Motifs in 2011 Cinema: Disillusionment.

Perhaps because it’s one of the youngest artistic forms, cinema is often assessed in much different manner that literature, or the visual arts. We discuss it in terms of genre, not in terms of thematic offering. Comparing, for example, Corpse Bride and Up because they’re both animated leads to some dubious discussion especially when – like any art form – thematic elements examined in cinema and the way different filmmaker address them make for some stimulating discussion. Motifs in Cinema is a discourse, across nine film blogs, assessing the way in which various thematic elements have been used in the 2011 cinematic landscape. How does a common theme vary in use from a comedy to a drama? Are filmmakers working from a similar canvas when they assess the issue of the artist or the family dynamic? Like everything else, a film begins with an idea - Motifs in Cinema assesses how the use of a single idea changes when utilised by varying artists.

- Andrew K.
Disillusionment.

One of my favorite songs says "disillusion takes what illusion gives" and this couldn't ring truer than it does while looking back at the cinema of 2011. The last decade was characterized because its up and downs were more extreme than anything else in the past. When things got bad, it meant war, terrorist attacks, pandemics, severe economic crises, social revolts, harsh weather changes and natural disasters etc. When things got good - if they ever did - it seemed like the world was closer to unity. Not so surprisingly, most of the good came in direct response to the bad, with entire countries uniting to help out a smaller nation in need, technological and scientific breakthroughs and perhaps naively in the promises made by a series of politicians who for a split second seemed like they would be able to change the world.
The movies of 2011, more than before, focused on how all of the good eventually let us down, how racism, intolerance, war and corruption just might've won the battle.

In Meek's Cutoff - perhaps the most aggressive political commentary of 2011 - Kelly Reichardt questions the Obama administration's lack of direction. Her story of wandering pioneers might not seem like a straightforward "movie" in the sense that it never worries about being entertaining and has no regard for plot. However embedded in its desolated landscapes lies the greatest story never told: how people abandon everything precious to them for an ideal that might never materialize. Realizing these people are lost isn't as heartbreaking as the delusional nature of the man leading them (played with astonishing charisma by Bruce Greenwood) who is more keen on preserving his public image than on acknowledging his flaws and how he let his people down. Meek's Cutoff cleverly uses history to make a point out of the cyclical nature of our universe.

This cyclical nature is repeated in Drive a film that takes place in a Los Angeles that seems to have never moved past the Reagan era. A labyrinth of decay surrounded by neon lights, Nicolas Winding Refn's tale questions what happens when society has lost all signs of latent humanity. L.A. here becomes the ultimate symbol of disillusionment, a city where people once came to dream (there is nary a sign of Hollywood glamour, we only see the menial tasks performed by stuntmen and strippers) but now are in deep search of a hero.
That the hero they get is a morally ambiguous macho figure speaks more about how the icons of valor are thought of as primitive creatures that predate the times we live in.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo then gives us a hero(ine) that fits more in our times. Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) might not be Homer's idea of a savior, but in these times when corporations deal with our private information, she gets the Julian Assange badge of honor for "criminal heroism". When and how exactly did telling the truth and trying to make things right by way of immorality became a sign of courage might be a task more adequate for sociologists, but we'll take our salvation in any way it comes, right?

Although salvation makes no sense when thinking that a single epidemic might invalidate all of our moral codes. In Contagion we saw how an illness not only destroyed lives but shook survivors as well. What is the point in trying to preserve any signs of humanity when we commit the greatest acts of inhumanity against ourselves?
Steven Soderbergh's masterpiece was a chilling reminder that globalization is making us stronger only by giving us a false sense of unity, when in fact countries seem to wish they could erect walls to contain their own troubles without ever recurring to "friendly neighbor" behavior. That we see so many people in the movie trying so hard to contain the pandemic and have them fail so miserably is both horrifying and somehow relieving. Does it make sense that the end of times is then becoming the hedonistic poison of choice to so many people?

