Detroit Film Critics Awards

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week My Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Carey Mulligan, Shame
SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, The Help, The Debt, Take Shelter
ENSEMBLE: Carnage
DOCUMENTARY: Tabloid


Finally some love for Carey Mulligan for Shame, and a nicely formidable line-up from the folks at Detroit.

Shame

Harsh and cold, brittle and fascinating, Shame, the controversial, newly instated NC-17 second feature from British filmmaker Steve McQueen is a haunting experience, mostly due to the stark realism that grounds its intense nature.  Yet for a film that dives into human sexuality with such a brisk nonchalance, it's easy, if perhaps slightly false, to call a film like this titillating, or exploitative-- a matter of which the misguided prudes that make up the Motion Picture Association of America, or many regular filmgoers themselves might struggle with.  For this is a movie; and a specifically grown-up movie, about a man with an unhealthy sexual addiction-- one that prevents genuine human contact of nearly any kind-- with friends, family, much less potentially solid suitors.  What matters and makes the film a unique and interesting slice of cinema is the humanity and non-judgmental ques the director gives his actors, and the nakedly expressive performances that arise from it...so much so that the heavily hyped nudity of the picture feels so much of an after-thought after the film is completed, and lingers and questions and builds from whatever you bring to it, and take out of it.  Much like McQueen's first feature, Hunger (which centered around the real-life hunger strike lead by IRA prisoner Bobby Sands), Shame is bold, yet quiet...propulsive, but controlled...interesting and unsettling and difficult shake, in spite of and because of its flaws.  In short, it's a film that may gain notoriety due to its dangling body parts, but it's a haunting feature that matters.

The hero of sorts is Michael Fassbender, who got his big breakthrough with Hunger a few years back and was awarded a richly deserved Best Actor mention at this years Venice Film Festival for Shame.  He plays Brandon, an Irish-born corporate swell in Manhattan, and the first beats of the film reveal his unhealthy sexual routine, consisting of online pornography, prostitutes, regular hook-up girls, all the while maintaining his quiet, easy-going self around drinks with his co-workers.  It's an uncomfortable rut from the start, and the quick entrance of his wayward younger sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) shifts and slowly starts to mess Brandon up ever more.  While their backstory is never explained, the notes and disconnection between Brandon and Sissy is obvious and destructive.  Sissy is a seen at first as a charmingly flaky free spirit; she could easily be a token girlfriend part in a silly romantic comedy, but she's just as damaged, and the ebb and flow of their relationship is part of the complicated, but spellbinding achievement of Shame.  He, the tightly wound introvert trails off for anonymous sex and inappropriate self-love (or hate), while she is more the outgoing, impulsive type who leaves her vulnerability to the stage, as she is a wannabe lounge singer.  There's an eerily striking early scene where Sissy performs "New York, New York" in a slow manner that serves both as wake-up call and cry for help simultaneously for both her and Brandon.  That the scene is shot in a nearly unbroken take adds to the raw vulnerability.

McQueen's slow moving camera and tight shots of his actors inform the tension and work almost as another character altogether, exposing the actors in a way that would feel almost voyeuristic if it weren't grounded in so much reality.  For it's really a rare film that pounces on the darker aspects of human behavior, and characters both fully formed and still strangely kept at arms length; the closer more personal scenes with Brandon and Sissy linger because of the things not said, and the distance between them.  The game changer that eventually spirals Brandon further down his destructive path is one that seems, at first, entirely throwaway.  He's chatted up and hit on by an attractive co-worker (played with graceful humanity by Nicole Beharie) and the two go on an actual date; something entirely foreign to Brandon as his fiddles and fuses while trying to make conversation and put aside his own baggage he's so eager to dispose of.  The scene itself is rendered with acute precision-- McQueen this time pulls back his camera, as Brandon struggles, as he's knowingly aware that he may have met a good one and is fearful of what to do.  The only caveat to this rich scene is a stink of misjudged comedy that throws the rhythms off the alluring duets of the actors.

