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Precious Doll
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Post by Precious Doll »

I used to enjoyed Armond White's articles from Film Comment years ago and it's a real shame he still doesn't write for them. His top ten selections over the years have been more then respectable. He has included reel gems in his lists over the years and I'll take his top tens any day over those of that drone Roger Ebert.

Here are Armond's lists from 1997 to 2006

1997

01. Amistad (Steven Spielberg)
02. Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai)
03. The Delta (Ira Sachs)
04. Hamsun (Jan Troell)
05. Afterglow (Alan Rudolph)
06. Career Girls (Mike Leigh)
07. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg)
08. Nowhere (Gregg Araki)
09. Temptress Moon (Chen Kaige)
10. The Winner (Alex Cox)

1998

01. Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg)
02. Beloved (Jonathan Demme)
03. The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick)
04. The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman)
05. The Eel (Shohei Imamura)
06. Bulworth (Warren Beatty)
07. The Butcher Boy (Neil Jordan)
08. Out of Sight (Steven Spielberg)
09. Babe: Pig in the City (George Miller)
10. Shadrach (Susanna Styron)

1999

A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (Patrice Chéreau)
Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze)
Topsy-Turvy (Mike Leigh)
Election (Alexander Payne)
The End of the Affair (Neil Jordan)
Cookie's Fortune (Robert Altman)
The Dreamlife of Angels (Erick Zonca)
My Son the Fanatic (Udayan Prasad)
Three Kings (David O. Russell)

and please, sir, can I list one more:

Office Space (Mike Judge)

2000

Cinerama: Disco Volante [CD]

And then...

George Washington (David Gordon Green)
Humanité (Bruno Dumont)
Time Regained (Raul Ruiz)
The House of Mirth (Terence Davies)
Orphans (Peter Mullan)
Black and White (James Toback)
Mission to Mars (Brian De Palma)
The Little Thief (Erick Zonca)
Trixie (Alan Rudolph)
Pola X (Leos Carax)

2001

01. A.I. Artifical Intelligence (Steven Spielberg)
02. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch)
03. The Day I Became a Woman (Marzieh Meshkini)
04. Gosford Park (Robert Altman)
05. The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel Coen)
06. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai)
07. Faat Kiné (Ousmane Sembene)
08. The Adventures of Felix (Olivier Ducastel & Jacques Martineau)
09. Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
10. The Royal Tennenbaums (Wes Anderson)

2002

01. Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma)
02. Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg)
03. Time Out (Laurent Cantet)
04. Minority Report (Steven Spielberg)
05. All or Nothing (Mike Leigh)
06. Storytelling (Todd Solondz)
07. The Cat's Meow (Peter Bogdanovich)
08. The Triumph of Love (Clare Peploe)
09. 24 Hour Party People (Michael Winterbottom)
10. Songs From the Second Floor (Roy Andersson)

2003

01. Together (Chen Kaige)
02. The Son (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
03. In America (Jim Sheridan)
04. Porn Theater (Jacques Nolot)
05. The Company (Robert Altman)
06. Divine Intervention (Elia Suleiman)
07. The Good Thief (Neil Jordan)
08. Paradise: Omeros (Isaac Julien)
09. Mondays in the Sun (Fernando León de Aranoa)
10. Phone Booth (Joel Schumacher)

2004

01. Vera Drake (Mike Leigh)
02. Hero (Zhang Yinou)
03. Son Frère (Patrice Chéreau)
04. The Terminal (Steven Spielberg)
05. Deserted Station (Alireza Raisian)
06. The Manchurian Candidate (Jonathan Demme)
07. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
08. A Thousand Clouds of Peace (Julián Hernandez)
09. Mr. 3000 (Charles Stone III)
10. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson)

2005

01. Munich (Steven Spielberg)
02. War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg)
03. 2046 (Wong Kar-wai)
04. Kung Fu Hustle (Stephen Chow)
05. My Mother's Smile (Marco Bellocchio)
06. Good Morning, Night (Marco Bellocchio)
07. Nine Lives (Rodrigo Garcia)
08. Garçon stupide (Lionel Baier)
09. In My Country (John Boorman)
10. The Best of Youth (Marco Tullio Giordana)

2006

01. Broken Sky (Julián Hernández)
02. Neil Young: Heart of Gold (Jonathan Demme)
03. A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman)
04. World Trade Center (Oliver Stone)
05. Nacho Libre (Jared Hess)
06. The Promise (Chen Kaige)
07. Infamous (Douglas McGrath)
08. Akeelah and the Bee (Doug Atchison)
09. Bobby (Emilio Estevez)
10. Runnng Scared (Wayne Kramer)
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
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Post by Big Magilla »

Has White had a brain scan lately? He sounds like someone with a rapidly advancing brain tumor.

Here's the 2010 ten best list of the African-American critic White apparently regards with the same low regard as Schwartzbaum and Hoberman.

By Dwight Brown Film Critic NNPA

In 2010, high-quality movies abounded, though there was a noticeable dearth of black themed-movies -- except for Tyler Perry films. Still, great African-American actors found high caliber product in which they could display their talent. The top 10 movies listed are the tip of the iceberg. Check them out on the big screen, on DVD or VOD.

