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Post by formermi6agent on Dec 4, 2010 19:08:50 GMT -5
The Ghost Writer HAS and NEEDS to get Oscar nominations. And I hope Percy Jackson and Oceans get one as well.
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Post by Ace on Dec 5, 2010 10:36:37 GMT -5
www.screendaily.com/home/awards/updated-polanskis-ghost-writer-has-record-setting-wins-at-efas/5021278.articleUPDATED: Polanski's Ghost Writer has record-setting wins at EFAs 4 December, 2010 | By Martin Blaney Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer was the big winner at the 23rd European Film Awards which took place in Tallinn, Estonia, on Saturday night. The Ghost Writer picked up six prizes from seven nominations including nods for best film, director and actor. The six statuettes going to the French-German-UK co-production is a record in the European Film Awards’ 23-year history since these awards were all voted on by the 2,300-strong membership of the European Film Academy. Pedro Almodovar’s Hable Con Ella came near to The Ghost Writer with five awards in 2002, but two of these were People’s Choice Awards, and, similarly, Wolfgang Becker’s Good Bye, Lenin! went home with six in 2003, but three of the gongs were also People’s Choice Awards. Interestingly, this year’s People’s Choice Award did not go – as one might expect – to The Ghost Writer, but to Belgian filmmaker Jaco van Dormael’s Mr Nobody which, as one wag observed during the gala, “nobody had seen”. Indeed, the European cinemagoers’ choice of Dormael’s first English-language film – over such competition as An Education, Soul Kitchen and Loose Cannons - provoked as much consternation among the gala audience as when Icelandic actor Ingvar E. Sigurdsson was named the People’s Choice Best Actor for his performance in Englar Alheimsins at the European Film Awards in Paris in 2000. At the same time, the large German contingent at the Awards was in celebratory mood at the recognition given this year to the key role played by German producers in European co-production and the attractiveness of Germany as a shooting location for international production. German production companies were involved in Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon - the winner of the revamped European Discovery – Prix FIPRESCI Award and the Carlo di Palma European Cinematographer Award-, Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes, which picked up the European Actress award for Sylvie Testud’s performance, Patrizio Guzman’s Nostalgia For The Light, the winner of this year’s European Film Academy Documentary 2010 – Prix ARTE, and People’s Choice Award-winner Mr Nobody which had shot interiors at Studio Babelsberg in winter 2007. German comedienne Anke Engelke reprised her role as host of the awards ceremony after making such a positive impression at last year’s Film Awards in Essen and was joined by up-and-coming Estonian actor Märt Avandi as a co-presenter in front of 1,400 guests who included EU Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou and Estonia’s President Toomas Hnedril Ilves at Tallinn’s Nokia Concert Hall. Highlights in an entertaining two hours-plus ranged from the “surprise” appearance of Juliette Binoche, who spoke with genuine warmth and affection of composer Gabriel Yared, the recipient of this year’s award for Europen Achievement in World Cinema, and a standing ovation for Swiss actor Bruno Ganz who was presented with the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award “for his outstanding and dedicated body of work.” Amusing interludes were provided by the exchanges on stage between the veteran German actress Hannelore Elsner – dubbed “the foxiest lady in German cinema” by co-presenter Avandi – and Danish actor Nikolaj Lie Kaas as well as Russian director Victor Kossakowsky calling for reforms to the Awards regulations which allowed documentary filmmakers to also be eligible for nomination to the main category for best director. Meanwhile, although the evening’s big winner Roman Polanski was not physically present in Tallinn, he was able to follow the proceedings via Skype and appear on screen to thank the Academy members for rewarding “a truly European venture”. Ewan McGregor, who received the European Actor 2010 award for his performance in The Ghost Writer, spoke in a pre-recorded clip from the set of The Impossible in Phuket, Thailand, for the eventuality that he would win the award and asked for “anyone in the audience who knows me” to send an email with the good news as he would probably be asleep at the time of the ceremony in Tallinn. The gala was the kick-off event for Tallinn’s year-long celebrations as European Capital of Culture 2011 and rounded off a programme of events for Film Academy members and guests, which included a Conversation with Bruno Ganz and guided tours of Tallinn’s historic city centre. In addition, official guests of the Film Awards were invited by Tallinners to have lunch in their homes on December 4 and hear stories about the town and its history from the local people. Gastronomic delights and much vodka flowed, according to some guests who spoke in glowing terms about the hospitality of their Estonian hosts. Meanwhile, European Film Academy president Wim Wenders announced during the ceremony on Saturday evening that the 25th edition of the Film Awards will be held in the Maltese capital of Valletta in 2012 after stopping over in Berlin in 2011. European film of the year The Ghost Writer (France/Germany/UK) Robert Benmussa, Alain Sarde, Roman Polanski, producers European director of the year Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer (France/Germany/UK) European actor of the year Ewan McGregor, The Ghost Writer (France/Germany/UK) European actress of the year Sylvie Testud, Lourdes (Austria/France) European screenwriter of the year Robert Harris & Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer (France/Germany/UK) European Documentary of the year - Prix Arte Nostalgia For The Light (France/Germany/Chile), Patricio Guzman European animated feature film The Illusionist (France/UK), Sylvain Chomet Carlo DiPalma European Cinematographer Award Giora Bejach, Lebanon (Israel) European production designer of the year Albrecht Konrad, The Ghost Writer (France/Germany/UK) European editor of the year Luc Barnier & Marion Monnier, Carlos (France) European composer of the year Alexandre Desplat, The Ghost Writer (France/Germany/UK) European short of the year Hanoi-Warsaw (Poland) Katarzyna Klimkiewicz European co-production Award - Prix Eurimages Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan, Turkish producer European Discovery - Prix Fipresci Lebanon (Israel) Samuel Maoz, director People’s Choice Award for European Film of the year Mr Nobody, Jaco Von Dormael Lifetime achievement award Bruno Ganz Award for achievement in world cinema Gabriel Yared
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Post by Lauryn on Dec 6, 2010 14:11:57 GMT -5
LOL!!! I guess Bron, his faithful make-up man has just been standing there holding the towel all these years... It’s a shame the Academy are such amnesiacs and The Ghost Writer was released so early in the year. That Olivia’s performance may have slipped down the memory hole, too, is disheartening. She’s so wicked sharp, the kind of actress you pray daily will have the perfect script fall into her lap. Speaking of possibilities, I was reading the latest Le Carre novel, one of his best in a while, about two innocent Brits, a diffident Oxford don and his wife, a barrister, who go on a tennis vacation. The Oxford chap ends up centre court with a Russian Mafiosi. The Russian is so impressed with his sense of fair play and the couple’s general trustworthiness he enlists their help to get him and his family asylum in the West from his dangerous rivals. He hopes to exchange information about a complex money-laundering operation funneled through many multinational banks. What initially brought Olivia to my mind when I was reading was there’s this great scene where the English couple are undergoing a rather rugged briefing from MI-6 about the Russian and, beforehand, they are having to sign off on the Official Secrets Act. The woman, Gail, the barrister, doesn’t trust them at all, and before signing, goes through the papers striking through all the parts she refuses to agree to. (No one argues, LOL!) I can totally see Olivia playing that scene, a smart woman put in a bad situation, very prickly, very sharp-elbowed. The character’s a bit younger and underwritten in the book but she could make her memorable. She might enjoy playing it, since her parents are both barristers.
