Visioneers Movie Trailer (Recommended…For Your Health!)
Let’s make this movie a hit. Master of boiling, paralyzed rage and sorrow, comedian Zach Galifianakis, stars as the lead character, George Washington Winsterhammerman, in the true-blue indie, Visioneers, from first time director Jared Drake and writer Brandon Drake.
At this point, I’m supposed to shield the trailer from the words “quirky indie blah blah” and reassure you that even though the film dissects mundane office life in America (…yet again) it can still be a winner and spew originality like lava on a Tiki-themed putt-putt course. But I’m not. Because seeing Galifianakis reinvent the middle finger, rock a Founding Father wig/regalia, destroy paper towels during a perfunctory existential meltdown, and conjure John Belushi’s heady energy circa “Donuts of Champions” in a trailer to a feature film makes me very freaking happy.
Visioneers just played CineVegas and the buzz is thick. Click here for further info, and here for info on the film’s fictitious Jeffers Corp.
2008 Oscar Noms - So What Do You Think?
Before we dive into today’s non-Oscar-related news, this is a forum to express your thoughts on the nominations for the 80th Academy Awards. I’m not sure why I expected to grimace when the bigger categories were announced. Good choices, all.
It’s hard to say, for me at least, that any notable pictures were snubbed, except for The King of Kong, one of the top three highest rated films of 2007, for Best Documentary Feature. But the early word predicted that, for whatever reason. I’m sure some will make the case for American Gangster, but not me. That was part of my anticipatory grimace, actually. I expected the sub-par Ridley Scott film to take at least one of the Best Actor, Best Director and/or Best Picture slots.
And what about Tim Burton? He’s still never scored a nomination for Best Director or Best Picture, and Sweeney Todd had the goods, no? In my opinion, Sweeney Todd should have replaced Michael Clayton for BP, leaving first-time director Tony Gilroy the Best Director catergory (again MC’s direction was beyond solid, the overall film was enjoyable but not revelatory for its genre). While the real heavyweight match will be between Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and the Coen Brothers‘ No Country for Old Men (these films have 8 noms each, total death match), look at Jason Reitman sliding in with his sophomore effort, Juno, for Best Director and Best Picture. Of course, Diablo Cody is fretting over her punk ‘do in anticipation of a W. And might Ellen Page be an upsetter? I’m sure we’ll see the high school track team make at least one appearance on Sunday, February 24th.
Other “okay with me”s: Viggo Mortensen got a hat-tip for his brilliant Dracula-meets-The-Gipper depiction of a Russian mobster in Eastern Promises; the Academy making up for blocking Persepolis from Best Foreign Language Film by placing it next to Pixar’s epicurean rat; on the other hand, the incredibly scenic epic Mongol, one of my top 10 of 2007 gets a BFLF nod; Sicko and Taxi to the Dark Side for Best Doc; Roger Deakins running the Best Cinematography category for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and No Country for Old Men; and Casey Affleck for Best Supporting Actor for his classic performance in TAOJJBTCRF.
Update: As for David Fincher and Zodiac, yes they were snubbed. This was an oversight of the Academy’s oversight on my part. However, I never thought Zodiac would get a Best Pic nom simply because TWBB and NCFOM are such heavy films that similarly plow the mysterious, ancient evils and neurosis that pervades mankind. That said, it deserved to be there on sheer merit, especially more so than Michael Clayton and Atonement. Fincher not receiving a Best Director nod is more inexcusable, as Zodiac had a lot of blood and tears put into it, and will come to be seen as a new classic by the mainstream with time.
2007 was one of my favorite years for film ever and it’s great to see last year’s variety and stand-outs properly recognized. No whiffs of politics this year, in my opinion. What about yours?
The Descent 2 Gets a Director
The Descent was one of my favorite films of 2005 (maybe not on my top 10, but probably my top 20). And I’m not a huge horror fan, so for me to like a horror film this much it must have offered something more than the typical slasher flick. And that’s the best way to describe The Descent. Instead of an idiotic cast of OC-star model-looking teens, it starred a group of Women. It had some nice ideas, and some good scares. They’re already working on a sequel, to be called The De2ent, and Fangoria talked to Neil Marshall, who offered up information on the new director.