The Tree of Life wasn't without loss of illusion, in fact the entire premise circles around having a son realizing he'll never satisfy his father. On a larger scale, the film is also an essay through which Terrence Malick tries to satisfy a supreme power (the ultimate father figure) by trying to find the very essence that created him. It would be facile to blame daddy issues for all that's wrong in the world (despite what Freud would prefer) but The Tree of Life pulled off the ultimate hat trick by offering us a second chance, perhaps those who have faith will find solace in an afterlife. The rest of us are stuck down here mesmerized by the way in which our hopes reach for the sky only to crash with irreverent violence.

Do I Have to Pick a Fave Lisbeth Salander?

No, you don't! Click here to know why...

My Favorite Things About the Oscar Nods.

Rooney Fucking Mara!
I gasped, squealed with joy and peed my pants a little when her name came after the very deserving Viola Davis. I still wonder what people saw in Glenn Close's ridiculous performance as Albert Nobbs (even SaBu makes more sense in retrospect) but stranger things have happened...
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo got four other nominations and even if it missed out on the big ones (not that David Fincher would care) you all know I live for Best Actress, so this is quite a joy for me.

Other things that made me gleeful and smiley:
- The Tree of Life getting in Best Picture and Best Director.
- Allen, Scorsese AND Malick in for Best Director. In terms of pure auterist class this is the best year for the category since 2001 (with Payne taking the ugly Ron Howard spot)
- Jessica Chastain getting in for The Help.
- Bret McKenzie being an Oscar nominee for The Muppets, even if Sergio Mendes will probably win, considering how Oscar likes to be all "worldly" and "embracing of different cultures".
- Midnight in Paris' Best Art Direction nod, completely unexpected but incredibly deserved.
- J. Edgar failing to earn a single nod. Really Clint, even you need to make an effort sometimes.

and of course...

Jennifer Lawrence looking absolutely radiant! That hair color makes her look luscious! Anyone know who was she wearing?

What were your fave things?

Sheet-y Saturday.

Movie poster of the year.

Period.

Can Hardly Wait.

Trent Reznor's score sounds fanfuckingtastic!

Random Things I'm ♥-ing

F**k Me Hard!

Via The Playlist we get a first glimpse of the very naughty international poster for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

I seriously can not wait any longer for this movie to come out!

Here's a French version of the whole poster. Love how the nipples were edited in this one...come on people, we all ate for them at one point and some still like them now!

Also, the taglines have been truly amazing! No?

Excuse Me While I Have an Orgasm.

This will be fucking unbelievable, won't it?

(My) Best of 2010: Picture.

10. Somewhere

Like Lost in Translation before it, Somewhere is a non-story that evokes beautiful nostalgia. Once again set in the world of Hollywood (stick to what you know, right?) Sofia Coppola delivers a delicate portrait of a movie star (Stephen Dorff) and his down to earth relationship with his young daughter (Elle Fanning).

Dialogs are limited, "actions" are sparse and yet, coming out of it, you can't help but feel that the world has been shown to you for the first time. Coppola's ability to find beauty in the quotidian has made her a true master.

9. Undertow

The year's best love story (sorry Never Let Me Go), had fishermen, photographers and ghosts. As delivered by Javier Fuentes León though, the film is able to avoid extreme quirkiness and/or melodrama, instead becoming a remarkable exercise of how to transport Latin American magical realism, into seamless visual narrative.
Manolo Cardona and Cristian Mercado will break your heart as the star crossed lovers, who must cope with denial, secrecy and death.

Kudos for being a love story between men that doesn't scream "gay movie". Love after all should transcend sexual orientation.

8. The Ghost Writer

Done with gleeful mischief by Roman Polanski, this was the year's most entertaining political thriller. Its layers and secrets more fun, not because of their real life parallels (Tony Blair mostly) but because they transport us to a time and place where movies could be entertaining and smart.