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Post by Ace on Dec 8, 2010 22:26:01 GMT -5
Well someone has to help Pierce dry off. ;-) Sounds like a great role for Olive and is the diffident don an equally juicy role for Pierce? Such a shame about the industry and critic wide amnesia that happens every year and great films and performances are lost and struggling if they come out too early. There's a good piece on it that also mentions The Ghost Writer (which is how I found it) 2010: the year that wasn’t there As awards season looms, was 2010 really so forgettable — or do are our memories just getting shorter? www.eyeweekly.com/film/feature/article/108208
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Post by Ace on Dec 8, 2010 22:27:50 GMT -5
David Denby's NEW YORKER Best (and Worst) Films Of The Year column In recent American movies, Boston—not New York, not Chicago, not Los Angeles, but Boston—has provided the significant setting and a special urban music of slang, oaths, nostalgia, taunts, affection. The cycle of Boston films began, in 1997, with “Good Will Hunting,” which was written by its stars, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who were childhood friends in Cambridge and then at Harvard. Dennis Lahane’s soulful Boston thrillers have served as the basis of Clint Eastwood’s masterpiece, “Mystic River” (2003) and Affleck’s directing début, “Gone Baby Gone” (2007). The Boston screenwriter William Monohan wrote “The Departed” (2006), in which Mark Wahlberg, from Dorchester, appears in a supporting role as a fast-talking cop; Wahlberg now stars in “The Fighter,” set in Lowell, just to the northwest of Boston, as the real-world boxer and welter-weight champ Mickey Ward. Earlier this year, Affleck appeared as a Charleston bank robber in “The Town,” his second film as director, and he plays one of the local executives who get whacked by a downsizing Boston conglomerate in the new “Company Men.” That’s seven major films. Now, you could say that the entire phenomenon is sparked by Boston-born male stars. True, of course, but Affleck, Damon, and Wahlberg wouldn’t get money for these films from the hardnoses of Hollywood finance if the movies weren’t expected to resonate around the rest of the country. So what is the source of Boston’s appeal? All these movies are about white working-class ethnics—Irish Catholics, in particular—who can talk a blue streak, and all of them are about men and women in clans. Families, friends, neighbors. The clan makes you and it threatens to destroy you, and for the heroes (who are all male—Arise, ye daughters of Hibernia!), the question becomes: Do I leave or do I stay? Do I let the clan define me or must I strike out on my own? And for the rest of us, the question might be: Is this neighborhood and ethnic solidarity not only a celebration, an atmosphere of terrific rough talk and family warmth, but a shudder of anticipation, a last united stand in multicultural America? In part because the Boston talk has so much salt, “The Fighter” and “Company Men” are among the best movies of the year. The best is, of course, the Fincher-Sorkin “The Social Network,” one of the rare big-studio efforts that ravish the audience with sheer intelligence—in this case an inexhaustible vivacity of observation, temperament, wit. The Winkelvi, indeed! Has there ever been a funnier use of digital technology for sly social commentary? Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” was the niftiest and most beautifully designed thriller of the year. Many critics have written eloquently about Pixar’s “Toy Story 3,” an elegy for the attachments we form to disposable mass-produced objects, and I have little to add. But I want to recommend again “Winter’s Bone,” Debra Granik’s grim but entirely expressive murder mystery, in which a very young woman (Jennifer Lawrence), looking for her missing father, slowly realizes that her entire extended family in the Ozarks backwoods is involved in the methamphetamine trade. Talk about clans! The movie was made by New Yorkers and Hollywood pros, but the atmosphere is as authentic as rotgut cut with turpentine, and the actors seem to have been planted in the earth. Among other independent films, Nicole Holofcener’s “Please Give,” a comedy about property and guilt in Manhattan, remains delightful in memory. Among the documentaries, Banksy’s “Exit Through the Gift Shop” seems to be making itself up as it goes along; every time you think you understand what it’s about, the subject shifts slightly, yet the entire movie hangs together as a devastating commentary on art-world fakery and fashion. The American Army unit joined by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger in “Restrepo,” having established a forward post in an overlook deep in an Afghan valley, just hangs there, vulnerable, bored, caught in a limbo of purpose—a perfect emblem of a war gone astray. Charles Ferguson, working in more conventional form in “Inside Job,” gathered together the essential facts of the economic breakdown and financial malfeasance into brisk units spiced with devastating interviews. Among the fragmentary pleasures of the year, I would include Helen Mirren’s biting delivery of Shakespeare’s final dramatic verses in “The Tempest,” Kevin Spacey’s satirical bravura as Jack Abramoff in “Casino Jack,” the music-video parodies and Russell Brand’s prancing shenanigans in “Get Him to the Greek,” Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway in bed in “Love and Other Drugs,” and Ryan Gosling and Michella Williams in and out of bed in “Blue Valentine.” The Young Internet Critics of the year Award goes to Paul Brunick, who has written brilliantly about film criticism past and present in Film Comment, and David Phelps, whose writings display a tactile and sensuous appreciation of color, movement, and performance that is astonishingly rare in film criticism. The big-deal aesthetic disasters include the tiresome, flat, and repetitive “Alice in Wonderland”; the absurdly overelaborate and empty “Inception,” which is like a giant clock that displays its gears and wheels but forgets to tell the time; and “Black Swan,” an example of the higher trash, and a movie perfect, I’m afraid, for young women who never recovered from reading Sylvia Plath. “Black Swan” asks the least appealing question of the year: “Am I good enough—to die?” Read more www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/12/david-denby-films.html
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Post by Ace on Dec 12, 2010 17:02:35 GMT -5
www.variety.com/article/VR1118028811?refCatId=16Posted: Sat., Dec. 11, 2010, 4:00am PT Desplat works hard for the money Composer raises the bar in the industryBy Steve Chagollan With more than 20 credits over the last three years, composer Alexandre Desplat is borrowing a page from the James Brown handbook and threatening to become perhaps the hardest working man in showbiz. A lunchtime chat with Variety at the Sunset Marquis was one of a series of interviews he participated in last week in Los Angeles; later that evening he would field questions following screenings of "The Ghost Writer" and "The King's Speech" (he also scored "Tamara Drewe" and the latest "Harry Potter"). At the Ghent Film Festival in October, where he won the top two honors at the World Soundtrack Awards for the second year running, he showed up just in time to collect his laurels before having to jet back to his native Paris for work. When does he realize how much is too much? "Last week," answers Desplat without a beat. "I was really tired, and decided to take a break for the first time in a year. After 'Harry Potter' I still had three films to go: Another film by Chris Weitz called 'The Gardener,' which will be released next year, as well as two French films." That break will last only a few weeks before Desplat rolls up he sleeves on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2." The pace doesn't seem to bother him; by Desplat's own admission, he lives like a monk: "I wake up early, go to bed late at night, but I have a good five, six hours of sleep; and I'm very focused." Adds his manager, Robert Urband: "Would I have him continue on the same trajectory as far as number of movies? Probably not. I think it's hard to maintain that and sustain the momentum continually." Desplat -- tall, slender and raven-haired at 49 -- is doing what he's dreamed of ever since age 6 when he saw "Spartacus," with its classic score by Alex North, on the bigscreen. His calling card is his diversity and his ability to bring a fresh approach to the most time-worn genres. "If you dream of one day working with Polanski or Terrence Malick or Stephen Frears, what do you do? 'Oh no, I'm a bit tired?' You just do it." The Malick project, "The Tree of Life," is one of the most anticipated films of 2011, and Desplat began work on it as far back as 2007. As usual in Malick films, the score shares space with classical cues, in this case Ligeti and Berlioz, among others. Desplat also had to work largely without the benefit of images. He describes his contribution as orchestral, meditative and trance-like. "(Malick) always told me that the music should be like a river flowing through the film," says Desplat, "and that's what I tried to achieve -- something that flows and never stops, very alive and fluid. He just wants you to create something that maybe he hasn't thought about."
