Screener

'Waltz with Bashir,' 'Man on Wire' come up on top at Cinema Eye Honors

Before presenting the award for Outstanding Achievement in Direction at last night's Cinema Eye Honors, legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles wryly noted that "in documentary filmmaking, God is really the director."  With that acknowledgment, the award went to Ari Folman, who used animation to recreate his experiences in the 1982 Lebanon War in Waltz with Bashir.  Held at the sleek, modern Times Center on West 41st street, an "upgrade" from the IFC Center downtown where the first awards were held (and many of the documentaries screen), host AJ Schnack called the venue"Disney-fied."

 Winning awards not only for Direction, but also Graphic Design and Animation, Music Composition, and International Feature, Waltz with Bashir came away with the most awards of the evening.  Accepting an award for the fourth time, art director David Polonsky humbly joked, "This is getting awkward.  I'm not Ari Folman.  I did the drawings."

Man on Wire followed Bashir with three awards, including top honor Outstanding Achievement in NonFiction Feature Filmmaking.  Shy editor Jinx Godfrey accepted the award for editing, and Simon Chinn for production.

Up the Yangtzee, which took five years to complete, won the Debut Feature category as well as the Audience Choice award, though director Yung Chang noted that he had "cheated" a little, harnessing the power of chain emails to rack up votes in China.

The award for cinematography went to Peter Zeitlinger for his work on Werner Herzog's feature Encounters at the End of the World.  While Zeitlinger had planned on attending, the loyal cinematographer was called away by Herzog  at the last minute--apparently not unusual for someone who has been ordered to float down a river holding a camera--twice--to get a shot.

In the middle of the ceremony, AJ Schmack hosted a roundtable with directors Ellen Kuras (The Betrayal), Margaret Brown (The Order of Myths), James Marsh (Man on Wire) and Jody Shapiro, the producer/cinematographer of My Winnipeg.  Brown talked about the polarizing response she has received for her film, which follows the black and white kings and queens of Mardi Gras during the first year they acknowledge each other's presence.  A screening in Mobile, Alabama, where the shooting took place, inspired both walkouts and interactivity, a "surreal" experience where people talked at the screen as the movie was "taken back to the audience." 

Kuras, who took twenty-four years to complete The Betrayal, her first directorial project, admitted the film's long gestation had marked her: now all anyone asks her is what she will direct next.  Kuras emphasized how much she likes her role as cinematographer as well as director.  "I wouldn't just direct the next romcom.  I want to focus on having an aesthetic; ideas I want to explore."

For Marsh, Man on Wire was about redemption, "a way to salvage what I could of my career" after his film The King was panned at the Cannes Film Festival.  He noted a difference between the "passionate, respectful" documentary filmmakers and the "unpleasant, hostile, competitive" independent filmmaking community.  As for his next project?  It's his firm ambition to "blunder on from one foolhardy adventure to the next."

Shapiro revealed the casual, collaborative camerawork on set with Guy Maddin.  Deflecting a compliment about his cinematography credit on the film, he noted that "Guy's the kind of person who will just ask someone to hold up a light quickly to shoot a cutaway.  He doesn't care.  For the snowstorm [scene], we just grabbed the hand-cranked Bolex because that's what was there.  We used Super 8 cameras, and during any scene three to four cameras would be rolling."

As the second annual event wrapped up, the filmmakers left the Times Center and reconvened at Arena, where a DJ played dance-friendly music and nominees enjoyed hors d'oeuvres and cocktails.  While the drinks were free, many of the presenters who mangled names promised to apologize and "buy" a drink for the fellow nominees later, discuss their new projects and enjoy the "passionate, respectful" company of their colleagues.

'Monsters vs. Aliens' invades theatres

Releasing in 4,104 theatres on over 7,000 screens, Monsters vs. Aliens will saturate the market this weekend.  The credit crunch, however, will prevent the 3D rollout Paramount had hoped for: Only 2 out of 7 screens will show the movie in 3D.

Theatres and studios only recently agreed on the virtual print fee (a way for theatres and studios to share the costs of conversion to digital and 3D), but the financial crisis has cut off lending, leaving theatres unable to secure financing, and American moviegoers with limited places to see Reese Witherspoon as a 3D Ginormica/Susan Murphy. 

