Cannes ----> Oscar?!?!

Fun fact: only two movies have ever won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival as well as the Best Picture Academy Award.  Ever.  In history.  In that, it brings a certain irony that the festival strikes a chord and chill year after year for potential and future awards crystal ball gazing.  The last time Cannes and the Academy agreed was in 1955- for Marty, so it's not even a close record.  It's unsurprising that the cool and the fabulous creed that makes up the most esteemed film festival in history would veer off from the typically middlebrow consciousness of AMPAS naval-gazing.  It's a yearly document, however, of the lofty legacy of the year of cinema though and the Cannes programmers and the Hollywood distributors have perhaps always been bedfellows, even if the yearly jurors tend to dismiss the competition options that may have a chance of gold statutes in the their future.  Still, it would nice if one day Marty and Billy Wilder's 1964 addiction drama The Lost Weekend had some company.  Not that there haven't been contenders.  The following are films that won the Palme d'Or and collected a Best Picture nomination sans prize:

• Friendly Persuasion (1957)
• M*A*S*H (1970)
• The Conversation (1974)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• Apocalypse Now (1979)
• All That Jazz (1980)
• Missing (1982)
• The Mission (1986)
• The Piano (1993)
• Pulp Fiction (1994)
• Secrets & Lies (1996)
• The Pianist (2002)
• The Tree of Life (2011)
• Amour (2012)

Welcome to Jurassic Park

Foregoing the fact that the 20th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's mega-opus Jurassic Park makes me feel quite old, it's a great movie to catch up with.  In 1993, it was a wonder of summer blockbustery spectacle, yet there's an uncanny and unique wonder to the film, one that seems to improve with time.  Like many films that come around at that certain and magical time when a budding movie geek is building his palette and taste, Jurassic Park in many regards feels like an old friend-- a big, lumbering beast of a friend...one that might potentially eat me one day.  It's in that respect that the 3-D conversion re-release doesn't exactly read (at least to me) as a corporately cynical way of milking a long in the tooth franchise, but instead like a celebration of a film that time has only improved upon its legacy.

Revisiting this special friend, it's remarkable how the astounding and groundbreaking effects still hold up and the razzle dazzle of twenty years ago can still be held in the same regard (or perhaps even higher so) than the mega-digitized-extraganza-spectacles of today.  Even some of the dated imagery has a delightful effect opposed to the you-know-it's-all-fake Deceptacons and Avatars of today.  More importantly, there's just enough sense of character that there's enough of a rooting cause for them.  Just as importantly, many are incidental (or in the case of Wayne Knight, evil enough) that it's okay to root for dino-carnage as well.

Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, there's little point in arguing that Jurassic Park is high art, it's a high calorie roller coaster ride (made literal when it became an existing theme park attraction at Universal Studios; synergy in motion), but under the expert skill and showmanship of Spielberg, it's a great roller coaster ride that chugs along at an exceptional pace.  And for a plot that conceived on the silly premise of the return of dinosaurs, only for them to attack humans, there's such a grandiosity to the spectacle, it nearly is art.  Spielberg is essentially riffing on Jaws, his first great film and the grandfather movie for the whole summer blockbuster craze to begin with.  And similarly makes the frightening fun and the fun frightening.  I've previously addressed the effect Jaws can have on a five-year-old.  A couple of years later, I was ready and willing participant to Jurassic Park.

Looking back it's startling and thrilling in the sense that nearly every splice of the film is iconic.  From the helicopter circling down on the waterfall and pristine island to Richard Attenborough's "Welcome to Jurassic Park," to the car ride of eventual doom and the escape acts.  The T-Rex was the always the centerpiece, but the tease of his entrance was just as, if not more memorable.  Just as the chords of John Williams' Jaws score announced terror before we faced it, the same effect occurred here in the benign image of rings in a water cup.  And then it happens...

It wasn't just the mastery of technology, it was the mastery of suspense.  Spielberg, still working the mindset of an industrial Hitchcock, builds till the moment of panic.  That edge of your seat gamesmanship that happens to be more fun than the payoff itself.  In that sense pass the popcorn and bemoan the state of the current crop of Hollywood offerings.

My favorite shot of Jurassic Park to play along with the great piece, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," offered at The Film Experience, comes very early on in the film.  It involves little technical whatsits but clearly, authoritatively and quietly sums up what the feeling that the filmmaking experience should be.

And Jurassic Park still does that even twenty years in...blindsides you in the magic and wonder of the cinema.

Steven Spielberg to Head Cannes Film Festival Jury

Three days after losing the Best Director Oscar for Lincoln to Ang Lee (for Life of Pi), it has been reported that Steven Spielberg will head the film jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, running from May 15th-26th.  The famed filmmaker has been to Cannes before-- Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull screened out of competition in 2008, as did E.T. and The Color Purple; he shared the Screenplay prize for his 1974 film The Sugarland Express.

