Independent Spirit Awards

BEST FEATURE: 12 Years a Slave
BEST DIRECTOR: Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
BEST FIRST FEATURE: Fruitvale Station
JOHN CASSAVETTES AWARD: This Is Martin Bonner
BEST MALE LEAD: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
BEST FEMALE LEAD: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
BEST SUPPORTING MALE: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave
BEST SCREENPLAY: 12 Years a Slave- John Ridley
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY: Nebraska- Bob Nelson
BEST DOCUMENTARY: 20 Feet From Stardom
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM: Blue Is the Warmest Color
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: 12 Years a Slave- Sean Bobbit
BEST EDITING: Short Term 12- Nat Sanders
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD: Mud

12 Years a Slave nearly fully swept the Independent Spirit Awards and hopes to become only the third film in history to win the top prize here and at tomorrows Oscar ceremony-- The Artist and Platoon are the only movie so far to accomplish that feat.  I'd say the proceedings went according to plan with the exception of Southern California suffering its worst storm in years.  Curiously, if all four acting winners today repeat tomorrow (a legitimate possibility), that would be a first.

Golden Globes Post-Mortem

The 71st Golden Globes are in the books-- hopefully the hangovers have settled as the 2013 awards season has officially, in all its bombastic ridiculousness and woozy delight, left the train onwards the main event on March 2nd.  Long thought of as Oscar's slutty cousin, the Golden Globes continue to provide punchlines and quizzical sneers, but their stage can be prescient, absurd, momentarily insightful and rollicking as major stars sip the freely and generously served libations throughout the ceremony.  There's often a buzz that's emitted from the liquored up celebrities run about and casually-- yet so formally-- take the stage in the Beverly Hilton Grand Ballroom.

For the second year in a row, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the festivities and if their second act wasn't quite the revelatory lark that it was one a year ago, they still provided the very best things to be attributed to the overall presentation.  Coming out and welcoming us to the "Tina Fey and Amy Poehler Lee Daniels' The Butler Golden Globe Awards," they provided the snark and a gleeful energy to a proceedings.  Bubbly and charming, both hostesses still ensured snappy commentary on Hollywood and the foolishness that lies within it, yet because of their insider snap and charm, the jokes never veered into misanthropic Ricky Gervais mean-spiritedness.

New York Film Critics Circle

And we're off!  The NYFCC starts the exhaustive critics leg of the 2013 awards season with David O. Russell's American Hustle starting off the awards season in a major way with three key wins including Best Picture.  Surprising so far in the least, in so much as evident by the Gotham's going for the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis and today's reveal, perhaps this season will not be ruled by 12 Years a Slave, though NY did give it's director, Steve McQueen, the directing prize.  Missing out in NY, which may or may not be apropos of nothing, were films like Gravity, Nebraska, Captain Phillips, Philomena, August: Osage County, Before Midnight, Frances Ha and The Wolf of Wall Street (however with New York's early date, it's possible not everyone caught up with Scorsese's latest, which just started screening this past weekend.)

PICTURE: American Hustle
DIRECTOR: Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
ACTOR: Robert Redford, All is Lost
ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
SUPPORTING ACTOR:  Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
SCREENPLAY: American Hustle- Eric Singer & David O. Russell
ANIMATED FILM: The Wind Rises
DOCUMENTARY: Stories We Tell
FOREIGN FILM: Blue is the Warmest Color
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Inside Llewyn Davis- Bruno Delbonnel
FIRST FILM: Fruitvale Station- Ryan Coogler 
SPECIAL AWARD: Frederick Wiseman, documentarian 

The Greatest Art Heist in History...

...yet some of the most boring art work in contemporary one-sheets.

