2008 Diva Cup Awards: Best Picture, Director & Original and Adapted Screenplay

Forgive the lack of justification and explanation, but it's nearly July and I need to finish these once and for all. If you're dying to know about something, however, either leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail (address on the right) and I'll be sure to fill you in.

Best Picture

(for more in-depth reasoning behind these choices, check out my Top 10 List of 2008)


A Christmas Tale
Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Screenwriter: Emmanuel Bourdieu and Arnaud Desplechin
Cinematographer: Eric Gautier
Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emile Berling, Laurent Capelluto, Anne Consigny, Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Devos, Chiara Mastroianni, Melvil Poupaud, Jean-Paul Roussillon

In Bruges
Director and Screenwriter: Martin McDonagh
Cinematographer: Eigil Bryld
Starring: Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes, Brendan Gleeson

Rachel Getting Married
Director: Jonathan Demme
Screenwriter: Jenny Lumet
Cinematographer: Declan Quinn
Starring: Rosemarie DeWitt, Anisa George, Anne Hathaway, Bill Irwin, Anna Deavere Smith, Debra Winger, Mather Zickel

Reprise
Director: Joachim Trier
Screenwriter: Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt
Cinematographer: Jakob Ihre
Starring: Henrik Elvestad, Espen Klouman-Hoiner, Anders Danielson Lie, Christian Rubeck, Viktoria Winge

WALL-E
Director: Andrew Stanton
Screenwriter: Pete Docter, Jim Reardon and Andrew Stanton
Starring: Ben Burtt, Jeff Garlin, Elissa Knight, Kathy Najimy, John Ratzenberger, Sigourney Weaver, Fred Willard

And the Diva Cup Goes to: A Christmas Tale

Best Director


Darren Aronofsky
The Wrestler

Jonathan Demme
Rachel Getting Married

Arnaud Desplechin
A Christmas Tale

Andrew Stanton
WALL-E

Joachim Trier
Reprise

And the Diva Cup Goes to: Arnaud Desplechin, A Christmas Tale

Best Original Screenplay


Burn After Reading
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

A Christmas Tale
Emmanuel Bourdieu, Arnaud Desplechin

The Edge of Heaven
Faith Akin

In Bruges
Martin McDonagh

Rachel Getting Married
Jenny Lumet

And the Diva Cup Goes to: In Bruges

Best Adapted Screenplay
(Not exactly a stellar year for adaptations, huh? In a normal year, and by that I mean a year where the corresponding Oscar nominees don't leave me in a pool of my own tears from boredom, at least two of these would have barely made my top 10)


Blindness
Don McKellar

Boy A
Mark O'Rowe

Choke
Clark Gregg

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Lorene Scafaria

Savage Grace
Howard A. Rodman

And the Diva Cup Goes to: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

2008 Diva Cup Awards: Best Actor

Colin Farrell
In Bruges

Like most people, I had been waiting since Farrell's breakthrough in 2000's Tigerland for him to live up to that initial promise. It's been a long, tough eight years, but he finally did it with In Bruges as a remorseful hitman. Farrell is hardly the first person you would think who could handle both the wickedly hilarious side of the role as well as the dark, internal drama and does both jaw-droppingly great. Along with his also great performance in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, it looks like Colin Farrell is fighting to finally be taken seriously as an actor and up his game with each passing role; let's hope for more of this in the future.

Andrew Garfield
Boy A

There's a great little scene in the middle of Boy A that perfectly sums up why Andrew Garfield's performance is not only one of the best of the year, but one of the most exciting and breathtaking breakthrough performances of the past decade. Garfield's Jack is sitting in a restaurant with his girlfriend Michelle when she hands him a little gift. It turns out to be a nice leather wallet- a nice gesture, but nothing earthshattering. Jack, on the other hand, reacts as if he's just been handed the Heart of the Ocean and about 14 different emotions run across his face. The moment is interesting because, for a minute, you have no clue what his reaction is and, consequently, how you should be feeling about it: is he going to cry, laugh, get angry or is he just really surprised? More often than not, women are called on to play these types of emotional roles that demand shading and texture so it's nice to see an extremely young, good looking man not only tackle this but do it so damned effectively.

Richard Jenkins
The Visitor

Jenkins's performance in The Visitor is probably the hardest of the five to talk about because it's hard to put into words what makes it so special. On first glance, it doesn't look like Jenkins is doing much with only one big "moment," but the beauty of the performance lies in the quiet moments of fractured dialogue and deep, soulful looks of contemplation. Jenkins subtly follows the progression of The Visitor's narrative perfectly, starting cold and unapproachable, slowly melting as he becomes tangled up emotionally with a young immigrant couple and building up to that firestorm of frustration and grief before regaining his composure, still quite and reserved but newly open to care for another human being. The acting may not be superficially visible like a certain Best Actress nominee who cried and threw things on her way to a nomination, but Jenkins is able to speak volumes and more clearly with just a few carefully chosen gestures and looks.