Whatever the film's take this weekend (likely: high), much of it will be coming from 3D venues, which charge a roughly 25% premium.  Add in the extra $1 to see it in IMAX 3D, and you're looking at 3D ticket prices ranging from $12.50 in Indiana to a monster-sized $18.50 in the Big Apple.  Still, audiences have shown that they are more than willing to pay extra for 3D, and the novelty factor makes 3D screens profitable weeks after a film's release.  This year's 3D pictures Coraline, My Bloody Valentine, and Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience earned a disproportionate percentage of their gross from 3D venues, which only increased as the weeks wore on.  Presumably, this can be explained by theatres scaling back the 2D screens, as well as audiences specifically seeking out the 3D experience (I assume many 3D venues sell out opening weekend).  Billed as the first movie "fully authored" in 3D, and certainly the one with the widest release, many eyes will be looking to see if Monsters vs. Aliens will pop.

Competing with the family crowds, The Haunting in Connecticut will roll out to 2,732 theatres.  A typical teen-oriented horror picture that's tracking well with teen girls (the "new" audience for horror movies).  According to our critic John DeFore, the pictures mines "cancer, an abandoned mortuary and necromancy" for its screams.

Finally, 12 Rounds will open at 2,331 locations.  The B-actioner, filmed in New Orleans to take advantage of a tax credit, has that Saw/psycho mastermind element to it: an escaped criminal seeking revenge puts a police officer through 12 rounds of challenges in order to rescue his kidnapped wife.  The World Wrestling Federation (WWE) produced the flick, so take that as an endorsement, or a warning.

Next week our Executive Editor Kevin Lally will be reporting from Las Vegas on ShoWest, so look for his posts.

Coupling off: Studios attaching stars to their rom-coms

Love is in the air.  News of developing romantic comedies just keeps on coming:

First, it was Cameron Diaz announcing she will star in Swingles, a tired-sounding romantic comedy with  an inevitable coupling you can see miles away.  She will play an acerbic woman who serves as a replacement wingman for a hard-to-please guy who has been dumped by his (male) wingman.  I see a little Hitch in here, a little battle-of-the-sexes, but this movie better be filled to the brim with jokes in order to get it past the premise.

Then, third-time's-the-charm, a currently untitled romantic comedy, previously titled Wichita and Trouble Man, has again been dredged up as a possible romance between Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.  Cruise is also considering presidential thriller The 28th Amendment, so this is likely just one of many announcements that will take place as the star settles on his next project.  If it goes forward, Cruise would play a man who mysteriously pops up into a lovelorn Diaz's life after one blind date.

Rashida Jones, fresh off her star turn as Paul Rudd's fiancée in I Love You, Man, has been cast in spec project Celeste and Jesse Forever.  The script follows a young, divorcing couple who try to remain friends as they forge new relationships and separate lives.  It sounds quirky and unusual, and all the more so if they don't end up back together in the end (terrible, I know).

While not romantic, it's also worth mentioning that the Farrelly Brothers' incarnation of The Three Stooges has tightened its cast list: Sean Penn will be Larry, Jim Carrey plus forty pounds will be Curly, and Benicio Del Toro (hopefully) will be Moe.  A project of passion that has cycled through studios for a decade, it's hoped that a fall production will make for a 2010 release date.

Trailer for 'Where the Wild Things Are' released

Warner Bros. just released its (extremely well-made) trailer for Where the Wild Things Are.  Unlike most movie trailers, this one seems targeted not for children, but for twenty- and thirty-somethings that grew up with Maurice Sendak's acclaimed book, published in 1988 and the winner of the Caldecott Medal. 

First, it's set to the Arcade Fire song "Wake Up."  Second, Dave Eggers penned the screenplay and Spike Jonze directed the work, two names that have cachet among the age group.  Third, this movie has moved around its release dates, which occasionally indicates changes in strategy/trouble, and will now release on  October 17.  All of the moving around was accompanied by blogosphere rumors that the film was testing too edgy and subversive for children, which might explain why the trailer seems targeted towards adults.  Last year, Beverly Hills Chihuahua opened in early October to great box office, so it's not a dump (in fact, one of the planned release dates was February, also similar to the October slot) but a less competitive time than a summer or December release.  I'm certain that Where the Wild Things Are doesn't expect twenty and thirty-somethings to be the primary audience for the movie, but this is the kind of trailer that makes me wish I had a nephew or niece to take to the movies.

I had heard that Where the Wild Things Are would be a mix of live action/CGI, but I certainly didn't expect the kind of miniature/claymation work that also sneaks into the trailer.  There are also many jump cuts on running, itself a common occurrence in movie trailers, but this trailer closely aligns main protagonist Max's position in the shots so we see him continuously running while the background changes from the land of Where the Wild Things Are and his home, a rather thrilling use of editing.

