The film is obviously pure genius and it was nice to see it on the big screen for once. The Q&A was absolutely hilarious. Mike Nichols is a very funny and quite humble guy. He was full of stories about the casting and shooting of The Graduate. He basically said that they had absolutely no idea about anything at the time. It was only his second movie and he had just gotten to L.A. and was awestruck by everything and everyone. So cute! He said that Ava Gardner (who he loved) was really interested in the role and called him so that she could play the part but insisted that he would say that he called her. But she just wasn’t right for the role.

Of course there were questions about the music. As far as I know, this was the first movie to use popular music instead of a classical score (at least that’s what I remember learning at film school, I could be wrong). Nichols said that his brother had given him a Simon & Garfunkel CD as a present and that he was listening to it everyday while shooting the film. At one point he just thought “this is perfect!” Apparently they needed one last song for the scene where Ben (Dustin Hoffmann) breaks into the Robinson’s house and Nichols didn’t like the stuff that S&G came up with. He asked if they had anything else and after a little bit they came back with the famous song “Mrs. Robinson” which they had originally written as “Mrs. Roosevelt.”

There was one question from the audience about if it was intentional that Dustin Hoffmann is jewish and Anne Bancroft isn’t but Nichols said it wasn’t. The only thing that was intentional about it was that he had to be different from the normal Beverly Hills boys.

Well that was my evening and I thought, I’d share it with you guys.

We had a blast watching the Oscars though. As I have said before, we don’t have a TV so we went to a screening at a cinema in Chelsea. If you don’t know, Chelsea is an area in NYC where lots of gay people live. There was a drag queen commenting (or bitching) about everyone and everything that was going on, which was hilarious. The audience was in a really good mood, cheering and booing. It was fun sitting in cinema chairs because it felt a bit like we were in the last rows of the Academy Awards theatre.

The Oscars went fairly smoothly this year, I’d say. No huge surprises. I thought the hosts played it very safe which I didn’t expect. I thought that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin would be more fun but to be fair, “hosts” is a bit of a stretch of the word anyway because they were barely ever on stage.

What was up with the woman who won Best Costume Design? “I already have two of these at home, so…” BITCH! She is not gonna get another one after that speech!

And poor little Kristen Stewart was so nervous that she had to cough…awww…how embarrassing. I wonder whether she is the sort of actress that will be famous for a couple of years and then just disappear again or whether she will grow out of her Twilight image and actually become a serious actress.

Ok, so where were Angelina and Brad? And Nicole Kidman? Well, I guess you get tired of the whole thing after a few years.

No one was as nervous as Kathryn Bigelow. It was quite charming how real she was. That’s the problem with actors and actresses. They quite often put on a persona for their speeches. But Kathryn was alarmingly close to passing out.

About the dresses: They seemed less crazy this year which I liked. Although there wasn’t one that I really loved. I often like the dresses of the lesser famous people most, because they are not trying so hard. I did like Sandra Bullocks and Rachel McAdams (who is she?) dresses. I did not like Jennifer Lopez dress. Bubble wrap alert!

Was it the short film category where the woman suddenly jumped onto the stage and took over the microphone? So funny!

I was not pleased with Sandra Bullock’s win. I haven’t seen the Blind Side (and probably never will) but to me she will always be Miss Congeniality. Fun but that’s all.

I really wanted Colin Firth to win!!! Jeff Bridges is great and I’m sure he gave a wonderful performance in Crazy heart but I’ve been madly in love with Colin for so long and plus he did give an amazing performance!

That’s all I can remember right now…I might add more to this list later. What did you guys think?

In my little utopian world the Oscars would go to…

(keeping in mind that I haven’t actually seen all of the nominees)

Best Picture: Up

Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth

Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz

Actress in a Leading Role: Meryl Streep

Actress in a Supporting Role: Penélope Cruz

Animated Picture: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Art Direction: Avatar

Cinematography: Inglorious Basterds

Costume Design: Probably CoCo Before Chanel, even though I haven’t seen the movie.