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Post by Ace on Dec 12, 2010 18:05:43 GMT -5
Los Angeles Film Critics Awards
PICTURE: “The Social Network” Runner-up: “Carlos”
DIRECTOR: Olivier Assayas, “Carlos,” and David Fincher, “The Social Network” (tie)
ACTOR: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech” Runner-up: Edgar Ramirez, “Carlos”
ACTRESS: Kim Hye-ja, “Mother”
Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence, “Winter’s Bone”
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Niels Arestrup, “A Prophet”
Runner-up: Geoffrey Rush, “The King’s Speech”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jacki Weaver, “Animal Kingdom”
Runner-up: Olivia Williams, “The Ghost Writer”
SCREENPLAY: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network”
Runner-up: David Seidler, “The King’s Speech”
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: “Carlos”
Runner-up: “Mother”
ANIMATION: “Toy Story 3″
Runner-up: “The Illusionist”
DOCUMENTARY / NON-FICTION FILM: “Last Train Home”
Runner-up: “Exit Through the Gift Shop”
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Matthew Libatique, “Black Swan”
Runner-up: Roger Deakins, “True Grit”
MUSIC/SCORE: Alexandre Desplat, “The Ghost Writer,” and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “The Social Network” (tie)
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Guy Hendrix Dyas, “Inception”
Runner-up: Eve Stewart, “The King’s Speech”
NEW GENERATION: Lena Dunham, “Tiny Furniture”
DOUGLAS E. EDWARDS INDEPENDENT/EXPERIMENTAL FILM/VIDEO: “Film Socialism”
LEGACY OF CINEMA AWARDS: Serge Bromberg, “Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno,” and the F.W. Murnau Foundation and Fernando Pena for the restoration of “Metropolis”
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Paul Mazursky
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Post by Ace on Dec 13, 2010 11:57:34 GMT -5
New York Film Critics Online 2010 NYFCO FILM AWARDS
Actor - James Franco, 127 Hours Actress - Natalie Portman, Black Swan Director - David Fincher, The Social Network Supporting Actor - Christian Bale, The Fighter Supporting Actress - Melissa Leo, The Fighter Breakthrough Performer - Noomi Rapace, The Millenium Trilogy Debut Director - John Wells, The Company Men Ensemble Cast - The Kids Are All Right Screenplay - The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin Documentary - Exit through the Gift Shop Foreign Language - I Am Love Animated - Toy Story 3 Cinematography - Black Swan, Matthew Libatique Film Music or Score - Black Swan, Clint Mansell
Top 10 Films (Alphabetical order)
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Another Year (Sony Pictures Classics) Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Blue Valentine (The Weinstein Co.) The Ghost Writer (Summit) Inception (Warner Bros.) The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features) The King's Speech (The Weinstein Co.) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Universal) The Social Network (Sony)
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Post by Ace on Dec 13, 2010 14:16:58 GMT -5
www.btlnews.com/awards/contender-%E2%80%93-composer-alexandre-desplat-ghost-writer/Contender – Composer Alexandre Desplat, Ghost Writer December 13, 2010 | By Bob Bayless According to Alexandre Desplat, composer of The Ghost Writer – a story about a writer who uncovers secrets that put his life in jeopardy when he is hired to complete the memoirs of a former British prime minister – the most challenging aspect of composing the score was the writer-director, Roman Polanski. Desplat explains, “I’ve been an admirer of his work since I was in my teens. Not only his direction and vision of cinema, but the way he uses music in all of his films.” Desplat was hoping for some direction from Polanski, but did not get it in the way he expected. He confesses, “After I first saw the film, I turned to Roman, who has a wide range of knowledge of music, but all he told me was to embrace the movie as hard as I can! Actually, that was very helpful. When I got back home, I thought, this score must be very physical with a lot of energy!” “When I score a movie, I try to find a concept. This one was about ghosts,” shares Desplat. “I thought, what kind of sound would that make? I knew that films in the ’40s and ’50s used a kind of moaning for the ghosts. What instrument could make that sound? The only one I could think of was the flute, with singing at the same time, like Jethro Tull did. I realized that I couldn’t use a jazz -type of sound, but what if I used several players at the same time? So I wrote four flute parts with the four flute players singing at the same time. That became the sound of the ghost writer.” More challenges ensued when Polanski was put under house arrest in Switzerland. Postproduction continued, but the director could not return to France for the scoring sessions in Paris to provide guidance or even approval of any of the score. Desplat was on his own. When asked what constitutes an Oscar worthy score, Desplat responded, “To me, it’s not only is it Oscar worthy, but, is it worthy! Does the music bring something that the movie would lack if it were not there? I don’t mean technically, I mean emotionally. Artistically, there is something that is different, that belongs to this movie alone, and that is really exceptional.”
