters, Hauptscharführer Holst (Martin Bramback, highlighted in the picture above) contrasts against Kruger. As a counter-trend, though, it’s even worse than the initial clichés. Sure, it makes sense on some narrative level for there to be a really, really bad Nazi, one who’d go so far as to literally piss on the head of a protagonist (a la Holst), to make up for the fact that there’s a likable Nazi character. But why not just do away with the good Nazi trend and either return to having all Nazi characters assumed evil or merely act like three-dimensional human beings — that is, if they must be humanized? Once again, it’s best just to keep to the Nazis=evil convention, because it’s tried and true and doesn’t complicate things or cause controversies. 3. The Holocaust As Weight in Non-Holocaust Movies The fact that X-Men’s Magneto is a Holocaust survivor enriches his character, but that’s a back-story that existed and has been developed in comics long before making an appearance in the movie adaptations. But non-adapted films, particularly horror flicks, attempting to be taken more seriously due to a Holocaust subplot or back-story just seems exploitative. Take the recent movie The Unborn, for example. In her review for Tiger Online, Melissa Kim makes a good point regarding the misguided intent to give a movie more weight by involving the Holocaust, noting that the tragedy is much too important to be cast in a bit part. “The Unborn is so ridiculous,” she writes, “it actually diminishes the prestige of the Holocaust, reducing it to little more than the weak punch line in a wholly un-funny joke.” 2. The Desire to Kill Hitler This isn’t so much of a movie trend, since aside from Valkyrie the only other Hitler assassination plot movies are others based on the same 20 July plot, but it’s still something of a cliché. Really it has to do with the typical response and discussion people have regarding the possibilities and ethics of time travel. Everyone’s first realistic idea is to go back and kill Hitler before he can come to power and exterminate the Jews, right? Well, it’s quite a futile hypothetical, because there is no time travel. But, filmmakers have the power to at least visualize the hypothetical a little more by, time and time again, adapting the 20 July story for the screen. Of course, it does no good, either, because the plot was unsuccessful and no film version, even with a changed ending, will change that. And anything else would simply be wishful thinking. However, there is at least Downfall, which was surprisingly not as popular despite this idea. Viewers can take pleasure in the literal downfall and demise of Hitler in the film. It doesn’t erase what happened with the Holocaust, but there is some satisfaction to be had. 1. Claiming a Holocaust Film Isn’t a Holocaust Film Harvey Weinstein attempted to have his cake and eat it too this past awards season. He marketed The Reader to certain groups under the assumption that it is a Holocaust movie, but he also attempted to sell it off as not a Holocaust movie by including this Elie Wiesel quote in the well-distributed Reader-defense statement: “it is not about the Holocaust; it is about what Germany did to itself and its future generations.” And many critics and journalists were in agreement, that the movie doesn’t belong grouped in with the others. In a way, the film actually is and isn’t a Holocaust movie, but attempting to deny that it’s one in order to escape the genre’s inaccessibility is still misleading and somewhat dishonest marketing. Anyone going in expecting not to see a concentration camp or survivors or Nazis will be greatly disappointed. A few of 2008’s Holocaust films were also more marketable as other kinds of films than Holocaust films, probably to detach from the stigma attached to them. And at least one, Valkyrie, is for the most part not a Holocaust film at all. But it seemed to work for Weinstein, both with Academy favor and box office success. So this could be a continued trend, even with films that are clearly Holocaust Oscar-bait or films attempting to gain weight through slight Holocaust connections. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:01:13 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com3/9/2009 10:01:13 AMThere are those who think it’s time for a moratorium on Holocaust movies, and there are those who stand by the belief that there won’t be enough until there’s been 6 million produced and released. As of 2003, we were up to at least 442 titles, according to Annette Insdorf’s book Indelible Shadows. And due to last year’s boom of Holocaust-related features, it seems as though Insdorf could easily add another 100 more to the list in her next edition. But there’s no need to put an end to Holocaust films, anymore than there’s a need to cease making any genre of movie. A good film is a good film, no matter if it’s set in a concentration camp, features Nazis or merely alludes to the Shoah. And a bad movie is a bad movie, an exploitative movie is an exploitative movie and Oscar bait is Oscar bait. Beginning this Tuesday, when The Boy in the Striped Pajamas arrives on DVD, those hungering for more Holocaust movies will get another shot at seeing 2008’s contributions to the genre, but they’ll also start to see why critics were getting tired of these films. It wasn’t the subject matter, though, and it wasn’t necessarily the quantity so much as it was the quality. These days, Holocaust films are more dependent on clichés and are adversely affected by trends than ever before, even when they appear to be intent on breaking with conventions. Here is an excellent bit from a Mr.Cranky review of Defiance: Here’s the thing: the more bad Holocaust films you make, the more Holocaust clichés you employ, the more the Holocaust itself becomes a cliché. The first few Holocaust films had a message and were probably intended to be meaningful. The last hundred were commercial vehicles designed to play on audience sympathies and line the producers’ pockets with money. Ultimately, Hollywood has done what every Jew on the planet pleas desperately to never happen: made the Holocaust meaningless on a pop culture scale. As soon as filmmakers can completely abandon all ten of the following problems with the Holocaust genre, the better off we’ll be in getting to those 6 million titles without further protest. 10. The Academy Awards Cliché “The fact that it was recently nominated for a best picture Oscar offers stunning proof that Hollywood seems to believe that if it’s a ‘Holocaust film,’ it must be worthy of approbation, end of story,” wrote Ron Rosenbaum in a Slate piece earlier this year requesting that the Academy not to honor The Reader. Not every Holocaust film has a shot at winning or even being nominated for an Oscar, though. Notice the lack of Academy love this year for The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Adam Resurrected, Good, Valkyrie and, most surprisingly, the documentary Blessed is the Match. But there is nonetheless continued reason to believe that Holocaust=Oscars. The Reader snuck in with some shocking nominations, and Defiance managed a single nod, while Kate Winslet proved her own Extras gag by winning one. And then there was the predicable honoring of live-action short Spielzeugland. Why is this tradition negative? Because it encourages too many safe, conventional, mediocre contributions to the genre produced solely and clearly as Oscar bait. It’s possible The Reader might have been better if Harvey Weinstein hadn’t rushed it for a release date that would be best at acquiring Academy recognition. And the rest of 2008’s titles could have benefited as well. Hollywood needs to go a couple years without handing out a single Oscar to any Holocaust film (even if Spielberg makes Schindler’s List 2 and it’s even better than the first) to break free of the genre’s reputation for Oscar favoritism. 