Best Cinematography, 2007

There Will Be Blood [Robert Elswit] (118 points/18 votes)

"Perhaps the most stylistically striking thing about 2007's rightfully-beloved critical darling, There Will Be Blood, is its stunning balance of the old-fashioned and the new-age. Tonally and structurally, P.T. Anderson's epic opus is just as classical as it is experimental. Crucial to this equilibrium is Robert Elswit's visionary cinematography, which fully realizes the film's literal vitality and subliminal absurdity. Both through rolling, rustic long shots and intense, brooding close-ups, Elswit's work perfectly captures the essence of what Anderson's screenplay and direction strive for. The viewer is first overwhelmed by the vastness and scope of the piece through Elswit's tinted and vintage view of an untapped American West, only to later be torn to shreds by the accomplished D.P.'s unflinching depiction of the humanity (or lack thereof) of Daniel Day Lewis' corrupt protagonist. Remarkable as the picturesque vistas found in There Will Be Blood are, they pale in comparison to Elswit's sweaty, claustrophobic, roaring shots of Day Lewis' profile, which spill over onto the audience's lap as if to intimidate and anger its members. Much like Anderson, Elswit knows when to make the viewer conscious of his work and when to back off, ensuring that the film is as substantively rich as it is breathtaking, as much a carefully-constructed exercise as it is an improvised experience. Captured through Elswit's lens, There Will Be Blood is nothing short of dynamo." ~ Danny Baldwin

Runners-up:

No Country for Old Men [Roger Deakins] (82/13)
Zodiac [Harris Savides] (81/14)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [Roger Deakins] (71/10)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [Janusz Kaminski] (44/7)

Click here for complete results

Best Music (original, adapted, or compiled), 2007

There Will Be Blood [score composed by Jonny Greenwood] (108 points/16 votes)

"The opening shot is like a western. You expect to see a lone horse riding around the bend. Instead we have a muscular spider web of glissando strings. It resolves, more or less, to a harmonious chord. And the pick hits the rock and we hear the tang of the hole Daniel Plainview has dug for himself. If I tell you this is no western,
friends, you'll agree.

"Those who complain of There Will Be Blood lacking heart should sit and listen to the soundtrack again. The score is melancholy and complex, halting and both slightly antique and completely modern. Only small portions of low mixed guitar might confuse this work with Radiohead. The rest is pure heartbreaking orchestration that illustrates that you really can take the composer out of the band, and the band out of the composer.

"But most impressively it burned the turns of the tones in my synapses like the ghost of an image on the retinas. When I listened away from the visuals, I was surprised by how much of the score I not only remembered, but remembered well. Like you might remember that favorite song you played every day for a month a few years ago. The one that you still love. The score evoked those ghosts of memory, but not necessarily the ghosts of Plainview.

"Like Eisenstein's theory of montage where one uninflected image placed next to a second uninflected image forms a third idea apart from both of them, Greewood's score stands alone, and then during the movie combines to make something that neither of the visuals or the music could have without the other. Shame that it's ineligible for an Oscar.

"It would win in a walk." ~ Martin McClellan

Runners-up:
Once [songs composed by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova] (75/12)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [score composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis] (36/6)
Into the Wild [songs by Eddie Vedder; original score by Vedder, Michael Brook, and Kaki King] (34/5)
Zodiac [original score by David Shire; soundtrack supervised by George Drakoulias] (30/6)

Click here for complete results

Best Ensemble Performance, 2007

No Country for Old Men (92 points/14 votes)

"It's telling that a good portion of the discussion about the Coen Brothers' latest work of greatness centers around who exactly the protagonist of the piece is. Is it Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), whose actions at the outset spur the entire plot into motion? Is it Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), the terrifying force of nature whose pragmatic psychosis eventually wholly swallows the film's world? Or could it be Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), the world-weary old man of the title whose elegaic outlook provides unexpected emotional force? The thing is, any of these answers could be right, and that's as much a function of the expert cast as it is the complexity of the narrative. The three potential leads are all terrific; it's especially interesting to see Brolin finally coming into his own, as maturity has allowed what years ago came off as wooden smarm to develop into gritty stoicism. But it might all be emoting in a vacuum (or in Bardem's case, grandstanding in a vacuum) were the supporting cast and bit players not also pitched to perfection. The major setpieces of No Country for Old Men surely burn bright in the mind, but I'll also treasure a handful of performances in miniature: Kathy Lamkin obstinately refusing to give up Brolin's whereabouts; Garret Dillahunt getting excited over a sweaty bottle of milk; Gene Jones trying, bewildered, to untangle Bardem's vicious logic." ~ Steven Carlson