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Post by Ace on Dec 15, 2010 12:55:01 GMT -5
movies.msn.com/movies/year-in-review/top-10-movies/Top 10 Movies of 2010 By MSN Movies contributors Welcome to the fourth annual MSN Movies top 10 films poll. We are continuing our tradition of presenting multiple viewpoints from all of our writers that add up to some sort of hodgepodge representing the best movies of 2010. This year, we've increased the number of writers from 10 to 13. The method is simple: 13 critics vote for their 10 favorite films. Films are assigned points based on their ranking, and -- BAM! We have a list that no one is TOTALLY happy about but sure causes much heated debate, at least among ourselves and hopefully with you as well. Many called 2010 an awful year for movies. We're not going to make such a sweeping, shortsighted statement, but we will say this: As a group, we ended up naming 56 different films on our lists. Does this mean 2010 was a great year? No. It just means that there were great movies if you looked for them. Hopefully, this list will celebrate films that you, too, love, but also introduce you to new titles. If you want to jump to the individual lists, you can do so. But we hope you count down the top 10 with us. And then write in and let us know what we missed. -- Dave McCoy, senior producer, MSN Entertainment movies.msn.com/movies/year-in-review/top-10-movies/?photoidx=84. 'The Ghost Writer' Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" is the best thriller since, jeez, what? (Let's say "The Parallax View," to which it has some affinities.) It's also the latest installment in Polanski's ongoing contemplation of life as absurdist black comedy, elegantly tricked out as mystery-suspense with roman-à-clef overtones from recent history. It seems that an ex-British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan as not Tony Blair) has a memoir in need of punching up, and the title character (Ewan McGregor) -- a man whose career depends on remaining invisible -- is whisked to a borrowed lair on an island off New England with rush orders to make it publishable. Something's not quite right. For one thing, our unnamed Ghost had a predecessor who is now, well, a ghost, his death ... no, his absence from the world ... defined by a spectral opening sequence involving a ferryboat. If that scene evokes memories of Fritz Lang, it's only fitting: Despite its American setting, "The Ghost Writer" was made in Germany, at Lang's old stomping grounds, Studio Babelsberg, and its whole world feels at once hyper-real and trembling on the verge, liable to slip into nothingness at any time. (All hail cameraman Pawel Edelman and brilliant art direction by Albrecht Konrad.) The director's mastery of mood, tone, performance and pacing is absolute, distracting us from the few holes in the otherwise engrossing plot and affording a degree of pleasure and bone-deep satisfaction few movies deliver anymore. -- Richard T. Jameson
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Post by Ace on Dec 15, 2010 13:42:41 GMT -5
www.slantmagazine.com/film/feature/best-of-2010-film/246Best of 2010: Film by Slant Staff on December 15, 2010 Tweet Call it the Year of the Woman, as 2010 featured more standout lead female performances than any 12-month stretch in recent memory. Whether that was just a fluke or denotes a sea change in the industry's gender-power dynamics remains open for debate. There's no question, however, that from domestic stars Michelle Williams, Jennifer Lawrence, and Natalie Portman, to foreign thesps Do-yeon Jeon, Sylvie Testud, Hye-ja Kim, and Isabelle Huppert (among many, many others), there was an avalanche of striking turns by outstanding actresses willing to push boundaries in daring, emotionally arresting roles. If women commanded the cinema's spotlight, they were joined there by The Social Network, David Fincher's ultra-timely Facebook origin story, a superior mainstream entertainment whose style, wit, and substance elevated it above the crushing middlebrow pap of many other studio awards contenders. The economy was a predictably hot topic, and one confronted more astutely through nonfiction (Inside Job) than fiction (The Company Men), a situation generally true of a year that practically overflowed with riveting documentaries (Prodigal Sons, October Country, 45365, Marwencol). The heartfelt Toy Story 3 and empty-headed Inception dominated a largely dreary summer season, in which underwhelming tent poles reaped financial windfalls while Edgar Wright's dazzling Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was met with polarizing critical notices and moviegoer apathy. From overseas shores came superb efforts by stalwarts Roman Polanski, Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Lee Chang-dong, and Neil Jordan, as well as two standout works courtesy of Germany's Maren Ade (Everyone Else) and Greece's Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) that plumbed the warped dysfunction of romantic and familial relationships. Like the best 2010 had to offer, they afforded profound insight into the human condition, rather than the omnipresent 3D spectacles that merely offered a view of Hollywood's limitless desire to fleece customers via technological gimmickry. Nick Schager. www.slantmagazine.com/film/feature/best-of-2010-film/246/page_32. The Ghost Writer. Survival in a wolfish world has been Roman Polanski's career-long theme, and this impeccable, Nabokovian comedy of menace finds the controversial auteur in insinuating fine form, his traumas and foibles embossed in every foreboding widescreen composition. The narrative's vaudeville of intrigue and politics is handled with black-velvet elegance, but it's as a sly and delicate personal allegory that the film most lingers and stings (is Polanski Pierce Brosnan's house-arrested celebrity in legal trouble, or Ewan McGregor's exiled artist who insists on investigating despite having been assigned to an impersonal project?). Wily and wise, The Ghost Writer might be the director's own A King in New York, a shot-in-Europe acid love-letter to an America full of shadowy trails and people who can't resist entering them. FC
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Post by Ace on Dec 15, 2010 13:58:25 GMT -5
www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-globes-sharkey-essay-20101215,0,1792603.story Critic's Notebook: Where the Golden Globe nominations went wrong Johnny Depp with two nominations, Tilda Swinton with none, 'True Grit' shut out? An on-looker could go on — and does. By Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times Film Critic December 15, 2010 That was quite a performance by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. on Tuesday morning — it had sort of an Alice in Wonderland quality about it, though maybe "quality" isn't exactly the right word. Johnny Depp, who is having an off year at best, gets two nominations? Seriously? Angelina Jolie picks up one for that laugh riot "The Tourist"? Meanwhile Tilda Swinton, incomparable in "I Am Love," Kim Hye-ja stunning in "Mother," Hailee Steinfeld remarkable in "True Grit" are nowhere to be found. For that matter "True Grit" gets nada, and Roman Polanski's exceptionally smart "The Ghost Writer" also comes up empty. If this is Wonderland, even Alice wouldn't want to live here any more. The Globe nominations have often been little more than a popularity contest among those who throw the best parties, but with its 2011 nominations, the HFPA has reached a new low. (Yet no "Get Low's" Robert Duvall.) Save Up to 90%: Sign up for our free daily e-mail to get in on exclusive deals around L.A. Powered by Groupon. Subscribe Now. Here's an idea: Recognize an actual comedy in the comedy-musical category. How about Nicole Holofcener's wonderfully dark "Please Give" with Catherine Keener, or "Cyrus" with John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill? Even "The Ghost Writer" had a lot of great irony attached to Ewan McGregor's Ghost, and irony is still funny, right? And while we're getting animated here, if the rules can be stretched so thinly as to qualify "Tourist" as a comedy, and Depp's performance therein as a funny ha-ha one (versus a funny-weird one) — why not include Tom Hanks or Tim Allen? As Woody and Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story 3," both were definitely funnier than several of the actors who made it in. Meanwhile, in the darker recesses of the Globes' rabbit hole, why not Mia Wasikowska if we're giving a shout-out to Depp in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland"? Why wasn't Aaron Eckhart's searing pain of "Rabbit Hole" enough to make the supporting actor cut? Another confusion, "Inception" walks off with nominations for best picture, best director and best screenplay, but apparently all that greatness happened without the help of actors. Nothing for Leonardo DiCaprio or Marion Cotillard. Were they asleep? (And by "they," I mean the HFPA). The 80 plus one (this is a plus-one town, you know) took notice of Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in "The Kids Are All Right" but missed Mark Ruffalo's seductive charm, and went on to completely overlook Dustin Hoffman, excellent opposite Paul Giamatti in "Barney's Version," to make room for Michael Douglas in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." Huh? Director Olivier Assayas' exceptional "Carlos," carried to great heights on the broad shoulders of actor Édgar Ramírez, premiered at the Cannes FILM Festival, has made many Top 10 FILM lists, yet the HFPA excludes it from the foreign film category, instead it's relegated to TV for its "pay the bills" run there. Really? I tell you, crimes, serious crimes, have been committed. There are more, too many to mention. I'm with the Queen of Hearts on this one: "Off with their heads." ===================================== There's also a very interesting blog post by Hollywood Foreign Press/Golden Globe voting member who bemoans the nominations and politicking/star f****** which produces many of them and she gives her noms which are infinitely (and PB & GW inclusive) less putrid. It's in Portuguese so Google Translate is your friend. ;-) anamariabahiana.blogosfera.uol.com.br/