In the end, Brandon succumbs to his nature in almost excruciating sequence of hitting bottom.  It's masterfully shot in pieces, for the audience to link what happened when, and while thankfully it doesn't quite have the over-the-top Lost Weekend feel, it's unblinkingly terse.  Fassbender is nearly impenetrable, distilling such a clear authority over his dark character, that when he unravels in such naked abandon, it's heartbreaking and exhausting.  To his and the films credit as a whole, Brandon is never presented as a glamorous ladies man, nor a charming cad, but something altogether more haunting and human: a sad, lonely man who long ago disconnected himself from everyone-- casual sex is the only way he can express himself with another person, forgotten the rhythms and joy of intimacy.  That Fassbender is also such an endearing and charmingly expressive performer, with movie star stature makes the transition all the more unsettling.  Mulligan nearly matches Fassbander, as does many of the other nameless supporting players, most pop up for a scene or two of anonymous pairing.  McQueen makes the demanding nature of the story explicit on everyone, including the audience.

But that's also the wonder of a film like Shame, in that even under such strict demands, it manages to be alive and exciting at the same time for the that patient, grown-up moviegoer.  And for a feature called Shame, there's never that judgement expressed on its characters, that's all internal-- Brandon is ashamed of himself.  And moreso for a movie that's so rich in substance and mood, it becomes more and more interesting when the film slightly goes astray and loses itself every once in a while, for unintended histrionics in a feature so painfully raw are quickly grounded by the steady hand of the actors and McQueen's grimly beautiful camera.  A-

"Shame" French one-sheet

Leave to the French to be a bit naughtier in their marketing the hotly buzzed about sex addiction drama Shame.  I feel like Fox Searchlight's bitch at the moment, but I really can't quell my excitement for this movie-- others can have their franchise crap, I'll gladly take a hard, unsettling, likely depressing (and newly anointed NC-17) drama any day.

British Independent Film Nominations

BEST BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM
Senna
Shame
Tinker Tailor Solider Spy
Tyrannosaur
We Need to Talk About Kevin

BEST DIRECTOR
Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailer Solider Spy
Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur
Steve McQueen, Shame
Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Ben Wheatley, Kill List

THE DOUGLAS HICKOX AWARD (BEST DEBUT DIRECTOR)
Richard Ayoade, Submarine
Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur
Joe Cornish, Attack the Block
Ralph Fiennes, Coriolanus
John Michael McDonagh, The Guard

BEST ACTOR
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Brendan Gleeson, The Guard
Niel Maskell, Kill List
Peter Mullan, Tyrannosaur
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy

BEST ACTRESS
MyAnna Buring, Kill List
Olivia Coleman, Tyrannosaur
Rebecca Hall, The Awakening
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Mia Wasikowska, Jane Eyre

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Benedict Cumberbatch, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy
Tom Hardy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Eddie Marsan, Tyrannosaur
Ezra Miller, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Michael Smiley, Kill List

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Kathy Burke, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy
Sally Hawkins, Submarine
Felicity Jones, Albatross
Carey Mulligan, Shame
Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus

BEST SCREENPLAY
The Guard- John Michael McDonagh
Kill List- Ben Wheatley & Amy Jump
Shame- Abi Morgan & Steve McQueen
Submarine- Richard Ayoade
We Need to Talk About Kevin- Lynne Ramsay & Rory Kinnear

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION
Kill List
Tyrannosaur
Weekend
Wild Bill
You Instead

BEST TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT
Senna- Chris King & Gregors Sall (Film Editing)
Shame- Sean Bobbitt (Cinematography)
Shame- Joe Walker (Film Editing)
Tinker Tailor Solider Spy- Maria Djurkovic (Production Design)
We Need to Talk About Kevin- Seamus McGarvey (Cinematography)

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Hell & Back Again
Life in a Day
Project Nim
Senna
TT3D: Closer to the Edge

BEST FOREIGN INDEPENDENT FILM
Animal Kingdom
Drive
Pina
A Seperation
The Skin I Live In

MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER
John Boyeda, Attack the Block
Tom Cullen, Weekend
Jessica Brown Findlay, Albatross
Yasmin Page, Submarine
Craig Roberts, Submarine

The huge favorites were Shame, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Tyrannosaur, all earning seven nods from the British Independent Film Awards, and while Oscars are hardly at stake at this point, it certainly raises the profiles of a few titles.  Notably all three of those films will have an awards push and open in the next two months stateside, as well as other favorites We Need to Talk About Kevin (which earned six nods, after much acclaim from its Cannes debut, but little hardware to speak off since), and The Guard, which had a successful art-house run this past summer (despite being kinda bad...Brendan Gleeson is terrific is always however.)  Really the only obscure multi-nominated flick is Kill List, but perhaps BAFTA will shine some light on this one later on.