Ewan McGregor and a remarkable Pierce Brosnan take their game to splendid levels but it's Olivia Williams' role, straight out of The Manchurian Candidate, that gives this film its final laugh.

7. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Icy, distant and furiously feminist, this adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel was a stunning throwback to suspense thrillers at their best. Noomi Rapace gives an iconic performance as goth hacker Lisbeth Salander but the movie's best asset is its straightforward approach to its genre.

It's not reinventing the wheel but it never pretends to, instead it throws us sepia flashbacks, newspapers clippings and gasp worthy moments, with full understanding that it's main purpose is to entertain and seduce its audience. Action flicks are rarely this sincere.

6. I Am Love

If Luchino Visconti and Sergei Eisenstein had a baby, it would be I Am Love. Luca Guadagnino's epic work is a breathtakingly beautiful portrait of a collapsing world.

Tilda Swinton plays a Russian immigrant married to an Italian heir. The way in which love falls with violent aplomb onto their lives makes for a subtle political statement that leads us to ask questions cinema hasn't made us since the 1960s.

Is capitalism a force that opposes love? Can personal history be adapted in lieu of social class upgrades? Is there anything Tilda Swinton can't do?

5. Carlos

Olivier Assayas and Edgar Ramírez deliver one of the few biopics that can be called complete. This encompassing study of Carlos "The Jackal" forgoes ridiculous mentions of childhood traumas, facile Freudian diagnosis or unnecessary romanticism to tell the story of the world's most notorious terrorist. Assayas himself begins the film with a disclaimer saying that parts of the film are complete fiction, yet his assured direction and Ramírez's star making performance make us disbelief this. If this isn't the real Jackal, they could've fooled us.

4. Toy Story 3

People who attribute the success of this installment to nostalgia for the first two chapters, might run into a dead end when they bump into my Toy Story experience.

I'm most definitely not a fan of the first two and never held any high regards for Woody, Buzz or company. However nothing prepared me for the emotional punch of this film.

Who would've thought that Ingmar Bergman's explorations of mortality would live, not through Eastern European art cinema, but through computer animated toys?

3. Dogtooth

One of the year's funniest comedies and also one of the best horror films, Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth is a remarkable work of originality that thrives in spite of its tendency to push the level with every minute of its running time.

A morality play, a modern interpretation of Plato, a sexual comedy and much more, this film roots its perverse power in the best and worst of human nature; in our need to protect the ones we love and the fear of never living up to satisfy the universe that created us.

2. The Social Network

The Facebook movie proved to be much more than what anyone expected and delivered the thrills in more than one way.

As a comedy, it recalls some of the bitterest satires put on the stage. As a drama, it's a heartbreaking story of how money and power are never enough when it comes to eradicating loneliness. As a court movie, it's an exemplary work of how to push genres into fresh directions, as auteur work it's an unmistakable masterpiece made only better by David Fincher's ability to turn a great screenplay into an intimate, personal work.

Jesse Eisenberg delivered the best male performance of the year as Mark Zuckerberg and the film's stunt casting made a case for how its characters' values are the sad faces of an entire generation. Those who have compared it to Citizen Kane, are not using hyperbole.

1. Black Swan

In Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky explores the nature of creation while exploiting his very own creative sense. He creates an imperfect world within our own, where high camp, terror, psychological drama and insanity coexist with such balance that they make us wonder about the elements that conform our existence.

Natalie Portman gives the year's greatest performance as ballerina Nina Sayers: a fragile beauty trying to find perfection within chaos. Like the actual black swans, which remained a myth until they were discovered by explorers a few centuries ago, she undergoes a Kafka-esque process in which she discovers that she's becoming that which she once feared and thought impossible.

Her quest for perfection mirrors the film's own search for artistic sublimity, yet as an organism, the film seems to "learn" just in time that in order to achieve perfection, it must compromise with itself.