Blue Jasmine

The nerve, the twitch that hit the zeitgeist in recent years, that tinge of uproar sparked by the brief Occupy movement, inspired by the corrupt antics of those richer-than-sin is but the blip of the surface that's keenly and acutely observed in Woody Allen's latest-- a rich and potent character study of one woman's riches to rags saga.  It's also inspired the most provocative and surprising drama the filmmaker has tackled in years, decades even, as if Allen was hit by a primal nerve, one in which he sought to create a crowd-pleasing morality fable centered around a once wealthy woman, not just on the verge of a nervous breakdown, by in the full-on throes of one.  Blue Jasmine, a sparkling melodrama, seems to document a sudden and welcome shift, not to mention a glimmer of topicality for the illustrious auteur.  For decades, Allen has held a gilded light on the neurotic and prickly dwellers on the upper echelons of society, at first as noted observer, than as insider-- in Blue Jasmine, Allen retreats and through the prism of a most absorbent character study, he has perhaps given the proletarians the feel good movie of the year.

Jasmine French (Cate Blanchett) is a modern day royal, one of the many superbly coiffed, well spoken members of high society, or she was, now she's tapped out due to the crafty bookkeeping by her high yields husband Hal (Alec Baldwin), and stuck in an eternal existential state of why me.  With no skill set to speak of, the loss of the societal camaraderie she once knew and recent bouts of mania, Jasmine has little choice but to journey west to San Francisco and mooch off her working class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) with little else but her own snobbish haughtiness to sate her.  Something is amiss right from the start of the film, as Jasmine, a woman so desperate to maintain authoritative civility,  appears lost on the doorsteps of her sister's apartment in one of the very first scenes, as if she's stuck in a nightmare waiting to wake up back at her summer home in Southampton where she can play the consummate hostess, the only role that ever naturally suited her.

Wolverine and Woody

Hugh Jackman returns as the clawed superhero on which he is most familiar with The Wolverine, the only major release to debut this weekend.  Director James Margold (Walk the Line, Knight & Day) hopes to undue the damage brought on the spin-off franchise by the dwindling returns of the Wolverine's first solo entry which in 2009 earned awful reviews and despite a strong open, experienced a drastic fall.  The first days results proved a sigh of relief for the studio executives at 20th Century Fox, as it collected $21 million on its first day of release (including a sold $4 million from Thursday late shows-- an uptick of recent films like Pacific Rim and World War Z.)  While it will fall short of the $85 million opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the long end may appear brighter for the better reviewed flick which received an A- CinemaScore.  Here's how the X-Men series stands cash flow wise:

X-Men (2000)- $54 million opening ---> $157.2 million total
X2: X-Men United (2003)- $85 million opening ---> $214.9 million total
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)- $102 million opening ---> $234.3 million total
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)- $85 million opening ---> $179.8 million total
X-Men: First Class (2011)- $55 million opening ---> $146.4 million total

On the limited side of the openings, Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine is hoping to achieve one of the strongest per-screen averages of the year.  Allen's highest per-screen average so far was Midnight in Paris, which debuted on 6 screens for an average of $93,000.

UPDATE: Blue Jasmine will indeed have one of the more notable limited openings of the year as its first day gross was an estimated $176,000 for a stellar per-screen of $29,000.  It's positioned to open on par (or even perhaps slightly better) than Midnight in Paris.  Fruitvale Station (review), meanwhile, expanded into wide release for a Friday gross of $1.4 million, good enough for the tenth slot.

The Talented Ms. Blanchett

Remember that period in the late 90s and early 00s where Cate Blanchett appeared in nearly every film released within the calendar year.  The Aussie appeared in no less than twenty feature films between the years 1997 and 2003, arguably her biggest peak of ubiquity.  Within that period she received countless praise, her first Academy award nomination (she currently has five career nominations with one win to record for those interested in taking tally), built a body of work that was built around an endless degree of shapeshifting, navigating films from small to gargantuan, from period to contemporary, amassing a career that seemed early on poised to threaten the great Meryl Streep on terms of versatility and degrees of difficulty; yes the poison of being called a "technical" actress has haunted both.  Recently, Blanchett has had a vastly smaller appearance on screens (in the last two years, Joe Wright's Hanna and last winter's The Hobbit were the only films), taking sabbatical on stage and, assuming, enjoying ones down time.  Things seem ripe to change in the near future, as Blanchett appears to entering another wave of ubiquity, starting off this week with the release of Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, which has been earning strong early reviews for her riff on a modern Blanche Dubois.  The awards machine already seems to have kicked off in her favor, a sight familiar to the actress.  She also has roles in George Clooney's WWII fall release The Monuments Men, a return trip to Galadriel in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and the Australian drama The Turning due later this year.  That's not all, 2014 looks majorly packed as well with vocal work in How to Train Your Dragon 2, the Middle Earth finale The Hobbit: There & Back Again, two Terrence Malick projects, one entitled Knight of Cups and the other untitled, which might just be the same movie for all we know, and the leading role in Todd Haynes' Carol.  All this plus a film in the works by David Mamet and the 2015 re-telling of Cinderella, where Blanchett will play the Evil Stepmother.  Whew!!!!!!  Fasten your seat belts.