Brooklyn's Finest (***1/2) Director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) and screenwriter/ex-NYC cop Michael C. Martin propelled this character-driven dirty cop story into the rarified realm of top police dramas like Serpico, The French Connection, Prince of the City and Narc. Credit the seedy characters, biting dialogue ("How much longer you gonna be dodging bullets out here in the street?") and a twisted storyline for the foundation. Kudos to Fuqua for his interpretation of this grimy, corrupt urban collage. Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and the chameleon actor Don Cheadle shine as wayward cops, strangers in the fast lane to hell until they meet during a drug bust one fated night.

Carlos (****) The real-life character and very treacherous Carlos the Jackal, an enigmatic international 1970s terrorist, binds this TV mini-series, which hit the theaters as a five-hour film. Thespian extraordinaire Edgar RamÌrez turns the Venezuelan revolutionary, who wreaked havoc all over the globe, into a diabolical antagonist. Carlos had so much swagger he even raided a 1975 OPEC meeting with his band of terrorists -- and managed to escape. French screenwriter Dan Franck and director Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours) have sculpted a seminal international crime-thriller classic. A long fascinating film that whizzes by like a bullet.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (***1/2) This twisted whodunit features a petite, pansexual Goth-looking protagonist (portrayed by Noomi Rapace in the most challenging female role of the year), in an epic Swedish thriller trilogy (The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Knew Too Much complete the set). Toss in murder, rape, torture, seduction and a straight arrow journalist (Michael Nyqvist) who's investigating the disappearance of a woman lost 40 years ago; his prime source is the Goth hacker who brings out the sexy beast in him.

Inception (***1/2) Writer/director Christopher Nolan is responsible for the best action movie ever, Batman's The Dark Night. He's also the culprit who created the most twisted mind-blowing film, Memento. The best of both pictures permeates this dream-stealer movie that foils reality and defies imagination. The special effects in this film could only be conceived by Nolan, a visionary. He's also given former teen stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun) their best adult roles. This sci-fi thriller grossed almost $300 million at the U.S. box office - and no wonder.

The Kids Are All Right (***1/2) These days, a female couple (Annette Bening, Julianne More) with two kids is not so unusual. When the offspring look for their sperm-donor father (Mark Ruffalo), who is welcomed into their home - and one of the wive's bed - what is au courant turns into unique family dynamics that would even puzzle Dr. Phil. As far-fetched as the basic storyline might feel, the very personal - Oscar-worthy - performances by Bening, Moore and Ruffalo make this family unit seem organic. Director/writer Lisa Cholodenko proceeds without alarm and with a sensibility that is lacking in most family dramas.

The King's Speech (****) The British are known for being stodgy and emotionless. Hence this chronicling of the life of King George VI of Britain (Colin Firth), his wobbly ascension to the throne and the speech therapist (George Rush) who helped the royal stutterer find his voice, is so refreshing. The relationship between the shy blue blood and gregarious, unconventional therapist is emotionally rewarding. Tom Hooper directs from a script by an ex-stutterer named David Seidler, a 70ish screenwriter who couldn't get his career off the ground until he struck gold with this superb, historical drama.

Mother and Child (***1/2) A bitter middle-aged nurse who gave up a baby, a heartless young female executive, and a woman hungry to adopt are on a precarious course, falling towards each other. If they ever meet, it will be a revelation. Annette Bening, Naomi Watts, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Jimmy Smitts turn in the best ensemble performance of the year. Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives) wrote and directed this ode to womanhood with the intelligence and evenhandedness that was so lacking in Tyler Perry's For Colored Girls.

The Town (***1/2) Once a casualty of Page Six and other gossip columns, Oscar-winning screenwriter Ben Affleck has thrown away his celebrity crutches and become an astute filmmaker. This shoot 'em up follows a group of robbers who have never seen a bank in Charlestown, Boston they didn't want to raid. Affleck and Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) lead the thieves. Rebecca Hall, as a bank manager who unwittingly falls for Affleck, and Blake Lively, as the jilted girlfriend, add stellar performances. A very tense crime/thriller/drama.

True Grit (***1/2) Two eccentric, talented filmmakers, Joel & Ethan Cohen (Fargo, Brother Where Art Thou), adapt and update the classic western True Grit and turn it into a complete, sardonic romp. Jeff Bridges, as drunken U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn, mangles his western drawl as he spits insults at an uppity Texas Ranger (Matt Damon). They both are after a murderer; Bridges at the behest of the victim's precocious 14-year-old daughter (Hailee Steinfeld), and the Ranger for the glory. Yes this 2010 film, drawn from a feisty 1968 novel turned 1969 movie does not veer far from the original(s). So what! The Cohen Brothers tangy, evil humorous dialogue and devilish direction still cut a wide swath.

Waiting For Superman (***) Shamelessly, America has made education less important than endless wars, tax cuts, Dancing With the Stars and bear hunting in Alaska. The keys to a bright future are children, and educating them and preparing them for tomorrow should be a priority. The controversy over public schools versus charter schools is well examined in this thoughtful, revealing documentary that traces the steps of kids who are denied the best education for all the wrong reasons. Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) takes America's complacent educational system to task.