Directing: Avatar or Inglorious Basterds

Film Editing: District 9 (just because I want them to get something)

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): District 9

Writing (Original Screenplay): The Hurt Locker

This little exercise showed me that I don’t really care about who wins this year. The only one I really want to win is Colin Firth because his performance was outstanding. I would like Meryl Streep to win, she was wonderful but she has already got a few Oscars. How many does one person need? On the other hand, the last Oscar she got was like twenty years ago. I would like it if Up got an award (doesn’t have to be Best Picture) and I’d like District 9 to take home an Academy Award. Strange, I usually really care about who gets an Award and am upset if they don’t.

How/where is everyone celebrating the Movie-Award-Night of the year? We are going to a live stream at a cinema in Chelsea. Very exciting

Last night I watched a German/Austrian/Italian made for TV movie about the Austrian Empress (Kaiserin) Elizabeth. It is a remake of one of my favorite films Sissi (1955). I never understand why they have to remake already perfectly made movies. But alright, I was curious, so I watched it.

The entire time I was thinking that there was something off about the acting. The actors weren’t really connecting well which I put down as pure bad acting and made me wonder why they didn’t hire better actors. But I found out afterwards that the main actress (Cristiana Capotondi) is Italian and more or less everyone else, including the main actor (David Rott), is German. The German actors don’t speak Italian and the Italian actors don’t speak any German. So what they did was to have the Italian actors speak Italian and the German actors German. Even if they had a scene together. They would memorize the last word of the other persons dialogue as their queue. Apparently this is called babylonian film making (at least it is in German).

Which brings me to my question: WHY???? Why would you do that? I’m sure there are plenty of German speaking actresses that could have played the Empress. So why go through the hassle of all that confusion on set? Well, in this case the producers were mainly Italian and insisted on using an Italian actress (or so it sounded in the interviews on their website). But why couldn’t they find an Italian actress that speaks German? I just don’t get it. I don’t see any advantages of doing it this way.

And it shows, it really does. The actors are more or less reciting lines that they memorized but they are not playing off each other. Most of you know that I am at acting school at the moment and the main thing they teach us is to really listen to each other and let the other person have an effect on ourselves. But you can’t do that if you don’t understand the other person and are just waiting for one word in a foreign language that tells you that it’s your time to speak now. It is also strange to watch since one person is obviously dubbed but the others aren’t.

I wonder if this is a European thing or whether its going to come over to America as well. I surely hope not. I’m completely up for international collaborations and using actors that come from all sorts of different countries but then film it all in English (or whatever common language they all speak). This is completely nuts! Sorry, but I couldn’t sleep well cause it was bugging me so much last night.

It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?!

Is anyone else here following Lost? I don’t have a TV so I normally don’t follow TV shows until they come out on DVD but I really wanted to watch Lost Season 6 ASAP so I am watching it on Hulu.

The slogan of this final season is “No more questions, just answers” but after watching the first four episodes, the questions are still piling up. Not one single question has been answered yet! What’s up with that? I feel like writing an angry email to the producers or writers of the show asking them to PLEASE explain what is and has been going on on that Island for 6 seasons now. I should have known better than to put my trust into a silly tag line like that. So far, I am not impressed.

I mean not only are we still asking ourselves what/where/who this Island is and who “The Others” are and what the deal with Jacob is, now we are also faced with the question of why everyone keeps existing on the Island and is now also simultaneously back in “the real world”. And why the “monster” is suddenly in form of  John Locke’s body and wants to get off the Island. Chaos! So please, please stop posing more questions and just GIVE US THE ANSWERS. Thank you.

series. It was posted on there yesterday, so now I can post it on here as well.

The title Art Director is given to the person who is responsible for the overall look of a movie. Nowadays the term ProductionDesigners seems to be more common but the Academy has kept the award name Best Art Direction for now. An Art Director or Production Designer is the head of the Art Department, responsible for everything including Costume and Set Design. The Set Director (included in this nomination) works below the Art Director. The first Academy Award in this category went to William Cameron Menzies for The Dove and Tempist in 1928. From the 1940’s to 1967 the Award was devided into two Awards. One for black-and-white and one for color films. In 1947 the title of the Award was changed from the “Interior Decoration” to “Best Art Direction – Set Decoration”.