As Nina surrenders to insanity worthy of the most tragic Catholic saint, the movie takes an alternate path and observes Nina's quest, while it develops its own route. There's a moment in the film, where it stops being Nina (after following her path through most of the running time) and decides that perfection is perhaps too much to aim for.

That the film ends up being perfect in its own sense, makes for an interesting dichotomy between artistic expectations and actual aesthetic realities.

Black Swan was a reminder of why people go to the movies: to be transported to different worlds, to know people they could never meet in real life, to see the world from a different perspective, to bask in the face of the incomprehensible and metaphysical, and sometimes to be shaken to our core so all we are left to say is just "what the fuck?".

(My) Best of 2010: Director.

5. Olivier Assayas for Carlos

The scope of his film! Carlos was perhaps the closest we came in 2010 to having an "epic" film.

A multi-country, multi-cultured, multi-decade drama that focused on the life of a single person. Combining classic Hollywood filmmaking with 70's political cinema and filtering it all through his truly unique personal vision, Assayas made of Carlos "The Jackal", someone we could comprehend for a moment.

The fact that the movie originally was supposed to focus on one specific episode and was extended after Assayas realized he wanted to say more, is an impressive commitment on its own.

4. Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer

As his world became more controversial and many expected him to slip into quiet retirement, the incredible Roman Polanski delivered one of the greatest films of his entire career.

The Ghost Writer had the balls to address current issues while recurring to political allegories that recalled The Manchurian Candidate and thrills worthy of Hitchcock's best work.

You can feel his hand the second the film begins and as it evolves you see how this seemingly simple film, ties up many of the themes he's explored in over four decades.

Best of all? The utter joy that exudes from the darkly mischievous film. Watching it you can feel Polanski's smile while he shot it. He truly loves the movies!

3. Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan

It's taken Darren Aronofsky a while but he finally delivered the movie worthy of his talents. After exploring the machinations of the human mind through addiction (whether it be to drugs, love or perfection) and trying out more intimate dramas, he grabbed all of his obsessions, techniques and styles and threw them together to create Black Swan.

This psycho-sexual-character study not only proved he's a master at directing actors (Natalie Portman will have trouble topping off her role here...) but that he's at his best when he loses some control himself.

Black Swan sometimes feels confused and misleading, but for the first time Aronofsky (who's known for his meticulousness) delivered something messy that might've lacked the firmness of his previous works but felt like a breathing, living organism.

2. Yorgos Lanthimos for Dogtooth

Making weird films is certainly easy. Making the weirdness feel coherent and achieve verisimilitude is on another different level though and that's precisely what Lanthimos does in his wickedly brilliant Dogtooth.

He creates a unique universe located within a house, but makes it work in relation to the world around the characters. Watching the precision with which all his means achieve diabolically funny ends, you can't help but think that he either lived something as insane as what goes on in the film, or he began writing it at age six.

Such is the level of encompassing power provided by Lanthimos that it makes sense that in some circles (and languages) a film director is also known as a "creator".

1. David Fincher for The Social Network

Even if he's accused of being cold, insensitive and too technical, David Fincher is truly one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers. His style is perhaps too European for Hollywood and this is why his attempts at creating fascinating essays are botched by middlebrow studio sensibilities (Benjamin Button anyone?).

It was a true delight then, to see him work at what seems to be complete freedom; in The Social Network he displays a mastery of the cinematic form that baffles in its effortless brilliance.

First, he created a movie that deals with lawsuits over a website, yet managed to make it more layered and intricate than anyone would've expected.

Second, his lead character is a complete asshole, yet like Welles in Citizen Kane he managed to make us look past the surface and created the most effective portrait of loneliness in ages.

Third, even if he says he didn't do it on purpose, he did capture the zeitgeist! The Social Network is a movie that encompasses an entire generation with such effortlessness that some out there still wonder what's the big deal about it. Others just surrendered to its perfection.

Fourth, his mastery of the cinematic form is such that it takes one several screenings to realize what a tight film this is. There's a million things going on at the same time, several times narrated and yet every single thing about The Social Network is united and flawlessly put together.