Good Films Hanging Off the Top Ten: Ghostwriter, Toy Story 3, Harry Brown, Shutter Island, Mercy, Centurion, All Good Things, La Mission, Barney's Vision, Mao's Last Dance, Animal Kingdom, Red Hill, Blue Valentine, Ghostwriter, Dryland, The Company Men, Nowhere Man, Expendables, Unstoppable, Fair Game, Let Me In, The Fighter, Jackass 3-D, The Tillman Story, Biutiful, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Exit Through The Gift Shop, Get Low, Death At a Funeral, Shutter Island, Winter's Bone, Mesrine: Killer Instinct, Mesrine: Public Enemy #1.

Disappointing Films That Couldn't Find A Groove or Were Just Plain Awful!: Why Did I Get Married Too?, Book of Eli, Repo Man, Knucklehead, I Am Love, Tooth Fairy, Dear John, Cop Out, Get Him to the Greek, Due Date, Love Ranch, Scott Pilgrim, Machete, For Colored Girls, The Book of Eli, Black Swan, MacGruber, Sex and the City 2, Lottery Ticket.
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Post by Okri »

Tee, Hoberman's response
One would have to be as nutty as outgoing New York Film Critics Circle chairman and New York Press film critic Armond White to attempt to refute his lies, exaggerations, fantasies, smears and false assumptions point by point -- especially since he tends to project his own intentions onto his "enemies." It's kind of hilarious that White sees any attack on him as an attack on all film critics, especially since he's forever scolding his colleagues for their "disgraceful" behavior or characterizing them as "backward children" or worse. In my case, he assumes that I'm jealous of his influence, then spends an undue amount of time ranting about my secret network of former students or research assistants.

My posting one of White's reviews online in order to debunk the urban myth that said review (with its suggestion that Noah Baumbach's mother, former Voice film critic Georgia Brown, should have gotten a "retroactive abortion") was an urban myth was so embarrassing to him (he had only just told Page Six that he took "no responsibility" for the review), that he responded with a hysterical feature-length ad hominem attack that his newspaper saw fit to run as a cover story -- imagine, as I wrote at the time, if I had written something about him, rather than posting something he wrote! This week White devotes his New York Press column to attacking the various blog accounts of his embarrassing shenanigans at last week's NYFCC awards -- see Gawker, Entertainment Weekly, and New York's Vulture -- and, of course, holding me responsible. (Not that I wrote anything.)

It is true that, as disclosed in the Gawker post, the author is married to Village Voice film editor. But it's not true that I planted the story. Having already heard reports of White's antics, John Cook called me to get White's email address. We chatted briefly about the event -- I had no opinion regarding Annette Bening's alleged tears. (The chairman had consigned me, along with several other members of the NYFCC he regards as enemies, to the worst seats in the house.) What I did tell him was that White was a notably ungracious host in that he could not help but make his own opinion of the awards evident -- not only with words but gestures. (In a feat of breathtaking rudeness on the evening of the 2009 awards, he contrived that no one would accept Mo'nique's award for Best Supporting Actress -- it just sat there unclaimed.) So much for White's respect for his colleagues' opinions.

I further noted that as White lacks a sense of humor, his attempt to banter with Darren Aronofsky fell flat -- the guy is no Don Rickles. As of this week, he's also no longer NYFCC chairman -- so we'll be spared another such self-aggrandizing performance, at least for a few years. Incidentally, it's a measure of White's self-importance, solipsism and indifference to facts that he describes himself as the only African-American chairman of the NYFCC, something that I'm sure that will come as news to longtime NYFCC member and former chairman Dwight Brown.

UPDATE: Regarding the unique aspect of his chairmanship, White wrote "The Schwarzbaum and Hoberman duo are so consumed with envy and anger regarding my third tenure as the NYFCC Chairman (the only African American to ever do so) that they broke solidarity with the organization through their public hostility." I assumed that he was talking about the position; if he meant to say that he was the NYFCC's only three-time African-American chairman, I apologize for my misconstruction.


He's basically the Glenn Beck of film criticism.




Edited By Okri on 1295548248
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Post by Greg »

dws1982 wrote:Tellingly, the film (The Social Network) remains unsupported by public enthusiasm.

Well, it has made $95 million in domestic ticket sales and over $200 million worldwide; and, that does not count DVD revenue.
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Post by Mister Tee »

The introduction of Kushner, presumably accurately quoted here, was clearly distorted by paraphrase in the reporting (the way Al Gore's statements were in 2000). White has a clear complaint here. And few of us would disagree with his overall "the state of criticism is lousy and too influenced by big money" thesis.

But he steps over those legitimate points and goes Sarah Palin on us -- lashing out vindictively and personally at anyone who doesn't share his world-view in toto (they're "naive" and "gullible"), presuming anyone who doesn't share his taste must be corrupt, and finally reveling in his own victimhood as the only remaining truth-teller. By the time I got to the end, I was thinking, What an asshole.

And, okay, it's a long while since I read the Voice, but...Hoberman? He was always a guy whose ten best list could be counted on to feature at least 7 movies of which I'd never heard. How does he end up lumped together with Lisa Schwarzbaum?
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Post by dws1982 »

Armond White speaks out about the New York Film Critics Circle Awards incident. Or, according to him, the non-incident.

On one hand, his digs at Lisa Schwarzbaum are pretty mean, and below-the-belt, even if he is right about her, critics like her, and the whole Entertainment Weekly approach to film criticism that we see today. And I don't see any foundation at all for his charges of racism.