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Post by Ace on Dec 16, 2010 0:13:40 GMT -5
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Ten best movies of 2010www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2010/1215/Ten-best-movies-of-2010/The-Ghost-WriterEven middling years can yield marvelous movies. Despite all the frazzled franchises and star-studded misfires of 2010, there were still wonders to behold –historical dramas of the finest intelligence, animation of great wit and delicacy, documentaries that brought out the human drama behind the headlines, and small, independent movies that showcased the emerging artists of tomorrow. If you haven't yet seen any or all of my top 10, I envy what awaits you. - Peter Rainer, Film critic 5. The Ghost Writer Ewan McGregor is a ghostwriter for a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan), scathingly modeled on Tony Blair, who gets in way over his head. Roman Polanski directed, which means the film is simultaneously scabrous and comedic. As enjoyable as it is, "The Ghost Writer" finally sounds a note of pervasive dread. Peter Rainer at The Christian Science Monitor stakes out a Top 10 that doesn’t infringe on many others. 1. Another Year (“Beneath its deceptively casual surface is an entire world of feeling.”) 2. I Am Love (“One of the rare movies that makes your eyes swim without also clouding your mind.”) 3. Inside Job (“the most lucid and straightforward cinematic rendering to date of the 2008 financial collapse”) 4. The Last Train Home (“An epic portrait, intimately told.”) 5. The Ghost Writer (“simultaneously scabrous and comedic… The Ghost Writer finally sounds a note of pervasive dread.) 6. The Illusionist (“ineffably sweet and melancholy”) 7. The King’s Speech (“Two better performances together you won’t find all year.”) 8. Toy Story 3 (“A triumphant conclusion to a series that just kept getting better and better.”) 9. Vincere (“in many ways the most jolting experience I had in the movies all year.”) 10. Winter’s Bone (“Jennifer Lawrence is probably the most gifted actress of her generation”) CHICAGO TRIBUNEwww.chicagotribune.com/features/sc-mov-1215-best-movies-20101215,0,3640071.column Michael Phillips Movie critic December 15, 2010 Top 10 ways to start an argument In 2010 the best arguments I had with readers, friends, colleagues and myself all sprung from the same question: When is "too much" just right? Early in the year, when A.O. Scott and I were hosting "At the Movies," we heard from a mighty anvil chorus of Martin Scorsese fans (I am one of them; Scorsese has made too many good films for it to be otherwise) who adored "Shutter Island" and could not understand anyone's resistance. More recently a less commercial audience-divider, Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan," has struck all sorts of filmgoers as the silliest sort of bravura technique in the service of ancient backstage cliches. Me, I liked it even better the second time. We do not, as a rule, expect subtlety from a boxing picture. Yet here is one of three paradoxes regarding the best movies of 2010: Two films on the list, David O. Russell's "The Fighter" and documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's "Boxing Gym," force audiences to readjust their expectations and appreciate work (very different work) that pays attention to the margins, the beat before the action or reaction. Russell's film takes the familiar contours of the genre and bends them a new way, freely mixing comedy and drama and family strife and chemical addiction, just as it blends some wonderful actors with some wonderful non-actors. Wiseman's film is my favorite nonfiction work of the year alongside another film you probably missed: "Last Train Home," Chinese-Canadian director Lixin Fan's first feature, a documentary with the sweep of an epic. Paradox two: After claiming the top spot two years running, with "Wall∙E" and "Up," Disney/Pixar released its biggest moneymaker ever, "Toy Story 3." Worth seeing, it was nonetheless the least interesting Pixar film since "Cars." Chicago Shopping: Your home for personalized holiday shopping deals >> Paradox three: My favorite picture of the year is no one's idea of "bravura." It cost a few million to make, because its stars cut their fees and believed in the script. The movie made a nice profit. A happy ending. Top 10, in order of preference: "The Kids Are All Right," directed by Lisa Cholodenko. Warm, funny, beautifully acted, this American indie made it all look easy. "The Secret in Their Eyes," directed by Juan Jose Campanella. From Argentina, the year's most rewarding love story wrapped inside a mystery. "Boxing Gym," directed by Frederick Wiseman. In a fine year for documentaries, this was the most effortless. "Last Train Home," directed by Lixin Fan. The migration of millions of low-paid Chinese works becomes the subject of a brilliantly shaped documentary. "Greenberg," directed by Noah Baumbach. Ben Stiller, reborn, opposite Greta Gerwig, heartbreaking, in an acidic L.A. story. "Carlos," directed by Olivier Assayas. See the five-and-a-half hour version (made for French television); it's an exceptional portrait in modern terrorism. "The Social Network," directed by David Fincher. A full and crafty portrait of an empty antisocial media genius, written by Aaron Sorkin. "The King's Speech," directed by Tom Hooper. Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush playing a lovely game of tennis, metaphorically speaking. "The Ghost Writer," directed by Roman Polanski. Wicked paranoia thriller, featuring Pierce Brosnan's best-ever screen work."The Fighter," directed by David O. Russell. A movie about brothers, first, and boxing, second. 11-20, alphabetical order: "Black Swan"; "The Crazies"; "Daddy Longlegs," "The Duel"; "Exit Through the Gift Shop"; "Get Low"; "Inside Job"; "Lebanon"; "The Tillman Story": "Tiny Furniture." TELEGRAPH: Top 10 movies of 2010www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/8194018/Top-10-movies-of-2010.htmlBy Tim Robey 14 Dec 2010 9. The Ghost Writer Initially underrated, Roman Polanski’s frisky political thriller about a PM in exile was classy, creepy and thoroughly absorbing. Yes, Ewan McGregor’s dissolute hack gets implausibly up to his neck, but the caustic repartee in Robert Harris’s script was great fun. TIME OUT: SYDNEY
Best films of 2010www.timeoutsydney.com.au/film/Best-films-of-2010.aspxFierce creatures, war mongers and dream invaders 1. Animal Kingdom The best Australian film of the last ten years is also the best film of 2010. David Michôd's epic portrayal of the decline and fall of a Melbourne underworld clan surprises and engrosses at every turn and features terrifying career-best performances from Jacki Weaver and Ben Mendelsohn plus a stunning debut by future star James Frecheville. Australia, the bar has been raised. 2. Inception Is it metaphor for the filmmaking process or simply a sci-fi thriller structured like a three-tiered wedding cake? Either way, Christopher Nolan made his best movie since Memento - or we could just be dreaming that. 3. The Social Network Mark Zuckerberg: 500 million friends, but the loneliest boy on the planet, according to David Fincher's rollicking legal drama that defines an era in a way no film has done since Fincher's own Fight Club, 11 years ago. 4. The Hurt Locker Oscar's best picture winner disappointed many who expected it to be the war film to end all war films, not noticing that they'd spent two hours on the edge of their seats. 5. The Ghost Writer
