Entries associated with the tag "Oscar":

IndieWire reports that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced its short list of 15 nominees for the best documentary of 2008. To judge from the ones I've seen, this already seems a more worthwhile batch of stuff to check out than whatever crowd-pleasing commercial behemoths will wind up competing for Best Picture. It's interesting to note that, of the year's five highest grossing documentaries—in order, Religulous, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Shine a Light, Young @ Heart, and Man on Wire—only the last of them made even this preliminary cut.

The short-listed documentaries are:

• At the Death House Door (pictured) by Peter Gilbert and Steve James;

• The Betrayal by Ellen Kuras;

• Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh by Roberta Grossman;

• Encounters at the End of the World by Werner Herzog;

• Fuel by Josh Tickell;

• The Garden by Scott Hamilton Kennedy;

• Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts by Scott Hicks;

• I.O.U.S.A. by Patrick Creadon;

• In a Dream by Jeremiah Zagar;

• Made in America by Stacy Peralta;

• Man on Wire by James Marsh;

• Pray the Devil Back to Hell by Gini Reticker;

• Standard Operating Procedure by Errol Morris;

• They Killed Sister Dorothy by Daniel Junge; and

• Trouble the Water by Carol Deal and Tia Lessin.

Viewing some very different documentaries at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, I was reminded just how essential theatrical nonfiction films have become in this age of instant TV sound bites and Internet replays. Being the first with the story doesn't mean being the best, and as far as broadcast news is concerned, there's rarely time for adequate background. Perspective improves with reflection.

Filmmakers Richard Parry and Vaughan Smith had 15 years to polish the story of Blood Trail; the two British correspondents first met their subject, American war photographer Robert King, in Sarajevo in 1993. At that time King was a charming but naive art school graduate inspired by Robert Capa and determined to bag a Pulitzer. Parry, Smith, and the rest of the press corps thought he wouldn't last, but King survived his learning curve and, working several continents, gradually earned respect for his tenacity, resourcefulness, and uncanny knack for being in the right war zone at the right time.

What makes Blood Trail exceptional is its behind-the-scenes look at how the news business has changed over time and how its pressures and dangers change its practitioners. We watch a boyish King grow into a weathered cynic and see his ability to capture telling images compromised by having to work while embedded in U.S. military operations in Iraq. This trenchant portrait was to be featured in the current Chicago International Film Festival, but the filmmakers withdrew it to limit festival exposure, hoping to get into the higher-profile South by Southwest and Sundance. That's a loss for Chicago, but it's also the road to snagging commercial distribution and reaching a wider audience.

Another Toronto documentary entry that delved much deeper than the headlines was Leon Geller and Marcus Vetter's The Heart of Jenin, a moving tale of a grieving Palestinian father who saved five lives. In 2005, 12-year-old Ahmed Khatib died in Jenin in the West Bank after an Israeli soldier mistook the boy's realistic toy gun for a Kalashnikov assault rifle and opened fire. Ahmed's father, Ismael, was persuaded by an ER physician to donate Ahmed's vital organs to area residents in need of transplants, including a young girl from a Druze village, a Bedouin boy in the Negev, and a tiny Orthodox Jewish girl in Jerusalem. Over the years the recipients grow healthy and Ismael finds meaningful work running a children's educational center in Jenin; the film culminates in his meetings with the children's families. The Israeli-American Geller and his German codirector Vetter artfully blend archival shots from local news with contemporary footage to paint a fuller picture than the initial TV coverage could. The stated purpose of the film is to foster peace in a divided region, but the Khatibs' story has also promoted progress in another corner of the world: business magnate Sultan Al Qassemi of the United Arab Emirates recently cited Ismael's decision in an op-ed urging the UAE to adopt organ donor legislation.

Ari Folman's animated documentary Waltz With Bashir (which I wrote about in an earlier post) is in the news again: this memoir about Israel's first war in Lebanon recently won six Ophirs from the Israeli Film Academy, including Best Movie, which automatically makes it Israel's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film. But it's been shut out of the Oscar competition for Best Documentary because of changes in the eligibility rules, which stipulate that a nonfiction feature must screen for one week each in Los Angeles and New York before August 31. The new rule creates a dilemma for filmmakers hoping to play a prestigious fall festival like Telluride, Toronto, or New York, all of which value premieres; producers must now decide whether they want to bypass early reviews in the international press and open their films in the U.S. during the dog days of summer. Winning an Oscar can mean a great deal to a documentary, but as Alex Gibney found with his 2008 winner Taxi to the Dark Side, it doesn't guarantee box office returns. Gibney wound up suing his distributor, THINKFilm, for not capitalizing adequately on his win.

Hey, glad you could make it! Let me take your coat. What are you drinking? Guinness? Well, how about Old Style? This is a free paper, you know.