Runners-up:
Zodiac (62/9)
I'm Not There (46/7)
Juno (35/6)
Grindhouse (33/5)

Click here for complete results

Lucas McNelly's gravida on YouTube

3rd Annual Now Film Festival -Week 18 Finalist - Gravida

Add to My Profile | Official "gravida" homepage

Vote for the film if you've got a MySpace account. Check out my review of Lucas' film here.

Best Body of Work, 2007

Josh Brolin [actor, No Country for Old Men/Grindhouse/American Gangster/In the Valley of Elah] (106 points/16 votes)

"Every few years or so, it seems like an actor appears on the cinematic landscape, seemingly out of nowhere, and makes such an impression that it's a shock to learn that they've been there all along, doing solid if unremarkable work until the confluence of the right time and the right part conspire to thrust them into the spotlight. (Chris Cooper, Kathy Bates and James Cromwell come to mind.) This year, it's Josh Brolin's turn.

"Right now, is there another actor who is better at simply doing? He's a remarkably unfussy performer, content to hold back on the emoting and let the actions, whether it be hiding a case full of money in a ventilation shaft or diagnosing a zombie bite, do the talking. It's the kind of style that could get lost in a loud, obvious kind of movie, and that's what nearly happens to him in Robert Rodriguez's half of Grindhouse. "Planet Terror" is overstuffed with characters, and Rodriguez compensates by turning them into easily-identifiable cartoons -- except Brolin, who actively resists simplification. His vengeance-minded Dr. Block, thanks to Brolin's underplaying, comes off as morally damaged instead of the outright villain the story wants him to be. Yet, this is just doodling in the margins of a big-budget "B" film, and it didn't prepare anyone for his career-changing performance in No Country For Old Men. As Llewelyn Moss, Brolin's gift for understatement finds a perfect match in the Coen Brothers' "less is more" style of cinema. Despite the lead role, it feels like he speaks less here than in Grindhouse; much of his performance is watching him think through a situation and then implement a solution. It's never unemotional, though; when he does speak -- particularly the story-changing "All right" -- the waves of guilt are palpable. It's a terrific performance, one that could only be pulled off with Brolin's confidence and charisma.

"Brolin clearly has a big career ahead of him, and it'll be exciting to see it develop. Reportedly, he's up for the most unyielding and monosyllabic villain of all time. I'll let you decide if I'm talking about the Terminator or George W. Bush." ~ Kent Beeson

Runners-up:
Roger Deakins [cinematographer- The Assassination of Jesse James/No Country for Old Men/In the Valley of Elah] (74/11)
Philip Seymour Hoffman [actor- Before the Devil Knows You're Dead/Charlie Wilson's War/The Savages] (52/8)
Casey Affleck [actor- The Assassination of Jesse James/Gone Baby Gone/Ocean's Thirteen] (51/8)
Michael Cera [actor- Superbad/Juno] (26/5)

Click here for complete results

Famous Last Words- Round 2, Week 6

Last week's quote was from Cronenberg's Crash (1996). Here's this week's:

“This world is so full of crap, a man’s gonna get into it sooner or later whether he’s careful or not.”

Submit all guesses to famouslastwords@nerve.com by 11:59 PM on Wednesday. Good luck!

Best Cinematic Breakthrough, 2007

Ben Affleck [director, Gone Baby Gone] (93 points/14 votes)

"In 2006’s Hollywoodland, Ben Affleck memorably played the role of George Reeves, the ill-fated star of the fifties-era Superman series. In the film, Reeves skyrocketed to fame as Superman, but had a great deal more trouble casting the role aside in favor of more artistically-gratifying projects. At the time of the film’s release, it was easy to see the parallels between the role and the actor playing it- Affleck, best known for playing affable lunkheads, had for years been stuck in a string of goony comedies and ill-advised dramas that had sent his once-hot career into a free-fall. Could he- unlike Reeves- find a way to right his career again?