His work here is worthy of all the likes, shares and pokes anyone might think of, but perhaps his greatest achievement is that he gave us a movie to discuss over decades to come. Fincher seems fully aware that the greatest cinema doesn't stop living after the credits end, it moves with the audience who take it with them for the rest of their lives.

Wishful Oscar Thinking.

Since The King's Sweep is practically inevitable, I won't bother with predictions this year and just stick to who I would be ecstatic to see win...

Best Picture

I prefer Black Swan as a film but The Social Network just screams Best Picture of the year and would make things like Crash and Driving Miss Daisy seem like tiny missteps when compared to such a masterpiece.

Best Director

David Fincher. Because this might be his masterpiece and those never are recognized by AMPAS. He'll probably lose to Tom Hooper and then win for something like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2.

Best Actor

Jesse Eisenberg for making assholeness and loneliness two heartbreaking sides of the same coin.

Best Actress

Natalie Portman simply because of that final breakdown scene in her dressing room. She did things with her face I thought only Nicole Kidman and Greta Garbo could do.

Best Supporting Actor

John Hawkes, simply because no one else in that category could do what he did with such dexterity and cruel simplicity.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams because she supports. She doesn't try to steal the spotlight and yet she does in the end. That tacky MTV girl is the one character that leaves the theater with you after The Fighter ends...to think Charlene would've hated such a movie just makes her more perfect.

Animated Feature Film

Toy Story 3 just happens to be the best movie of the year in almost every category...

Art Direction

As much as I love porn The King's Speech's got nothing on the marvelous sets Inception has. Yes, there I said it...

Cinematography

Roger Deakins should win for something where he shows why he's a master, True Grit could've been done in his sleep. My vote goes to Black Swan's beautifully strange camera work. those closeups! The way the camera menaces Nina...

Costume Design

I Am Love was the year's fashion orgasm.

Editing

The Social Network's editing work is so subtle that it took me three viewings to realize the film is indeed a courtroom flick with flashbacks. Its layers are so rich and embedded with such mastery that I still can not get enough of it.

Foreign Language Film

Dogtooth. Although I've only seen two and hate being so partial...

Makeup

No preference here.

Original Score

I still am humming the opening theme for The Social Network...besides electronica needs to be embraced by AMPAS!

Original Song

All of them make me yawn but Coming Home is kinda sweet...

Sound Editing

Toy Story 3 because EVERYTHING is sound effects! People seem to forget this about animated features.

Sound Mixing

That club scene in The Social Network should seal the deal without thinking it twice.

Visual Effects

Inception.

Adapted Screenplay

The Social Network has perhaps the best screenplay of the decade and I don't say things like that just to say them.

Original Screenplay

My favorite is The Fighter but I don't really love any of the nominees.

How about you? What are you hoping will take the naked golden guy home?

The Social Network ****

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield

Armie Hammer, Rooney Mara, Max Minghella

Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Rashida Jones

It should be ironic to think that a movie that deals with the creation of Facebook never seems to be aiming for our "like"s. Yet that's just what David Fincher does in his transcendental The Social Network; a harsh film that deals with the way in which we search for humanity in a world that's constantly trying to rob us of it.

The plot centers on Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg), the Harvard undergrad who patented what came to be the largest social club on Earth. We see him struggle with his awkward social skills, his relentless need for approval and success, and eventually with the lawsuits he got from people claiming he'd robbed the idea from them.
As played by Eisenberg, Mark is a complicated, trying to be complex, guy who seems to be looking for acceptance while being driven by overpowering ambition. When we first meet him, he's practically insulting his girlfriend Erica (Mara) but he reacts in a way that we understand he means to do no harm. His defense mechanism of using bitterness, sarcasm and asshole-ness have become his modus operandi.