9. Music Cues That Stress Tragedy There are a few Holocaust movie clichés that are fine to stick around. Trains carrying Jews to their doom is an easy symbol for any WWII-set film that doesn’t directly involve concentration camps yet wants to remind the audience that it’s going on. Bleak cinematography and production design and costuming limited to a cold color scheme, particularly blues and grays, just fits the history and the tone of these films too well to eliminate (a bright, colorful Holocaust movie is so wrong that it goes passed the point of breaking conventions to instead demolish recognized truths). However, music cues in Holocaust movie scores (such as Marius Ruhland’s for The Counterfeiters) that are used to stress specific tragedies or emphasize especially harrowing moments are unnecessary and distracting. After all, these are Holocaust movies, and nothing will ever be more tragic or harrowing in the Western consciousness than the extermination of 6 million Jews. So there’s no need to enunciate the melodrama of a single character being shot or a certain event occurring, because the audience should already be feeling emotional and, unless they are robots, will respond appropriately to what’s shown rather than from what’s cued. This is of course an issue to be had with many Hollywood movies, but applies especially to their Holocaust films. 8. The Child’s Perspective While it makes sense for a lot of Holocaust films to be seen through the eyes of a child, because those children grow up to ultimately tell their Survivor story, it’s also a major cliché of any film about intolerance to involve a children’s perspective merely for the sake of having an innocent, naive and possibly precocious view of what’s happening. Certainly no youth has ever abstained from asking, “Why are they being mean to that black man, Mommy?” or “When will the Russians rescue us, Daddy?” However, such characters are more often mere narrative tools useful to filmmakers who prefer to pander to the audience, via other characters’ pandering to these children. Even a film that has the guts to have a prominent child character die in the death camps will counter with a child on the other side of the fence who has to ask the unnecessary question of, “Why are we killing the striped pajama boy, Father?” 7. The Happy-Go-Lucky Concentration Camp Prisoner Fortunately, there hasn’t been much to this trend since Robin Williams tried his shtick in the ghetto in the Jakob the Liar remake, but it’s enough that it existed. And enough that Life is Beautiful was actually quite popular. And should have been enough when Jerry Lewis tried bringing comedy to the concentration camps in The Day the Clown Cried. But Hollywood will probably resurrect the death camp comic relief for some film or other, because there’s just so much desire to lift the tension and actually entertain audiences. Yet Holocaust movies aren’t for entertainment, no matter if there were indeed some prisoners in real life that told a joke or goofed around once in awhile in order to remain positive. So Hollywood, Roberto Benigni and everyone else need to knock it off with this trend and keep the stories sad. It’s not like they put harrowing concentration camp scenes in broad comedies, after all. So why do the opposite? 6. The Good Nazi As with the happy-go-lucky prisoner, good Nazis may have existed in real life. But cinema is not supposed to be a complete representation of real life anyway, and everyone is better off just holding on to the idea that all Nazis were bad guys. The very word “Nazi” is forever equated with evil, and for eternity it will be easy to involve Nazis as villains, even in fantasy films set in modern times, without the audience questioning whether or not this one or that one was really a kindhearted man who was just doing his job or being forced to be a Nazi by his government. Good Nazis have turned up recently in the varied forms of the not-quite-Schindlerific Bernhard Kruger (Devid Striesow, pictured above) in The Counterfeiters, the relatively saintly and sexy Ludwig Muntze (Sebastian Koch) in Black Book and, of course, the half-blind, wannabe Hitler assassin Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) in Valkyrie. 5. The Morally Ambiguous Nazi Supporter Even more prevalent lately than the good Nazi is the morally ambiguous or ambivalent character who is either a Nazi or working for the Nazis in order to survive and/or because he or she will later claim ignorance to the evils being committed. Examples include Kate Winslet’s character in The Reader, to an extent, as well as Ronnie (Halina Reijn, pictured above) in Black Book and the protagonist of The Counterfeiters, Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics). Again, it might have been a common reality for such persons to exist, but they shouldn’t be so populous in every Holocaust film made nowadays, because then it seems more excusable to believe that a good percentage of opportunist Nazi supporters weren’t all that bad. 4. The Really, Really Bad Nazi It seems that this stereotype has become a modern Holocaust movie cliché due to the increased employment of both good Nazis and morally ambiguous Nazi supporters. In Black Book, for instance, the sadistic Gunther Franken (Waldemar Kobus) is the yang to Muntze’s yin, and similarly in The Counterfeiters, Hauptscharführer Holst (Martin Bramback, highlighted in the picture above) contrasts against Kruger. As a counter-trend, though, it’s even worse than the initial clichés. Sure, it makes sense on some narrative level for there to be a really, really bad Nazi, one who’d go so far as to literally piss on the head of a protagonist (a la Holst), to make up for the fact that there’s a likable Nazi character. But why not just do away with the good Nazi trend and either return to having all Nazi characters assumed evil or merely act like three-dimensional human beings — that is, if they must be humanized? Once again, it’s best just to keep to the Nazis=evil convention, because it’s tried and true and doesn’t complicate things or cause controversies. 3. The Holocaust As Weight in Non-Holocaust Movies The fact that X-Men’s Magneto is a Holocaust survivor enriches his character, but that’s a back-story that existed and has been developed in comics long before making an appearance in the movie adaptations. But non-adapted films, particularly horror flicks, attempting to be taken more seriously due to a Holocaust subplot or back-story just seems exploitative. Take the recent movie The Unborn, for example. In her review for Tiger Online, Melissa Kim makes a good point regarding the misguided intent to give a movie more weight by involving the Holocaust, noting that the tragedy is much too important to be cast in a bit part. “The Unborn is so ridiculous,” she writes, “it actually diminishes the prestige of the Holocaust, reducing it to little more than the weak punch line in a wholly un-funny joke.” 2. The Desire to Kill Hitler This isn’t so much of a movie trend, since aside from Valkyrie the only other Hitler assassination plot movies are others based on the same 20 July plot, but it’s still something of a cliché. Really it has to do with the typical response and discussion people have regarding the possibilities and ethics of time travel. Everyone’s first realistic idea is to go back and kill Hitler before he can come to power and exterminate the Jews, right? Well, it’s quite a futile hypothetical, because there is no time travel. But, filmmakers have the power to at least visualize the hypothetical a little more by, time and time again, adapting the 20 July story for the screen. Of course, it does no good, either, because the plot was unsuccessful and no film version, even with a changed ending, will change that. And anything else would simply be wishful thinking. However, there is at least Downfall, which was surprisingly not as popular despite this idea. Viewers can take pleasure in the literal downfall and demise of Hitler in the film. It doesn’t erase what happened with the Holocaust, but there is some satisfaction to be had. 1. Claiming a Holocaust Film Isn’t a Holocaust Film Harvey Weinstein attempted to have his cake and eat it too this past awards season. He marketed The Reader to certain groups under the assumption that it is a Holocaust movie, but he also attempted to sell it off as not a Holocaust movie by including this Elie Wiesel quote in the well-distributed Reader-defense statement: “it is not about the Holocaust; it is about what Germany did to itself and its future generations.” And many critics and journalists were in agreement, that the movie doesn’t belong grouped in with the others. In a way, the film actually is and isn’t a Holocaust movie, but attempting to deny that it’s one in order to escape the genre’s inaccessibility is still misleading and somewhat dishonest marketing. Anyone going in expecting not to see a concentration camp or survivors or Nazis will be greatly disappointed. A few of 2008’s Holocaust films were also more marketable as other kinds of films than Holocaust films, probably to detach from the stigma attached to them. And at least one, Valkyrie, is for the most part not a Holocaust film at all. But it seemed to work for Weinstein, both with Academy favor and box office success. So this could be a continued trend, even with films that are clearly Holocaust Oscar-bait or films attempting to gain weight through slight Holocaust connections. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/27/39965.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/27/2009 1:01:20 PM