Avatar

Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg (Art Direction); Kim Sinclair (Set Decoration)

Avatar could have easily been nominated for Best Animated Feature since more then half of the film is animated and/or blue screened. It is set on the planet Pandora, a world that had to be created from scratch. And let me just say – it was done extremely well. From flying dragons, floating mountains and more then one completely new species to glowing particles on pretty much everything, Avatar is a feast for the eyes. Pandora is filled with an arguably more beautiful flora and fauna then what we have on earth and is especially nice to look at at night when everything is illuminated. The scenes that are not 3D animation still have a lot of CGI in them because the movie is set in the far future and for example computer screens are holographic like in Star Wars. A lot of work went into the making of that movie and it really payed off. It is a stunning and innovative movie and I hope to see more like it in the future. The only thing I would argue is that the movie is especially fantastic to look at in 3D (or IMAX 3D) and will probably lose a lot of its charm once it comes out on DVD and the only way to watch it is in 2D on a TV screen.

This is Rick Carter’s second Oscar Nomination, he got his first one for Forest Gump (1994). He has also worked on films like Jurassic Park, Back to the Future and AI: Artificial Intelligence which probably caught James Cameron’s attention.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro (Art Direction); Caroline Smith (Set Decoration)

Similarly to Avatar, this film is divided into half animation and half live action. Although, in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus the real life Art Direction is absolutely gorgeous and the animated parts are, in my opinion, plain ugly. Director Terry Gilliam is known for his unusual taste in Art Direction and therefore it is no surprise that yet another one of his movies is nominated for best Art Direction. I do have to disagree with this nomination. I loved the way Gilliam portrays a mix of modern London with the mystery of Doctor Parnassus’ circus caravan. The caravan itself is so full of beautiful obscurities and the play with colors and shadows is very intriguing. But once a character steps behind the mirror into Parnassus’ imagination the film goes into really bad computer animation. What do I mean by bad? It looks like 3D animation that was done ten or twenty years ago. It doesn’t look like it was a conscious stylisitc decision but rather like a last minute solution. And what annoys me most about that is that it could have been so beautifully done with Gilliam’s usual theatrical “paper cut-out” sets that we all love so much.

Nine

John Myhre (Art Direction); Gordon Sim (Set Decoration)

Nine is based on the stage musical Nine (which is based on the Fellini film 8 1/2) and also uses a stage as the main focus of the movie. It is yet another film that is split in two parts: One is Guido Contini’s (Daniel Day-Lewis) real life and the other part is his fantasy. All of the fantasy scenes take place on the set of his upcoming movie which looks a lot like an opera stage. The props and the atmosphere of the stage change according to who the dream fantasy is about. For me this technique worked really well. It does give the movie a more theatrical feel to it. The real life scenes are set in Rome in the 1960’s. Italy is a beautiful setting and the Art Direction made sure to use the best spots. Although bloggers seem to disagree on how good the movie is, I don’t think there is any doubt on how beautiful the sets and costumes are.

John Myhre already received two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction for Chicago (together with Nine Set Decorator Gordon Sim) and Memories of a Geisha, both of which were directed by Rob Marshall. He was also nominated for his work on Dreamgirls and Elizabeth.

Sherlock Holmes

Sarah Greenwood (Art Direction); Katie Spencer (Set Decoration)

Set in 1891, Sherlock Holmes has that typical filthy look of the late 19th Century London. Everything is dark, mysterious and dirty. A lot of the look of this film was simply achieved by great cinematography but, of course, this only works on great sets. The Art Direction is well done but I don’t feel like it is award worthy. At least I didn’t notice anything special while watching it. Holmes’ apartment ist nicely done. It is old and full of stuff and has a very homely feel to it. There is really nothing wrong with the look of this film but I personally wouldn’t have nominated it for this category, I would have nominated it for Best Cinematography.

