Midnight in Paris may be Woody Allen’s best film in years, but it isn’t on par with his best work from the 1970s and 1980s. You don’t have to be an aficionado of Allen’s work to see where the story is going most of the time, and the minor characters seem to have the most interesting action and dialogue.
Male leads in Allen’s films have a tendency to act like the writer-director himself—see Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters—but here, Owen Wilson (Gil) does a decent job of not playing Woody Allen, but he doesn't quite shake his own persona. Rachel McAdams does well with probably the most thankless role in the film, but she and Wilson are easily outshone by the supporting characters played by Kathy Bates (Gertrude Stein), Corey Stoll (Ernest Hemingway), Alison Pill (Zelda Fitzgerald), and Marion Cotillard (Adriana).
Allen’s weakest dialogue still runs circles around what pollutes most Hollywood films. The dialogue in the contemporary scenes seem pedestrian compared to that in the period scenes. While this helps elucidate Gil's fascination with the past, the comparative flatness and dullness of the contemporary characters work against the believability of the ending.
Like many of the nominated films, Midnight in Paris is beautiful to look at. Modernist era Paris looks like someplace one would want to live while contemporary Paris looks by turns like a series of postcards and a tourist trap
With so much to recommend it, it’s a shame Midnight in Paris doesn’t have a more surprising or thought-provoking script. The time-travel device works to get Gil into the 1920’s, but that era is so well-realized that this viewer wishes Allen had focused on it and left out the Wilson-McAdams story.
Midnight in Paris is nominated for Best Picture, Art Direction, Director, and Original Screenplay.
Watch the trailer here.
Read more reviews at rottentomatoes.com
This review, written by LR Simon, is part of our series on the 84th Academy Award nominations.
2.21.2012
Academy Award Nominations: The Artist
SPOILER ALERT: There may be spoilers within this review. We believe the spoilers to be minor, but readers who haven’t yet seen The Artist and wish to remain unspoiled are advised to return to this review after seeing the film.
If the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs are reasonably accurate predictors, The Artist is the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Picture. This charming movie takes the risk of using black and white and, for the most part, limiting its audio to the score.
Best Actor nominee Jean Dujardin plays George Valentin, a big star in early films who faces a crisis when movies start using sound. He thinks sound is a fad that won’t last, but when talkies take off, he finds himself financing his own silent films and losing money. Starlet Peppy Miller (Best Supporting Actress nominee Bérénice Bejo) plays a role in both his downfall and his revival.
The filmmakers did an excellent job of mimicking silent-era film style while still taking modern sensibilities into account. Some of the music is anachronistic to the story—Bernard Herrmann’s Love Scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo especially can be jarring for those who know well the great composer’s iconic score. Allusions to other films, such as Citizen Kane, are less of a distraction but come across more as an admiring homage.
The Artist is also up for Best Adapted Screenplay (Michel Hazanvicius, also nominated for Director). Silent films challenge modern writers to restrict themselves to visual storytelling, and they demonstrate to modern viewers that movies don’t have to spell things out in order to get the point across. You don’t need to hear George laugh to know that he’s laughing. You don’t need to hear the individual bids at an auction to understand who’s winning all the items. Hazanavicius keeps ambient sound out of every scene until a dream/nightmare sequence, and the sounds, though what one would expect in the scene, seem oppressive and almost unreal. When ambient sound returns, it comes with a transitional scene and thus seems more natural and inviting. These technical aspects of storytelling aside, the plot itself has few unpredictable turns.
The Artist may not be the best picture of the year, but it is probably the most-loved movie of the year. I personally would include it with The Princess Bride and Harold and Maude as a movie that I can watch repeatedly without diminishing any of the affection I have for it.
WATCH:
Trailer for The Artist
Charlie Rose interview with Michel Hazanavicius, Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo
This review, by LR Simon, is part of our ongoing series on the 84th Academy Awards. The Artist is nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture.
If the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs are reasonably accurate predictors, The Artist is the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Picture. This charming movie takes the risk of using black and white and, for the most part, limiting its audio to the score.