Body: In 10 out of 14 years, the winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role has gone on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. If this year marks the 11th such congruence, Meryl Streep will take home the Oscar. Yet there is an odd circumstance with the Academy’s nominations that hurts Streep’s chances. Another one of the Academy’s Best Actress contenders also received a SAG Award Sunday night: Kate Winslet, who won the supporting actress trophy for The Reader. At the Oscars, this role has been recognized as a lead performance, one that is likely a favorite to win. Yes, it is a strange situation, one that shocked and confused Oscar prognosticators (especially this writer) on Thursday morning. Winslet’s Reader performance was campaigned as a supporting role, and she was recognized as such by the Golden Globes, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics Association and of course the Screen Actors Guild. A few organizations did nominate her for a lead award for The Reader, though few people take the Satellites seriously, and the BAFTA Awards are different than most in that they permit Winslet to compete against herself in the same category (she is also nominated for Best Leading Actress for Revolutionary Road). Some now believe the Academy’s deviation will in fact cost Winslet the Oscar she could have won in the supporting field. Either voters will be confused about what film she’s nominated for (unless I’m simply less observant than elderly Academy members, which may indeed be the case), or she will now split the majority vote with Streep and thus allow Anne Hathaway or Melissa Leo to slip ahead (Angelina Jolie is believed to have no shot). Another idea is that voters will dismiss Winslet due to doubts over which category the performance belongs in. But since enough members of the Academy made it a point to nominate her as lead actress in the first place, this is hardly a reasonable theory. Also potentially without merit is the Holocaust factor, which seems to be the most popular argument for why Winslet is now a shoo-in to win the Oscar. This is an old favorite for Oscar oddsmakers, but it may not actually apply here. Still, when The Reader made surprise appearances in the Best Picture and Best Director categories last Thursday, one of the first familiar quotes to show up online was “there’s no business like Shoah business.” Yet the Academy already failed to nominate shortlisted documentary Blessed Is the Match, despite its Holocaust subject matter, and they also ignored related features such as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Adam Resurrected, Good and Valkyrie (meanwhile Defiance was only recognized by the music branch). So, certainly the Holocaust fetish thing is not a sure thing. It doesn’t even necessarily carry over to Israeli Oscar nominee Waltz With Bashir, as much as people may try to tie that documentary’s favorable odds to its association with the oft-mocked trend (actually could the doc now suffer with pro-Israel Academy members if it makes them think too much about war crimes committed against Palestinians?). Also, Winslet’s role as a sympathetic concentration camp guard should be as exclusive to the fetish as was (her Reader co-star) Bruno Ganz’s brilliant, Oscar-worthy portrayal of Hitler in Downfall. Even if she has told press that she neither liked nor sympathized with her character. So, then, what are plausible factors in Winslet’s likelihood of winning the Oscar? Well, there is the damage caused by Streep, who has certain advantage in the race for winning the lead SAG Award (which she apparently expected to lose to Winslet), as well as for winning kudos from critic circles, such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association (where she tied with Hathaway). Yet on the other hand, there are all those supporting wins in Winslet and The Reader’s favor, not to mention the triumph she had over Streep at the Golden Globes, even if it was recognition for another performance. There is also the belief that this is simply Winslet’s year to win after losing five previous Oscar races. However, as much as it seems Streep doesn’t need another Academy Award, she has in fact lost her last ten Oscar bids and hasn’t won in more than 25 years. Meanwhile, Winslet has plenty of great years left in her and will surely have more chances in the future. One additional factor could put Winslet’s odds just past Streep’s, and that factor’s name is Harvey Weinstein. Whether the Oscar-hungry exec is simply holding his high ground with the Academy or he’s making a greater push for his company’s film in order to spite Scott Rudin (producer of Streep’s film, Doubt, and a former producer of The Reader) is unclear and beside the point. Many people immediately cursed his name when they saw The Reader make its surprise appearances in the top categories (Nikki Finke believes the film partly prevailed because the Academy wanted to honor Rudin, Winslet and Daldry for having to put up with “that nasty oaf”). Even better than the Harvey factor, though, is the actual quality of Winslet’s work. Sure, worth of talent is all but dead in the modern Hollywood, particularly where the Oscars are concerned, but as a deal breaker in a race between two actresses who are truly brilliant thespians, it could very well be consequential. And between Winslet and Streep, this year the former has the advantage. Streep’s Oscar-nominated role has been viewed by some as overdone, and her other performance in 2008 was in a musical comedy. Winslet, on the other hand, will benefit for giving two Oscar-worthy lead performances, only one of which was nominated. And any voters who initially made the attempt to nominate her for Best Actress for Revolutionary Road may surely choose Winslet with that other unrecognized performance in mind (Anne Thompson agrees she’ll win for both films). With another neck-and-neck race in the Best Actor category and (also thanks to the Academy’s unpredictable deviation from the Winslet campaigns) a lack of a frontrunner in the Best Supporting Actress race, this year’s Oscars are shaping up to be a difficult game to bet on. Knowing that the Academy can be counted on for surprises, it’s possible that Streep will win. Even Hathaway may have a shot (though her time will more likely come from a future supporting role). But if you’re a gambling man who hates to lose, I’d recommend putting your chips on Winslet for Best Actress. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:01:20 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/27/2009 1:01:20 PMIn 10 out of 14 years, the winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role has gone on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. If this year marks the 11th such congruence, Meryl Streep will take home the Oscar. Yet there is an odd circumstance with the Academy’s nominations that hurts Streep’s chances. Another one of the Academy’s Best Actress contenders also received a SAG Award Sunday night: Kate Winslet, who won the supporting actress trophy for The Reader. At the Oscars, this role has been recognized as a lead performance, one that is likely a favorite to win. Yes, it is a strange situation, one that shocked and confused Oscar prognosticators (especially this writer) on Thursday morning. Winslet’s Reader performance was campaigned as a supporting role, and she was recognized as such by the Golden Globes, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Chicago Film Critics Association and of course the Screen Actors Guild. A few organizations did nominate her for a lead award for The Reader, though few people take the Satellites seriously, and the BAFTA Awards are different than most in that they permit Winslet to compete against herself in the same category (she is also nominated for Best Leading Actress for Revolutionary Road). Some now believe the Academy’s deviation will in fact cost Winslet the Oscar she could have won in the supporting field. Either voters will be confused about what film she’s nominated for (unless I’m simply less observant than elderly Academy members, which may indeed be the case), or she will now split the majority vote with Streep and thus allow Anne Hathaway or Melissa Leo to slip ahead (Angelina Jolie is believed to have no shot). Another idea is that voters will dismiss Winslet due to doubts over which category the performance belongs in. But since enough members of the Academy made it a point to nominate her as lead actress in the first place, this is hardly a reasonable theory. Also potentially without merit is the Holocaust factor, which seems to be the most popular argument for why Winslet is now a shoo-in to win the Oscar. This is an old favorite for Oscar oddsmakers, but it may not actually apply here. Still, when The Reader made surprise appearances in the Best Picture and Best Director categories last Thursday, one of the first familiar quotes to show up online was “there’s no business like Shoah business.” Yet the Academy already failed to nominate shortlisted documentary Blessed Is the Match, despite its Holocaust subject matter, and they also ignored related features such as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Adam Resurrected, Good and Valkyrie (meanwhile Defiance was only recognized by the music branch). So, certainly the Holocaust fetish thing is not a sure thing. It doesn’t even necessarily carry over to Israeli Oscar nominee Waltz With Bashir, as much as people may try to tie that documentary’s favorable odds to its association with the oft-mocked trend (actually could the doc now suffer with pro-Israel Academy members if it makes them think too much about war crimes committed against Palestinians?). Also, Winslet’s role as a sympathetic concentration camp guard should be as exclusive to the fetish as was (her Reader co-star) Bruno Ganz’s brilliant, Oscar-worthy portrayal of Hitler in Downfall. Even if she has told press that she neither liked nor sympathized with her character. So, then, what are plausible factors in Winslet’s likelihood of winning the Oscar? Well, there is the damage caused by Streep, who has certain advantage in the race for winning the lead SAG Award (which she apparently expected to lose to Winslet), as well as for winning kudos from critic circles, such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association (where she tied with Hathaway). Yet on the other hand, there are all those supporting wins in Winslet and The Reader’s favor, not to mention the triumph she had over Streep at the Golden Globes, even if it was recognition for another performance. There is also the belief that this is simply Winslet’s year to win after losing five previous Oscar races. However, as much as it seems Streep doesn’t need another Academy Award, she has in fact lost her last ten Oscar bids and hasn’t won in more than 25 years. Meanwhile, Winslet has plenty of great years left in her and will surely have more chances in the future. One additional factor could put Winslet’s odds just past Streep’s, and that factor’s name is Harvey Weinstein. Whether the Oscar-hungry exec is simply holding his high ground with the Academy or he’s making a greater push for his company’s film in order to spite Scott Rudin (producer of Streep’s film, Doubt, and a former producer of The Reader) is unclear and beside the point. Many people immediately cursed his name when they saw The Reader make its surprise appearances in the top categories (Nikki Finke believes the film partly prevailed because the Academy wanted to honor Rudin, Winslet and Daldry for having to put up with “that nasty oaf”). Even better than the Harvey factor, though, is the actual quality of Winslet’s work. Sure, worth of talent is all but dead in the modern Hollywood, particularly where the Oscars are concerned, but as a deal breaker in a race between two actresses who are truly brilliant thespians, it could very well be consequential. And between Winslet and Streep, this year the former has the advantage. Streep’s Oscar-nominated role has been viewed by some as overdone, and her other performance in 2008 was in a musical comedy. Winslet, on the other hand, will benefit for giving two Oscar-worthy lead performances, only one of which was nominated. And any voters who initially made the attempt to nominate her for Best Actress for Revolutionary Road may surely choose Winslet with that other unrecognized performance in mind (Anne Thompson agrees she’ll win for both films). With another neck-and-neck race in the Best Actor category and (also thanks to the Academy’s unpredictable deviation from the Winslet campaigns) a lack of a frontrunner in the Best Supporting Actress race, this year’s Oscars are shaping up to be a difficult game to bet on. Knowing that the Academy can be counted on for surprises, it’s possible that Streep will win. Even Hathaway may have a shot (though her time will more likely come from a future supporting role). But if you’re a gambling man who hates to lose, I’d recommend putting your chips on Winslet for Best Actress. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/11/11/37222.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 11/11/2008 4:01:02 PM
Body: This review originally appeared during the Telluride Film Festival. Slumdog Millionaire opens in select markets tomorrow. Danny Boyle’s latest offering, Slumdog Millionaire, is generating a fair amount of buzz here at Telluride. Not unlike last year’s Juno, the film showed up in one of the mysterious TBA slots, delighting audiences made weary by a slate of good but somewhat depressing films, such as Hunger, Waltz with Bashir and Adam Resurrected. Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of Jamal Malik, an unlikely winner of India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Jamal, his brother Samir, and fellow orphan Latika, manage to survive an almost absurd number of scrapes, the memory of each one coincidentally providing Jamal with answers to the game show questions. The film is big, fast, fun, and colorful, but ultimately a mess. The hyperactive structure of the film is born out of the life experience-equals-game-show-answer formula. The first scene shows Jamal being tortured by police who suspect him of cheating, unable to believe that a “slumdog” orphan could know the answers to all those trivia questions. Jamal insists he really did know the answers, and the suddenly sympathetic cops disconnect the electrodes from his toes and decide to let him explain further as they watch a tape of the show. The one-two punch of crazy slum story providing an unlikely memory that later serves as a trivia answer becomes apparent very quickly, and never deviates through the entire film. This structure might have worked, but here it feels contrived and repetitive. The pace of the film is frantic, some of the flashbacks have comic merit, but by the third or fourth musical montage, it all feels too hectic and sloppy, especially considering the rigid and somewhat boring structure upon which the film is built. People have been praising the performances in the film, and with the exception of the child actors and Bollywood veteran Anil Kapoor, I’m bewildered by this. Dev Patel’s Jamal is passable at best. He’s sympathetic, but most of the film he looks plainly dumbfounded at his own impossible luck. He gives us no real reason to care for him other than the fact that he’s a basically good person, and he’s in love. The love story, seen by many to be central to the film, is sorely lacking. Jamal and Latika meet because they are both orphans, she’s first allowed to run with Jamal and Samir out of pity. The brothers loose track of Latika, only to later rescue her from forced prostitution. The would-be lovers are again pulled apart when Samir, who has turned to a life of crime, forces her to become a part of his crime lord’s harem. Jamal’s impetus for being on the game show, and his motivation to continue his stellar run, turns out to not be about money at all, but rather to get on TV in hopes that Latika, where ever she is, will see him. Sure enough, she does, and with the help of an inexplicably reformed Samir, she escapes the harem to find Jamal, her one true love. It’s the kind of shallow love story that plagues many Hollywood films. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a “love conquers all” philosophy propping up a film, but the whole thing collapses if that love doesn’t feel genuine. Freida Pinto as Latika, like Patel’s performance, is so-so at best. The film is too crowded and busy to allow any chemistry to build between these two. Sure, they’ve helped each other out of crazy situations, but just because a fireman saved my life doesn’t mean I’d want to marry him. When Jamal emphatically claims that being with Latika is their “destiny,” we’re forced to take his word for it. Some will say that many of my issues with the film are due to the fact that I’m not seeing it as Boyle’s homage to Bollywood. While it’s true that the film is deeply indebted to the colorful and melodramatic musicals that are a mainstay of Indian culture, I don’t think the film holds up even under this reading. The key problem goes back to the lead actors’ performances. Great Bollywood players are not naturalistic by any means, they are exaggerated, playful, and incredibly charismatic. It seems like Boyle couldn’t decide which way he wanted Patel and Pinto to play it. Should they be overly theatrical to match the color and up-tempo editing? Or should they play it more realistically, two normal people brought together by extraordinary circumstances? In the end they do neither. Slumdog Millionaire is not without merit. It’s nothing if not an ambitious film, and certain scenes do work well. But ultimately it’s an annoying cacophony atop a predictable structure. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:01:02 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com11/11/2008 4:01:02 PMThis review originally appeared during the Telluride Film Festival. Slumdog Millionaire opens in select markets tomorrow. Danny Boyle’s latest offering, Slumdog Millionaire, is generating a fair amount of buzz here at Telluride. Not unlike last year’s Juno, the film showed up in one of the mysterious TBA slots, delighting audiences made weary by a slate of good but somewhat depressing films, such as Hunger, Waltz with Bashir and Adam Resurrected. Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of Jamal Malik, an unlikely winner of India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Jamal, his brother Samir, and fellow orphan Latika, manage to survive an almost absurd number of scrapes, the memory of each one coincidentally providing Jamal with answers to the game show questions. The film is big, fast, fun, and colorful, but ultimately a mess. The hyperactive structure of the film is born out of the life experience-equals-game-show-answer formula. The first scene shows Jamal being tortured by police who suspect him of cheating, unable to believe that a “slumdog” orphan could know the answers to all those trivia questions. Jamal insists he really did know the answers, and the suddenly sympathetic cops disconnect the electrodes from his toes and decide to let him explain further as they watch a tape of the show. The one-two punch of crazy slum story providing an unlikely memory that later serves as a trivia answer becomes apparent very quickly, and never deviates through the entire film. This structure might have worked, but here it feels contrived and repetitive. The pace of the film is frantic, some of the flashbacks have comic merit, but by the third or fourth musical montage, it all feels too hectic and sloppy, especially considering the rigid and somewhat boring structure upon which the film is built. People have been praising the performances in the film, and with the exception of the child actors and Bollywood veteran Anil Kapoor, I’m bewildered by this. Dev Patel’s Jamal is passable at best. He’s sympathetic, but most of the film he looks plainly dumbfounded at his own impossible luck. He gives us no real reason to care for him other than the fact that he’s a basically good person, and he’s in love. The love story, seen by many to be central to the film, is sorely lacking. Jamal and Latika meet because they are both orphans, she’s first allowed to run with Jamal and Samir out of pity. The brothers loose track of Latika, only to later rescue her from forced prostitution. The would-be lovers are again pulled apart when Samir, who has turned to a life of crime, forces her to become a part of his crime lord’s harem. Jamal’s impetus for being on the game show, and his motivation to continue his stellar run, turns out to not be about money at all, but rather to get on TV in hopes that Latika, where ever she is, will see him. Sure enough, she does, and with the help of an inexplicably reformed Samir, she escapes the harem to find Jamal, her one true love. It’s the kind of shallow love story that plagues many Hollywood films. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a “love conquers all” philosophy propping up a film, but the whole thing collapses if that love doesn’t feel genuine. Freida Pinto as Latika, like Patel’s performance, is so-so at best. The film is too crowded and busy to allow any chemistry to build between these two. Sure, they’ve helped each other out of crazy situations, but just because a fireman saved my life doesn’t mean I’d want to marry him. When Jamal emphatically claims that being with Latika is their “destiny,” we’re forced to take his word for it. Some will say that many of my issues with the film are due to the fact that I’m not seeing it as Boyle’s homage to Bollywood. While it’s true that the film is deeply indebted to the colorful and melodramatic musicals that are a mainstay of Indian culture, I don’t think the film holds up even under this reading. The key problem goes back to the lead actors’ performances. Great Bollywood players are not naturalistic by any means, they are exaggerated, playful, and incredibly charismatic. It seems like Boyle couldn’t decide which way he wanted Patel and Pinto to play it. Should they be overly theatrical to match the color and up-tempo editing? Or should they play it more realistically, two normal people brought together by extraordinary circumstances? In the end they do neither. Slumdog Millionaire is not without merit. It’s nothing if not an ambitious film, and certain scenes do work well. But ultimately it’s an annoying cacophony atop a predictable structure. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/10/29/36778.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 10/29/2008 6:01:01 PM