When he's approached by the Winklevoss twins (played brilliantly by Hammer) who want him to take part in their new project, Mark's faux condescending reaches a turning point: we see this man has chosen his identity and like the website he would create, has decided to create a facade of who he is.

Because regardless of how much people show on Facebook, the truth is that it still remains a canvas where we paint our lives the way we want others to see them. Regardless of the nature of the contents, everything that's on Facebook is there because we know people will see it and more than that, we want people to see it.

Therefore Eisenberg's immersion into Zuckerberg is not as much an impersonation as it's an embodiment of a spirit. Not to say that he makes Mark just a symbol, because he infuses him with painful human traits, but he seems to be aiming more towards understanding what would drive someone to do the things Zuckerberg allegedly did; instead of focusing on representing the way in which he comes off in public.

This dialectic between what we are and what we show might be the center of the film. One that's already a strange beast for what it is on a technical level.

On one side we have Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, which recalls the fast paced exchanges of classics like His Girl Friday and anything Woody Allen has done. Despite the extreme quotability of the dialogs, the painfully funny jokes that Sorkin inserts in the most unexpected moments and the overall "movie" feeling of the way in which he constructs these characters, at the end of the film they are essentially human and real.

This, in combination with the supreme cast, make for an odd, but never awkward, pairing of clever wording and natural representation. Each character and each scene in the film have been structured in such a classic way that we understand what some people mean when they said that "they don't make them like they used to". The Social Network has the kind of screenplay that defies categorization: it can make you laugh, gasp and jump in excitement, yet with all of its wit and shattering sarcasm it's also the kind of movie that will break your heart.

When the film ends we might not understand more about the characters and the creation of Facebook (we certainly don't like or identify with most of what we've seen) but this is a movie where you leave the theater and have the impression that the characters' lives continued after the credits started rolling.

This isn't owed to the obvious fact that all of these people are still alive but the story is told with such urgency that it just can not be bound by celluloid.

This energy is owed to David Fincher, the maverick genius who has specialized in pushing the boundaries of what people are comfortable watching onscreen. His ability to extract cheap sentiment from even the most seemingly manipulative screenplay might be compared by some to extracting someone's soul.

Yet the truth is that Fincher is no demonic exorcist, in fact he's an avid student of what makes the soul what it is. He fools us by doing this, not in the way Hollywood has used us to (i.e. using melodrama and extreme manipulation) but by doing it in an almost procedural way. Fincher dissects everything until getting to the heart of it.

It's even more surprising that he grabs onto the very structure of Facebook to create his film. It might take several screenings to realize that The Social Network isn't very different from the site it discusses so much. Like Facebook we perceive mostly walls in which the characters express themselves.

We see Zuckerberg's obnoxious nerdiness, the Winklevoss' studly All-American poses and Eduardo Saverin's (Garfield) inherent goodness. Yet taking a deeper look at what lies beneath their facades, what they keep "private" so to speak, they become completely different beings.

Like Facebook, the film is selfcontained on an ever changing canvas that varies on mood, feeling and even state of sobriety.

Because of this, the site's creation during the film becomes less "geek talk" and more encoded language for these people's true identities. There is not much difference between the societal circles in Network and say the constricted, almost baroque stylistic choices of Edith Wharton in The Age of Innocence.

Perhaps what Fincher is pointing to all along, is that despite the migration from traditional values to virtual ones, we're still essentially the same people, looking for the same things.

Our pursuit of happiness hasn't changed, what's changed is the way in which we conceal it. Whether we create corporations to get over the one that got away, or sink in eternal self pity and tragedy, The Social Network makes a case for what keeps on being our collective innermost fear: the curse of lifelong solitude.

Once An Underdog...

Yesterday I went to Amazon.com, I always do...and saw The Social Network was number one in Movie sales. Hours later when the Star Wars trilogy was announced on Blu-ray it kicked down poor Marc Zuckerberg to the second place even if nothing specific was announced, the movies won't be released until the end of the year (Network comes out on Tuesday) and people don't even know if the Blu-rays will have the awful manipulated editions or the awesome classic versions (I won't even mention the prequels).
I wondered what the insecure Zuckerberg would feel knowing this happened but then realized he might be the one behind all those Star Wars pre-orders...