On the other hand, considering that Schwarzbaum and others totally misreported his introduction of Tony Kushner to make it seem mean-spirited (there's nothing in his transcript of that introduction that seems inappropriate), she kind of opened herself up to cheap shots.

Annette Bening's sincere, intelligent speech at last week's New York Film Critics Circle Awards ceremony should be the cultural decree of the new year. It was the finest, calmest explanation of the relationship between critics and artists that we're ever likely to hear in this era of media-crazed sensationalism.

"Something my husband often says that I think is very true is that actors are like gardenias: very, very fragile and sensitive to criticism. And I think what's also clear [here tonight] is that critics… feel very vulnerable to criticism as well," Bening said. "We have a symbiotic relationship. We need each other. We need you to write carefully and thoughtfully about the cultural, political and sociological context that filmmaking lives in. We need you to keep a close eye on us. It's part of how it always has been in terms of performance and criticism. It's not new. And we want your approval—desperately—that's just in our nature. There's something very important about that, and there's something important about being able to try to function under the watchful eye of criticism. That's how it all works."

As NYFCC Chairman, I felt Bening's speech was like music (I told her so). It's climax was the simple statement: "It's not new." Sadly, this symbiosis is something that most film critics and audiences don't understand. Cowed by editors and publishers who have relinquished truth and intelligence to the promotion of power and money—resulting in the overweening tabloid nightmare that is today's mainstream—some reviewers prefer the tired, poisonous myth that critics are hostile and inferior to filmmakers and performers. They forget that it's up to critics, not film producers or publicists, to maintain critical authority and standards and not bend to the will of marketers. Bening's speech asserted our interrelationship as well as our equality; it was the first such statement I'd ever heard in 24 years of attending NYFCC events.

Prior to Bening's speech, director Darren Aronofsky presented the cinematography award to Matthew Libatique, his photographer on Black Swan. He used the occasion to make a weak joke about my negative review of the film, published by this newspaper. He got the old antagonisms rolling, then naive Michelle Williams and gullible Mark Ruffalo followed suit, perhaps nervously thinking this is what film folk do in the presence of critics: a rare chance to settle scores. That's precisely the inanity that Bening responded to, extemporizing about her colleagues' apprehensiveness and the clearly misunderstood function of criticism. She termed it our mutual "vulnerability"— humanizing the confusion in a gracious, almost sexy-maternal way that was compassionate as well as sophisticated.

Compassion and sophistication are what we've lost in this age of media transition and chaos, exacerbated by the Internet where no standard of quality or principle exists. Bening's words have received little attention in the media; instead, a deliberate distortion of the Jan. 10 gala has viciously misrepresented the truth. (Numerous bloggers spread the rumor that my compliments to the guests were in fact insults that made Bening cry.) I recognize this as a pitiful attempt to maintain the status quo—keeping critics and performers at bay as a way of perpetuating the power advantage of exorbitantly paid Hollywoodians over their Fourth Estate handmaidens. Even at last year's NYFCC soiree, the audience of reviewers, gossip columnists and showbiz invitees guffawed when George Clooney boorishly lampooned the performer-critic relationship, snidely bragging he wouldn't invite a certain critic to his Italian villa. Clooney's bad manners went uncriticized as the acceptable thing to do. Now, Internet gossip spread a false account of the evening: Gawker and other websites twisted Aronofsky's attack on me into malicious reports that I offended the attendees. These lies merely intimidate readers and journalists to be subservient to celebrities.
Yet something more egregious has occurred. The attempt to damage my reputation bounces back on the entire critical institution. The evening that I had introduced as "a celebration of film and criticism" got perverted into after-the-fact mudslinging that revealed criticism as a viper pit of enmity and discord—uglier than anything Bening's thoughtful words could allay.

Public Indecency is what the police call an offensive, unwanted display of private parts. It's also what Entertainment Weekly critic (and blogger) Lisa Schwarzbaum and The Village Voice's critic Jim Hoberman committed when they took to the Internet with sick fantasies and vituperation about what happened at the Critics dinner. The Schwarzbaum and Hoberman duo are so consumed with envy and anger regarding my third tenure as the NYFCC Chairman (the only African American to ever do so) that they broke solidarity with the organization through their public hostility. %u2028Revealing their pettiness once again, this cabal of New York film elites— who clog festival juries and committees, yet are incapable of discussing art, politics, religion or history—have forsaken critical debate and resorted to personal insult and deliberate mendacity. Their narrow-minds and small hearts are apparent in the rivalry they raise, yet don't have the integrity to openly engage. It's sordid to have to admit this: the lies Hoberman and Schwarzbaum have perpetrated about me actually sully themselves and, what's worse, it embarrasses the entire practice of film criticism.

Schwarzbaum's betrayal of the Circle should disgust any rightthinking person. As a former Chairman, she should know the position's enormous pressure and protect the Circle's unity, yet she has behaved contemptibly. She and Hoberman resemble children who can't win an argument and so want to pout. In screening rooms and meetings, they huddle together, sniggering and giggling in packs like the not-cool kids in junior high school.

Hiding behind the facade of publications with larger circulations, they assume professional integrity that doesn't exist. Oddly, they welcome being pissed on by movie people, then display the obnoxiousness of middleclass cowards who resent less-empowered people not like themselves.