"Blue Jasmine" and the Woody Allen Oscar Game

The year was 1977.  Star Wars was the biggest hit of all time, soon to become the biggest cinematic obsession of, perhaps all time, but it was Annie Hall that won the Best Picture Academy Award for that year.  It was also Woody Allen's first Oscar win (he won for Direction, as well as Original Screenplay, for which he won with Marshall Brickman), of which, he didn't show, as would become accustom.  He has since won two more Academy Awards-- both for screenwriting, for Hannah & Her Sisters and Midnight in Paris-- in becoming the Academy's favorite screenwriter.  The awards game with Woody Allen films is a bit more hit and miss nowadays then during his prime, but further prodding shows that within his film a year since in the early 1970s, it's safe to assume that his films --> Oscar nomination ratio is one of the most durable and consistent in history.  He's also one a director with one of the very best ratios of Oscar-nominated performances.  On the heels of excellent early word on Cate Blanchett's performance in his upcoming and enticing looking Blue Jasmine, here's a look back at Allen's past Oscar triumphs.

As a preamble, out of all the acting nominations that have been bestowed for Woody Allen films, many of them are richly deserved nominees.  Nevertheless, the Academy has shown a certain reluctance to nominate perhaps arguably the greatest actor he has ever guided, his greatest muse, partner and well, things kind of didn't end well, but Musings and Stuff commends Mia Farrow, despite the fact that the AMPAS never did.

"Blue Jasmine" and the Annual Struggle to Maintain Devotion to Woody Allen

"I don't think I can take it.  For some reason my Xanax isn't kicking in."

 

Every year, more and more around this time like clockwork, Woody Allen releases his latest film.  It's insane to think it through, actually, considering the consistency.  It's a minor miracle of sorts, considering all the inanity that comes along with the release of a motion picture these days.  That he can write one off each year whilst still maintaining a top-drawer ensemble and finding funding to boot.  The mixed bag of America's favorite screenwriter is that the last two decades have been a decidedly mixed bag.  To the point that we must meet his next project with such a cautious optimism-- I sort of parental, "I hope he doesn't screw this one up" sort of vibe.  All that being said, his latest-- a dramedy inspired in sorts by the Bernie Madoff scandal of excess gone to stink (which couldn't be more timely, come to think of it)-- Blue Jasmine on first glance looks, dare I say, rather juicy.  Cate Blanchett plays the lead, an unhinged woman whose wealth and marriage have gone down the tube, and she is supported by an eclectic ensemble cast including Sally Hawkins (in a hopeful return to the promise she exhibited in 2008's Happy-Go-Lucky), Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Peter Sarsgaard, Louis CK, Michael Stuhlbarg and most peculiarly, Andrew Dice Clay.  One reason for the hope must surely be presented in the form of Blanchett herself, who hasn't headlined a film in quite a few years, and on first glimmer looks perfectly on cue. 