PS: my review for The Social Network will be coming soon but if it makes a difference, I'm one of the ones who pre-ordered it.

The Girl Who Went to the Tattoo Parlor.

The first images of David Fincher's version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo have hit the web and I'm already getting worried.
The picture above for example in which we see Lisbeth Salander inside what appears to be a tattoo parlor is already going against one of the things I loved the most about the Swedish film trilogy (and you know I loved it!).
I won't go into details but let's say it's already proving that Hollywood seriously think audiences have to have everything digested beforehand...


On a different note Mara does seem slightly interesting in costume and makeup.
Although I believe Noomi Rapace gave the best female performance I've seen so far in 2010, I'm starting to get quite curious about where Mara will take it.
I'll start reading the first book soon and rewatch the trilogy before the year is over. I guess this won't be the last time you hear about Lisbeth here...

May Noomi Forgive Me...

...but this David Fincher adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo keeps sounding better by the minute.
First came all the news about the amazing Daniel Craig being cast as Mikael!
Then Robin Wright as his lover Erika! (One of the richest roles in the series).
Now we finally have a Lisbeth! Her name is Rooney Mara, someone I was sure I'd never see again after that Freddy Kruger thing, alas her she is.
And doesn't seem to be half bad for the part, probably getting someone like Natalie Portman or Carey Mulligan would've been detrimental to the whole project given their notoriety.
Today though even better news came in the shape of the amazing Max von Sydow!
He's been cast as Henrik Vanger (the businessman who hires Mikael for the big investigation in the first installment).
I used to think this whole idea was a sure to be chaos but honestly I'm slightly excited now.
Of course I'm aware that this being a Hollywood thing means we will get the last movie until 2013 (I love that the Swedes shot them all at once and released the trilogy within a year, who has time to wait when the world is so chaotic!?!?) but at the rate it's going and with the parts left to cast this could in fact become an award worthy movie.
Or it could go the Bourne way and be discriminated agianst because of genre...
We shall see, for now let's all bask in the glory of more von Sydow onscreen (I wonder if the Swedish producers approached him to play any part in their own version of the movie...)

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


The Girl Who Played With Fire

I saw and loved the entire trilogy but I'm very pleased the American poster stays away from the Photoshopped cheesiness of the European version.
It's quite a surprise considering they would've usually gone for something more over the top and awful, instead they choose to concentrate on Noomi Rapace's wonderful face and the mysterious dragon figure made out of fire to well, link the first movie to this one.
Quite a nice, if not altogether groundbreaking choice.


The Social Network

Jesse Eisenberg's face looks right at us from geeky limbo to announce the first image of David Fincher's Facebook movie.
If I wasn't interested in it at first, this amazing poster (surely made by whoever made Michael Clayton's) surely makes me want to give it a look. Like the best (?) Facebook profiles, it makes you interested in poking at what's behind the face.
Plus that tagline totally deserves a "like".


Somewhere

Sofia Coppola might be adhering too much to the old "stick to what you do best" adage but there's a certain inviting quality to this poster despite the fact that we probably will have nothing in common with Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning's characters.
But wait, that's what we would've thought of the people in Lost in Translation and it proved to be one of the most earthy, empathic movies of the decade.
I love how the poster looks like something out of a faux Wes Anderson movie and the slight nod to Citizen Kane is masterful.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button **1/2

Director: David Fincher
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
Taraji P. Henson, Julia Ormond, Elias Koteas, Jason Flemyng

