Cinema Hype

I can hear it now: “If you see one black-and-white hand-animated film about Iran in the 1980s this year, make it Persepolis!”

What? Too on the nose?

Frankly, there are more than a few elements—key elements—to Persepolis that threaten to make it unpopular with the Friday-night blockbuster crowd. Animated, but made for adults? Check. War in the Middle East? Check. In French, with subtitles? Cheque. Based on a popular graphic novel? Check, check, check, check (one for each volume). It went up against Pixar’s Ratatouille at the Oscars—its opposite in every way, though also a good movie—and lost. So. Are you convinced yet?

The thing is, the mass of complications here doesn’t add up to an obscure or exclusive movie at all. Don’t speak French? If you can read English, you’re fine. Haven’t heard of the Islamic Revolution? You’re in luck; neither has the ten-year-old heroine! Think you’re over animated features? Enjoy the distinctive look of Marjane Satrapi’s art, and go from there. What we have here is a coming-of-age story, something that transcends culture: a girl who covers her hair because she has to, but sneaks downtown to buy Michael Jackson records, a girl who flees her home country because it’s necessary, but finds that political freedom only leaves her lonely. It’s interesting as a historical piece, but mostly it’s funny and sad, artistically fanciful and thematically realistic. It’s sweet and quirky, but never cutesy. In short, it’s a really, really good movie.

Don’t be nervous. Try it! You’ll like it!

Yep…those were the Oscars. Not to wish for the “ooh, heads are going to roll for that one” moments, or anything, but couldn’t Christine Lahti have, I don’t know, gotten stuck in the bathroom? Cher in a dominatrix costume? Dead-swan dress? Anything? This was a year of genuinely good movies and, apparently, even better behavior: not a glitch, not an embarrassing outfit, not a naked person in sight. Just Jon Stewart and his Gaydolf Titler joke.

If you didn’t actually feel like sitting through the three-and-a-half-hour ceremony, there were a few minor upsets, and by “upsets” I mean “circumstances in which CH’s predicted nominee did not win”: Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton, for example, and No Country for Old Men’s victory over There Will Be Blood, which was beginning to win prediction pools the way Barack Obama wins primaries. In the Best Song category–which actually, for once, featured songs that one might call best–Irish musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova gave the best acceptance-speech moment of the evening by being beside themselves with excitement and general adorability. Exactly how cute were they? Stewart invited Irglova back out to finish her speech when it was cut off by the music. You might say you’ve captured the heart of America when a man who gets paid to make fun of people tells the music to lay off and let you talk.

Other than that, though…the men wore black, with no lapel notches; the women wore column dresses with flowy hems; the Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor (no crazy Forest Whitaker action this year. What is this, the People’s Choice Awards?). Stewart made the best of a sketchy situation. All was as it should have been, probably.

Now. What’s next?

Oscars, Academy Awards, Tilda Swinton, Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Day Lewis, Jon Stewart, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men

You know, in a tux? Jon Stewart looks downright tall.

Ah, the magic of film.

Oscars, Jon Stewart, Academy Awards

Today’s the day! It’s the Super Bowl of the cinematic year, that day upon which millions of Americans wake up with just a snatch of a song in their ears: the “Hollywood” song that nobody really knows the words to (”HOLL-ywood! La la la la la la la HOLL-ywood!” Just me? Really?). It is, finally, the awards show that we all love to watch and then pretend we don’t love to watch. And we at CH are READY. Bring it, Jon Stewart, with your snarkiness and your “Wow, I’m doing this again?” attitude.

We covered the actor/actress categories earlier, but far be it from CH staff to shirk our duties and leave the behind-the-scenes categories out. And so, our picks for Best Picture and other miscellaney:

Best Picture

Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Who we like: Atonement (….Surprise!)
Who will probably win: Some years, Atonement or No Country For Old Men would take this field without a hiccup. But there’s no betting against There Will Be Blood.

Best Animated Feature Film

Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up

Who we like: Persepolis, for being unlike anything else, ever.
Who will probably win: Ratatouille, for being all-around lovely. Really.

Best Directing

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Who we like: We *heart* the Coen brothers! (No Country for Old Men)
We will probably win: If anybody can beat Blood, it’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

That’s it. See you all after the red carpet!