Of the films nominated it's strange that a wonder like Weekend only received two nods (for Achievement in Production, whatever that means, and Tom Cullen for Most Promising Newcomer), and while those nods are worthy, it's a shame that the British Independent Film community didn't heap more praise, though they clear saw it.  There was room enough however to acknowledge films like Submarine (an art-house dud stateside last June), as well the cheekily fun genre mash-up Attack the Block, as well as some Shakespeare (Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut Coriolanus scored two nominations.)

What's always notable is that they combine all the technical categories into one (Best Technical Achivement), I wonder what the Oscar world would look like if all the tech categories slipped in...would we have five nominations for War Horse comes year end (Shame scored two in that category)...the always thinking AMPAS might cut it out for more TV time...a truly horrible thought!

Coolest recognition: Drive earns its first nomination of the season, in the category of Best Foreign Independent Film...those cheeky Brits-- the English language I'm sure was the most foreign of all!

Shame earns NC-17; MPAA continues to surprise no one!

The buzzy new film Shame which won huge acclaim during the fall festival circuit centers around an unflinching take on sex addiction has earned, what many where expecting, the kiss of death NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.  The film, from director Steve McQueen (his second feature after the acclaimed and difficult to watch 2008 feature Hunger) stars Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan as siblings-- he's a sex addict, she's a wayward lounge singer.  The frank nature of the film was surprisingly not a turn-off to Fox Searchlight Picture who snapped up the film shortly after its festival debut and is releasing it December 2nd.  What's exciting is that the film will get a proper release-- awards be damned, it matters nil-- and that it will go on unchallenged.  Much can be made of the problems associated with the MPAA, and there are many, the documentary The Film Is Not Yet Rated amusingly and pointedly attacked the covert and highly secretive coven that has such strange, unholy power over modern filmmaking, but what is the hopeful outcome here-- that Shame hopefully on notice and reputation and adoration might just become a box office hit at the very least.  Wouldn't that be grand.  No matter the content itself, I'm fairly sure the sight of Fassbender's genitals will be more agreeable than the countless bloody, violent, destructive studio yarns that weasel themselves into R ratings any day.

The last high profile release to wear the shameful badge of honor was Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, which opened in 2007, courtesy of Focus Features.  The film kind of tanked (only about $4 million domestically) and earned mixed reviews, and merited no serious awards contention.  That film incidentally won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival that year, where this year Fassbender won Best Actor honors for Shame-- facts are fun!  Blue Valentine was famously threatened with the rating last year, a fact of pride and joy for it's champion, Harvey Weinstein-- of course he was able to reverse the rating-- the MPAA has always been slightly more lenient to female copulation than male genitalia.   The validity and arguments and aftermaths of the rating are all fairly dismal, which bodes poorly on terms of Shame as a box office or awards magnet, but hopefully the rating itself, hopefully undisputed, will get all the curious-minded filmgoers together in thrall and desperate need of a grand piece of art.  (Not I haven't seen Shame, so all this praise, sight unseen, may be much ado about nothing, but this is far and away the sole film of this fairly sad cinematic year that excites me.)

On the awards front, it looks grim at least historically.  Only one film with the kiss of death rating has earned an Oscar nomination: Henry & June was nominated for Best Cinematography.  Good luck Fassbender!

Shame trailer

The provocative, sex-filled first tease of Shame, the Michael Fassbender\Carey Mulligan film.  It looks pretty amazing...

Shame poster

Shame, the hot button fall festival favorite that earned 2011 MVP Michael Fassbender the Best Actor prize at this years Venice Film Festival.  There's a lot more of interest too, for it's the second feature from director Steve McQueen, after the harrowing but brilliantly put together 2008 feature Hunger (which also featured Fassbender.)  There's also the glowing early praise, the pairing of two of today's brightest young stars (Carey Mulligan co-stars), and the titillating premise of a man battling an addiction to sex, which is promising a boundary pushing, expected to be NC-17, full frontal showing drama.  All of which might pose a problem for it's newly aligned distributor, Fox Searchlight, or maybe not, rating and sexual controversy helped last year's Blue Valentine, then again this one may not be the type of film that makes a strong Academy showing either.  Either way, the teaser poster is sparse and artful, and does exactly what it should do...teases.

