Tynan's Anger

In lieu of a decade in review type-piece about movies in February (the last decade was, like, a whole month ago!), I'll take the Oscar's newfound embracing of the top-10 format to do an all-decade Oscar list. Keeping in mind that I have my own standards in place, which I will defend if so asked. My all-Oscar nominees of the 2000s (winners in bold) is as follows:

Best Picture:

Dark Knight
Children of Men
Happy-Go-Lucky
Hot Fuzz
Memento
Million Dollar Baby
No Country For Old Men
Ratatouille
The Squid And The Whale
Synechdoche, NY

Best Foreign Language Film:

2046
Barbarian Invasions
Counterfeiters
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Katyn
I Served The King Of England
Osama
Pan's Labyrinth
Volver
The White Ribbon

Best Actor:

George Clooney - Up in The Air
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd
Paul Giamatti - Sideways
Ethan Hawke - Before Sunset
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Clive Owen - Children of Men
Tom Wilkinson - In The Bedroom

Best Actress:

Penelope Cruz - Volver
Rebecca Hall - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins - Happy Go Lucky
Angelina Jolie - A Might Heart
Laura Linney - You Can Count On Me
Ellen Page - Juno
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Naomi Watts - Mulholland Drive
Kate Winslet - Little Children

Best Supporting Actor:

Javier Bardem - No Country For Old Men
Michael Caine - Children of Men
Steve Coogan - Coffee and Cigarettes
Timothy Dalton/Jim Broadbent - Hot Fuzz
Paul Dano - There Will Be Blood
Morgan Freeman - Million Dollar Baby
Jackie Earle Haley - Little Children
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Jack Nicholson - The Departed
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actress:

Cate Blanchett - Coffee and Cigarettes
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Zooey Deschanel - Almost Famous
Eva Green - Dreamers
Kate Hudson - Almost Famous
Leslie Mann - Knocked Up
Meryl Streep - Adaptation
Marisa Thomei - In The Bedroom
Michelle Williams - Brokeback Mountain
Ziyi Zhang - Crouching Tiger

Best Direction:

Coen Brothers - No Country For Old Men
Alfonso Cuaron - Children of Men
Gullermo del Toro - Pan's Labyrinth
Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby
David Fincher - Zodiac
Ang Lee - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Chris Nolan - The Dark Knight
Martin Scorsese - The Departed
Steven Soderberg - Ocean's 11
Edgar Wright - Hot Fuzz

Best Original Screenplay:

Kelly Masterson - Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright - Hot Fuzz
Diablo Cody - Juno
Sophia Coppola - Lost In Translation
Woody Allen - Matchpoint
Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan - Memento
Brad Bird - Ratatouille
Noah Baumbach - The Squid and The Whale
Seth Rogan & Evan Goldberg- Superbad
Charlie Kaufman - Synechdoche, New York

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman- Adaptation
Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke - Before Sunset
Larry McMurty - Brokeback Mountain
Alfonso Cuaron and Timothy J. Sexton - Children of Men
William Monahan - The Departed
John Patrick Shanley - Doubt
Michael Hanecke - Funny Games
Todd Field and Tom Perotta - Little Children
Brian Helgeland - Mystic River
Coen Brothers - No Country For Old Men

Best Special Effects:

Avatar
28 Days Later
The Dark Knight
Hot Fuzz
The Hurt Locker
Iron Man
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Lord of the Rings: Return Of The King
Pan's Labyrinth
Spider-Man 2

Best Documentary:

The Aristocrats
Bowling For Columbine
The Fog of War
The King of Kong
Kill Your Idols
Rize
Sicko
Spellbound
Sugar
Super Size Me


Best Use of Music (Soundtrack/Score)
24 Hour Party People
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Departed
Hot Fuzz
High Fidelity
Lost In Translation
Observe and Report
Ocean's 11
Slumdog Millionaire
There Will Be Blood

Labels: crazy lists, decade awards, hot fuzz, movies, oscars, top 10

Dear Mr. Rosenbaum,

I wanted to respond to your arguments about Inglourious Basterds, especially your call for "enthusiasts for Inglourious Basterds to come up with some guidance about what grown-up things this movie has to say to us about World War 2 or the Holocaust—or maybe just what it has to say about other movies with the same subject matter."

First off, I wanted to say that I am glad that you were able to argue this case. It was a point of view that needed to be heard on the discussion of the film, and few critics are now able to argue that case, even within the highest ivory towers of academia.

The movie certainly did cross a line for me; it is difficult for it not to cross a line for any Jew with an active concern for the larger scope. The bigger problem for me is that the line that Tarantino crosses was one that already was crossed years ago by Spielberg in Schindler's List—a movie that came out when I was in the first grade. If we are going to take a Sontag-esque evaluation of camp culture, I would argue that there is more value in a movie Inglourious Basterds than in a movie like Defiance, which takes the same revenge fantasy into supposedly morally astute territory. By the same logic, I would argue that there is more value in Dr. Strangelove than in a movie like On the Beach, a position few would question today, even if few would argue that case in 1963, most likely due to the same forces that have given Tarantino a pass but were infuriated by Sophie's Choice.

For me, at least, Tarantino is falling into the same trap that Spielberg has fallen into, which is to shamelessly treat the political subjects in the same stylistic manner as his earlier, more apolitical films. I would argue that it is the best movie Tarantino has made since Pulp Fiction, but compared to the Kill Bill movies and Grindhouse, that's not saying anything drastic.