No one does slow-burn menace quite like Polanski, whose political thriller starring Ewan McGregor is highly charged but also fiendishly funny. 6. Winter's Bone Jennifer Lawrence is a brave, resourceful teenager struggling to survive in the Ozark Mountains in this powerful quest tale from director Debra Granik. Could you skin and eat a squirrel? No, I didn't think so. 7. Toy Story 3 The trilogy ends in colourful, touching style with a prison break set in a kindergarten. Question is, are we ready to give up our toys yet? 8. Up in the Air/Love and Other Drugs (tie) The year was bookended by two surprisingly adult comedies about sexy jerks falling in love: dismissals expert George Clooney romancing Vera Farmiga (in January), and dodgy pharmaceuticals peddler Jake Gyllenhaal falling for ailing Anne Hathaway. 10. The White Ribbon Michael Haneke perplexed and puzzled us with his portrayal of everyday evil in a German community ahead of World War I. A beautiful, terrifying film. THE GUARDIAN / OBSERVER)www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/12/philip-french-2010-best-filmsThe best films of 2010, by Philip French The Observer's film critic reviews an exceptional year for British film-makers and actors – and a rough one for Julia Roberts Not a bad year all in all, and an exceptional one for Britain with the continuing success of the Harry Potter franchise and a variety of highly individual movies. One thinks of Made in Dagenham, Tamara Drewe, The Disappearance of Alice Creed, The Arbor, Monsters, and two topical comedies, The Infidel and Four Lions. It was thus an inappropriate time for the coalition government to continue the British establishment's century-long policy of foolish, patronising and, at times, vindictive treatment of our native film-makers by abolishing the UK Film Council. However, the decision by Warner Bros to buy and refurbish the Leavesden studios in north London may help delay the descent of British cinema into a cottage industry. The only discernible international trends were a sceptical interest in religion (eg Lourdes, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Of Gods and Men, A Prophet) and the continuing vogue for horror movies. It was a disappointing year for documentaries, with only Restrepo (a study of a US platoon in Afghanistan by the Anglo-American team of Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington) attaining unmissable status. It was, however, another remarkable year for animation, with the brilliant CGI work of Pixar's Toy Story 3 (in 3D) being challenged by the more traditional techniques employed by the eccentric Franco-Belgian-Luxembourgish A Town Called Panic, the Spanish Chico and Rita, the Anglo-French The Illusionist, and the most cheerful thing out of Ireland in 2010, The Secret of Kells. It is clear that 3D, with so much money invested in it, is not the flash in the pan it was in the early 1950s. Whatever it does to your eyes, 3D has legs. The male performances I most admired in 2010 were both British: Andy Serkis's uncanny impersonation of Ian Dury in Mat Whitecross's Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, and Colin Firth's coolly poised George Falconer in Tom Ford's A Single Man. My favourite female performances were Annette Bening and Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right. The actor most pleasing just to watch was George Clooney, disarmingly charming as potentially repulsive loners in Up in the Air and The American. The one whose work was saddest to contemplate was Julia Roberts, briefly as herself in the wretched Valentine's Day, but in every scene of the toe-curlingly awful Eat Pray Love. The 50th anniversaries of Psycho and Breathless made me feel my age. As did the death of Claude Chabrol, co-author of the first book on Hitchcock and technical adviser on Godard's feature debut. Though not unpleasantly. TOP 10 The Social Network The Social Network Photograph: Merrick Morton Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois) The Social Network (David Fincher) Inception (Christopher Nolan) Un Prophète (Jacques Audiard) Another Year (Mike Leigh) Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich) The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko) Up in the Air (Jason Reitman) Winter's Bone (Debra Granik) The Ghost (Roman Polanski) MOVIELINE:
10 Great Movies of 2010 That Will Not Be Recognized by the Academy Top Tens || by Brian Clark || 12 14 2010 www.movieline.com/2010/12/10-great-movies-of-2010-that-will-not-be-recognized-by-the-academy.php?page=34. The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s latest was a great surprise — a suspenseful, sophisticated and hilarious thriller that felt more mainstream than any of Polanski’s work in years, and yet more personal, too. Maybe the ending felt predictable, but I maintain that no living director would have staged it with the same stylish, deadpan flair as Polanski. The same can be said about the rest of the film, which is what elevates it above its source’s airport-novel trappings.
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Post by formermi6agent on Dec 16, 2010 9:23:21 GMT -5
Pierce and his works have been underappreciated LONG enough already.
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Post by Ace on Dec 16, 2010 21:28:04 GMT -5
Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum’s top 10 from this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly (not yet online) Lisa’s top 10: 1. The Social Network 2. The Kids are All Right 3. Winter’s Bone 4. Toy Story 3 5. Last Train Home 6. Animal Kingdom 7. The Ghost Writer 8. A Prophet 9. Another Year 10. 127 Hours www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20326356_20451419_20889453,00.html 7. The Ghost Writer Handed a script based on a well-engineered airplane read about a fictional former British prime minister (with an uncanny resemblance to Tony Blair) and a ghost writer working on the PM’s memoirs, Roman Polanski applies the sharpest tools in his master toolbox as a real, no-gimmicks filmmaker to create the year’s best and most slippery political thriller. Owen’s top 10: 1. The Social Network 2. The Kids are All Right 3. Toy Story 3 4. Exit Through the Gift Shop 5. The Ghost Writer 6. Another Year 7. Blue Valentine 8. The Town 9. Ajami 10. 127 Hours www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20326356_20451387_20889492,00.html 5. The Ghost Writer To me, it's the first Roman Polanski thriller in 35 years that's really a Polanski film, with that ominous debonair design, that sense of a web finely woven until it surrounds, and engulfs, the hero. Ewan McGregor evokes a tart, cynical sympathy as the title hack, and Pierce Brosnan is scissory-sharp as the Tony Blair figure whose quickie biography McGregor is hired to write. Polanski fills every frame with the suspenseful allure of insider knowingness.
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Post by Ace on Dec 17, 2010 1:41:29 GMT -5
The best films of 2010 By ROGER EBERT Posted: 12/16/2010
The year's best feature films:
1. "The Social Network." Here is a film about how people relate to their corporate roles and demographic groups rather than to each other as human beings. That's the fascination for me; not the rise of social networks but the lives of those who are socially networked. Mark Zuckerberg, who made billions from Facebook and plans to give most of it away, isn't driven by greed or the lust for power. He's driven by obsession with an abstract system. He could as well be a chess master like Bobby Fischer. He finds satisfaction in manipulating systems.
The tension in the film is between Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss twins, who may well have invented Facebook, for all I know, but are traditional analog humans motivated by pride and possessiveness. If Zuckerberg took their idea and ran with it, it was because he saw it as a logical insight rather than intellectual property. Some films observe fundamental shifts in human nature, and this is one of them.
David Fincher's direction, Aaron Sorkin's screenplay and the acting by Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and the others all harmoniously create not only a story but a world view, showing how Zuckerberg is hopeless at personal relationships but instinctively projects himself into a virtual world and brings 500 million others behind him. "The Social Network" clarifies a process that some believe (and others fear) is creating a new mind-set.
2. "The King's Speech." Here, Advertisement in a sense, is a first step in a journey that could lead to the world of "The Social Network." Prince Albert (Colin Firth), who as George VI would lead the British Empire into World War II, is seen in an opening scene confronting a loudspeaker as he opens the Empire Games. He is humiliated by a paralyzing stutter. The film tells the story of how his wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), involves him with a rough-hewn Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush), whose unorthodox methods enable him to eventually face a BBC microphone and forcefully inform the world that the empire is declaring war.