"Turns out that directing was the solution, and that Gone Baby Gone was his salvation. Admittedly, I approached the film with skepticism, and I was hardly the only one- I remember having to tell my friends that the film was directed by “yes, THAT Ben Affleck.” Much of the credit for the film’s greatness has been given to the cast (especially his brother Casey Affleck and awards magnet Amy Ryan) and to the original novel by Dennis Lehane. But Affleck’s contribution to the film’s success is worth noting. A native Bostonian himself, Affleck shows an instinctual feel for his setting, a grimy working-class corner of Boston full of fiercely proud people who protect their own. But more than this, Affleck calls into question many of the ideas our society takes for granted- the sanctity of the family, the importance of staying true to your roots, the mission of law enforcement “to serve and protect,” and the moral forthrightness of Morgan Freeman. By never shying away from the contradictions and moral entanglements of his story, Affleck has made the saddest entry in a year full of dark and despairing films, and in doing so challenges us to never again count him out." ~ Paul Clark

Runners-up:
Carice Van Houten [actor, Black Book] (42/6)
Casey Affleck [actor, The Assassination of Jesse James and Gone Baby Gone] (39/5)
Michael Cera [actor, Superbad and Juno] (28/5)
Josh Brolin [actor, Grindhouse and No Country for Old Men] (26/4)

Click here for complete results

10th Anniversary Award for Best Film, 1997

Boogie Nights (89 points/13 votes)

"1996’s Hard Eight (a.k.a. Sydney) was a very fine film. Well-written, featuring a swell cast (including John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, and a wonderful Philip Baker Hall in a rare leading role) and a fresh take on many familiar themes, it was a solid work. But the very next year, the young writer / director behind Hard Eight (some guy named Paul Thomas Anderson), brought us the movie that would truly announce him as a brilliantly original filmmaker and a world-class talent: an epic about the porn industry called Boogie Nights. From the incredible opening tracking shot to the Raging Bull-inspired closing monologue, Boogie Nights was and still is a stunner. Every performance, every camera shot, every line of dialogue, every one of the dozens of excellent songs that make up the soundtrack is just…perfect.

"What’s more is that it even seemed that way then. Unlike most movies that require a little aging and a few more viewings to be deemed “classic”, Boogie Nights already felt like one while I was actually watching it. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that I realized it, but I think it may have been the strange (yet somehow so right) combination of a cocaine-crazed Alfred Molina and Night Ranger’s “Sister Christian”.

"Boogie Nights is the reason Mark Wahlberg went from being an ex-rapper who could kinda sorta act to being a respected actor. It’s the reason I’ll never see Phillip Seymour Hoffman without thinking of him whimpering in the driver’s seat of a brand-new sports car. It’s the reason I’ll always consider Heather Graham to be a damn good actress no matter what anyone says. It’s more than just the best movie of 1997, it’s one of the best movies of the 90’s, or any other decade, period." ~ Jason Alley

Runners-up:
Jackie Brown (78/12)
L.A. Confidential (72/11)
The Sweet Hereafter (30/5)
The Ice Storm (24/4)

Click here for complete results

25th Anniversary Award for Best Film, 1982

Blade Runner (89 points/13 votes)

"In 1982, Blade Runner was just a movie. It came and went as a vexing box office failure, with a dark, rain-soaked vision of America that left audiences and critics equally amazed and bewildered. Over 25 years later Blade Runner is an ever-expanding film institution, often acting as a reference point for newcomers to the Bleak SciFi Epic genre and further dividing its cult of fans with multiple versions. The latter now stands at four, with the latest "Final Cut" joining the theatrical, international and director's cut incarnations. The various edits have only deepened the whirlpool of Blade Runner analysis, which centers on the humanity- or lack thereof- of cyber noir detective Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and his pursuit of a band of renegade replicants in a prospering/decaying 2019 Los Angeles. Whether or not Deckard himself is a replicant, he finds his mechanical targets to seemingly hold life dearer than any of L.A.'s citizenry. When talking about the best films of 1982, Blade Runner says "time to die" to all others." ~ Adam Ross