“It is an honour and a privilege to preside over the jury of a festival that proves, again and again, that cinema is the language of the world"

A Brief History of the DGA

The Directors Guild announced their picks for Best Director of 2012 tonight, and perhaps a lot may be telling of the eventual winner.  The DGA has always been the sturdiest signifier of the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner.  And yet, this year is a bit wild-- what with the 2\5 overlap from the DGA and Best Director Oscar nominees.  The DGA selected this year:

• Ben Affleck, Argo
• Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
• Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
• Ang Lee, Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Only Spielberg and Lee transferred onto the Academy list.  Calling attention the surge for Argo lately, it seems assured a victory tonight.  However, Spielberg is the the most honored DGA recipient of all time-- winning a record breaking 3 times (The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan.)

Here's a look of the DGA history:

1948: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, A Letter to Three Wives
1949: Robert Rossen, All the King's Men
1950: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve
1951: George Stevens, A Place in the Sun
1952: John Ford, The Quiet Man
1953: Fred Zinnemann, From Here to Eternity
1954: Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront
1955: Delbert Mann, Marty
1956: George Stevens, Giant
1957: David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958: Vincent Minnelli, Gigi
1959: William Wyler, Ben-Hur
1960: Billy Wilder, The Apartment
1961: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, West Side Story
1962: David Lean, Lawrence of Arabia
1963: Tony Richardson, Tom Jones
1964: George Cukor, My Fair Lady
1965: Robert Wise, The Sound of Music
1966: Fred Zinnemann, A Man For All Seasons
1967: Mike Nichols, The Graduate
1968: Anthony Harvey, The Lion in Winter
1969: John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy
1970: Franklin J. Schaffner, Patton
1971: William Friedkin, The French Connection
1972: Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather
1973: George Roy Hill, The Sting
1974: Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather: Part II
1975: Milos Forman, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1976: John J. Avildsen, Rocky
1977: Woody Allen, Annie Hall
1978: Michael Cimino, The Deer Hunter
1979: Robert Benton, Kramer vs. Kramer
1980: Robert Redford, Ordinary People
1981: Warren Beatty, Reds
1982: Richard Attenborough, Gandhi
1983: James L. Brooks, Terms of Endearment
1984: Milos Forman, Amadeus
1985: Steven Spielberg, The Color Purple
1986: Oliver Stone, Platoon
1987: Bernardo Bertolucci, The Last Emperor
1988: Barry Levinson, Rain Man
1989: Oliver Stone, Born on the Fourth of July
1990: Kevin Costner, Dances with Wolves
1991: Jonathon Demme, The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven
1993: Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List
1994: Robert Zemeckis, Forrest Gump
1995: Ron Howard, Apollo 13
1996: Anthony Minghella, The English Patient
1997: James Cameron, Titanic
1998: Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan
1999: Sam Mendes, American Beauty
2000: Ang Lee, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2001: Ron Howard, A Beautiful Mind
2002: Rob Marshall, Chicago
2003: Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004: Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
2005: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
2006: Martin Scorsese, The Departed
2007: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
2008: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
2009: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
2010: Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
2011: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

In bold indicates a Best Picture winner.

In the last twenty years- the DGA has only missed with the eventual Best Picture Academy Award winner four times-- and all have a link to this years race as well.

1995: Ron Howard won for Apollo 13 despite being snubbed by the Oscars (like Affleck this year), Braveheart won Best Picture and Director that year.  Coincidentally, Ang Lee-- nominated by both DGA and AMPAS this year for Life of Pi, earned a DGA nod, but no Oscar nod for Sense and Sensibility.

1998: Spielberg won the DGA and the Best Director Oscar for Saving Private Ryan, but in the one of the biggest upsets in Academy history, the Weinstein-steamrolled Shakespeare in Love took Best Picture.

2000: In one of the tightest Oscar races in recent history, Ang Lee popped up as the DGA pick for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, though he lost the Best Director Oscar to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic, and Gladiator took Best Picture.

2005: Another huge Oscar upset occurred win Brokeback Mountain won the DGA and the Directing Oscar for, but of course, Ang Lee, but Crash won the top prize at the Oscars.

We await for the news!

Directors Guild Nominees

And the five directors chosen by the Directors Guild Association of America are:

• Ben Affleck, Argo
• Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
• Tom Hooper, Les Miserables
• Ang Lee, Life of Pi
• Steven Spielberg, Lincoln

Ben Affleck is enjoying his first DGA nod, while the winners of the prize in 2009 and 2010, respectively, return with Bigelow and Hooper.  Lee won the prize twice for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain.  This is Spielberg's 10th nomination from the DGA, winning 3 times for Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List and The Color Purple.

All five of these directors as well as their films now must be taken as Best Picture locks, with Hooper possibly being the biggest surprise considering the (unfair) vitriol some critics have taken with Les Miserables; he still bested snubbed director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) and Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), all of which have some work cut out for them as Oscar nominations are announced Thursday morning.