Yes, racism motivates Schwarzbaum and Hoberman. They pretend to be hip and ladylike, but they're simply the type of class oppressors unique to the bourgeoisie. Blue-collar people would likely be straightforward and more honest, but these pseuds harbor unexamined ethnic prejudices, political partisanship, intellectual pretenses and jealousy.
Fact is, they're shills: uninterested in free expression or different points of view. Their lives are committed to promoting Hollywood and controlling culture and criticism. Their dishonesty is symptomatic of the media's corruption. For years now, Hoberman hasn't been able to stand the heat of the New York Press' competition. They cannot abide any challenge to their influence—a danger epitomized in the dubious consensus surrounding The Social Network, which is nothing more than a memorial to in-group ruthlessness.

Tellingly, the film remains unsupported by public enthusiasm. Yet Hoberman is so incestuously positioned in media and suspiciously connected to the bohemian and art scenes that he's got New York film culture toadying and cowering before his most sinister whims.

Legions of Internet clones—what one secretive critic termed "Hobermice"— imitate his bigoted art and race preferences and follow his telepathic command. It's called hegemony. A real despot, Hoberman makes Internet hoards bend the truth. (The Gawker rumormonger is, in fact, married to Hoberman's Village Voice editor.)

As for Schwarzbaum, a less interesting intellect, her position at Entertainment Weekly makes her a minion of the status quo while her personal connections—she's buddies with pseudo-historian and former EW editor Mark Harris, who annually freeloads as Schwarzbaum's escort to the event, then disparages the NYFCC in print—confound basic social gentility. Schwarzbaum's the sort who comes to your party, brings her rude friends, eats your food, drinks your liquor, walks out in a huff without saying "Thank you," then complains in public that the host is ungracious.
EW, a publication that brainwashes its readers into consumerist idiocy, is home to Schwarzbaum's lifelong mantra "The Oscars matter!" It's the mentality of autograph hounds, which is how Schwarzbaum and the Hobermice, in their post-awards-dinner tantrum, want to reduce the NYFCC. That's why they extol the elitism of The Social Network, the prizewinner I duly acknowledged at the podium.

For the record, here's how I introduced presenter (and Schwarzbaum pal) Tony Kushner: "Our Best Film Award goes to The Social Network, the movie that made the mainstream recognize the significance of the Internet and how it has changed all our lives. We would be remiss if we did not take a moment to remember Tyler Clementi, the gay Rutgers student bullied by the Internet who then placed his suicide note on Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook the week The Social Network premiered. This film about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg portrayed a selfabsorbed soul who took his frustrations out on his friends and the world. By coincidence, it reminded me of Tony Kushner's musical Caroline or Change— which I always tell him I want Spielberg to film—where the black Southern day worker Caroline memorably prayed, 'Lord, don't let my sorrow make evil of me.' By lucky coincidence, Kushner is here to present the New York Film Critics Circle's Best Film of the Year Award to The Social Network and its producers Scott Rudin, Michael Deluca, Dana Brunetti and Cean Chaffin. Surely Kushner, whose great play Angels in American showed how spiritual and social connections transformed lust and duty to family, friends and country into moral responsibility, will explain why The Social Network is deserving."

Kushner's presentation—glib and fastpaced—avoided addressing hegemony just as Hoberman and Schwarzbaum always ignore it. Their fit of public indecency brings pettiness, sour grapes—and their privilege—into the open when normally it never affects public perception of the critical ranks. Yet, this is the awful state of things in criticism—an expanding yet everdiminishing breed.
Attacking me doesn't add to the aesthetic appreciation of film—by which The Social Network and The Kids Are All Right look more like TV than cinema—it only exposes Schwarzbaum's pathetic, vindictive need to manipulate film culture. Now that that awful truth is out, we should take heed and beware the mainstream's tendency to avoid discussing "the cultural, political and sociological context that filmmaking lives in" as Bening suggested. It exposes the shameless, indecent Schwarzbaum and her ilk as frauds. Envy makes evil of them.

Everybody who was at the lavish Crimson event space last week knows it was a lovely evening and that the gossip is a lie. Only the tabloid public and swarms of undistinguished bloggers can be duped into believing Schwarzbaum and Hoberman's slander. They have placed a pall over journalism. But everyone should remember Annette Bening's wise words.




Edited By dws1982 on 1295537308
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Post by Mister Tee »

Hey -- we remember it almost the same way.
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Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote:(Mister Tee @ Jan. 13 2011,3:25)
Inferno did make it, though...partially because it was somewhat better-reviewed than the earlier disaster films, but primarily because it was a then-unheard-of collaboration between two of the big studios. Warners and Fox had each, independently, purchased a hack novel about a fire in a high-rise, titled, I believe, the Tower and The Glass Inferno (you see the creativity that went into the movie's title). Rather than cannibalize one another's grosses, they teamed up (possibly the first time that had been done; if not, it was at least a rarity), cast the two most blue-eyed actors in America, and came up with an unsurprise hit. The combined power of the two studios' voting blocs were enough to propel it onto the best picture list as well.

Though there are certainly films I like well better, I didn't particularly begrudge the nod, as I'd seen so many worse in years previous. But I was outraged to my core by the film's cinematographers' win over Chinatown.
Was Fred Astaire seen as the front-runner for the award, or was such a notion passé at the time? And what was considered the likelier nominee? Day for Night?