Body: Remember Adam Resurrected, the Paul Schrader-directed, Jeff Goldblum-starring film that Paul saw at Telluride which made him admit to wanting “to make out with Jeff Goldblum in the back of his Toyota Prius”? I got an invite for a press screening for the film a couple of hours ago, which I thought was weird, because the last I heard, the film didn’t have distribution. Now Mike Jones at The Circuit has posted an item that solves the mystery: it looks like Bleiberg Entertainment, the company that financed the film, have decided that rather than wait for a distributor to pick it up and miss this Oscar season, they’ll fund a qualifying run for the film in New York and LA themselves. Jones says producer Ehud Bleiberg was “unhappy with the offers he received after the pic’s Toronto fest screening,” Bleiberg himself implies that if any of those offers were promising in other respects, they didn’t include a timely release or support for an Oscar campaign. “Why would we screen the film at Telluride and Toronto and release it a year later,” he asks rhetorically. Considering that Goldblum’s performance is apparently so good that it propells heterosexual Midwesterners to contemplate the actor as an object of physical (and eco-friendly!) love, that question seems eminently reasonable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:01:01 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog10/29/2008 6:01:01 PMRemember Adam Resurrected, the Paul Schrader-directed, Jeff Goldblum-starring film that Paul saw at Telluride which made him admit to wanting “to make out with Jeff Goldblum in the back of his Toyota Prius”? I got an invite for a press screening for the film a couple of hours ago, which I thought was weird, because the last I heard, the film didn’t have distribution. Now Mike Jones at The Circuit has posted an item that solves the mystery: it looks like Bleiberg Entertainment, the company that financed the film, have decided that rather than wait for a distributor to pick it up and miss this Oscar season, they’ll fund a qualifying run for the film in New York and LA themselves. Jones says producer Ehud Bleiberg was “unhappy with the offers he received after the pic’s Toronto fest screening,” Bleiberg himself implies that if any of those offers were promising in other respects, they didn’t include a timely release or support for an Oscar campaign. “Why would we screen the film at Telluride and Toronto and release it a year later,” he asks rhetorically. Considering that Goldblum’s performance is apparently so good that it propells heterosexual Midwesterners to contemplate the actor as an object of physical (and eco-friendly!) love, that question seems eminently reasonable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/29/36777.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/29/2008 6:00:44 PM
Body: Remember Adam Resurrected, the Paul Schrader-directed, Jeff Goldblum-starring film that Paul saw at Telluride which made him admit to wanting “to make out with Jeff Goldblum in the back of his Toyota Prius”? I got an invite for a press screening for the film a couple of hours ago, which I thought was weird, because the last I heard, the film didn’t have distribution. Now Mike Jones at The Circuit has posted an item that solves the mystery: it looks like Bleiberg Entertainment, the company that financed the film, have decided that rather than wait for a distributor to pick it up and miss this Oscar season, they’ll fund a qualifying run for the film in New York and LA themselves. Jones says producer Ehud Bleiberg was “unhappy with the offers he received after the pic’s Toronto fest screening,” Bleiberg himself implies that if any of those offers were promising in other respects, they didn’t include a timely release or support for an Oscar campaign. “Why would we screen the film at Telluride and Toronto and release it a year later,” he asks rhetorically. Considering that Goldblum’s performance is apparently so good that it propells heterosexual Midwesterners to contemplate the actor as an object of physical (and eco-friendly!) love, that question seems eminently reasonable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:00:44 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/29/2008 6:00:44 PMRemember Adam Resurrected, the Paul Schrader-directed, Jeff Goldblum-starring film that Paul saw at Telluride which made him admit to wanting “to make out with Jeff Goldblum in the back of his Toyota Prius”? I got an invite for a press screening for the film a couple of hours ago, which I thought was weird, because the last I heard, the film didn’t have distribution. Now Mike Jones at The Circuit has posted an item that solves the mystery: it looks like Bleiberg Entertainment, the company that financed the film, have decided that rather than wait for a distributor to pick it up and miss this Oscar season, they’ll fund a qualifying run for the film in New York and LA themselves. Jones says producer Ehud Bleiberg was “unhappy with the offers he received after the pic’s Toronto fest screening,” Bleiberg himself implies that if any of those offers were promising in other respects, they didn’t include a timely release or support for an Oscar campaign. “Why would we screen the film at Telluride and Toronto and release it a year later,” he asks rhetorically. Considering that Goldblum’s performance is apparently so good that it propells heterosexual Midwesterners to contemplate the actor as an object of physical (and eco-friendly!) love, that question seems eminently reasonable. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/tadiv/archive/2008/9/5/34812.aspx Post By: tadiv
Post To: tadiv Blog
Post Date: 9/5/2008 7:20:58 PM
Body: Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures present, in association with Celador Films and Film4, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy. The picture stars Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, and Irfan Khan. At the time of this review the film runs 120 minutes and has not yet been rated by the MPAA. The content as seen in my screening would suggest an MPAA "R" rating for scenes of torture and violence. The film is in Hindi and English with English subtitles. A young man, Jamal, who grew up an orphan on the streets of Mimbai, India, gets on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire to try to contact his girlfriend. He ends up defending himself against fraud charges brought by the host of the show who thinks that there is no way a "slumdog" could know all the answers that he does. How Jamal knows each answer is shown in flashbacks from his tough, dramatic, and tragic youth. Expertly crafted, Slumdog Millionaire has crisp and fast-paced editing by Chris Dickens (Shaun of the Dead, Goal!, and Hot Fuzz) as well as wonderful shot compositions by Anthony Dod Mantle (Dogville, Millions, and The Last King of Scotland). The film includes few name actors and the young actors who play the younger versions of the three main child characters are superb – a true credit to Boyle's direction of the film. Slumdog Millionaire opens with the 18 year-old Jamal taking a beating and being interrogated about his cheating. The beating gives way to electrocution torture and forcing Jamal's head under water in a small bucket. Jamal swears he has not been cheating, so the local police inspector asks how a slumdog could know all the answers to the questions presented. There is an air of contempt in both the police station and on the television show stage as the show is replayed while the questioning continues. The Who Wants to be a Millionaire show is being replayed on tape for the questioning. As each question is asked, Jamal's memory of his life takes us on a roller coaster ride through his life and the horrors he has seen growing up on the streets without any family but his older brother and a girl his age. The three are inseparable until fate tears them apart. Character development is finely executed as we come to know Jamal, his brother, and Latika, the young girl who Jamal loves after he allows her to join he and his brother in some shelter from a monsoon-like rain storm. We also understand the perspectives of the police inspector and the game show's host. The interplay of these characters and other lesser personalities who come and go through the story fill the screen with laughter and trauma alike. Funny, gut-wrenching, and tragic, Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a boy committed to the one he loves. They have been through unimaginable things together and whether she likes it or not, Jamal is determined to rescue Latika from her difficult situation. I have heard some complain about the ending of the story. Can you predict what is going to happen? Maybe, but in my mind's eye, the end was a very satisfying way to close this story of an unimaginably horrid childhood. Slumdog Millionaire was, in my opinion, the best of the fifteen features I saw in Telluride this Labor Day Weekend. Addendum: No doubt someone will ask, so here is a list of the 15 features I saw this year in Telluride: The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, Kisses, Waltz with Bashir, Hunger, Adam Resurrected, Firaaq, A Frozen Dream, Flame & Citron, The Italian Straw Hat, American Violet, Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love, Philanthropy, Pirate for the Sea, Flash of Genious, and Slumdog Millionaire.