Runners-up:
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (61/10)
The Thing (53/9)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (48/8)
Fitzcarraldo (31/5)

Click here for complete results

50th Anniversary Award for Best Film, 1957

The Seventh Seal (55 points/9 votes)

"Just in terms of modern cultural history, the whole concept of moviemaking as a personal form of creative expression--a means of working as an artist--would be very different if it hadn't been for Ingmar Bergman. And Ingmar Bergman's career, reputation, and public identity would not be quite the same if he had never made The Seventh Seal. Thanks to this movie, which I didn't actually see until I was in my late twenties, I have known for as long as I can remember that Death is a serious-faced man with an ashen complexion who wears a hooded long robe and plays chess. What isn't as easy to make clear to the uninitiated is how excitingly fresh this movie still feels, after many viewings and more than fifty years on the shelf, and how much more there is to it than its central image. Someone who hasn't seen it might not guess how emotionally varied it is--and how funny. Bergman's ability to see reasons for despair in anything made it possible for him, in his previous film, Smiles of a Summer Night, to make a great sex comedy tinged with bone-shattering melancholy. Here, his seriousness of purpose and his showman's gifts are in such uncanny balance that he doesn't undercut the power of his vision of life squandered even when he throws in an image that might have come from one of his parodists--the man looking down from the top of the tree he's climbed to escape danger to see Death, smiling, sawing away at its trunk. In his lesser work, Bergman could see cause for despair in situations that others might think better called for a stiff drink, but in this film, with its doomed protagonist (Max Von Sydow) and set amid devastation sewn by warfare, ignorance, and plague, he used the tools for a vision of hopelessness to forge an affirmation of the underappreciated value of life." ~ Phil Nugent

Runners-up:
Sweet Smell of Success (54/8)
12 Angry Men (48/8)
Bridge on the River Kwai (41/6)
Paths of Glory (40/7)

Click here for complete results

Tell 'em she's cominggggggggggg!!!

You know, I'm not sure how I feel about this one, Craig. My love for the Limey one-sheet knows no bounds, but I don't think Muriel is the smoking type. Then again, that might explain the strange smell I come home to after a long day at work.

But anyway, in case you haven't heard, tomorrow begins the unveiling of this year's Muriel Awards. For this year's Muriels, I've gathered a voting body of twenty online critics and cinephiles (including myself) from the far corners of the Interweb to help me determine the best cinematic achievements from 2007, and a few other years besides. They are, in alphabetical order:

Jason Alley
Danny Baldwin
Kent Beeson
Andrew Bemis
Scott Black
Steve Carlson
Dennis Cozzalio
Chris Devlin
James Frazier
Craig Kennedy
Martin McClellan
Phil Nugent
Jason Overbeck
Mark Pfeiffer
Nathaniel Rogers
Adam Ross
Jenny Sekwa
Hedwig van Driel
Bryan Whitefield

My thanks go out to all of them for participating in the Muriels. Special thanks go to Craig for the awesome mock-posters you've seen here and on his blog throughout this past week, Martin for the new Muriel Awards ad and banner, and Steve for helping me gather this year's voting body. And thanks to everyone who's plugged the awards on his or her site.

Through the end of the month, I will be announcing one winner per day, leading up to the awarding of the Golden Muriel for Best Film on Friday, 29 February. In addition to announcing the awards themselves, I'll also be posting blurbs on each of the winners written by members of the voting body. I'm also planning a few other fun features along the way, although I'd rather let them be a surprise for now.

So check back every day until the end of the month for the Muriel Awards. Hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I've enjoyed running them.

Face Time #40 (R.I.P.)

Farewell and adieu.

Follow the lettuce.

Famous Last Words- Round 2, Week 5

FYI, last week's quote was from Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men. Here's this week's:

“I think I’m all right.”
“Maybe the next time, darling. Maybe the next time."

