Monty the Film Critic

Despite being named for a movie star, my furry son rarely pays any heed to movies. The only thing he enjoys about DVDs is the reflected light they throw on the walls.

But this morning his paws sifted through a stack of Fox Searchlight screeners and he was suddenly all opinionated. He immediately claimed Danny Boyle's 127 Hours for his own. Moments later -- my god how I wish I had been filming -- he pulled that flick closer, then shoved Hilary Swank's Conviction right off the couch!

I am not making this up.

Later he used Never Let Me Go as a mattress which is as good a use as any for the movie.

all recent oscar articles | return to main blog
*
*

The Final Linkdown

My beloved bloglines -- where I subscribe to hundreds of blogs and websites in case something interesting pops up -- goes the way of the dodo tomorrow. This is the final link roundup as you've come to know (and love / be indifferent to). I'm taking this opportunity to rethink my web reading and start from scratch in terms of what I "follow" since I spend too much time surfing, skimming, reading, wandering. Not that I won't keep sharing things that amuse me. Question: Would you like the Film Experience to have more frequent tiny-ass posts to cover a broad range of news and topics or do you enjoy the major compilations where everything gets smooshed together like so?

The Film Pie has an interesting "inside movie journalism" story about being the 'first' review posted on Rotten Tomatoes (re: Paranormal Activity 2).
Pink is the New Blog Jude Law on Sesame Street. Awwww. I don't get enough Jude Law these days. Or felt puppets. Both at once? Yes, please.
Low Resolution Halloween words of wisdom from Beetlejuice. Speaking of...
The Exploding Kinetoscope has some birthday wishes for Winona Ryder. Could her career be back on the upswing?
popbytes 'Hottie with a Rubik's Cube'. How 80s and now simultaneously.
Everything I Know... is not among the fans of Julianne Moore's Off Broadway musical Freckleface Strawberry.
Blog Stage considers the changes made for Rabbit Hole as it shifts from stage to screen.
Dear Old Hollywood For California readers: The Arclight is hosting a Steve McQueen tribute event on November 11th.

A Toy Story Moment
I thought this was cute. It's a moment of closure for director Lee Unkrich who has been working on the Toy Story franchise forever. If you've ever said goodbye to a long term project that you actually completed, you'll understand.



But this moment would be way cooler if we knew that there'd be no more Toy Story movies after Toy Story 3 which really did close the franchise beautifully. Sadly, Pixar, which once was THE studio for originality, is rapidly becoming like all the other studios when it comes to sequels and franchises and they're going to be beating all their horses way past the time that they're dead (to mangle a metaphor).

Finally, over at Pussy Goes Grrr Andreas made me lol with his love for Cat People. Have you ever seen that movie? There's almost nothing in the world I love more than clever people obsessing over movies. To this day I lol (literally) every time I think of the time Nick, hearing I had just watched Nashville, said "I want to rub that movie all over me." LOL. See, I did it again? It's too bad blogs don't have sound so you could hear. I speak the truth.

Linkenstein

What follows is a strange amalgam of old and new links. It's a frankenstein roundup, stitched together over the past four days from aborted link posts that were accidentally unposted... until now. "IT'S ALIVE!"


/Film Jon Hamm as Superman?
Movie|Line's failed/jokey photoshop attempt at the same thing utterly delights me (pictured left)
I Just Want to Be Perfect Black Swan website devoted to Nina's (Natalie Portman) psyche.
Cinema Blend a look at the newly announced cast of The Hobbit. With pics. Why do I feel that this movie is going to be such a disaster when I love the LotR trilogy? I guess I've lost faith in Peter Jackson given that the beauty of King Kong was smothered by a lack of self-editing and then we got the disastrous The Lovely Bones.

ONTD Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen. I must have slept through this pairing. This is news to me.
Cinematical Pixar gives its first female director the book (Brenda Chapman was to helm The Brave previously due out in 2012...but you know, I assume this could delay the movie). Boo.
Montages (in Norwegian) a look at what's coming up very soon in Norwegian film. The writer is most excited for The King of  Bastøy starring Stellan Skarsgard, Kristoffer Joner and Benjamin Helstad. The film takes place in 1915 and is based on a true story about a youth prison. Hmmm. Could it be next year's Oscar submission? It's never too early to start thinking about that given that the Oscar eligibility calendar is already in the 2011 film year now when it comes to Best Foreign Language Film.

(Partially) Off Cinema
Tiger Beatdown "No One is Ever On Your Side" excellent, excellent article on Mad Men's Betty Draper Francis. A must read for fans of the show in case you missed it.
Benefit of the Doubt on Metroid, feminism and the Aliens franchise (if you're curious as to why that's suddenly in the air again, it's due to the box set's release Alien Anthology.)
Moby Lives on literature's problems in reflecting our internet ruled new world: timeliness or timelessness?
The Faster Times a list of all the new shows coming to Broadway in the spring.
The Oatmeal How to Pet a Cat. Hee