Best Actor nominee Jean Dujardin plays George Valentin, a big star in early films who faces a crisis when movies start using sound. He thinks sound is a fad that won’t last, but when talkies take off, he finds himself financing his own silent films and losing money. Starlet Peppy Miller (Best Supporting Actress nominee Bérénice Bejo) plays a role in both his downfall and his revival.
The filmmakers did an excellent job of mimicking silent-era film style while still taking modern sensibilities into account. Some of the music is anachronistic to the story—Bernard Herrmann’s Love Scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo especially can be jarring for those who know well the great composer’s iconic score. Allusions to other films, such as Citizen Kane, are less of a distraction but come across more as an admiring homage.
The Artist is also up for Best Adapted Screenplay (Michel Hazanvicius, also nominated for Director). Silent films challenge modern writers to restrict themselves to visual storytelling, and they demonstrate to modern viewers that movies don’t have to spell things out in order to get the point across. You don’t need to hear George laugh to know that he’s laughing. You don’t need to hear the individual bids at an auction to understand who’s winning all the items. Hazanavicius keeps ambient sound out of every scene until a dream/nightmare sequence, and the sounds, though what one would expect in the scene, seem oppressive and almost unreal. When ambient sound returns, it comes with a transitional scene and thus seems more natural and inviting. These technical aspects of storytelling aside, the plot itself has few unpredictable turns.
The Artist may not be the best picture of the year, but it is probably the most-loved movie of the year. I personally would include it with The Princess Bride and Harold and Maude as a movie that I can watch repeatedly without diminishing any of the affection I have for it.
WATCH:
Trailer for The Artist
This review, by LR Simon, is part of our ongoing series on the 84th Academy Awards. The Artist is nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture.
2.20.2012
Academy Award Nominations: The Tree of Life
Best Picture nominee The Tree of Life is an exercise in metaphor and conflict. In some respects it’s a challenging film that employs nonlinear storytelling and feels like an odd mix of memory, dream, and fantasy.
Jack, played as a child by Hunter McCracken and as an adult by Sean Penn, has to deal with his parents’ influences. His mother (Jessica Chastain) says in voiceover that everyone has to choose a path, either that of grace or that of nature. As she describes them, neither path sounds particularly appealing. In one of the film’s more ham-fisted metaphors, Mother represents the path of grace, nurturing and kind, and Father (Brad Pitt, in probably the least typical role of his career) represents the path of nature, unflinching and somewhat violent. This conflict does help the thin story, but when I finished watching, I felt that at Sean Penn’s age he should have already figured out that it was a false dichotomy.
The film’s cinematography, by Emmanuel Lubezki, has deservedly been nominated for an Oscar. The childhood sequences look beautiful and idealized, even as the action depicted is unpleasant, stark, even ugly. The look of the film enhances the wishful thinking and the pain of childhood memories.
The Tree of Life has sequences of images and music depicting the origin of the universe through the development of life on earth. The reason for the inclusion of these sequences is not immediately obvious. They are beautiful to look at, and throughout the film the music is gorgeous.
I understand the film's nomination for Best Picture--it's unusual for Hollywood to recognize a film that's more poem than story, especially in this category. Director Terrence Malick, also nominated, took some enormous risks with this film. Some of those risks paid off while others may have hurt the film more than the risk was worth. Risky impressionistic films tend not to be crowd-pleasers, and they also usually don't win the big prize on Oscar Sunday.
You can view a trailer for The Tree of Life here.
This post, written by LR Simon, is part of a series on films nominated for the 84th Academy Awards.
Jack, played as a child by Hunter McCracken and as an adult by Sean Penn, has to deal with his parents’ influences. His mother (Jessica Chastain) says in voiceover that everyone has to choose a path, either that of grace or that of nature. As she describes them, neither path sounds particularly appealing. In one of the film’s more ham-fisted metaphors, Mother represents the path of grace, nurturing and kind, and Father (Brad Pitt, in probably the least typical role of his career) represents the path of nature, unflinching and somewhat violent. This conflict does help the thin story, but when I finished watching, I felt that at Sean Penn’s age he should have already figured out that it was a false dichotomy.