Something's Coming

While it may be hard to tell, but the movie seasons are slowly but surely beginning to change.  While perhaps hard to see from the perspective of the regular filmgoer (which sadly I'm apart of) who had to witness a sad past weekend where the brightest thing was a soggy Helen Mirren thriller and Shark Night 3-D (both of which were bested by a month old message picture), the fall festival seasons is most certainly underway.  The Telluride Film Festival has already wrapped, and the shined a few lights on a few noteworthy films coming our way.  The festival, a favorite of the exclusive cinephiles, for that it announces its selection after tickets are already sold.  The exclusives the festival typically brings are the reason it can get away with such things.  Recent films like The King's Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, Up in the Air and Juno made their first big splashed at Telluride.  That's not all, however, as the Venice Film Festival is underway-- last year's opening night film-- Black Swan-- made it all the way to an Oscar nomination.  Then comes the big festival orgy of the Toronto Film Festival, which offers even more films than anyone could possibly hope to see in one lifetime, and that it offers that on a yearly basis is quite exhausting.  Later on, comes the New York Film Festival (last year The Social Network opened), this year the honor belongs to Roman Polanski's Carnage.  After that comes the London Film Festival (Fernando Mierelles, director of City of God, opens that festival with his latest ensemble drama 360, starring Rachel Weisz and Jude Law.)  And that's followed by the AFI Film Festival, which will unspool Clint Eastwood's latest J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio...whew!

Carnage:
Roman Polanski's latest, adapted from the Tony Award winning play, God of Carnage, played Venice, with it's very starry cast-- Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Rielly and Christoph Waltz, and was greeted with lukewarm praise, all of which translates to a potentially interesting, but possibly non-awards caliber type of film.  For a film shot in real time, set in one apartment over a group of two squabbling parents, the film reeks of potential stagy-ness.  And the tone of melodrama and overt comedy may harken its chances of awards and a large audience, but still how can one not be curious.

The Daily Telegraph said:
"It's well-acted and giddily enjoyable, if slightly less so once the characters start to analyse their descent into barbarism."

The Hollywood Reporter said:
"Snappy, nasty, deftly acted and perhaps the fastest paced film ever directed by a 78-year-old, this adaptation of Yasmina Reza's award-winning play God of Carnage fully delivers the laughs and savagery of the stage piece..."

A Dangerous Method:
David Croenberg's latest- a period drama and study of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung and the girl caught in the middle stars Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortenssen and Keira Knightley.  The film earned mixed reviews from its bow at Telluride and Venice and due to the kinky but seemingly austere nature of the film may not be able to become the film that finally warms the Academy to endless but idiosyncratic talents of Croenberg.  The performances and the technical aspects of A Dangerous Method seem to have earned high praise, but the film seems to have come across as the least-Croenberg-like film he's every created, and a lot of attention was payed to Knightley's performance that seems to be dividing critics.

The Daily Telegraph said:
"It's Knightley that one remembers, for a full-on portrayal that is gutsy and potentially divisive in equal parts."

The Guardian said:
"A Dangerous Mind feels heavy and lugubrious. It is a tale that comes marinated in port and choked on pipe-smoke."

The Hollywood Reporter said:
"Precise, lucid and thrillingly disciplined, this story of boundary-testing in the early days of psychoanalysis is brought to vivid life by the outstanding lead performances of Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender."

The Descendants:
The brightest thing potentially from Telluride was Alexander Payne's latest feature starring George Clooney as a husband and father trying to rebuild his family after his wife is struck with a life-threatening ailment.  It's been seven years since Payne unleashed the huge critical sweep (and Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay) Sideways, and should at the very least, on paper, be primed for another awards contender.  While the trailer may have read a bit nondescript and possibly lacking in the usual humor one might expect from Payne, there's bound to be a great deal of attention towards the film, as well as Clooney's performance, and with distributor Fox Searchlight, it's fairly certain a stellar campaign will be mounted.  The next step is Toronto, where perhaps the film will truly sink or swim.

Variety said:
"Some movies aim to distract us; others seek to help us understand. "The Descendants" tackles some of the prickliest issues a contempo family can face -- coping with a loved one's right-to-die decision -- with such sensitivity that it's hardly noticeable you're being enlightened while entertained. As a Hawaiian father of two negotiating complex emotions while his wife lies comatose after a boating accident, George Clooney reveals yet another layer of himself. His involvement, plus the welcome return of "Sideways" director Alexander Payne, will bring in auds; their tell-a-friend enthusiasm should spell sleeper success among catharsis-seeking adults."

