Movies are filled with heroics. Lucky losers manage to stop the bad guys, damsels in distress turn out to be badasses and the heroes of the world seem to have no limits.
“Wait Until Dark” is a movie that challenges our dependence on others for survival. It crafts suspense based on the protagonist’s limits and what she’s really capable of.
Adapted from a single room stage play by Frederick Knott, “Wait Until Dark” stars Audrey Hepburn as Suzy Hendrix, a blind woman highly dependent on her husband and her young neighbor for going about day to day activities, who is caught up in a ruse by gangsters wishing to take advantage of her disability. They suspect a doll filled with heroin has gone missing inside Suzy’s home, and they invent a story and sneak around her blindness to cajole her into turning it over. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Wait Until Dark”
“Argo” may not try anything completely new or daring, but it’s an ambitious achievement and a new classic. “Argo” is the most deserving of all the Best Picture nominees.
Image courtesy of CNN
As it became increasingly certain that “Argo” would walk away with a Best Picture Oscar Sunday night, the articles claiming why “Argo” was not worthy of the movie industry’s top prize were a dime a dozen. Heaven forbid that in this Internet age we have something other than a contrarian opinion, or that we commit the even worse sin of agreeing with the Oscars.
Because a funny thing happens when something or someone becomes the assumed front-runner: people get begrudgingly accepting of whatever it will be. Everyone knew “Argo” and Anne Hathaway and Daniel Day-Lewis would win, but was anyone really happy about it until they finally did and gave the touching (or in Day-Lewis’s case hilarious) speech they were always meant to?
The Academy’s stamp of approval suggests to most that something is good and for the most part deserving, but the real gem is something else entirely. Yet somehow I doubt that every critic who writes about the Oscars for a living would be infinitely happier if “Holy Motors” was the indisputable winner, because a win for a movie like that wouldn’t say as much about this year in movies as “Argo” will.
We’re at the point where there’s going to be a big movie opening every week until the end of the year now, so get excited.
“Skyfall” has biggest Bond opening ever
“Skyfall” earned $86.7 million at the Box Office this weekend, sending it on its way to trounce even the inflation added record of the fourth Bond, “Thunderball.” It’s popular appeal as well as its just plain awesome quality has lead some to speculate the possibility of nominating Judi Dench, Javier Bardem and Roger Deakins for their respected Oscars, as well as a push for the movie itself for Best Picture. It’s a long shot, but I would be on board.
Best Animated Short shortlist revealed
Could we soon be saying, Oscar Winner Maggie Simpson? The shortlist for the Best Animated Short category was revealed last week, and it includes “The Simpsons” short “The Longest Daycare” and the lovey Disney short “Paperman.” The Pixar short film this year that screened before “Brave,” “La Luna,” was nominated and lost last year. But I can guarantee you now that the little underdog movie no one’s heard of and no one will see will almost definitely win this category. Here’s the full list: (via In Contention)
“Adam and Dog”
“Combustible”
“Dripped”
“The Eagleman Stag”
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
“Fresh Guacamole”
“Head over Heels”
“Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare'”
“Paperman”
“Tram”
Christoph Waltz in Best Actor race
I said last week that for some reason people already want to count “Django Unchained” out of the race before anyone’s even seen it. Why no one would consider Christoph Waltz owning “Django” just like he did “Inglourious Basterds” is beyond me, but the difference this year is that he’s being pushed for the Lead Actor race now rather than supporting. Yes, it’s a crowded field, but he was just that good before, and I don’t see why he can’t be again. This also means that Leonardo DiCaprio and even Samuel L. Jackson are people to keep an eye on in the Supporting race. (via In Contention)
Image Credit: The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter Airs Annual Actor Roundtable
Each year The Hollywood Reporter puts together an extended interview roundtable with a collection of actors, usually Oscar hopefuls for that year. Last year they interviewed George Clooney, Viola Davis, Christopher Plummer, Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender, and this year they’ve interviewed Jamie Foxx, Matt Damon, Denzel Washington, Richard Gere, Alan Arkin and John Hawkes. All six are potential Oscar candidates for acting, three more likely than the others, but their discussion veered much more intellectual. They talked acting on stage, what they would do if they couldn’t act, family and whom they admired. It’s a stirring hour-long discussion between smart actors being very candid in a setting you won’t see anywhere else. (via The Hollywood Reporter)
Gurus ‘O Gold released
The Gurus ‘O Gold have been my go to barometer for Oscar predictions for the last few years. Collectively, they are probably better at anticipating the awards and forecasting changes than any one of them individually. This is their first time forecasting the major categories this year since Toronto. Things are bound to change as a few other movies set in and are seen by the public, but the universal consensus right now is unsurprisingly “Argo,” followed closely by TIFF winner “Silver Linings Playbook.” The surprise I see in the list is the inclusion of “Flight” in 10 spot and “Moonrise Kingdom” on the outs. 10 is probably a generous number for nominees anyway. Take a look at the full list if you’re like me and love charts and spreadsheets and stuff, and avoid it if you think it has the potential to suck all the fun out of the Oscars. (via Movie City News)
Will Best Picture match Screenplay?