]]>Fri, 05 Sep 2008 23:20:58 GMTtadivtadiv Blog9/5/2008 7:20:58 PMFox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures present, in association with Celador Films and Film4, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy. The picture stars Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, and Irfan Khan. At the time of this review the film runs 120 minutes and has not yet been rated by the MPAA. The content as seen in my screening would suggest an MPAA "R" rating for scenes of torture and violence. The film is in Hindi and English with English subtitles. A young man, Jamal, who grew up an orphan on the streets of Mimbai, India, gets on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire to try to contact his girlfriend. He ends up defending himself against fraud charges brought by the host of the show who thinks that there is no way a "slumdog" could know all the answers that he does. How Jamal knows each answer is shown in flashbacks from his tough, dramatic, and tragic youth. Expertly crafted, Slumdog Millionaire has crisp and fast-paced editing by Chris Dickens (Shaun of the Dead, Goal!, and Hot Fuzz) as well as wonderful shot compositions by Anthony Dod Mantle (Dogville, Millions, and The Last King of Scotland). The film includes few name actors and the young actors who play the younger versions of the three main child characters are superb – a true credit to Boyle's direction of the film. Slumdog Millionaire opens with the 18 year-old Jamal taking a beating and being interrogated about his cheating. The beating gives way to electrocution torture and forcing Jamal's head under water in a small bucket. Jamal swears he has not been cheating, so the local police inspector asks how a slumdog could know all the answers to the questions presented. There is an air of contempt in both the police station and on the television show stage as the show is replayed while the questioning continues. The Who Wants to be a Millionaire show is being replayed on tape for the questioning. As each question is asked, Jamal's memory of his life takes us on a roller coaster ride through his life and the horrors he has seen growing up on the streets without any family but his older brother and a girl his age. The three are inseparable until fate tears them apart. Character development is finely executed as we come to know Jamal, his brother, and Latika, the young girl who Jamal loves after he allows her to join he and his brother in some shelter from a monsoon-like rain storm. We also understand the perspectives of the police inspector and the game show's host. The interplay of these characters and other lesser personalities who come and go through the story fill the screen with laughter and trauma alike. Funny, gut-wrenching, and tragic, Slumdog Millionaire is the story of a boy committed to the one he loves. They have been through unimaginable things together and whether she likes it or not, Jamal is determined to rescue Latika from her difficult situation. I have heard some complain about the ending of the story. Can you predict what is going to happen? Maybe, but in my mind's eye, the end was a very satisfying way to close this story of an unimaginably horrid childhood. Slumdog Millionaire was, in my opinion, the best of the fifteen features I saw in Telluride this Labor Day Weekend. Addendum: No doubt someone will ask, so here is a list of the 15 features I saw this year in Telluride: The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, Kisses, Waltz with Bashir, Hunger, Adam Resurrected, Firaaq, A Frozen Dream, Flame & Citron, The Italian Straw Hat, American Violet, Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love, Philanthropy, Pirate for the Sea, Flash of Genious, and Slumdog Millionaire. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/5/34782.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/5/2008 9:00:59 AM
Body: The Telluride Film Festival is what Sundance would be if it took place in heaven. Every year the tiny mountain hamlet hosts four days of hassle-free cinema paradise. There were grumblings about the lack of American films, but we still found plenty to love. Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake) came with his delightful new movie, Happy-Go-Lucky. He sat down for a disgruntled yet insightful interview. Paul Schrader (Affliction, Hardcore) seemed as blow away as we were by his latest film, Adam Resurrected, starring Jeff Goldblum. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro, Telluride faves: Waltz with Bashir, Revanche, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, Tulpan, The Rest is Silence. 7:04 - Happy-Go-Lucky, with Mike Leigh interview. 19:52 - Adam Resurrected, with Paul Schrader interview. filmcouch-86 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:00:59 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/5/2008 9:00:59 AM The Telluride Film Festival is what Sundance would be if it took place in heaven. Every year the tiny mountain hamlet hosts four days of hassle-free cinema paradise. There were grumblings about the lack of American films, but we still found plenty to love. Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake) came with his delightful new movie, Happy-Go-Lucky. He sat down for a disgruntled yet insightful interview. Paul Schrader (Affliction, Hardcore) seemed as blow away as we were by his latest film, Adam Resurrected, starring Jeff Goldblum. (Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday) 0:00 - Intro, Telluride faves: Waltz with Bashir, Revanche, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, Tulpan, The Rest is Silence. 7:04 - Happy-Go-Lucky, with Mike Leigh interview. 19:52 - Adam Resurrected, with Paul Schrader interview. filmcouch-86 Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/9/4/34736.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 9/4/2008 11:01:27 AM
Body: Prodigal Sons review The Curious Case of Benjamin Button preview (and backlash) Waltz with Bashir review Jeff Goldblum, Media Diet interview Helen review Tulpan review O’Horten review Learning Gravity review Ken Burns, Media Diet interview You Must Remember This: The Warner Brothers Story and tribute to Richard Schickel ‘Movies Are Over.’ Directors, Distribs & Journos Debate Future of Film & Criticism Hunger, Steve McQueen interview Slavoj Zizek and Nazi melodrama Telluride 2008 photos Slumdog Millionaire review Adam Resurrected, Paul Schrader interview Firaaq review The Rest is Silence review I’ve Loved You So Long review The Good, The Bad and the Weird interview with Kim Ji-Woon Revanche review Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:01:27 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog9/4/2008 11:01:27 AM Prodigal Sons review The Curious Case of Benjamin Button preview (and backlash) Waltz with Bashir review Jeff Goldblum, Media Diet interview Helen review Tulpan review O’Horten review Learning Gravity review Ken Burns, Media Diet interview You Must Remember This: The Warner Brothers Story and tribute to Richard Schickel ‘Movies Are Over.’ Directors, Distribs & Journos Debate Future of Film & Criticism Hunger, Steve McQueen interview Slavoj Zizek and Nazi melodrama Telluride 2008 photos Slumdog Millionaire review Adam Resurrected, Paul Schrader interview Firaaq review The Rest is Silence review I’ve Loved You So Long review The Good, The Bad and the Weird interview with Kim Ji-Woon Revanche review Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/4/34735.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/4/2008 11:01:18 AM
Body: Prodigal Sons review The Curious Case of Benjamin Button preview (and backlash) Waltz with Bashir review Jeff Goldblum, Media Diet interview Helen review Tulpan review O’Horten review Learning Gravity review Ken Burns, Media Diet interview You Must Remember This: The Warner Brothers Story and tribute to Richard Schickel ‘Movies Are Over.’ Directors, Distribs & Journos Debate Future of Film & Criticism Hunger, Steve McQueen interview Slavoj Zizek and Nazi melodrama Telluride 2008 photos Slumdog Millionaire review Adam Resurrected, Paul Schrader interview Firaaq review The Rest is Silence review I’ve Loved You So Long review The Good, The Bad and the Weird interview with Kim Ji-Woon Revanche review Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:01:18 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/4/2008 11:01:18 AM Prodigal Sons review The Curious Case of Benjamin Button preview (and backlash) Waltz with Bashir review Jeff Goldblum, Media Diet interview Helen review Tulpan review O’Horten review Learning Gravity review Ken Burns, Media Diet interview You Must Remember This: The Warner Brothers Story and tribute to Richard Schickel ‘Movies Are Over.’ Directors, Distribs & Journos Debate Future of Film & Criticism Hunger, Steve McQueen interview Slavoj Zizek and Nazi melodrama Telluride 2008 photos Slumdog Millionaire review Adam Resurrected, Paul Schrader interview Firaaq review The Rest is Silence review I’ve Loved You So Long review The Good, The Bad and the Weird interview with Kim Ji-Woon Revanche review Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/2/34640.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 9/2/2008 10:01:36 AM