The Ides of March:
George Clooney's is everywhere, as per usual.  The stars and directs this film, which opened the Venice Film Festival, and while play Toronto.  A timely, political story with an all star cast-- Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Evan Rachel Wood, Paul Giamatti, and Jeffrey Wright.  The film received mostly kind, if unspectacular notices.  Yet many seem to assume the film, a very American story, will play better here than in Venice, and if the film reaches out to the uber-Hollywood liberal elite, it could certainly be an awards film.

The Hollywood Reporter said:
"Classy and professional throughout, the technical work gracefully holds all the threads together."

Time Magazine said:
"Clooney sees blustering bustle and edgy familiarity - giant closeups of private conversations - as the contrasts of political campaigns, which are, at heart, all rhetoric and no accountability."

Variety said:
"[An] intriguing but overly portentous drama, which seems far more taken with its own cynicism than most viewers will be."

Shame:
A film of definite interest that played both Telluride and Venice to a lot of good notice was Steve McQueen's second feature starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.  Defined as an unflinching film about the relationship between a depraved sex addict and wayward sister, the film seems to have gotten a lot of attention, not perhaps as a magnet for upcoming awards, but it's frank, and full-frontal realism.  While much press on the film has noted that the film will likely be rated NC-17, there still seems to be a lot of interest in the story as an alleged bidding war is underway between Fox Searchlight, The Weinstein Company and Sony Pictures Classics.  Whatever there's to make of the outcome, one certainly hopes that McQueen follows through on the promise of his hard-edged, provocative, but ultimately dazzling debut feature, Hunger, which (depending on what year the few of you that caught it, actually saw it-- release dates for the little ones can be confusing-- was the real breakout feature for the formidable Fassbender.)  The film will trek onto Toronto next.

The Guardian said:
"This is fluid, rigorous, serious cinema; the best kind of adult movie."

This is London said:
"McQueen's film-making is undoubtedly powerful and without compromise, especially during the frequent sex scenes, which depict a man on the edge intent on propelling himself over the cliff."

W.E.:
Directed by Madonna, W.E. was snapped up by The Weinstein Company well before it made its auspicious and critically reviled premiere at Venice.  Described as a Julie & Julia-like biopic of Wallis Simpson (the woman King Edward III abdicated the throne for) and a modern woman obsessed with the tale.  The film stars Andrea Riseborough and Abbie Cornish.  Perhaps the Weinstein's were hoping for a side story of sorts to last years champ The King's Speech.  Either way the film received a critical drubbing, and will surely rouse endlessly curiosity and hisses as it approaches theaters; Madonna just can't get a break in films, can she?

The Guardian said:
"What an extraordinarily silly, preening, fatally mishandled film this is."

The Hollywood Reporter said:
"Madonna's second foray into directing is pleasing to the eyes and ears, but lacking anything for the soul."

Variety said:
"Burdened with risible dialogue and weak performances, pic doesn't have much going for it apart from lavish production design and terrific, well-researched costumes."

Other possible films of interest include Albert Nobbs, the two decades long passion project for Glenn Close, who both stars and scripted the gender-bending tale of a woman who poses as a man in 19th century Ireland.  While reviews were mild, there's still bound to be interest and praise given to Close (who received a Lifetime Achievement Award at Telluride) and who, after five tries and an Oscar track record in the 1980s that rivaled Meryl Streep, still has yet to win the big award.  What the irony that Streep herself as an Oscar bid in her Margaret Thatcher biography The Iron Lady coming out later this year...a festival run is thus far unannounced for that one.  And what of the further irony if eventually when all pans out if Viola Davis ends up becoming the victor for The Help...

Cannes favorites The Artist and We Need to Talk About Kevin also played Telluride, further building potentially buzz.  The Artist, which was snapped by the very busy Weinstein Company earlier this year seems likely to benefit most from the fall festival circuit (it will play Toronto as well), and crowd-pleasing old Hollywood throwback to silent era, might very well be the toast of this coming season, if early reaction is any indication.  Kevin, on the other hand might have a bit more trouble seeing it's rough subject matter-- a family drama centered around a Columbine-like high school shooting.  However the film's star Tilda Swinton has received a lot of acclaim, and received a tribute at Telluride, as did George Clooney, and its distributor, Roadside Attraction (also handling Albert Nobbs) had a good run last year with not so easy sells like Winter's Bone and Biutiful.