The film’s cinematography, by Emmanuel Lubezki, has deservedly been nominated for an Oscar. The childhood sequences look beautiful and idealized, even as the action depicted is unpleasant, stark, even ugly. The look of the film enhances the wishful thinking and the pain of childhood memories.
The Tree of Life has sequences of images and music depicting the origin of the universe through the development of life on earth. The reason for the inclusion of these sequences is not immediately obvious. They are beautiful to look at, and throughout the film the music is gorgeous.
I understand the film's nomination for Best Picture--it's unusual for Hollywood to recognize a film that's more poem than story, especially in this category. Director Terrence Malick, also nominated, took some enormous risks with this film. Some of those risks paid off while others may have hurt the film more than the risk was worth. Risky impressionistic films tend not to be crowd-pleasers, and they also usually don't win the big prize on Oscar Sunday.
You can view a trailer for The Tree of Life here.
This post, written by LR Simon, is part of a series on films nominated for the 84th Academy Awards.
2.10.2012
Rob Resetar
Rob Resetar, better known among CoyoteMoon Films people as a wonderful composer of films scores (including our own Se Habla Español) has a Kindle book called Fabulous Tucson Travel Destinations. Rob calls it "A fun read about the most interesting places and experiences Tucson
and southern Arizona have to offer."
You can read more about it on amazon here.
and southern Arizona have to offer."
You can read more about it on amazon here.
1.31.2012
CMF Press Release: Tyrannosaur
Starting February 3rd, Independent Spirit Award films to Tucson with the Southwest premiere of Tyrannosaur. The directorial debut of actor Paddy Considine is nominated for Best International Film at the Indie Spirit Awards and won several top prizes in the film’s home country at the British Independent Film Awards.
Tucson’s own independent film company, CoyoteMoon Films, is partnering with Reel Arts 6 for this first ever Film Fan Event Feb. 3rd. They will bring their team to talk about the script, the lighting, the directing, the acting, the music and the editing of Tyrannosaur before and after the movie, because Film Fan Events will take a fun look inside the making of a good movie. They will also create an insider preview to the movie at CoyoteMoonFilms.com for the audience.
Members of the local Tucson filmmaking community are especially invited to this screening to discuss the art of film in the lobby after the screening. Tyrannosaur stars, Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman, won a Special Jury Prize for acting in 2011 Sundance Film Festival and director Considine won Best Director in World Cinema Dramatic. Coleman won the Best British Actress award from the London Critics Circle Film Awards.
In the month of February, Reel Arts 6 is bringing two other films nominated for Independent Spirit Awards, which represents the best in independent film, ranging from commercial releases to first features. They created a category honoring the first features of directors in honor of the great John Cassavetes. These films are made for under $500,000 and represent the heart of independent film.
Two of these films will open at Reel Arts 6 in February. Hello Lonesome, written, produced, and directed by Adam Reid, will open on February 17th. Adam Reid is available for interview at any time about his film. The Dynamiter, directed by Matthew Gordon, will open on February 24th. There is hope that Matthew Gordon will attend a screening after the film opens.
Reel Arts 6 @ the Crossroads is the new venue for independent film in Tucson, and the goal is still to bring titles to Tucson that would never have theatrical release, or the opportunity to have a full week run at a theater in Tucson. With Tyrannosaur, Hello Lonesome, and The Dynamiter, three films will premiere in Tucson in the month of February that truly define what independent film means.
Tucson’s own independent film company, CoyoteMoon Films, is partnering with Reel Arts 6 for this first ever Film Fan Event Feb. 3rd. They will bring their team to talk about the script, the lighting, the directing, the acting, the music and the editing of Tyrannosaur before and after the movie, because Film Fan Events will take a fun look inside the making of a good movie. They will also create an insider preview to the movie at CoyoteMoonFilms.com for the audience.
Members of the local Tucson filmmaking community are especially invited to this screening to discuss the art of film in the lobby after the screening. Tyrannosaur stars, Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman, won a Special Jury Prize for acting in 2011 Sundance Film Festival and director Considine won Best Director in World Cinema Dramatic. Coleman won the Best British Actress award from the London Critics Circle Film Awards.