Body: (Complete interview with Paul Schrader available here.) Adam Resurrected is the new movie by Paul Schrader (Affliction, Auto-Focus) premiering here at Telluride 2008. I was at the first screening which was also the first time Schrader ever watched the movie with an audience. “I realized watching it how exhausting it is, ” he told me right after the screening, “And it’s full of extremes. Literally, that old saying ‘you don’t know whether to laugh or cry’ is true here, and some scenes I think either emotion is fine with me.” It’s in the navigation of extremes that my crush on Jeff Goldblum, who plays the title character, was born. I’m not one to get into Oscar buzz, but I will with Jeff and even add easily excerpted blurbs: Jeff Goldblum is magnificent. Jeff Godlblum’s peformance is a tour de force. I want to make out with Jeff Goldblum in the back of his Toyota Prius. Like how Daniel Day-Lewis’ character, Daniel Plainview (There Will be Blood), would have seemed flat or absurd in another actor’s hands, Jeff Goldblum’s wry delivery and velvet wit take the absurdity of Adam Stein and make him believable. Based on the wildly imaginative novel by Yoram Kaniuk, Adam Resurrected begins in 1961 in Tel Aviv where an aging, witty and debonair Adam Stein has gotten a little too rough with his landlord/girlfriend and she has him committed again to the Seizling Institute out in the Negev desert. Founded by an American philanthropist, the institute is an asylum for concentration camp survivors living in Israel. It’s purpose is to somehow restore a reason to care about humanity and god when they carry the weight of being survivors to unspeakable horrors perpetrated on everyone they loved. Each patient is a walking abstraction of a type of survivor: A speechless woman carrying a babydoll, a young man who was a Nazi servant, a man who couldn’t protect his daughter. Adam Stein is a susperstar in the asylum. The head nurse (Ayelet Zurer) is his mistress, Dr. Gross (Derek Jacobi) his biggest fan. A famous performer in Berlin, Adam was a one man circus who could throw knives, read minds, play violin, do magic, impersonate animals and, strangely, cause himself to bleed on command. Through flashbacks, we see his rise from a Cabaret performer in 1924 to a celebrity in 1936. One night as he works the audience, he reads the mind of an unstable audience member–played by Willem Dafoe–and makes him the butt of a joke. In 1945 when Adam and his family enter a concentration camp, Willem Dafoe has become Commandant Klein, head of the camp. He belittles Adam by getting him to impersonate a dog and charm his German Shepherd. From that night on, Adam literally becomes the Commandant’s pet: A dog whose a man. At the asylum, he finds what he thinks to be a dog. As if lifted from some horrific parallel dimension, the dog is a boy brought to the asylum. If Adam can turn this dog into a boy again, then maybe he can put away his past as a dog, as the commandant’s pet who survived the camp where his wife and daughters were brutalized. When I asked Paul Schrader what sparked his interest i the book he said, “Just the strength of the metaphor: The man who once was a dog who meets a dog who once was a boy. I’m not jewish, I’m not as invested as some others in issues of survival guilt and Jewish identity, but that aside, these are really universal themes.” It is universal. Dense with emotion and humor, Adam Resurrected is about the complicated path back from being treated as a dog, a non-human, to becoming a full person again. It’s a powerful metaphor that could have crushed another actor, but it’s the part Jeff Goldblum has been building up to his entire career. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:01:36 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/2/2008 10:01:36 AM(Complete interview with Paul Schrader available here.) Adam Resurrected is the new movie by Paul Schrader (Affliction, Auto-Focus) premiering here at Telluride 2008. I was at the first screening which was also the first time Schrader ever watched the movie with an audience. “I realized watching it how exhausting it is, ” he told me right after the screening, “And it’s full of extremes. Literally, that old saying ‘you don’t know whether to laugh or cry’ is true here, and some scenes I think either emotion is fine with me.” It’s in the navigation of extremes that my crush on Jeff Goldblum, who plays the title character, was born. I’m not one to get into Oscar buzz, but I will with Jeff and even add easily excerpted blurbs: Jeff Goldblum is magnificent. Jeff Godlblum’s peformance is a tour de force. I want to make out with Jeff Goldblum in the back of his Toyota Prius. Like how Daniel Day-Lewis’ character, Daniel Plainview (There Will be Blood), would have seemed flat or absurd in another actor’s hands, Jeff Goldblum’s wry delivery and velvet wit take the absurdity of Adam Stein and make him believable. Based on the wildly imaginative novel by Yoram Kaniuk, Adam Resurrected begins in 1961 in Tel Aviv where an aging, witty and debonair Adam Stein has gotten a little too rough with his landlord/girlfriend and she has him committed again to the Seizling Institute out in the Negev desert. Founded by an American philanthropist, the institute is an asylum for concentration camp survivors living in Israel. It’s purpose is to somehow restore a reason to care about humanity and god when they carry the weight of being survivors to unspeakable horrors perpetrated on everyone they loved. Each patient is a walking abstraction of a type of survivor: A speechless woman carrying a babydoll, a young man who was a Nazi servant, a man who couldn’t protect his daughter. Adam Stein is a susperstar in the asylum. The head nurse (Ayelet Zurer) is his mistress, Dr. Gross (Derek Jacobi) his biggest fan. A famous performer in Berlin, Adam was a one man circus who could throw knives, read minds, play violin, do magic, impersonate animals and, strangely, cause himself to bleed on command. Through flashbacks, we see his rise from a Cabaret performer in 1924 to a celebrity in 1936. One night as he works the audience, he reads the mind of an unstable audience member–played by Willem Dafoe–and makes him the butt of a joke. In 1945 when Adam and his family enter a concentration camp, Willem Dafoe has become Commandant Klein, head of the camp. He belittles Adam by getting him to impersonate a dog and charm his German Shepherd. From that night on, Adam literally becomes the Commandant’s pet: A dog whose a man. At the asylum, he finds what he thinks to be a dog. As if lifted from some horrific parallel dimension, the dog is a boy brought to the asylum. If Adam can turn this dog into a boy again, then maybe he can put away his past as a dog, as the commandant’s pet who survived the camp where his wife and daughters were brutalized. When I asked Paul Schrader what sparked his interest i the book he said, “Just the strength of the metaphor: The man who once was a dog who meets a dog who once was a boy. I’m not jewish, I’m not as invested as some others in issues of survival guilt and Jewish identity, but that aside, these are really universal themes.” It is universal. Dense with emotion and humor, Adam Resurrected is about the complicated path back from being treated as a dog, a non-human, to becoming a full person again. It’s a powerful metaphor that could have crushed another actor, but it’s the part Jeff Goldblum has been building up to his entire career. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/dog/MemberTagFilms.aspxdog
Number of films tagged: 1373

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]]>Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:02:27 GMT14200Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/circusperformer/MemberTagFilms.aspxcircusperformer
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