Submit your guesses to famouslastwords@nerve.com. Remember, all submissions due by Wednesday at midnight. Good luck!

The hits just keep on coming.

Take that, Night of the Lepus!

Craig's latest Muriels poster

Putting Muriel's face in place of Grace Kelly is cool, but what really sells this is the title font. Thanks, Craig!

Don't say you weren't warned... (edited Feb 8)

In preparation for the upcoming announcement of The Muriel Awards, Muriels voter Craig Kennedy showed off his PhotoShop know-how and concocted this little gem, which amuses me to no end:


That Muriel isn't one to be trifled with, that's for certain. But wait, there's more!

Personally, I think that given the shape of her head, Muriel is better suited to wearing Vader's helmer, but still... funny. I almost want to postpone the awards again just to see how long Craig can keep this going.

Also, a big thanks for fellow Muriels voter Martin McClellan, who graciously donated his time and design skills to the cause by creating the cool Muriels mini-banner you can find in the upper right-hand corner of this blog. So if you've seen those on some other blogs around the blogosphere, now you know who to thank.

The quiet man in the easy chair (updated 2 Feb)

Note: In the interest of posting more personal pieces on this blog, I'm re-posting this, originally written for a 30 January post on Conquistador Instant Leprosy.

I was in middle school when my mom first told me about meeting my Grandpa Clark for the first time. She remembered my dad taking her to his parents' house, and she noticed my grandfather sitting alone in the living room, doing nothing in particular. According to her, even after she was introduced to him, he didn't talk too much. He wasn't unpleasant to her by any means, but he just didn't have a whole lot to say to her, or to anyone else. I remember her saying that she worried a little about him- not because she thought something was amiss, but because she didn't quite understand his reluctance to talk.

Back then, the picture she painted was a sharp contrast to my personal image of him. When I was growing up, he was always cheerful and friendly, always happy to play games or tell jokes or funny stories to us when we visited. He was the sort of grandpa who would always remember my teachers' names, even after I had moved on from their classes, and who would always try to keep tabs on what I was up to in school and in my life. One of my earliest memories of him was when he spent an afternoon with me while my parents attended the wedding of my mom's brother. Normally I would have felt left out, but because I got to spend the day with him I didn't mind.

But as the years passed, I began to see what my mom was talking about. While he livened up when children were around, he was much quieter around adults. I began to see him and my grandmother more infrequently, due in no small part to my allergies that would be set off by the cats they always kept around the house, but at the same time he was just getting harder to talk to as I got older. However, in recent years I began to realize that I was becoming quite a bit like him, and I became much more sympathetic to how he was. I don't think there was anything wrong with him at all- I just think that he was a little more reserved than most, and more reluctant to butt into a conversation he thought didn't particularly concern him. It was just his way, as people used to put it. Maybe being the oldest of nine children in a Depression-era family, he had to mature quickly to help the family make ends meet. Or maybe after having to compete for attention throughout his childhood, he simply relished the chance to keep to himself.

Yet at the same time I missed the Grandpa I grew up with. I think that he felt like he could open up to children because he was able to let his guard down with them in a way he couldn't with adults, and I still remember the glimmer in his eye whenever we would come over to visit. In the past few years, as I began to approach parenting age, I always hoped that I might eventually take my own children to visit him, so that they might catch a glimpse of the same Grandpa who was so important to my own childhood.

Sadly, that wasn't to be. My Grandpa Clark died this morning at age 92 in the hospital, where he had been since checking in with pneumonia this past Friday. He hadn't been well for some years- he was prone to falling asleep in mid-conversation, and he required a walker to help him get around- but that doesn't make it any easier. He was exactly two weeks shy of his birthday, which was the day after mine. This news still hasn't really hit me hard, and I fear that it really won't until my own birthday hits and for the first time in my life I won't have his to look forward to on the following day.

Updated 2 Feb: Well, the situation has gotten even more difficult. We originally had a funeral service scheduled for yesterday, but my Grandma Clark had a serious fall early Friday morning and was sent to the hospital, delaying the service until this coming Friday. It's looking like she'll be all right for now, but I fear what will happen to her in the future, now that she doesn't have him to care for or just to have around the house. Time will tell, I suppose.