As I look to the Golden Globes, I see that they nominated Earthquake and A Woman Under the Influence over Lenny and The Towering Inferno. Were there predictions that Earthquake and The Towering Inferno seen as likely to cancel out?
Though there would likely be some revisionism now, at the time I was hearing Astaire was unbeatable, despite how laughably lame his performance. The triple-split among Godfather II actors seemed fatal, and the choices of Lemmon the year before, and Bergman and Carney that night, showed sentimentality was alive and well (Harry and Tonto was actually a good, unsentimental film, but the choice of TV favorite Carney was surely tinged with career-affection).

The Globes were unusually far afield from the Oscar nominations that year, especially in support. I always thought Lenny was likely to make it, despite its omission there, and never took Earthquake seriously (though they're historically linked, via the famed Shake 'n' Bake joke, Earthquake got far worse reviews than Inferno).

Day for Night had of course won the NY Critics' Award a year earlier but failed to open in LA to qualify then. Cries and Whispers had managed a best picture nod despite that same gap, so I did put the film on my list (in place of The Conversaton, which was a real long-shot by me), but we were in somewhat uncharted territory in forecasting that. (In the end, Cries and Whispers was the only one of the three NY foreign-language/non-qualifying winners of '72 through '74 to make the best picture cut -- though all did make it for directing & screenwriting)

The real surprise, looking back, is that Murder on the Orient Express -- with its six nominations and box office success -- couldn't manage to make the list.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Sabin wrote:(Mister Tee @ Jan. 13 2011,3:25)
Inferno did make it, though...partially because it was somewhat better-reviewed than the earlier disaster films, but primarily because it was a then-unheard-of collaboration between two of the big studios. Warners and Fox had each, independently, purchased a hack novel about a fire in a high-rise, titled, I believe, the Tower and The Glass Inferno (you see the creativity that went into the movie's title). Rather than cannibalize one another's grosses, they teamed up (possibly the first time that had been done; if not, it was at least a rarity), cast the two most blue-eyed actors in America, and came up with an unsurprise hit. The combined power of the two studios' voting blocs were enough to propel it onto the best picture list as well.

Though there are certainly films I like well better, I didn't particularly begrudge the nod, as I'd seen so many worse in years previous. But I was outraged to my core by the film's cinematographers' win over Chinatown.
Was Fred Astaire seen as the front-runner for the award, or was such a notion passé at the time? And what was considered the likelier nominee? Day for Night?

As I look to the Golden Globes, I see that they nominated Earthquake and A Woman Under the Influence over Lenny and The Towering Inferno. Were there predictions that Earthquake and The Towering Inferno seen as likely to cancel out?
The Towering Inferno was considered a prestige production for the reasons Mister Tee cited, whereas Earthquake was a poorly reviewed mess. Its Golden Globe nomination was an aberration.

The Towering Inferno and Murder on the Orient Express was the year's two big popcorn movies, which along with Chinatown, The Godfather PartII and Day for Night were the films I expected to be nominated. Lenny and The Conversation were the surprises.

Fred Astaire was a huge sentimental favorite. He had achieved a new surge in popularity thanks to his standout co-hosting of That's Entertainment!, which had been a major success earlier in the year. His performance in The Towering Inferno was considered charming and amusing and an anecdote to the heavy going of the Godfather boys who were expected to cancel one another out as did two years earlier. His loss was doubly shocking considering that two other sentimental favorites that year - Art Carney and Ingrid Bergman won their categories. Astaire's was the only one of the three that was considered "in the bag".
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Post by Sabin »

(Mister Tee @ Jan. 13 2011,3:25)
Inferno did make it, though...partially because it was somewhat better-reviewed than the earlier disaster films, but primarily because it was a then-unheard-of collaboration between two of the big studios. Warners and Fox had each, independently, purchased a hack novel about a fire in a high-rise, titled, I believe, the Tower and The Glass Inferno (you see the creativity that went into the movie's title). Rather than cannibalize one another's grosses, they teamed up (possibly the first time that had been done; if not, it was at least a rarity), cast the two most blue-eyed actors in America, and came up with an unsurprise hit. The combined power of the two studios' voting blocs were enough to propel it onto the best picture list as well.

Though there are certainly films I like well better, I didn't particularly begrudge the nod, as I'd seen so many worse in years previous. But I was outraged to my core by the film's cinematographers' win over Chinatown.

Was Fred Astaire seen as the front-runner for the award, or was such a notion passé at the time? And what was considered the likelier nominee? Day for Night?

As I look to the Golden Globes, I see that they nominated Earthquake and A Woman Under the Influence over Lenny and The Towering Inferno. Were there predictions that Earthquake and The Towering Inferno seen as likely to cancel out?
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Post by Mister Tee »

danfrank wrote:My adult self wouldn't nominate it--part of this discussion has been about how our tastes mature--but I still appreciate The Poseidon Adventure for its camp value, and the memories of being thrilled by it while watching it with my family at age 10 or so. And yes, it's way better than the ridiculously nominated Towering Inferno.