Oscars, Academy Awards

Doesn’t it seem suitable that the Academy Awards are always on a Sunday? After all, this isn’t the Grammys, settling for any old weeknight broadcast; Oscar Sunday is like a high holy day of the cinematic year, complete with decorations, little gold statues, and special clothes. With the writers’ strike over, this year’s ceremony feels a little extra fancy, a little more exciting—not necessarily because the nominees are especially surprising or especially deserving (though maybe they are; there were some pretty good movies out in 2007), but because it’s happening at all.

Here at CHHQ, since we won’t actually be on the red carpet (clearly an oversight, but whatever; we’re forgiving) we’re just looking forward to the chance to put our feet up, eat some Cheetos, and pretend to critique the year’s best films (with righteous indignation as appropriate) while actually critiquing the clothes on our favorite celebrities. Sue us, okay? We’re only human. And it’s not like we haven’t given some thought to the nominees. This year, we’re splitting our prediction post into sections: people now; movies later. Here are the official CH bets for Sunday’s ceremony:

Best Actor in a Leading Role

George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

Who we like: Let’s go with…Mortensen, for being a bit of a dark horse and for offering an excellent performance. Naked.
Who will probably win: Day-Lewis, with that intense-eye thing he does. Whatever. We’re still in a fight after Gangs of New York.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Cate Blanchett
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

Who we like: Marion Cotillard
Who will probably win: This is a tough one. Normally I’d go with Blanchett, but I think voters will save her for her other nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category. Linney and Christie don’t seem likely. Which leaves Cotillard and Page; Page might sneak in a win if the voters are feeling their indie oats, but otherwise it’s probably going to be Cotillard.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

Who we like: Casey Affleck, because he has potential and because we love the title of his movie.
Who will probably win: Rough crowd, man. A vote against Hoffman seems risky, but we’re going to say Bardem.

Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett, I’m Not There.
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

Who we like: Saoirse Ronan, for being the perfect caught-up, guilty, oblivious Briony Tallis.
Who will probably win: Blanchett, because she’s there.

Coming soon: Thoughts and predictions on the non-casting categories! Keep your eyes peeled. (Ew.)

Academy Awards, Oscars, Oscar nominees

It’s hard to say anything really bad, these days, about a romantic comedy that tries to do something different. This is a genre built on an established structure, for sure, but sometimes what hangs on that structure is decidedly lacking: boring, not funny, not romantic, utterly nonsensical (i.e. Wimbledon, which was—surprise!—written also written by Adam Brooks). Anybody who’s willing to take a good hard look at romantic comedy, put some thought into it, and come out with a decent script should be commended. Definitely, Maybe is a romantic comedy that tries to bend the rules and makes it work…sort of. It acknowledges and promptly dispenses with a few conventions; it brings the genre closer to what actual people might experience; it also fails to leave much of an impression. Basically, it’s better than it looks and not as good as it could have been.

The facts (as we know them) are these: after a sex-ed class at school, a young girl named Maya (the lovely and talented Abigail Breslin) demands to know how her soon-to-be-divorced parents met. The girl’s father, Will (Ryan Reynolds), agrees to tell her the story, but won’t tell her which of his three previous girlfriends ends up being the woman she knows as her mother—if she’s so smart, he says, she can figure it out on her own. Most of the movie takes place in flashbacks as Will’s love life unfolds, bouncing back and forth between the three women, with the Clinton administration (and the rest of the 90s) as a surprisingly interesting backdrop. Who is Maya’s mother? And how can the movie have a happy ending when we already know that the romance doesn’t? These are things that both Maya and the audience have to sit tight to find out.

The best thing about Definitely, Maybe is the way it acts out its own thesis. Love is messy and complicated, the movie tells us, and even the story of love is full of meanderings, criss-crosses, and u-turns. Here there are not one, but three convincing love interests, who come and go and loop around again, a little differently each time. There are flashbacks, pauses, rewinds and fast-forwards, clues and red herrings, places where romantic-comedy tradition holds and places where it breaks down completely. There’s a lot going on, and it’s not always organized quite like you’d think. It’s refreshing to see a romantic comedy with so much going on and so much willingness to be a little ungainly. The downside here, of course, is inherent: a messy, complicated movie about love may be truthful, but it’s still a messy, complicated movie.

Definitely, Maybe succeeds mostly in showing the ebb and flow of life and love over a period of time, the unexpected turns and the ways people and their needs and desires change. It’s a patient movie that, because of the mystery element, promises a payoff to those willing to stick around, and the ending doesn’t disappoint. On the other hand, it’s a tad frustrating: as true as the major themes are, and as convincingly as it plays out, there’s not much in this movie that pops. It’s not particularly funny; the dialogue meanders; as a main character, Will is just the tiniest bit bland. And maybe that’s the way it has to be. Maybe, in writer/director Adam Brooks’s world, snappy dialogue and smarter humor would undermine the complexity and chaotic feel of the movie—but probably not. It seems like a little punch-up might make this from a pretty good movie to a really good movie.