A blogger at “Variety” observed that last year was a surprising anomaly in the trend for nominees for Best Picture and Best Original or Adapted Screenplay. The movie with the BP nod always gets the screenplay nod, with historically very few exceptions. Last year alone matched the last 10 years in terms of gaps between the two categories, and it’s worth noting that this year may go the same. “Moonrise Kingdom,” “The Master,” “Amour,” “Django Unchained,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “The Sessions” are all questionable nominees for Best Picture, and that’s just listing the front runners in the screenplay races. (via Variety)
Ben Affleck to receive “Modern Master Award”
For a guy gunning for an Oscar for Best Director with a film set in the ‘70s, it’s got to feel good to win an award called the “Modern Master Award” at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Ben Affleck will receive the award on January 26, conveniently not long before the Oscar ceremony itself. (via The Race)
“Argo’s” images of people rioting in Iranian streets look startlingly similar to the ones we see coming out of the Middle East today. The fact that this movie’s opening scene is an attack on an American embassy gives it an even more disturbing modern day resonance.
Ben Affleck’s film speaks to the power of images and the strength of Hollywood movies to impact the culture around the world.
Thankfully, “Argo” is exactly the arresting genre picture a movie about movie making (even fake movie making) deserves. It’s a multi-layered thriller laced in Hollywood bravura and whip smart cynicism, and it does this remarkably true story proud by letting its heroes and storytelling shine.
“Argo” is based on a recently declassified CIA mission from 1979 to 1980 in which six American diplomats hiding out in the Canadian embassy were snuck out of Iran during a several month long American hostage crisis. The plan to make their escape was organized by Tony Mendez (Affleck), who admits that this was the best bad idea they had. That’s because it does move into that ever-so-common movie territory of “too good to be true.”
We’ll set up alibis for the six Americans as a Canadian film crew making a science fiction movie named Argo. The script is a sprawling “Star Wars” ripoff set in an exotic location, and Iran just might be the perfect place to shoot. We’ll sell ad space in Variety, attach producers and make this fake movie a fake hit.
Well there’s your movie right there.
Affleck takes this farfetched story that would only be good enough for movie magic and makes it a true-to-life reality. It’s an accurate account of how Mendez enlisted help from an Oscar winning make up artist, John Chambers (John Goodman), got a curmudgeonly producer, Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin), and established an elaborate cover story.
What makes “Argo” such delicious catnip to movie lovers is its strong insider mentality. Every idea brainstormed is a hopelessly bad one, no one has any faith in the plan or even this movie that actual Hollywood execs think to be real, and yet the movie magic pluck that the good guys will make it in the end always seems to win out.
It does so in the last minute chases at the Iranian airport or the cynical sparring battle between Arkin and a producer over what project he’s going to finance next, and it happens when two Iranian border agents are struck silly by storyboards for even the idea of this fake movie.
And yet Affleck acknowledges that the movies only work because of their images, not their words. So much of his story is told through TV screens and archive footage, and the rest is captured in grippingly immersive suspense scenes often free of score or even much dialogue.
His subtle way of explaining how much images matter come when an American protester quotes “Network” in saying he’s mad as hell, or when the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber) says to Mendez, “I expected more of a G-Man look.”
These are moments and ideas that come from the movies, and in this way “Argo” is a powerful zeitgeist movie that is set in the early ‘80s but can resonate in our modern, media driven world.