Famous Last Words: Round 2, Week 4

Last week's quote was from the Joseph L. Mankiewicz version of Sleuth, btw. Here's this week's quote.

"What's your name?"
"Davis."
"Mine's McCardle. . . well, so long."
"So long."

E-mail guesses to this e-Mail address by 11:59 PM Eastern on Wednesday. Good luck!

All part of the same package

Over the past year and a half, I've maintained a pretty clear distinction between my two main blogs: while this blog is devoted to film-related writing, I maintain Conquistador Instant Leprosy (formerly Pomegranate Rickey) for the purposes of non-film writing. But lately I've become more uneasy with the idea of separating the two, as the film stuff and non-film stuff are but two sides of the same coin. As a way of acknowledging this, I've finally decided to post my more personal writings here from now on. After all, as Terence wrote, "I am a human being, so nothing human is alien to me."

I'll continue to keep Leprosy open in case you'd like to read my earlier writings over there. Below is a list of links for all of you latecomers, listed by category.

My family/ies:
24 Dec 07- "To Each His Own Christmas"
17 Nov 07- "Road Tripping"
9 Mar 07- "Today's Paradox: I Become a Grandfather Before I'm Even a Dad"
3 Dec 06- "Sappy Pet Daddy Post #1"
5 Nov 06- "New Friends"

Relationships, or lack thereof:
1 Oct 07- "Love Is All Around"
23 Sept 07- "That Old Autumnal Feeling"
24 June 07- "Somebody's Getting Married"
6 Oct 06- "Accident Girl Update"
29 Sept 06- "Leave a Movie Early, Come Home With a Blog Entry"

Work:
8 May 07- "When 4 and 5 Are Not the Same As 9"
27 Apr 07- "Okay, Just So You Don't Have to Look at that Horrible William and Mary Post at the Top Anymore..."

Food and Health:
18 Nov 07- "Snack Time, Anytime"
12 Oct 07- "Home Cookin'"
28 Apr 07- "Rude Awakening, or: Thanks, Jane!"
8 Apr 07- "More Adventures With Fruit and Meat"
30 Jan 07- "I Heart Pears"

Shopping and retail:
26 Dec 07- "It's Time to Light the Lights"
28 Oct 07- "Friendly, Not Familiar"
26 Aug 06- "Lost in the Supermarket #1"

Movie exhibition:
16 Sept 07- "The Self Preservation Society"
10 June 07- "Reflections On a Cinema"

Popular culture:
13 Apr 07- "So It Goes."
2 Apr 07- "Lester Bangs Was Right"
24 Aug 06- "How Much Better Can Ya Eat? (Not a Chinatown Post)"

Where I Live, and Where I Don't:
2 Apr 07- "Buckeye Blast"
13 Feb 07- "Brrrrrrrrrr..."
21 Sept 06- "My Cat Allergy Notwithstanding"

Edumacation:
30 Mar 07- "Bright Idea du Jour"
25 Nov 06- "Hard Lessons Learned, Or: If I Knew Then What I Know Now Is Not Just a Kenny Rogers Song"

Blogathons and Memes:
13 July 07- "Oh, What the Hell..."
6 July 07- "Meme Fever!"
11 May 07- "Counting My Blessings"
27 Aug 06- "Adam V's Questionnaire"

Odds'n'sods:
9 Apr 07- "Words, Music, Light and Life"
24 Feb 07- "Exactly 6 Months and 20 Posts Later"
17 Feb 07- "Grab Bag"
27 Jan 07- "Updates! *gasp*"

Assorted lameness:
20 Nov 07- "Because Mad Cow Disease Was Already Taken"
14 Oct 07- "Well, That Settles It..."
30 June 07- "This Blog Will Be Released Unrated in My Opinion"
26 Apr 07- "Offensive Semi-Jokes That Will Almost Certainly Get You Slapped"
26 Apr 07- "Religious Debate, in License-Plate Form"
5 Sept 06- "War Reparations"
2 Sept 06- "Knee Slappers #1"
26 Aug 06- "I Bitch Complain About Asswipes Jerks #1"