Sarah Greenwood (Art Direction) and Katie Spencer (Set Decoration) already received two Academy Award nominations for their work on Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, so arguably they would deserve to win an Oscar this year. But although the Art Direction was nice on Sherlock Holmes, it doesn’t feel special.

The Young Victoria

Patrice Vermette (Art Direction); Maggie Gray (Set Decoration)

The Young Victoria is the only film out of the five nomination that I have not personally seen. It is also the only film whose design relies solely on the actual look of the time. All the other nominated films were, at least partly, created out of the imagination. Looking at pictures and videos of The Young Victoria, the Art Direction looks very lush and grand. It does look beautiful and I am sure a lot of effort went into all the designs but it doesn’t look like something that I haven’t seen before.

This is Patrice Vermette’s first Oscar Nomination. Maggie Gray was previously nominated for Best Best Art Direction-Set Decoration for Terry Gilliam’s Brazil in 1985.

So who should get the Oscar for Best Art Direction – Set Decoration? Even though I didn’t like the movie that much, I would give this particular Oscar to Avatar. It has the most innovative Production Design that I have seen in a long time and really impressed me. What do you think?

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

I had seen the trailer to this movie which left me cold. When I heard that it received a Golden Globe I was a little more intrigued but little did I know how much I would enjoy watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It is utterly hilarious!

Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) wanted to become an inventor since childhood but his inventions never really worked and he wasn’t well respected, not even by his own dad. But things are changing for him when his newest invention, a machine that turns water into food, takes off. Literally: it accidentally flies into the sky where it turns the clouds humidity into food which then rains onto the earth. Pretty neat! What’s even better is that Flint can type in any food that he would like the machine to produce. Right around that time Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), a young weather broadcast intern, steps into Flint’s life and bewitches him with her nerdy charms. Naturally, disaster is waiting right around the corner. The food machine gets out of control and starts to produce giant food that it now a danger to Flint’s town. He has to stop it!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs has so many quirky little ideas that make it a lot of fun to watch. I haven’t laughed this much in a long time.

Watchmen

Superhero movies are somewhat blending together in my mind. A lot of them are so much alike. Whatchmen is clearly not one of the better comic book adaptations that I have seen though.

Yes, she is wearing latex suspenders...

I won’t write a synopsis of this movie, mainly because I didn’t really get the story. It felt more like an introduction of the comic book characters then a story-line. And I didn’t care about the characters at all. None of the character managed to touch me in any way, not even really engage my interest. Malin Akerman (Laurie Jupiter) gave a such a terrible performance that I had to think of my teacher, George Loros, who always says that it’s a pity that we can’t sue actors for bad acting (he is hilarious, I wish I could tape him!). I usually really like Matthew Goode, Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson but this movie brought out the worst in them.

The special effects, fight scenes and all that were fine but overall I don’t think you are going to miss out on anything if you never see Watchmen.

]]> http://www.themovieness.com/2010/02/14/happy-valentines-day-everyone/feed/ 6 http://www.themovieness.com/2010/02/10/netflix-tip-coupling/ http://www.themovieness.com/2010/02/10/netflix-tip-coupling/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:03:02 +0000 admin http://www.themovieness.com/?p=1685

Sorry that I haven’t written anything in a while…I was working on a post for “The LAMB devours the Oscars” (Best Art Direction) which I can only post once its published on the LAMB website. The other reason is that I haven’t really been watching films because I am completely addicted to the BBC series Coupling at the moment.

The premises of this sitcom is simple and very similar to the American series Friends: Six Friends (three men and three women) keep swapping partners around and meeting up and discussing their relationships. Doesn’t sound too exciting but the fun characters and the British humor quickly made me fall in love with Coupling.

The characters are very unique and mostly completely clueless about life and relationships. Especially the men. A lot of the jokes are based on clichés but the way they are presented is hilarious. They are short episodes (about 30mins) so I can easily watch two or three a day. What a pity, that there are only four seasons. I wish there was an unlimited supply of this series.

If you like sitcoms and/or British humor, you should definitely check this one out. It’s on “watch instantly” on Netflix, easy access.