Yeah, we realize the Oscars are hopelessly corrupt, but we needed an excuse for a party. We've all filled out ballots, and here's what we'd like to see win:

PAT GRAHAM  Best Picture: There Will Be Blood. Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood. Best Original Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins, The Savages. Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood. Best Actress: Laura Linney, The Savages ("choice with a figurative gun to my head, though Nicole Kidman in Margot at the Wedding's more to my liking"). Best Actor: Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises. Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There ("easiest of all the procrustean decisions here, with fewest reservations—though oddly enough I did have a couple on first viewing"). Best Animated Feature: Persepolis ("unfortunately"). Best Cinemathography: Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood ("though how much actually has to do with Elswit, since most of the important logistical choices—re where to position the camera and how scenes ought to reveal themselves through evolutionary long takes rather than editing-room montage—belong to the director rather than the cinematographer [or at least ought to], and seem open to debate"). Best Editing: Christopher Rouse, The Bourne Ultimatum (really brilliant, in a frenetic, hyperactive way that, unfortunately, makes for a movie badly in need of an anchor"). Best Costume Design: Albert Wolsky, Across the Universe ("just to get the movie in there somewhere...what do I know about costumes?").

ANDREA GRONVALL  Best Picture: No Country for Old Men. Best Director: Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Best Original Screenplay: Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton. Best Adapted Screenplay: Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose. Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood. Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone. Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men. Best Foreign Language Film: Beaufort. Best Documentary Feature: Sicko. Best Animated Feature: Persepolis. Best Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Best Editing: Christopher Rouse, The Bourne Ultimatum. Best Art Direction: Dante Ferretti/Francesco Lo Sciavo, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Best Costume Design: Colleen Atwood, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Best Original Score: Dario Marianelli, Atonement.

J.R. JONES  Best Picture: Atonement. Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood. Best Original Screenplay: Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton. Best Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton, Atonement. Best Actress: Julie Christie, Away From Her. Best Actor: George Clooney, Michael Clayton. Best Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone. Best Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Best Documentary Feature: No End in Sight. Best Animated Feature: Persepolis. Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood. Best Editing: Juliette Welfling, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Best Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood/Katie Spencer, Atonement. Best Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran, Atonement. Best Original Score: Dario Marianelli, Atonement.

JOSHUA KATZMAN  Best Picture: There Will Be Blood. Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood. Best Original Screenplay: Brad Bird, Ratatouille. Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood. Best Actress: Julie Christie: Away From Her. Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood. Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone. Best Supporting Actor: Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild. Best Documentary Feature: No End in Sight. Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit, There Will Be Blood. Best Editing: Jay Cassidy, Into the Wild. Best Art Direction: Jack Fisk/Jim Erickson, There Will Be Blood. Best Original Score: Marco Beltrami, 3:10 to Yuma.

REECE PENDLETON  Best Picture: There Will Be Blood. Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood. Best Original Screenplay: Tamara Jenkins, The Savages. Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul "I Drink Your Milkshake" Anderson, There Will Be Blood. Best Actress: Laura Linney, The Savages. Best Actor: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood. Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone. Best Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War. Best Documentary Feature: No End in Sight. Best Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Best Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran, Atonement. Best Original Score: "Sorry, but I just can't get past the fact that Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood wasn't eligible."

On Thursday night, Chicago's own John C. Reilly worked a packed house at the Cubby Bear to promote his upcoming comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, about a hard-livin', hard-lovin' fictional singer-musician (a composite of Johnny Cash and others). Swaggering and swivelling his hips in character, Reilly and his tight back-up band performed about a dozen original songs from the movie, some of which he cowrote. The music and lyrics—both ribald and nuanced, clever and dumb-funny—drive the movie, which Jake Kasdan directed and cowrote with Judd Apatow. From the robust title tune (by Marshall Crenshaw, Reilly, Apatow, and Kasdan) to the very un-P.C. ode to short people, "Let Me Hold You (Little Man)" (by Dan Bern, Mike Viola and Manish Raval), to Bern's hilarious Bob Dylan parody "Royal Jelly" and Viola's soaring, Roy Orbison-esque ballad "A Life Without You (Is No Life At All)," Reilly demonstrated remarkable vocal range and stage presence. (Check out a video clip from the show here.)

Both the live show and the film set me thinking about how I love movie musicals and wish there were more. Not that there's much to complain about this past year: you couldn't name two movies as disparate as Adam Shankman's Hairspray and John Carney's Once , but both charmed critics and audiences alike, as did Kevin Lima's Enchanted. Also notable was Christophe Honore's Les Chansons d'Amour (Love Songs), a kind of  postmodern homage to Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg that played both the Toronto and Chicago film festivals. I have yet to catch up with Julie Taymor's Across the Universe, but I have seen Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which opens December 21. Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Alan Rickman, and Timothy Spall put a lot of sizzle into Sondheim.

So what will it take to get more musicals on the big screen? Well, it is show business, so if box office is good, with luck more will get made. Memorable songs, actors who can sing, and inventive staging go a long way—not to mention the kind of big marketing pushes given to Enchanted, Sweeney Todd, and Walk Hard. But dangling a little gold couldn't hurt, either. Maybe the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should take a cue from the Golden Globes, which makes a distinction between dramas and musicals and comedies. If animated features have their own Oscar category, why can't musicals?