Even so, it's a bumpy ride in Allen-land these days, as evident from the joyous surprise (and even more surprisingly, Oscar-winning) Midnight in Paris.  He quickly followed the Best Picture contender and his highest grossing film to date with the absolutely negligible To Rome With Love.  And while Match Point and Vicky Cristina Barcelona rank as astounding successes in the last decade-- When You Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Whatever Works, Cassandra's Dream and Anything Else, um, don't.  Examine:

I'm Not There

I'm Not There, the anti-biography biopic of Bob Dylan is a multi-layered, fevered dream kalidescopic film that is at once arty and personal and epic in scope. Directed by Todd Haynes, one of the most fearless, innovative and completely original directors working today sets his film about the many persona and moods of Dylan-- he's obsessed and it's a thrilling thing of beauty to watch this, even for a me, a person who knows very little about the world according to Dylan. Played by six different actors, all of whom are capturing a different mood, a different piece of the puzzle of one of the most enigmatic, divisive and thoroughly incandescent artists in popular American culture. What makes this a thrilling motion picture, is that every once of this film is so embroiled in passion, and even parts that confounded me were still viscerally alive-- that as I scratched my head, I was still immersed in it, seduced by the Dylan on the soundtrack, and the technical skill of Haynes' accomplishment.

As a note, Bob Dylan (besides his voice) is never mentioned on screen-- each of the six actors play different characters, all apart of the Dylan style of redefining. He is at first portrayed by Marcus Carl Franklin, an 11-year-old songwriter named Woody Guthrie riding the rails in a vintage suit and a Southern drawl. Franklin is very charming in this performance that I gather is supposed to an impression of Dylan's need for trying out new personalities, even at such an early age. In a representation of his folk leaning early Greenwich Village days, Christian Bale takes the helm as Jack Rollins. Bale ably looks the part of a beatnik singer, hard tempered and soulful-- he comes back too, as Pastor John as a sort of antithesis to Dylan's born again sensibilities. Heath Ledger, playing a Brando-like actor Robbie Clark, who plays Rollins in a movie entitled Grain of Sand, are you with me?


Playing the man in his most pop-culture readiness in Cate Blanchett, who nails the look, the accent and the stature of a musician whose power has reached mainstream and now suffers the backlash of possibly losing ones sense of self. Blanchett is pitch perfect, and it's obvious why she's getting the best in show honors here-- Haynes (along with co-writer Oren Moverman) gave her the most iconic part of his life to cover-- her scenes have a zeal and a sense of fun that carry throughout the movie. Ben Whishaw plays Dylan as a series of interview questions throughout the movie, commenting about the basis and ideals of his music. And finally Richard Gere, in the one place where the film maybe gets a bit too esoteric for it's own good plays Dylan as Billy the Kid, chronicling his outlaw, loner phase. It's beautifully filmed, but a too arch and slow in comparison to the rest of the film.


What makes I'm Not There so incredible to watch as a movie lover is not just Haynes honest and reverent approach to his subject, but the way he injests every bit of his auteur power to represent his life, which I believe is necessary to properly get to pins and needles of a man like Bob Dylan. An ordinary biopic would probably work well, but there has to be a sense of mystery and grandiosity when conquering a subject as complex as this. Haynes artistry is startling, jolting and bursting with energy. And yet even in I'm Not There's trippy acidic universe, it seems authentic to the burstling scene of the 1960s, while artfully referencing classic films at the same-- I've read Haynes say that Fellini was a big influence here.


As much as I'm sure some will hate this film, just because it's so non-linear, and so unique, I don't really have an great argument for them. I felt connected with this film on some primal level that I don't think I can really articulate-- it's a great mood piece, and to me few moments have brought as a much pleasure in a film as when Blanchett along with David Cross (playing Allen Ginsburg) are in front a statue of Jesus, shouting, "Play your early stuff!" It's beautiful. If nothing else look for the cameos by Julianne Moore (as a version of Joan Boaz), Michelle Williams (an Edie Sedgewick clone, giving Sienna Miller's Factory Girl a run for money in two brief scenes,) Bruce Greenwood as a reporter who tries to unglue Blanchett, and most effectively, Charlotte Gainsbourgh as a composite of Dylan's many loves. As is Safe and Far From Heaven, Haynes has made a film of unparallel power and control, and has the balls to make this crazy, out of this world, trippy film work. A-