“I will not be directing The Descent 2, but I will be overseeing every aspect of the production. There’s nothing to oversee yet, though, as the script is currently being written. My Descent editor Jon Harris will make his feature directing debut with the sequel, and I can’t think of a better man for the job.”
No story details were revealed, but I’m sure the studio will probably ruin the idea in an attempt to make it more marketable (OC-like-actors…etc), which is the case with most sequels. And a first time director is usually never a good sign. However, film editors usually become good directors because they know how to shoot for the edit.
What’s the Word on Synecdoche, New York? How About “Obscuritanist”?
“Think.”
Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York aka If You Can’t Pronounce My Title, You’re an Effin’ Plebe!!! showed at Cannes and the reviews are hitting the Web like steaming intellectual veg patties. We’ll include the plot synopsis at the bottom, but for now just imagine it’s about a former disgruntled employee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of Rockstar Games who spirals into an existential crisis and rebuilds New York City in pixels as a set, and you should be okay. If I had Slashfilm’s psychic pitching machine, it would spit out “a brilliant mess,” “mindf*ck,” “abstruse,” “enlightening,” “Red States won’t get it, but it’s pretty good,” and “[P.C. allusion to] bong rip.” But since I don’t (Peter has it for the long weekend), let’s get to searchin’ and pasting (interns, it’s all yours)…
Non-linking, old people media outlet, Variety, goes the “it’s for smart people, and outside of New York and L.A. it will be dust…” route…
“A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman’s scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multi-plane storytelling. …it will intrigue Kaufman’s most loyal fans but put off fair-weather friends on the art house circuit, where a venturesome distrib will have its work cut out for it to move the film commercially beyond cult status.”
Oh, wow, they used the adjectives “obscuritanist and incomprehensible,” too. This will make a nice segue into the NY Times and the vetted Mr. A.O. Scott, who says that Kaufman, as a first time director, absolutely skullbangs the cool films made from his screenplays like Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich and Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind…
“Like his protagonist, a beleaguered theater director played by Hoffman, he has created a seamless and complicated alternate reality, unsettling nearly every expectation a moviegoer might have …But though the ideas that drive “Synecdoche, New York” are difficult and sometimes abstruse, the feelings it explores are clear and accessible. These include the anxiety of artistic creation, the fear of love and the dread of its loss, and the desperate sense that your life is rushing by faster than you can make sense of it.”
“Abstruse”! I swear to Bill Maher’s God I actually called it. Thanks A.O. This is better than winning at Scrabble for a prolonged sexual favor. In a wise move, our friends at Cinematical provide the definition of “synecdoche” preceding a positive review…
“The directorial debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation), Synecdoche, New York is a sprawling, messy work of inspired brilliance and real humanity, a film that enthralls and affects even as it infuriates and confounds. …Kaufman wedges every frame full of set design, side notes, visual tricks, subtext, , deadpan jokes, prosthetic makeup, voice-over, post-modern inventions and old-fashioned melodrama.”
Okay, after this post is done, I’m going to go scream the following pull-quote from Cinematical into the streets: “It’s Jacob’s Ladder for New Yorker subscribers!” Yes! I’m sold like Sissy Spacek in Prime Cut. Moreover, it seems that bringing pot is essentially like bringing glass-ridden sand to the beach: “Synecdoche, New York, might be easier to analyze than enjoy, easier to think about than feel.” There are so many reviews popping up right now and they’re all riding the same WTF rocket, so if you like what you’ve heard, go see this flick. And if you aren’t an original urban outfitter, no worries, just illegally download it and put it on a disc with both Ches. Support! Here’s the Slashfilm plot synopsis…
Synecdoche, New York stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director named Caden Cotard, whose life in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his body’s autonomic functions. Worried about the transience of his life, he moves his theater company to a warehouse in New York City. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton co-star. Running time is 124 minutes. Your life is in minutes as well.
Definition of synecdoche: noun, word that you had to look up for a movie that .001% of the world saw, but that .004% said was brilliant.