All of the personalities and values in "The King's Speech" are traditional (and the royal values are too traditional, the therapist believes). Tom Hooper's filmmaking itself is crafted in an older style, depending on an assembly of actors, costumes, sets and a three-act structure. The characters project considered ideas of themselves; "The Social Network," in contrast, intimately lays its characters bare. From one man speaking at a distance through the radio, to another man shepherding hundreds of millions through a software program, the two films show technology shaping human nature.
A difference between them is that we feel genuinely moved by the events in "The King's Speech." We identify. While some people may seek to copy the events in "The Social Network," few, I think, would identify with those characters. Mark Zuckerberg is as much a technology-created superhero as Iron Man.
3. "Black Swan." And now we leave technology and even reality behind, and enter a world where the cinema has always found an easy match: fantasy. That movies were dreamlike was understood from the very beginning, and the medium allowed directors to evoke the psychological states of their characters. "Black Swan" uses powerful performances by Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel to represent archetypal attributes: female/male, young/old, submissive/dominant, perfect/flawed, child/parent, good/evil, real/mythical.
Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" provides a template for a backstage story that seems familiar enough (young ballerina tries to please her perfectionist mother and demanding director). Gradually we realize a psychological undertow is drawing her away from reality, and the frenzy of the ballet's climax is mirrored in her own life. This film depends more than many others on the intensity and presence of the actors, and Portman's ballerina is difficult to imagine coming from another actor.
4. "I Am Love." In this film and "Julia" (2008), Tilda Swinton created masterful performances that were largely unseen because of inadequate distribution. Is it an Academy performance if no one sees it? Here she easily clears a technical hurdle (she is a British actress speaking Italian with what I understand is a Russian accent), playing Emma, a Russian woman who has married into a large, wealthy and guarded Milanese family.
She isn't treated unkindly, at least not in obvious ways, but she doesn't - belong. She is hostess, mother, wife, trophy, but never member. Now her husband and son are taking over the family dynasty, and her life is in flux. When she learns her daughter is a lesbian, she reacts not as an Italian matriarch might, but as the outsider she is, in surprise and curiosity. She has heard of such things.
Now she meets a young chef named Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), a friend of her son's. A current passes between them. They become lovers. There are many ways for actors to represent sex on the screen, and Swinton rarely copies herself; here as Emma she is urgent, as if a dam has burst, releasing not passion but happiness. She evokes Emma as a woman who for years has met the needs of her family, and discovers in a few days to meet her own needs. She must have been waiting a long time for Antonio, whoever he would be.
5. "Winter's Bone." Another film with its foundation on a strong female performance. Jennifer Lawrence plays Ree, a girl of 17 who acts as the homemaker for her younger brother and sister in the backlands of the Ozarks. Her mother sits useless all day, mentally absent. Her father, who was jailed for cooking meth, is missing. She tries to raise the kids, scraping along on welfare and the kindness of neighbors.
When the family is threatened with homelessness, she must find her father, who skipped bail. She sets out on an odyssey. At its end will be Ree's father, dead or alive. Unless there is a body, her family will be torn apart. She treks through a landscape scarcely less ruined than the one in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." Debra Granik, the director and co-author, risks backwoods caricatures and avoids them with performances that are exact and indelible, right down to small supporting roles. Ree is one of the great women of recent movies.
6. "Inception." A movie set within the architecture of dreams. The film's hero (Leonardo DiCaprio) challenges a young architect (Ellen Page) to create such fantasy spaces as part of his raids on the minds of corporate rivals. The movie is all about process, about fighting our way through enveloping sheets of reality and dreams, reality within dreams, dreams without reality. It's a breathtaking juggling act by writer-director Christopher Nolan, who spent 10 years devising the labyrinthine script.
Do dreams HAVE an architecture? Well, they require one for the purposes of this brilliantly visualized movie. For some time now, I've noticed that every dream I awaken from involves a variation of me urgently trying to return somewhere by taking a half-remembered way through streets and buildings.
Sometimes I know my destination (I get off a ship and catch a train, but am late for a flight and not packed). Sometimes I'm in a vast hotel. Sometimes crossing the University of Illinois campus, which has greatly changed. In every case, my attempt is to follow an abstract path (turn down here and cut across and come back up) that I could map for you. "Inception" led me to speculate that my mind, at least, generates architectural pathways, and that one reason I responded to "Inception" is that, like all movies, it was a waking dream.
7. "The Secret in Their Eyes." This 2009 film from Argentina won the Academy Award for best foreign film. But it opened in 2010 in the U.S., and so certainly qualifies. It spans the years between 1974 and 2000 in Buenos Aires, as a woman who is a judge and a man who is a retired criminal investigator meet after 26 years. In 1974, they were associated on a case of rape and murder, and the man still believes the wrong men were convicted of the crime. The whole case is bound up in the right-wing regime of those days, and the "disappearances" of enemies of the state.
Although the criminal story is given full weight, writer-director Juan Jose Campanella is more involved in the romantic charge between his two characters. No, this isn't a silly movie love story. These are adults - experienced, nuanced, survivors. Love has very high stakes for them, and therefore greater rewards. Soledad Villamil and Ricardo Darin have presence and authority that make their scenes together emotionally meaningful, as beneath the surface old secrets coil.
8. "The American." George Clooney plays an enigmatic man whose job is creating specialized weapons for specialized murders. He builds them, delivers them and disappears. Now someone wants him to disappear for good. A standard thriller plot, but this is a far-from-mainstream thriller. Very little is explained. There is a stark minimalism at work. Much depends on our empathy. The entire drama rests on two words: "Mr. Butterfly." We must be vigilant to realize that once, and only once, are they spoken by the wrong person - and then the whole plot reality rotates.
Few of my colleagues admired this film by Anton Corbijn very much. Most of them admired it very little. I received demands from readers that I refund their money, and messages agreeing that there was greatness here. "The American" reminded me of "Le Samourai" (1967) by Jean-Pierre Melville, which starred another handsome man (Alain Delon) in the role of an enigmatic murder professional. The film sees dispassionately, guards its secrets, and ends like a clockwork mechanism arriving at its final, clarifying tick.
9. "The Kids Are All Right." There are ways to read that title: Kids in general are all right, these particular kids are all right, and it is all right for lesbians to form a family and raise them. Each mother bore one of the children, and because the same anonymous sperm donor was used, they're half-siblings. The mothers and longtime partners are played by Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, and like many couples, they're going through a little midlife crisis.
Their children (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) unexpectedly contact their birth father (Mark Ruffalo), and the women are startled to find him back in their lives. It was all supposed to be a one-time pragmatic relationship. Ruffalo plays him as a hippie-ish organic gardener for whom "laid back" is a moral choice. He thinks it's cool to meet his kids, it's cool their moms are married, it's cool they invite him for dinner. I mean ... sure, yes, of course ... I mean, why not? Sure. In a comedy with some deeper colors, the film is an affirmation of - family values.
10. "The Ghost Writer." In Roman Polanski's best film in years, a man without a past rattles around in the life of a man with too much of one. A ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) is hired to write the autobiography of a former British prime minister (Pierce Brosnan) so inspired by Tony Blair that he might as well be wearing a name tag. He comes to stay at an isolated country house, reminding us of those Agatha Christie mysteries in which everyone is a potential suspect. His wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), smart and bitter, met him at Cambridge. His assistant, Amelia (Kim Cattrall), smart and devious, is having an affair with him. The writer comes across information that suggests much of what he sees is a lie, and his life may be in danger.