There is something unnatural about watching a child die, which is why from the minute this film sets its premise you just know it's headed for a difficult place where you will be either deeply moved or disturbed.
Benjamin Button (Pitt) is a man who is born old and ages backwards, meaning that he will die young. As a baby, his father (Flemyng) conveniently abandons him in a nursing home where he is raised by Queenie (Henson in full Hattie McDaniel mode) who looks after the residents of the house.
He meets Daisy (Elle Fanning) with whom he develops a crush all the way until she becomes Cate Blanchett (who not so curiously gives the film's best performance).
The romance between Daisy and Benjamin is supposed to give the film its epic feel and while it certainly makes for some of the most compelling drama the plot offers it isn't completely able to shake off the awkwardness of the movie.
Penned by Eric Roth as an extension from F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story, the screenplay takes only Fitzgerald's twist and crafts something completely new, a sort of requiem for the 20th century shaped after a classic Hollywood epic.
Roth who also wrote "Forrest Gump" seems to be the go-to-guy for stories about life-through-the-eyes-of-out-of-the-ordinary-men and with Benjamin is never able to justify what exactly makes the world through his eyes seem worthier than through anyone else's.
Why is the story relevant only when the narrator isn't ordinary if later the film will try to convince us that what matters the most is what we have inside?
The suspension of disbelief is awkward because the audience at first takes for granted the fact that nobody seems to make an issue out of Benjamin's situation.
Nobody ever thinks it's weird that a little girl and an old man are hiding under a table or that this same girl will grow old and have feelings for a child. If nobody makes a deal out of it, why to even use the gimmick, why not make Benjamin an average Joe?
Roth aims to make the doomed lovers approach the one that makes the story easy to sell, but with David Fincher directing this never materializes, especially because they never make it through to the fact that if it wasn't for the growing backwards novelty, there isn't much of a story to tell here.
With Claudio Miranda's cinematography which bathes everything in a golden fablesque light, the look of the film makes us view at the cruelty of death under a honey dipped innocence.
The movie also becomes a benchmark for visual effects and makeup (Pitt's entire performance is owed to these departments), as the digital process used to manipulate Pitt's look is pure cinema magic and we never doubt what we're seeing is actually happening.
Production wise, it's a real treat for the senses as every aspect is carefully taken care of, but at the center of it all lies a colliding contrast between what we watch and what we feel, or don't feel.
Fincher who is more cerebral becomes fascinated with the essence of time and visually makes a motif out of the way it passes us by (a beautiful prologue starring Elias Koteas encompasses what the latter two hours and forty minutes never come close to).
The director who is an expert at creating moods goes for the least expected road here and practically obsesses with the need to control time.
When the plot becomes too extensive, it's as if Fincher is so fascinated by controlling the lives of his characters that he just looks for more ways to manipulate their lives.
While in "Zodiac" he practically recreated the frustration of not getting where you want, in this movie his reluctance to accept the passing of time and what can be taken as fear of death makes him completely detach from his material. The film like Benjamin has the wrong soul in the wrong body.
While Roth is giving us conventional, somewhat contrived and lazy, storytelling (including tacky Hurricane Katrina references), Fincher is tackling on to the metaphysical so much that he refuses to even care for his characters.
What is the point if they too will go away once the projector stops running?

It's a Sealed Deal.

The Directors Guild of America has announced its nominees for the year 2008.
Lo and behold as they are exactly the same nominees everyone expected and that everyone is bored of listening about.

David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Christopher Nolan, "The Dark Knight"
Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"
Gus Van Sant, "Milk"
Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"

A respectable list absolutely, but really were these the only five movies worthy of awards last year?
I can not only think of at least ten better directed movies than "Frost/Nixon", but the fact that this movie is getting the "everyone nominates but has no chance of winning" slot makes me bored about how people have been voting like cattle.
Before the Oscar nominations come out (just 14 days left...) I'd love for these people to see their screeners and actually grow a unique voice.
If this will be our Best Picture, Best Director lineup count me in for bored as hell, I'll just tune in on February 22nd to watch Hugh Jackman sing and Penélope Cruz's speech.