Sendak's book is pretty short on plot, and long on mood, but based on one shot in the trailer, I have confidence that Jonze and Eggers will be able to embellish the plot while preserving the simple emotions that drive the story.  Max sneaks a look of his parents sharing some wine and lovey-dovey looks with each other.  It conveys so much of that kid movie emotion, where you love and hate your parents at the same time, and explains some of the alienation Max feels from his parents, who don't understand him and are wrapped up in their own lives.  If my memory serves me correctly, the scene must come after Max is sent to bed without dinner for misbehaving.  While I'll have to wait until October 17th to find out, Where the Wild Things Are seems like a solid adaptation with a thoughtful marketing campaign.

Anne Hathaway over the rainbow for Judy Garland biopic 'Get Happy'

Call it The Bad and the Beautiful meets The Valley of the Dolls, with a little bit of Walk the Line thrown in.  Anne Hathaway will play Judy Garland in both a film and a stage adaptation of Get Happy, a  production based on the biography of the star penned by Gerard Clark.  The Weinstein Company, which has recently been dipping into Broadway for film adaptations (upcoming Nine and August: Osage County) will produce.  Apparently Hathaway's "impromptu" singing during the Oscars reminded viewers that she can in fact carry a tune, and has contributed songs in the past for her children's movies Ella Enchanted and Hoodwinked.

Judy Garland's life seems to be an exercise in contrasts: she was an incredibly talented performer, starring in dozens of movies, including a few that regularly show up on "Top 100" lists: The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, and A Star is Born.  Behind the scenes, she had the multiple marriages that seem to characterize female Hollywood stars, was cheated and manipulated by those who worked with her, and struggled with an addiction to amphetamines unscrupulously supplied by the studio.  For those who grew up with images of Garland as Dorothy Gale or singing in wholesome Midwestern musical Meet Me in St. Louis, reconciling those images can be difficult.  There's a chance that the Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? aspect of Judy Garland will take over in the adaptation, overshadowing her great contributions to film history as a performer.  Since the project has yet to attach a writer or director to lend a vision to the project, it's difficult to know how it will be approached creatively.  What interests me is the idea of using songs originally sung by her within the context of her personal life, an approximation of the repurposing in Mamma Mia!.  While I can't think of an appropriate place for "The Trolley Song," I'm looking forward to the inevitable inclusion of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."  With Hathaway booked for at least three films, it will be at least 2011 before the project comes to fruition.  With the expense of a stage production much less than a film production, I expect that the Garland story would open on Broadway and be tweaked before it moves into a film adaptation

'Knowing' bests 'I Love You, Man' and 'Duplicity'

 Knowing may have used some of those secret numbers in its plotline to glean advance knowledge of its box-office dominance: it pulled in $24.8 million, 37% more than runner-up I Love You, Man, while releasing in only 20% more theatres.  The Nicolas Cage starrer opened on par with his films Gone in 60 Seconds and Con Air, though it only pulled in half as much as his hit from two years ago, Ghost Rider. 

Funnymen Paul Rudd and Jason Segal drove viewers to see I Love You, Man, which finished second with $18 million.  Nearly even with the bromantic comedy, number three finisher Duplicity earned $14.4 million.  All three of these titles will have little competition next weekend, giving them plenty of time to pick up more box office through word of mouth.

Right below Duplicity, kiddie flick Race to Witch Mountain earned $13 million, but will likely drop heavily next weekend with the release of Monsters vs. Aliens.  Would-be blockbuster Watchmen earned half that at number five, coming in at $6.7 million and approaching the $100 million mark, which is still far under the film's production costs.  At number six, horror flick The Last House on the Left pulled in $5.9 million in its second week, but will have to withstand competition next week with the release of The Haunting in Connecticut.

Filling out the bottom four are long-lasting releases Slumdog Millionaire ($2.7 million), Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail ($2.5 million), Coraline ($2.1 million) and Paul Blart: Mall Cop ($1.8 million), all of which have been in theatres for at least a month.  Of the four, Madea Goes to Jail and Coraline have not yet grossed $100 million, and are unlikely to pass the mark at the domestic box office.

This week, Monsters vs. Aliens and The Haunting of Connecticut open wide.  The collapse of credit markets prevented many theatres from securing funding to convert their screens to digital, meaning the 3D family film will open on far fewer 3D screens than expected, yet another effect of the recession.