This movie is the work of a man who knows how to direct a thriller. Smooth, calm, confident, it builds suspense instead of depending on shock and action. The actors create characters who suggest intriguing secrets. The atmosphere - a rain-swept Martha's Vineyard in winter - has an ominous, gray chill, and the main interior looks just as cold. The key performances are measured for effect, not ramped up for effect. In an age of dumbed-down thrillers, this one evokes a classic tradition.
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Post by Ace on Dec 17, 2010 9:22:35 GMT -5
www.eonline.com/uberblog/movies/b216800_The_10_Best_Movies_of_2010An_E_Online_Critics_List.htmlThe 10 Best Movies of 2010—An E! Online Critic's ListThu., Dec. 16, 2010 by Luke Y. Thompson It wouldn't be the end of the year without at least one critic bemoaning the state of cinema as worse than ever. In 2010, however, the movie mainstream did seem to produce more misfires than usual, as Hollywood gradually figured out that post-conversion 3-D doesn't work very well, M. Night Shyamalan shouldn't be trusted with money, and Gemma Arterton isn't going to become the next big thing just because you force her on us. Notably, this year's best list features more independents and international entries than usual. On the other hand, if you see enough movies across the spectrum, there will almost always be more than enough for at least a 10 best list. I haven't seen absolutely everything of significance, but have made a heroic effort to get to most of it—nonetheless, Yogi Bear or Marmaduke could be hidden masterpieces, and I will never know. So, from the top down: 1. Four Lions. Chris Morris' take-no-prisoners spoof of incompetent Islamic terrorists is hilarious for its audaciousness and smart scripting, and somewhat tragic in its more-accurate-than-we'd-like-to-think depiction of just how easily stupid people can be motivated to violence. A must for fans of South Park, Dr. Strangelove, and last year's In the Loop. 2. Enter the Void. In 1999, I picked the South Park movie as my No. 1, and Fight Club as No. 2; years later, it seems those should have been reversed. Similar dilemma this year. Gaspar Noe's latest attempt to make the 2001: A Space Odyssey of nihilistic art-porn observes the seedy side of Tokyo nightlife quite literally through the eyes of a dead man. Love it or loathe it, you'll respect its ambition. 3. The Ghost Writer. Hate him as a human being, sure, but as a filmmaker, Roman Polanski's still got it. A fun, suspenseful ride where it's always clear that you're in the hands of a master driver.4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. The movie every Internet fanboy always claims to want: a faithful franchise adaptation, true to the characters, with effects that serve the story, technically assured and occasionally artful direction, well-chosen actors (it doesn't get better, frankly), and dark, dark, dark. 5. I'm Still Here. The best performance of the year was that of Joaquin Phoenix as "himself," keeping character for over a year to make a "documentary" that exposes and mocks how easily we believe so-called reality entertainment. The film works better when you already know it's a put-on, but if you didn't, you helped make its point. 6. Idiots and Angels. Maybe you remember Bill Plympton's MTV cartoons of two identical men punching each other in the face. He's still making movies almost all by himself, and they're the punk rock of animated features: handmade, profane, challenging to the status quo, and occasionally ugly, yet groundbreaking. This tale of a drunken, misogynist jerk who grows angel wings that help him become a better person is everything Hollywood cartoons aren't supposed to be. 7. Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'Hoole. Not quite as radical as Plympton, but still a pretty amazing step forward for a major studio work of animation. Proof that when you let a director with a proven track record (the seemingly mismatched-to-material Zack Snyder) do whatever he wants, it can be the right thing sometimes. 8. Inception. Ditto to everything above, minus the animation part. Particularly impressive is the way the script conveyed a relatively complex idea in a manner that the average audience member could get, without overtly pandering or talking down. 9. The Illusionist. The most feel-bad work of animation on this list, Sylvain Chomet's realization of Jacques Tati's unproduced script captures the low-key slapstick spirit of the French great, while also being a mournful reminiscence on the death of vaudeville. 10. Piranha 3-D. Yes, Piranha 3-D. It'd be dishonest to deny that it was the most purely entertaining film of the year. That the sequel is being called Piranha 3-D tells you everything you need to know. Honorable mentions: Despicable Me, Life During Wartime, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Blue Valentine, True Grit, Tron: Legacy, The Social Network, Carlos, Easy A, Black Swan, Mother, Lebanon, The A-Team, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Kick-Ass, and The Human Centipede (First Sequence).
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Post by Ace on Dec 17, 2010 15:07:56 GMT -5
SLATE Dana Stevens
Best Film »
1) Toy Story 3 2) The Social Network 3) Mother 4) The Ghost Writer 5) Exit Through the Gift Shop 6) Please Give 7) The Kids Are All Right 8) Blue Valentine 9) Another Year 10) Marwencol
Best Director » 1) Roman Polanski, The Ghost Writer
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Post by Ace on Dec 17, 2010 15:26:42 GMT -5
www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=6749CD Review: The Best Scores of 2010By Daniel Schweiger • December 13, 2010 GHOST WRITER (Alexandre Desplat, Varese Sarabande) Alexandre Desplat has scored no end of serious Euro-thrillers, which makes his, and director Roman Polanksi’s offbeat, if not completely insouciant take on political corruption so much delicious fun. In fact, you might think this is a sparkling romantic comedy at first with the glistening percussion and playful marimbas that play the easy money that will seemingly come from re-writing a politico’s manuscript. Even when the danger kicks in, there’s a knowing, hugely enjoyable satire to Desplat’s speedy rhythms that make GHOST WRITER into this composer’s version of THE NAKED GUN. But it’s exactly Desplat’s fun, seemingly glib approach that masks the real seriousness at hand, with his mysteriously lush passages, and twisty themes bringing to mind both Bernard Herrmann’s VERTIGO and Ennio Morricone’s INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION, which seems exactly the point. But while this GHOST WRITER might sometimes be playing in the key of the classics, there’s no mistaking the kind of original, melodic voice that’s brought Desplat’s real name to the Hollywood fore here.
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Post by Ace on Dec 17, 2010 16:29:32 GMT -5
Charles TaylorFox on the Prowl Annual Critics Survey 2010 » Best Film » 1) Vincere 2) Somewhere 3) Carlos 4) The Social Network 5) The American 6) Ondine 7) The King's Speech 8) Night Catches Us 9) The Ghost Writer 10) Splice Leonard Maltin IndieWIRE, ReelzChannel, ET Radio Minute Leonard MaltinAnnual Critics Survey 2010 » Best Film » 1) The Town 2) The Ghost Writer 3) The King's Speech 4) The Social Network 5) A Prophet 6) City Island 7) Cyrus 8) Please Give 9) The Kids Are All Right 10) Exit Through the Gift Shop Part of Indiewire's Annual Critic Round- Up (in progress) were you can see summary lists of best Film, Director, Lead & Support Performances etc with most points/most mentions. www.indiewire.com/survey/annual_critics_survey_2010/
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