Category: Classic

Oscar Predictions 2012

2 Comments

Confession: my Oscar picks rarely match the Academy’s choice winners. I can’t help it if I’m a sucker for the underdog. But, loving a loser in this case still means loving a nominee. Second runners up dodge with dignity but remain eternal favorites.

BEST ACTOR nods to Brad Pitt‘s tux,  but George Clooney should take it home for his distraught dad in The Descendants. Gary Oldman is still too creepy despite his beloved Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight. In the end, Jean Dujardin will accept in French for his perfect Gene Kelly joi de vivre in The Artist.

SUPPORTING ACTOR? Kenneth Branagh in My Week with Marilyn.

Though The Help will put up a good fight, this Oscar for BEST ACTRESS belongs to Michelle Williams for her Marilyn Monroe. And Jessica Chastain is up for playing my favorite character in The Help, but she should have been nom’d for Tree of Life.

It seems the true battle cry will rise up between the DIRECTORS – all deserving. The Artist Michel Hazanavicius, The Descendants Alexander Payne, Hugo Martin Scorsese, Midnight in Paris Woody Allen, The Tree of Life Terrence Malick.

Malick may not show, Payne may be all show, Allen would dance the jig if he got it, H will bring the dog along, but the night will belong to Scorsese.

Hugo might just take BEST PIC’s statue home. But I believe that all the feel-good films that fight or first will sit it out while the little, lower budget, love song of a silent film The Artist takes first.

It’s a good year for Oscars and a decent year in film. They open with the red carpet, and the show begins at 4pm, Feb. 26. Download a ballot and cast your votes, or get the Oscar App free this week.

THE ARTIST (2011) movie review

3 Comments


I knew that I would love it. I had a feeling.

What I didn’t expect was the trick to the senses. All visual but so stunning that you focus on the characters, forgetting that they are colorless and silent and more reminiscent of Dorothy’s life pre-Oz. I assumed it would feel like Singin’ in the Rain, but this felt more like Life is Beautiful. You fall for characters while reading their lines on the screen. Movie magic indeed.

You have to listen with your eyes, and when a tinkling or buzz or clomp breaks the silence you are stunned – awakened by sound. You dream in film score now that you hear its beauty. Thank you, Ludovic Bource, for the original music of this film.

The Artist romances your senses, enabling empathy for an era of beauty almost forgotten: for flammable film reels, the glamor of the silver screen, of penciled in eyebrows and beauty marks, of stick-on-mustaches below twinkling eyes, of alert and responsive audiences, of characters who break the fourth wall until you feel kissed in your plush theater seat. The stars of this film: Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo enchant and entertain.  True stars. So, the brilliant and unsung Artist of this film is its creator: (Writer / Director) Michel Hazanavicius.


MUPPETS (2011) movie review

Leave a comment

Muppets!
I know them. It all makes sense to me now. I’m a Muppet. If you can agree with the following list of ten items, you might just be a Muppet too.

1. You live to sing and dance and know there’s a song for everything.

2. You know that life is preparation for the next big show.

3. Friends can make it all better.

4. Celebs add appeal.

5. Kermit gets you and can relate to any emotion you may feel.

6. Like Kermit, you know you’ve got to be ready for anything at a moment’s notice.

7. Bad guys exist and always have a dirty deal in mind, and they can only be taken down with Karate.

8. Pig Karate.

9. When we all get together, the show will go on.

10. With a little help from our friends and a smashing finale, we can make it, accomplish any goal, seize any opportunity and sing our way to success!

Your SCORE= If you said “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHaaaaahhhhhhg” to 8 or more of the above: Congratulations, you are a Muppet!  If you coo’d and crooned to any of the above, you’re an honorary and perhaps lucky enough to be one of the “lovers, the dreamers, and me.”  If you said a snarky “Really?” to any of the above, you have no soul.

ELF (2003) movie review

4 Comments

It is…afterall…the quintessential Christmas movie. It’s the new generation’s Lampoon or Red Rider BBGun.

At Christmas time the poetry of Billy Collins waxes shiny in my mind.

As the poet laureate of our United States, Collins writes a poem a day. His word-smithing wages war between the subtle sarcastic and the eloquent exquisite. I’d like to take this moment to dedicate the following poem to you.

Insert “Litany”: a recitation by a precocious 3 year old (below).

Billy Collins tricks his readers, prone toward exhaustive exposition of “the deeper meanings” within, into laughing at themselves, at life, and at all things taken far too seriously.

So pair the far-sighted farce with light-hearted fun and watch Elf to your heart’s content knowing it may not be the pine scented air.  But it certainly is the pigeon on the general’s head.

Christmas is a Baby in a manger who, if born into this century would have loved nothing more than sitting by you as this silly lovely movie plays.

So to you and to me, on this Christmas day, know that somehow to me…

You will always be the bread and the knife.

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow–the wine.

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)

8 Comments

James Dean. Natalie Wood. A rental from Scarecrow Video.

The great and lovely Stewart Stern. I am a big fan. Stewart Stern imagined and wrote Rebel Without a Cause. He is a man, almost 90, with more passion and drive and ability that anyone I’ve met. He exudes inspiration, causing those around him to seek personal potential. He wrote “Rebel” in a Hollywood that had never seen a film of its equal. He is about details, about personalizing, about seeing beyond the spoken.


You may watch this classic film and snicker at the knife fights because you’ve been exposed to so much raw violence in your life. You say you’re not into “old movies.”  I believe some moments to be transcendent, defying time and shifts in culture. For some, including filmmaker John Woo, this film defines youth.  The theme of the whole film can be summed up in the opening scene, which “Jimmie” improvised after making the film crew dig up part of the street to make sure the camera filmed from ground level. Genius. 
Somehow Stewart saw the hearts of young hollywood and wrote them, speaking as they did. “It’s something to do.” They’ve never stopped relating to the themes of this film. The world will never stop loving James Dean, the rebel, in all of his glory. You’ll feel the pain, the camaraderie, the sense of loss around each corner. You’ll wonder why certain lines are spoken – they all mean something. Every apron string, every wind-up toy monkey, every red jacket…everything. Miss this film and miss its dear writer. Miss Stewart Stern and miss the kindest and dearest “rebel” of all time.

With love, for my friend Stewart. I love you, sir. 

thefilmschool.com/ index.php/stewart-stern/204