Three diverse titles contend for top spot

Of the three major films releasing this weekend, sci-fi thriller Knowing has made the biggest bet, opening on 3,332 screens, the widest release.  Its ubiquity could push it to the top spot, but the Nic Cage film will have tough competition from Duplicity (2,575 screens) and I Love You, Man (2,711 screens).  On I Love You, Man's side: strong reviews and interest among young males, who are known for seeing movies on opening weekend.  The Julia Roberts-Clive Owen spy romance, to its credit, has a taut, screwball feel to it, and slick dialogue--but it's trailing I Love You, Man by 12% on Rotten Tomatoes, 78% to 66%.  It's worth pointing out that Knowing received just 25% on the review aggregating site, indicating that it might not be able to push through to the number one spot.  I can attest that I Love You, Man is surprisingly good, and a "bromance" that nonetheless appeals to the female demographic, so I hope rising stars Paul Rudd and Jason Segal can gave it a number one finish, and that Duplicity can pick up audiences next weekend, which will be dominated by the release of family flick Monsters vs. Aliens.

This week is a crowded one for specialty films, so choose wisely from the ones FJI has reviewed.  The Great Buck Howard (47 screens) stars John Malkovich as a has-been magician, and while our reviewer Shirley Sealy found the film so-so, "for true-blue Malkovich fans, it may be unmissable."

Up-and-coming director Cary Fukunaga (read an interview with him here) makes his feature debut with Sin Nombre (6 screens), the tale of Honduran immigrants hitching rides on freight trains to try to sneak across the U.S./Mexico border.  Our Executive Editor Kevin Lally praised the director for "[maintaining] a deft balance of justifiably melodramatic plot elements and low-key realism; the horrific moments here never feel false or overemphatic."  Violent and poignant, the film provides a counterpoint to the tales of recession woe plaguing the nation.  It really could be much, much worse.  Fukunaga signed a three-picture deal with Focus and Universal, so be sure to see the film so you can be on top of the next big thing.

Catch a documentary "as seductive and glamorous as high fashion itself" featuring the legendary fashion designer in Valentino: The Last Emperor (NY).  Looking for a "quirky little comedy of existential angst?"  Go see Bob Funk (NY).  "Preppie angst" more your style?  Go see The New Twenty (NY).  "Dying-to-be-meaningful?" Go see We Pedal Uphill.  Not angsty, but a slacker-loser?  Have a laugh and see Skills Like This.  And with a movie for every mood, we'll regroup with you next Monday.

High concept adaptation: Christie's auction meets rom-com, Pitt and Portman

Perhaps I shouldn't be saying this on a film blog, but it is a fact universally acknowledged that, most of the time, the book is better than the movie. There are certainly exceptions, even among prize-winning literature--I just finished No Country for Old Men and found the movie to be much better than the book.  I also count the dramatization of action-packed pulp novels as a one-up over the writing of John Grisham or Dan Brown.  Michael Crichton's work reads as well as it adapts, and the CGI spectacle of Jurassic Park gave me nightmares for literally years.  What can be great in print often fails on the screen, and let's mark Watchmen as the latest example.

I'm also a little mixed when it comes to using books as a jumping-off point.  He's Just Not That Into You, a romantic comedy based on the comedic self-help book, took two hours to work its way through the romantic couplings of nearly a dozen people.  It barely kept the tone of the book (probably a good thing, as the book was kind of like when a friend says something cruel to you, then follows it up with "just kidding"), but at least it helped at the box office, giving the movie the benefit of being a vaguely recognizable property.

I bring this up because of the announcement that this book, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry (page through it here and here), will be made into a romance.  A romantic comedy, specifically.  The book by Leanne Shapton, art director for the NY Times, looks like a Christie's auction catalog, and documents a couple's four-year relationship by putting their possessions on display.  It's rather archaeological, has that ever-popular element of ironic detachment ("behold exhibit A, a love letter"), and  requires a little bit of detective work and imagination to enjoy, which will certainly make the book popular among snoops, a category I suspect the author belongs to.  (Her previous book, Was She Pretty?, is a fictional exploration of a boyfriend's ex-girlfriends, facilitated by the girlfriend's examination of his diaries.)

What I appreciate about (the potential) for this project is how much will be left unsaid.  So often, it's "five years later" in movies and stories without a sense of anything meaningful having happened during the interim.  Being able to convey a sense of history, and the sense that characters have many stories left untold--a tone this book excels at simply through its structure--makes for a much richer project.  As an added bonus,  telling a story through objects allows for easy manipulation of chronology, and, again, that indie sense of irony that comes from explaining a relationship only through objects.  Because the book is modeled after a Christie's auction catalog, the project seems very tied to New York and I see a bit of Annie Hall and When Harry Met Sally... in the idea, which has yet to attach a writer.