Something That's Really Bothering Me
Did you read the NY Times piece about the shortage of memorable lines in the movies these days? I suppose it's only helping them that everyone has been talking about the piece and linking to it (like me) for a couple of days but I do not understand the response. I've only read a couple of "in response" articles but they seemed to join in the lament. The article cites 90s films like Terminator 2, Forrest Gump and Jerry Maguire as among the last mammoth 'quotables.' Some response articles are saying things like "yeah, it's sad that movies aren't literate anymore..." I'm sorry but Forrest F'in Gump and Jerry Maguire are not literate movies. They just had fun simple catchphrases. Why are people equating catchphrase-making with great screenwriting and extrapolating that into a lament for the state of modern cinema? Does that mean that Arnold Schwarzenegger movies deserved Best Screenplay Oscars?  A lack of catchphrases does not a poor screenplay make. The article makes a vague statement indicating that these things can take time,  citing "Plastics" from The Graduate as a line that percolated before boiling. But then it blames The Social Network for not having a great lines (um, excuse me? It has hundreds of great lines... it'll just take awhile for a few  of them to rise to the top) Meanwhile The Big Lebowski is praised for "The Dude abides." Listen. The Coen Bros write great dialogue. But I was around in 1998 when The Big Lebowski premiered. It was received with pockets of enthusiasm (as their pictures usually are) but mostly a shrug, and some considered it a small setback after Fargo (which had been nearly as popular as Raising Arizona, their first mainstream breakthrough. Lebowski wasn't.) It was only years later after obsessive fandom had successfully added several fresh coats of "classic" paint on Lebowski that people were incessantly quoting its dialogue and acting like it was this huge hit and of the best films of the 90s.

The article does suddenly remember that "I drink your milkshake" (There Will Be Blood) permeated pop culture but completely forgets about "I wish I knew how to quit you" (Brokeback Mountain) which was quoted just about as often as movie lines ever get quoted. And then there are any number of lines from Mean Girls (Best Shot subject this week!) as reader Dom pointed out a few days ago. You or someone you know quotes that movie every day. I know, right. 

I guarantee you that "milkshake" and "quit you"will never disappear. And that 5 years from now, some line from The Social Network will still be in the public vernacular. One day people might not even remember where they first heard the line they end up using from The Social Network it may dig so deep down into the bone marrow of everyday conversation. You think everyone who has ever said "fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" was thinking of All About Eve (or had even seen All About Eve) when they first said it?

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "La Dolce Vita" (1960)

This week's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" topic is Federico Fellini's wonderful classic La Dolce Vita (1960). One caveat before we begin: I've had a difficult night and computer issues, so I was only able to pull screenshots from the film's first half. But no matter. Ninety minutes in, Fellini has already gifted us with a greater movie than most and there's still another one its same size waiting after the imaginary intermission.

Who crafts pictures like Fellini? Or rather, who crafts motion pictures like him? No one. His camera is often moving and its subjects always are. Fellini loves a crowd and his hordes are either surrounding the action on the verge of chaos or they're lining up to follow some invisible pied piper of dance leading them through a restless black & white bacchanalia.  The effect is so sensual and dizzying that the image of Anita Ekberg as Sylvia lifted up exposing maximum cleavage only to be continually spun around is about as perfect an encapsulation of the Fellini feeling as you can get.

This image of Marcello Mastroianni (below), which suggests he's directing the picture (and he will in 8½ as proxy), is interesting. He's not directing anything at this moment but observing the chaos. He's climbed up a tower to get a better view of the religious frenzy in progress.

About that religious frenzy. It's insane to stand in the pouring rain whilst in ailing health praying for magical healing. It's crazy to run to and fro and back and forth following the ever-changing whims of two kids who claim to have seen the Madonna. It's bonkers to tear the branches off a tree as if the leaves had healing powers. The madness ends when the children demand that a church be built right on the spot they're standing on.

I'm certain Italy has enough churches already. But make it a movie theater and I'll riot with you. I believe in the church of cinema and Fellini is a* god. (*Cinema is a polytheistic religion.)

This god's best creations are gorgeous and impossibly chic. Marcello and Anouk Aimée (pictured above) and Anita and even Yvonne (to a lesser degree) never seem to need any sleep. They wander from setpiece to setpiece and from day to night to dawn back into day in stylish shades, perfectly tailored suits and gowns. They don't need sleep or washing machines or ironing boards. They're always dressed in their finest and so so cool.

My favorite shot in the film's first half is Anita's dreamy aimless wandering through Italian streets with a newly adopted furry friend. The camera isn't sloppily drunk, careening around her but it's definitely got a good buzz going, while she communes with kitty. This is, you should know, a very personal choice for "best shot" as Fellini proceeds to completely spoil me: cats, beautiful actresses, rich black and white images, the glory of unexpectedly vivid details (Ekberg placing the cat on her head); all of these could make me ecstatic alone...but together?

(These images are culled from more than one shot -- there's a few cuts -- but the work is so fluid and alive that it all just flows.)

Imagine the joy of being in a Fellini movie. You get to wear great clothes, dance, cruise Italy while lit and lit perfectly. And when you're coming down from the high of a great party, when sleep is as yet unthinkable, you can take a whimsical stroll through magically quiet city streets.

Should you suddenly decide to take an immortal dip into a nearby fountain, you've arrived in style with an utterly fashionable mewling chapeau.

Impossibly cool.

*

Blog Bello

• Movies Kick Ass Marcello's Hands.
• Serious Film Fellini's Imagination.
• Antagony & Ecstasy The Seventh Dawn.
• Brown Okinawa Assault The Women Saunter.
• Pussy Goes Grrr The Rootless Urbanites.
• Robert The Final Shot. (Spoiler)
  

 Next Week!

• MEAN GIRLS (2004). I don't think I've ever looked at this movie from an images standpoint. But I love to watch it, so why not? Are you with me? Pick your favorite shot by next Wednesday, let me know, and I'll link up.

 Previously on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

• Angels in America (2003), X-Men (2000), Showgirls (1995), Bring It On (2000), Black Narcissus (1946), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Pandora's Box (1929), Se7en (1995) and  Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Related Reading

• Oscar's Favorite Foreign Directors