Definitely Maybe, Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, movie reviews, romantic comedies, romantic comedy

Well, that’s over. The day of—depending who you ask—love and affection or chocolate and bitterness has come and gone, for better or for worse. And we at CH escaped with barely a scratch: a cupcake here, a card from mom there, a few friends over for the evening. But movies? In the movies, it’s always the day of love. So much romance! Someone’s always falling in love, always rubbing it in, whether it’s the utterly satisfying to a subtle and well-crafted love story or two siblings who just don’t know which way is up. And so, since we are nothing if not dutiful about exploring cinema (and the hype surrounding said cinema), we’d like to present the good, the bad, and the ugly of movie romance.

Best Movie Kisses, Guaranteed, No Really:

1. Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth, Bridget Jones’s Diary
I stand firm on this, the Platonic (but clearly not platonic) movie kiss. So perfect.

2. Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher, The Empire Strikes Back
He’s a scoundrel and she’s Her Worshipfulness, but they’re in looooove.

3. Robin Wright (Penn?) and Cary Elwes, The Princess Bride
“Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. The End.”

4. Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, Pirates of the Caribbean
This one’s really a double nominee: How cute are they at the end of Curse of the Black Pearl, when they’re all young and innocent and running on the adrenaline of screwing the Man? But then there’s the swordfight/wedding kiss in At World’s End, and clearly we can’t leave that out. What’s a girl to do but include them both?

5. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, When Harry Met Sally
One of the finest romantic comedies ever written, easy. Also one of the best kisses? You decide.

PDA That Could Have Been a Little Less P:

1. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, Spider-Man
It’s like she’s kissing Ziggy.

2. Jon Heder and Jenna Fischer, Blades of Glory
Bad on purpose, and totally effective. Heh.

3. Zach Braff and Natalie Portman, Garden State
We at CH love a good sappy kiss, but this…this will make your blood turn to syrup. In a bad way. With the garbage bags, and the little hug? Ugh.

4. Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Bradford, Bring It On
It’s hard to articulate why this one’s so off-putting, but trust us. Is the Kirsten Dunst theme indicative of anything, we wonder?

5. Mark Hamill and Princess Leia, The Empire Strikes Back
They know not what they do. But we know, and that’s enough.

Happy February 15, Day of Leftover Chocolate, everyone.

Valentine’s Day, movies, romance movies, kisses, movie kisses

Dear writers,

Congratulations. Congratulations on toughing it out: fourteen weeks of walking in circles, of explaining over and over why not getting paid for your work isn’t really fair, of diminishing public sympathy and growing public impatience, of awkward awards “ceremonies” with Queen Latifah and an empty sound stage, of cold and rain and bizarre physical assault. You did it! You stood up, you shouted yourselves hoarse, and you got what you wanted. I hope you’re all celebrating; you deserve it.

But you weren’t just out there marching for yourselves; you set a precedent. It seems this series of tubes might actually make some money, and someday, the WGAF (Writers’ Guild of America, Future) will owe you folks big time. And that’s why this isn’t just a letter of congratulations; it’s a thank-you note. Thank you for your forethought, for your class in responding to the situation, for your willingness to buckle down and wait. Those of us at home can’t really put a finger on how difficult it must have been to be without paid work this winter—surely not as hard as being without new TV, right?—but to future generations of writers, what you’ve done is nothing short of heroic. So thank you, and we’ll see you in a few weeks.

Sincerely,

Liz
CinemaHype.com

P.S. Can we have the full 16 episodes of Lost? Please?

wga strike, writers’ strike

It’s been a long, reality-TV-ridden road, but it looks like the writing staffs that make Hollywood go are about to go back to work. The Writers’ Guild of America has tentatively accepted a deal offered by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers; if a vote on Tuesday goes well—and it seems that it will—the writers will return to work on Wednesday. The strike continues on an official basis until then.

The contract guarantees writers a flat rate of pay for content streamed online for the first two years of the contract; in the third year, the rate goes up to 2% of the revenues earned by the networks and studios.