Most promisingly, Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman would play the couple in the project, which was auctioned off to Plan B productions (Pitt's production company).  If you think about it, Portman has a bit of that Angelina Jolie look, so I suppose that makes their coupling plausible.  Less plausible, however, is the idea that the movie will be made in the near future.  With seventeen titles in development, Brad Pitt's slate is filled to the brim.  Perhaps it's time for him to hold an auction of his own.

New projects: love triangles, interfering parents, and high school reunions

The love triangle is complete: Adam Scott has been cast as Amy Adam's boyfriend in the upcoming romantic comedy Leap Year.  Intent on taking advantage of an Irish legend that says a person cannot turn down a marriage proposal on a leap year, Adams travels to Ireland to propose to her commitment-phobe boyfriend (Scott).  She enlists an Irish innkeeper (Matthew Goode, from Watchmen and Brideshead Revisited) to help her track down her boyfriend when bad weather interferes with her plans.  Presumably, rain, fog, and close quarters lead Adams and Goode to fall for each other.  As I mentioned a few months ago, this film rips off the Powell & Pressburger film I Know Where I'm Going, a delightful romantic comedy that has one of the best first ten minutes of all time, economically setting up the characters and plot at a frenetic pace.  Apparently, the similarity has only been noticed by two commenters (according to Google), but I hope the screenwriters give a nod to their inspiration, if only to draw attention to the work of the two talented filmmakers.  Powell & Pressburger's films were embraced by many of the Hollywood film brats, like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, but many fans of Scorsese and Coppola haven't taken a close look at P&P's work, and how much these directors have borrowed from them.

Also on the romance-comedy front, Jeremy Garelick, writer of The Break-Up, successfully pitched a story about two best friends whose children fall for each other and are soon expecting a baby.  The story will focus on how the romance (and baby) affects the two fathers' friendship.  I like this concept, which seems very I Love You, Man (conveniently releasing this week), in that it focuses on male friendship, and doesn't shy away from a certain form of sentimentality.  I imagine there will be a little Father of the Bride thrown into the screenplay as well.  Because the story is based on Garelick's own life (he married the daughter of his parents' best friends), I'm sure there will be some of those gratifying tidbits that are so weird they could only be true.

Lastly, Adam Sandler's untitled high school reunion comedy has added more A(ish)-listers to its cast: Salma Hayek will play Sandler's wife, and Maya Rudolph will play Chris Rock's wife.  Kevin James, David Spade and Rob Schneider are already on board.  Colin Quinn was also cast, but his role was not specified.  Given that the film revolves around five best friends who reunite after thirty years, my guess is that Quinn will play their mutual enemy, or a partner to one of the five men.  The Fourth of July-set pic starts shooting this summer and is set to release March 2010.  Not a moment too soon, in my opinion, as the rise of Facebook and other social networking sites throws a curveball into the "long-lost-friend" trope.  At the very least, screenwriters should already be incorporating some lines that make oblique references to Googling people.

J.J. Abrams to produce diamond heist film

Today's project-to-watch is J.J. Abrams' pickup of a Wired story on an unsolved jewel heist.  The alleged mastermind of the crime, Leonardo Notarbartolo, served ten years based on circumstantial evidence.  Just released from prison this week, he spilled his story to writer Joshua Davis (a CAA-represented freelancer who executive produces films based on his articles).

The play-by-play has all the twists and tricks that make for a fantastic heist film.  In fact, one of the ploys used in Ocean's 11 actually took place.  The team recreated a vault that they used for dry runs, practicing disabling the different devices (who knew hairspray could disable a heat sensor?) and enabling them to carry out their work in the dark.  The whole thing comes undone when Notarbartolo's partner goes crazy and has a panic attack after two days of being awake, strewing evidence they had intended to burn later--although the photograph of the garbage left behind doesn't look that blown around, so maybe Notarbartolo is stretching the truth.  The topper to the whole story is the double cross.  After completing the heist, the team realizes their take is around $20 million instead of the $100 million they expected.  Notarbartolo believes that the jeweler who initiated the heist tipped off his fellow jewelers, telling them to keep their gems out of the vault and then later claim they were stolen, thus committing insurance fraud.

Many of these moments just fly off the page, and would make for the perfect adaptation for someone like J.J. Abrams, whose work on "Lost" demonstrates a knack for intricate plots, divided allegiances, and unexpected twists.  He also recently bought a New York Times story about a family who enlisted architects to build a puzzle into their house, which his Bad Robot production company will produce.  With so many successes at age 42, and the eagerly anticipated Star Trek releasing this May, it appears there's much in store for the writer/director/producer.