The difference between Tarantino and Spielberg is that Tarantino is more open about his shamelessness, a rhetorical tactic that is too often misperceived in postmodern discussions as a form of honesty rather than a way to gloss over ethically dubious motivations. Nonetheless, I would prefer apathy and blindness towards the larger perspective than Spielberg's approach, which is to make deeply flawed and over simplistic ethical justifications backed by an overwhelming marketing campaign. I'd venture to say that most film enthusiasts of my age are much more willing to overlook the overwhelming power of a marketing campaign than I am, to the point where otherwise indefensible films that were marketed well in the '90s become difficult to defend against increasingly weaponized ironic defenses.

For instance, no matter how much I try to argue that The Counterfeiters is a fairer and ultimately better assessment of the Holocaust and World War II than Schindler's List or Inglourious Basterds, few are willing to hear me. With enough attention to all three films, it becomes increasingly difficult to argue to the contrary without complete ignorance of the ethics of the Holocaust. What worries me more is that I, like most members of a generation, have less of a vehicle to provoke such a discussion while still making a living outside of academia. I suppose that being able to talk about film in such a manner is a luxury I am lucky to have anyway, but it allows the ever-pernicious forces of marketing to dominate most discussions of film.

I would like to say that while I was happy to see your contribution to the discussion on Inglourious Basterds, my major qualms were the following:

First off, your argument assumes Barthes' view of the Holocaust as a spectacular moment in history, a position I do not agree with, mainly because it comes from a predominately Eurocentric historical narrative. While the systematic qualities of the Holocaust are still the most resonant legacy of that genocide, is it worse, for instance, to have a movie that treats a historical atrocity like the Holocaust immaturely, or to have no American film even begin to address a tragedy like the Nanking Massacre? Furthermore, is the cheaply bilateral Jews vs. Nazis trope that Tarantino has more or less newly minted with Inglourious Basterds any more horrific than the inescapable and no less "unreal" tradition in Western movies of Cowboys vs. Indians? As much as I struggle to defend Inglorious Basterds against the complaints you propose, I would not be able to defend Stagecoach against the same complaints.

Secondly, I would be against calling any film a product of Holocaust denial in most cases, but especially in the wake of The Passion of The Christ, a clearly vile work produced by a man who is most likely a bona-fide Holocaust denier. That movie resonated a lot more with the Palin-esque kind of reasoning that you associated with Inglorious Basterds. Very rarely do movies have the same kind of overwhelming cultural effect as The Passion of the Christ, Birth of a Nation, or Triumph of The Will, and that phenomenon is even rarer today, with a more fractured international film culture overloaded with cinematic information. Inglourious Basterds provoked little controversy, enthusiasm, or enragement beyond the first two weeks of its release, a fate that I do not think would have happened with this film in any other decade but the present one. I have hestitated to publish this letter until the film's Blu Ray/DVD release because it has taken awhile for me to fully come to terms with my feelings on the subject. But the fact that I see that date as a crucual demarcation is also an enormous generational difference.

Sincerely,
Ethan Stanislawski

Labels: ethics, holocaust, inglourious basterds, jews, jonathan rosenbaum, movies, post-modernism, quentin tarantino, steven spielberg, tynan's letters

Believe it or not, that's not an Onion headline:

See, Nigel Tomm is an artist who likes to adapt literary properties in his own unique way -- by calling each a "remix" and adding one solid color that remains on screen for roughly 70 minutes or so. No sound, no dialogue, no narration, nothing. Previously, Tomm's done the same thing for Hamlet, The Catcher in the Rye and Waiting for Godot, among others. Here's a bit more description: "Nigel Tomm's film adaptation of James Frey's book "A Million Little Pieces" is the transfer of the story to the space of art. Somebody calls it absolute art. Somebody calls it abstract film. Somebody calls it fraud. To have your own opinion you must trust your eyes and experience for yourself the seductive turquoise screen."

And you can buy a piece of A Million Little Pieces for only $19.97 on Amazon.

To be fair, some would argue that a no dialogue adaptation of Waiting for Godot would actually be an improvement. That's something The Onion would cover.

[Cinematical]

Labels: a million little pieces, james frey, modern art, movies, the onion, wtf

Who hates mustard? Honestly:

MTV: Last time we spoke, you admitted to a lifelong fear of condiments. I don't want to get you upset ...

[A tray of ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise is brought out.]

Rudd: Oh my God. You've done this? I feel like I'm on "Howard Stern." I can't even look at it. [He looks at the tray.] This mustard is so disgusting. It looks like guacamole. And that is either mayonnaise or frosting. This smells like a bad picnic.

MTV: So I take it you're not any better with this stuff than you were?

Rudd: I hate all of that. I had a friend who had the same kind of reaction to condiments, but the idea of ketchup and mustard mixed together was so awful to him that we'd sit around and describe it and we'd make him throw up. [He laughs.] I get it

Though while this interview threw the kitchen sink at Rudd, I'm surprised no one combined the Ghostbusters and McLovin' references to come up with a joke about what's in the Ghostbusters Lunchbox.

Paul Rudd Talks About 'Role Models' Co-Star McLovin, 'Ghostbusters' Remake Rumors

Labels: crazy interviews, ghostbusters, movies, paul rudd, superbad

I guess it takes a Pulitzer Prize or a Best Play Tony to get a play made into a movie these days. First, there's the news that August: Osage County will be made into a movie. No doubt several top notch actors will be dying to get a part. Then we get this brilliant poster design for the Doubt movie. The film has Oscars written all over it, and I'll be damned if it doesn't inspire some serious interest in straight plays on Broadway. Will a trickle down effect occur?

All in all, it's looking like an exciting time for the legit side of the Great White Way.

Labels: august: osage county, doubt, movies, play adaptations

This may be the most depressing Killer Robot movie ever made. [THR]

Labels: darren aronofsky, movies, robocop, weird juxtapositions