As one who was hovering on adulthood when they were released, I'd say it's strictly a crud contest where you'd need an electron microscope to detect any real difference between the two. However -- forced to watch one again, I'd be more inclined to go with the A-list cast of Towering Inferno than the has-beens (Hackman excluded) that populated the Poseidon thing. Of course, I laughed my way through both in theatres.

As for why Inferno was nominated for best picture while Poseidon was not...my take, if you're interested:

Since the beginning of the 60s, film culture had felt the tension between the collapsing studio system and the emerging counter-culture taste that was to reach full bloom by late in the decade. The Oscars were slow to embrace the products of the latter, and bloc-voting by certain studios enabled critically and even commercially unsuccessful efforts to land on the best picture list in their stead: the Mutiny on the Bounty remake, Cleopatra, The Sand Pebbles, Dr. Dolittle, Hello Dolly! and Anne of a Thousand Days, Nicholas and Alexandra.

Given that history, many of us fully expected The Poseidon Adventure -- a box-office success, like Airport -- to make the cut, and were delightedly surprised it didn't. In fact, it was the end of an era: except for Towering Inferno two years later, the Crappy White Elephant Nominee disappeared as a factor from then on.

Inferno did make it, though...partially because it was somewhat better-reviewed than the earlier disaster films, but primarily because it was a then-unheard-of collaboration between two of the big studios. Warners and Fox had each, independently, purchased a hack novel about a fire in a high-rise, titled, I believe, the Tower and The Glass Inferno (you see the creativity that went into the movie's title). Rather than cannibalize one another's grosses, they teamed up (possibly the first time that had been done; if not, it was at least a rarity), cast the two most blue-eyed actors in America, and came up with an unsurprise hit. The combined power of the two studios' voting blocs were enough to propel it onto the best picture list as well.

Though there are certainly films I like well better, I didn't particularly begrudge the nod, as I'd seen so many worse in years previous. But I was outraged to my core by the film's cinematographers' win over Chinatown.




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Post by Greg »

Damien wrote:The movie, from Sony, has made $94 million domestically, or, as Stephen Colbert noted in his introduction at the gala, “only $6 million less than Mark Zuckerberg,” the real one, gave to the Newark school system to improve his image after the movie’s release.
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Post by Damien »

A round-up of some of the awards presentations from the New York Times:

A Swirl of Back Patting on the Statuette Circuit
By MELENA RYZIK

“Jean Renoir said, ‘We are artists, and as artists we must dream,’ ” Mike Nichols said from behind a lectern. “ ‘And what we dream of is money.’ ”

“Sort of says it all, doesn’t it?” Mr. Nichols added. He was introducing an award at the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures gala on Tuesday night in New York, part of a whirlwind week of statuette bestowing and hobnobbing that culminates in the Golden Globes in Los Angeles on Sunday (and ultimately, at the Academy Awards on Feb. 27).

As even the most press-averse Hollywood stars turned up to fight the snow and accept their honors, there seemed to be a shift in the promotional mood. During the last awards season everyone complained of ever-shrinking budgets, and the parties were less lavish, the swag less forthcoming. This year, thanks to a better economy and a looser race, “there’s money being spent,” said Tom Bernard, a president of Sony Pictures Classics.

There were a half-dozen luncheons, Q. and A.’s and ceremonies in New York this week, with celebrities — and their attendant entourages — flown in on private jets from all corners. Extravagant books promoting contenders like “The Fighter” and “Toy Story 3” are being sent out, alongside regulation screeners and DVDs souped up with bonus features. This is not a coincidence. “By the time the Oscars come out, maybe three-quarters of the movies will be out on DVD,” Mr. Bernard said, offering studios a prime promotional moment. As luck would have it, “The Social Network” came out on DVD that very day. The film has received the lion’s share of kudos from critics and industry groups this season, including the National Board of Review, which among other awards gave it best picture and best actor (Jesse Eisenberg, playing the billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg). The movie, from Sony, has made $94 million domestically, or, as Stephen Colbert noted in his introduction at the gala, “only $6 million less than Mark Zuckerberg,” the real one, gave to the Newark school system to improve his image after the movie’s release.

Here, a few more scenes from this week’s awards circuit.



Everything felt very proper — chin up, crusts off — at a lunch for “The King’s Speech” on Monday at a private club in Manhattan that resembled an English manor house, complete with a bust of Winston Churchill and an actual Churchill, Edwina Sandys, his granddaughter, who said she had seen the movie three times. At a Q. and A. Tom Hooper, the film’s director, was lauded for the meticulous research he did into the pre-World War II period, though he had hoped for even more detail. “I really wanted to sit down with the queen for tea and say, ‘Tell me about your father,’ ” he said of Elizabeth II. Alas, the royals have a sort of “noncooperation policy on fiction,” Mr. Hooper said, so he was left to his own devices to recreate the demeanor of the monarchy on the eve of war.

But, luncheon setting aside, he was not looking for anything ornate for his movie. “My main thing that was driving me was to subvert the expectation of what a royal film was meant to be,” he said. “Royal films tend to be sumptuous and lavish and everything beautifully appointed and gold and gilt and lots of pageantry. I wanted to subvert that cliché and discover a world that was austere, coming out of the Great Depression in the ’30s, where London was filthy dirty and covered in smog, and ugly, and the world was in many ways much poorer than London is now.”