In the month of February, Reel Arts 6 is bringing two other films nominated for Independent Spirit Awards, which represents the best in independent film, ranging from commercial releases to first features. They created a category honoring the first features of directors in honor of the great John Cassavetes. These films are made for under $500,000 and represent the heart of independent film.
Two of these films will open at Reel Arts 6 in February. Hello Lonesome, written, produced, and directed by Adam Reid, will open on February 17th. Adam Reid is available for interview at any time about his film. The Dynamiter, directed by Matthew Gordon, will open on February 24th. There is hope that Matthew Gordon will attend a screening after the film opens.
Reel Arts 6 @ the Crossroads is the new venue for independent film in Tucson, and the goal is still to bring titles to Tucson that would never have theatrical release, or the opportunity to have a full week run at a theater in Tucson. With Tyrannosaur, Hello Lonesome, and The Dynamiter, three films will premiere in Tucson in the month of February that truly define what independent film means.
1.26.2012
Roger Ebert on the Oscar Nominations
Over at the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert talks about the Oscar nominations and some of the actors and films he thought should have been nominated but weren't. He makes a good case for Vera Farmiga (instead of Glenn Close or Meryl Streep), but is glad that Demián Bichir and Melissa McCarthy were nominated. As always, Ebert is a good read.
1.24.2012
Oscar Nominations
The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards were announced today. Hugo led all nominees with eleven, followed by The Artist with ten. Here are the nominees in the major categories:
We're preparing a series of posts related to the Oscar nominees in these and other categories.
BEST PICTURE
The Artist, Thomas Langmann, Producer
The Descendants, Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Scott Rudin, Producer
The Help, Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
Hugo, Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
Midnight in Paris, Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
Moneyball, Michael De Luca, Rachel Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
The Tree of Life, Nominees to be determined
War Horse, Stephen Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
A Cat in Paris, Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
Chico & Rita, Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
Kung Fu Panda 2, Jennifer Yuh Nelson
Puss in Boots, Chris Miller
Rango, Gore Verbinski
DIRECTOR
The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants, Alexander Payne
Hugo, Martin Scorsese
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Hell and Back Again, Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Pina, Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
Undefeated, TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Bullhead, Belgium
Footnote, Israel
In Darkness, Poland
Monsieur Lazhar, Canada
A Separation, Iran
MUSIC (SCORE)
The Adventures of Tintin, John Williams
The Artist, Ludovic Bource
Hugo, Howard Shore
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alberto Iglesias
War Horse, John Williams
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants, Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Hugo, John Logan
The Ides of March, George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
Moneyball, Steven Zallian and Aaron Sorkin, Story by Stan Chervin
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Artist, Michel Hazanvicius
Bridesmaids, Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
Margin Call, J.C. Chandler
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
A Separation, Asghar Farhadi
We're preparing a series of posts related to the Oscar nominees in these and other categories.
1.13.2012
Oscars
Carl Bialik at The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' new nominating procedures. Among the changes: votes will be weighted by preference, so films with a small but passionate support have a better chance of getting nominated; and there will no longer be a set number of nominees in the Best Picture category--in order to be nominated, a film must have a certain amount of support, but the number of nominees will range from five to ten.
Read the article here.
Read the article here.
1.12.2012
Together We Heal
CoyoteMoon Films' Steve Bayless worked on a documentary for the Tucson/Southern Arizona PBS station about the January 8th shooting and its survivors. The program was called "Together We Heal," and it was narrated by the Today show's Savannah Guthrie, a Tucson native.
You can watch it here.
You can watch it here.
Robert Mac
To anyone who is in Tucson this Sunday, CoyoteMoon Films' friend Robert Mac will be performing at Laffs Comedy Cafe (2900 E. Broadway) on Sunday at 5pm. The show, which is called the Comedy-Magic-Comedy Benefit for Gooder Skools, will benefit the PTA of Lineweaver Elementary School.
Tickets are $10 each, so call Laffs at 32-FUNNY to reserve yours. There is also a two-item minimum.
Tickets are $10 each, so call Laffs at 32-FUNNY to reserve yours. There is also a two-item minimum.
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