It seems like everyone’s breathing a sigh of relief: the writers get their jobs back, everyone ese in Hollywood gets their jobs back, the producers get new content, Jon Stewart gets to have writers and actual actors present when he hosts the Oscars, and viewers have something to watch besides back-to-back episodes of The Biggest Loser. Even next year’s Oscar folks should be thanking their lucky stars: a continued writers’ strike would surely have made a dent in the crop of award-worthy movies for 2008. As it is, things should pick up quickly.

In the mean time, we’ll be here, waiting for American Gladiator to end.

writers’ strike, wga, amptp, wga strike, academy awards, oscars, jon stewart

I’m about to say something that will probably get me a virtual snowball in the face: IS IT SUMMER YET? I’m done with winter. And yes, I do live in California, and yes, it was 56 degrees and sunny-ish today, and no, I expect no sympathy from the “I live in Chicago and it’s 436 below” camp. But that doesn’t mean my toes haven’t been cold since November, and it doesn’t mean all my strappy sundresses aren’t shooting me rueful looks from the back of the closet. Are cotton sheets, bare shoulders, and long evenings too much to ask?

And so I say: CHers, let’s go on vacation. Let’s blow this popsicle stand. Who needs a popsicle in February, anyway? I need some paradise movies, and I need ‘em fast. For starters:

One Night in the Tropics: Because all you need at the are Abbott and Costello to bicker you into oblivion. Sure.

Blue Crush: For those who might occasionally look up from their beach reading. Surfing, or something.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Pirates, yadda yadda, but hey! Look at all that crystal-clear water and imperialist architecture. Start with the first one and go from there.

50 First Dates: Because we all like to go on vacation and forget everything we ever knew. Or is that just me?

You know, after reviewing all the choices, it seems like paradise movies are a bit of a trap: movies about the tropics are all about things going wrong. Paradise lost, and all. Pirates, dinosaurs, ape hunting, guys kicking sand in your picnic. Maybe we just can’t handle that much sunny goodness. Maybe we need winter to show us how good we have it. In that case, I think I’d rather know a little less.

movies, vacation movies, hawaii, the caribbean, travel movies

The U.S. primary elections aren’t a movie—not in the literal sense, anyway—but it seems to the CH staff that maybe they should be. We’ve got record voter turnout, a small field of candidates who seem like people who might actually be able to run the country, people dropping out right and left, and a big prize at the end. So maybe it’s more like The Amazing Race than anything else, but we digress. The point is: excitement! No matter which side you’re eyeing for November, things are happening in and for these fifty states.

But don’t you ever wish you could design a presidential candidate? Someone who looks like Mitt Romney, for example, without the sense that he might try to sell you a watch out of his trenchcoat? A candidate with Barack Obama’s rhetorical skills and the gravitas of General Patton? That’s the fun that casting directors get to have all the time: name an actor; make him or her President. So, readers, who would you pick?

Michael Douglas has already inhabited the fictional White House once, and the camera loves him (apparently, I’ve heard, because he has a head the size of Nevada). Bill Pullman seems a little like the John Edwards of the group—not a bad guy, but not exactly a Kennedy either—but he did give a rousing speech before heading off to alien war in Independence Day, so he can’t be all bad.

If America were looking for a movie president, who would you put on the ballot? Check out our picks:

Patrick Dempsey: Could win on hair appeal alone. We’d almost advise him to wait four years, but by Inauguration, he’ll be as old as JFK was when he took office. Fair game!
Allison Janney: If living in a country run by Allison Janney is wrong, I don’t want to be right. So smart! So funny! So tall! So electable! Plus, she already played the world’s coolest Chief of Staff.
George Clooney: Oh, like he wouldn’t win. You know you’d vote for him.
Arnold Scharzenegger: Kidding. No, really. KIDDING.

And, to close, a short PSA: If you live in one of the 24 states having primaries this Tuesday, and you’re eligible, please vote! Whatever you have to say, make your voice heard.

movie presidents, president of the united states, patrick dempsey, allison janney, george clooney, arnold schwarzenegger, barack obama, mitt romney, john edwards

Good news! According to a reputable source, the AMPTP and the Writers’ Guild of America may be close to an agreement that would end the strike that’s paralyzed Hollywood, from writers’ rooms all the way down to craft-services departments and other non-writing-related positions. The writers have been on “pencils down” since November 1.

The new contract, which is patterned after the Directors’ Guild of America contract signed a few weeks back, appears to cover the most important of the writers’ sticking points—pay for work aired over the Internet—and could be presented to the WGA for ratification as early as Friday.

Keep your eyes and ears open; your screens may be coming back to life sooner than we thought!

wga strike