A few hours later, in a different shirt and tie, Mr. Hooper turned up on the red carpet for New York Film Critics Circle Awards, where his star Colin Firth won best actor. Mr. Firth’s performance as the stammering George VI made him a clear Oscar front-runner, earning fans even among his film’s competitors.

“I loved ‘The King’s Speech,’ ” said Aaron Sorkin, on hand to pick up a screenplay award for “The Social Network.” “That’s a movie that’s really right up my alley, and I’d have given anything to have written it.”

(Standing on the red carpet nearby his publicist tensed up.)

“Colin Firth is a tremendous actor to begin with,” Mr. Sorkin continued, “but it’s so quietly dignified. And there’s a parallel, sort of, between Colin’s performance in that movie and Jesse’s performance in ‘The Social Network.’ ” (The publicist relaxed.)

Both characters had communication and alienation issues. “You’ll hear a lot of people say it’s very hard to feel sorry for a billionaire, and it’s very hard to feel sorry for the King of England,” Mr. Sorkin said. “Both these performances are so human that you forget that they can have all these things that you and I can’t.”

Well, Mr. Sorkin — a multithreat with TV, theater and film credits who also occasionally ghostwrites for politicians (when he agrees with, say, their stance on capital gains tax) — is a lot closer to having everything than most people. As Mr. Colbert put it at the National Board of Review gala, “What is it about fast-talking megalomaniacal” — epithet deleted — “and Aaron Sorkin that just fit?”



David Fincher called himself that same synonym when accepting his directing award at the National Board of Review. He is an exacting filmmaker, famous for doing lengthy shoots and dozens of takes. As they’ve racked up praise, he and Mr. Sorkin have taken pains to explain how seemingly opposed their styles were while collaborating on “The Social Network.”

“David’s best known as being peerless as a visual director, and I write people talking in rooms,” is how Mr. Sorkin put it at several speeches this week.

But Mr. Fincher, also the director of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Fight Club,” is more attuned to the power of verbal communication than he lets on. He just has a different take on it, as he explained at a recent talk.

“I believe, philosophically, that language is invented for people to be able to lie to one another,” he said.

So, this makes for some interesting lunchtime conversation. Mr. Fincher took up some of the same themes on Tuesday hours before the National Board of Review, when he grudgingly appeared for a promotional meal at the Four Seasons to talk about “The Social Network.”

“The drama is between how somebody honestly says, ‘This is what’s important to me’ and then what their actions show to be so important to them,” he said after dessert. “It’s my, you know, one-man war against earnestness.”



Not that there is no earnestness in awards season — some of those celeb tears are real — but there is room for a little edge as well.

And so it’s best to finish with Bill Murray, a master of casually joining sweetness and bitterness. Mr. Murray presented a special achievement in filmmaking award to Sofia Coppola at the National Board of Review gala under threat of the impending snowfall. “They told me I have two minutes,” he said, as he began. “I’m going to pop this Red Hot so I can finish in two minutes.”

Then, with a mouthful of candy: “Why to give this award, why? Because you have to throw a party. Because you have to compete with the Golden Globes.”

But he praised Ms. Coppola, who directed this season’s “Somewhere” and the 2003 film “Lost in Translation” (starring Mr. Murray), noting her exquisite taste and great eye. He also said, “You show me an actor doing a” terrible “movie, I’ll show you a guy with a bad divorce.”

He popped another Red Hot, and went on for nearly six minutes, and no one seemed to mind.
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Post by danfrank »

rolotomasi99 wrote:
danfrank wrote:The first time I was really invested in the Oscars was at age 11. That year I was outraged--OUTRAGED!!!--that The Poseidon Adventure wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. I learned early on that the Oscars could be disillusioning, so it's always a nice surprise when something I really like wins.
I was not born then, but I share your outrage over THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. It is definitely the best of all the disaster flicks.

I do not necessarily think it deserved to be nominated for Best Picture over any of the five nominees from that year, but it just annoys me that AIRPORT and TOWERING INFERNO were nominated while THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE was left out.

Was AIRPORT really more Best Picture worthy than WOMEN IN LOVE, RYAN'S DAUGHTER, and TORA TORA TORA? Was TOWERING INFERNO really more Best Picture worthy than DAY FOR NIGHT, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS? Just bizarre.
My adult self wouldn't nominate it--part of this discussion has been about how our tastes mature--but I still appreciate The Poseidon Adventure for its camp value, and the memories of being thrilled by it while watching it with my family at age 10 or so. And yes, it's way better than the ridiculously nominated Towering Inferno.
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Post by rolotomasi99 »

danfrank wrote:The first time I was really invested in the Oscars was at age 11. That year I was outraged--OUTRAGED!!!--that The Poseidon Adventure wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. I learned early on that the Oscars could be disillusioning, so it's always a nice surprise when something I really like wins.
I was not born then, but I share your outrage over THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. It is definitely the best of all the disaster flicks.

I do not necessarily think it deserved to be nominated for Best Picture over any of the five nominees from that year, but it just annoys me that AIRPORT and TOWERING INFERNO were nominated while THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE was left out.

Was AIRPORT really more Best Picture worthy than WOMEN IN LOVE, RYAN'S DAUGHTER, and TORA TORA TORA? Was TOWERING INFERNO really more Best Picture worthy than DAY FOR NIGHT, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, and MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS? Just bizarre.
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