Heath Ledger
The Dark Knight

The most buzzed about performance of the year, if not the decade, and somehow all of it (and then some) is completely warranted. Ledger's Joker may not have a massive amount of physical on-screen time, but, just like Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, his presence so dominates every frame of the film that he feels like a true lead with Bale's Batman. Whenever a long stretch of screentime goes on (and on) without him, the film seems to flounder, but always recovers whenever he decides to cause some drama and show up for another round of "Guess What the Psychopath Will Do Next." And that's probably what makes Ledger's performance so exciting and immediately engrossing: you really have no clue what trick he's going to pull out next (or, as in the film, stick in your eye). Every scene is a jolt and, in my case, makes you sick to your stomach in anticipation of his next diabolical move. Heath's passing early last year was extremely saddening, but how many actors get to go out with a bang like this?

Mickey Rourke
The Wrestler

Like Jenkins, it may not seem like Rourke is doing much "acting" as the past-his-glory wrestling star Randy "The Ram" in The Wrestler, but his quiet character shadings speak volumes about both the character and Rourke's ability as an actor. The fact that The Ram's downfall to obscurity after an impossibly great 80's mirrors Rourke's career in Hollywood is the icing on the cake and one of the most perfect immersions of an actor into a role I've ever seen. The fact that Oscar passed over this subtle character work for some perfectly competent (and, for the most part, admittedly well-done) biopic-ing isn't really that surprising, but I'm thinking that this is the performance more people will still be talking about 15 years down the road.

If Only There Were Six: James Franco, Pineapple Express

Rest of the Top 10: Sean Penn, Milk...Espin Klouman-Hoiner, Reprise...Josh Brolin, W....Sam Rockwell, Choke

And the Diva Cup Goes to: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

The Top 10 Films of 2008

On more than one occasion, I have been accused by different people of hating every movie I see. Granted, most of these accusations have come after my "meh" reactions to some of their favorite films, but the number of these claims got me thinking about my reaction to films. It is not that I give more lower grades than higher ones (they're about even, methinks); rather, I think it feels like I'm more of a hater because with the few films I do hate, I hate them with a passion. Most of my best/favorite reviews have been for films I completely disliked and I often complain about them for months on end. For whatever reason, I find it harder to write about the films I actually love in any given year. Now that I've diagnosed the problem, I think it's time for a change and, as we all know, living in the Obama Era is as good as time as any to start changing. From this point forward, I will devote more time to great films in addition to my constant bitching about Twilight and Mamma Mia!. The best way to start this off is with my Top 10 list of 2008 (a couple of months late, so sue me), which is also a kick off for the 2008 Diva Cup Awards! Woohoo! I know everyone is pumped for that so let's get started.

Close, but no cigar: The Edge of Heaven (Faith Akin) is the film Babel tried to be but failed so epically to accomplish; I really wanted to include Michael Haneke's Funny Games U.S., a remake of his own 1997 film, but I felt it was generally unfair since I haven't even seen the original and they're exactly identical; Shelter (Jonah Markowitz) gets points in my book simply for being miles above Latter Days and Big Eden, two contemporaries in the gay indie scene, but the goes above and beyond the call of duty in analysis of a boy torn between family obligations and a love he doesn't completely understand; John Crowley's Boy A, with the help of an incredibly game performance from Andrew Garfield, turns what may have been a fairly standard redemption drama and tweaks it in very unexpected ways.

10. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Directed by Peter Sollett
The plot of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist- two hipster teens obsessed with the same indie rock band meet and fall in love over the course of one crazy night in New York City- almost sounds like my own personal hell; it's as if the high school romantic comedy and indie rock have formed their own Axis of Evil just to spite me. When you're watching it, however, you quickly forget about all of these preconceived notions, instead getting lost in the simple yet endearingly sweet love story unfolding before you. Credit is due to screenwriter Lorene Scafaria and director Peter Sollet for taking a tired genre and squeezing something fresh out of it and the young cast, particularly the severely underappreciated Kat Dennings and the girl who reinvented "the drunk friend" role, Ari Graynor, for pushing themselves comedically and adding layers to characters that, in lesser hands, could have come off as one-note.

9. American Teen
Directed by Nanette Burstein
I'm not naive enough to truly believe that all of the footage in American Teen is truly "off the cuff"; in fact, I'm pretty sure that more than half (and I'm being generous here) of it is staged. What separates this film from the average episode of The Hills is that, either by a stroke of genius or luck, American Teen captures with an almost scary amount of accuracy just what life as a small Midwest town high school student feels like. Much more so than any other Hollywood film that claims to be the "final word" on the high school experience, American Teen feels like my own experience. The basketball players weren't big bullies who spent their time stuffing the socially awkward band nerd into lockers; they were too consumed by their own problems and pressures to spend their time falling prey to that stereotype. While Burstein's documentary does this all very well, I must admit that I loved the way it showed how these young people were growing and changing before our eyes. Seeing Hannah, the quirky girl rebounding from a case of severe depression after breaking up with her boyfriend, finally gain the courage to open herself up again to school heartthrob Mitch (who also did his sharing of growing, most notably during that fantastic scene on the school bus when he admits to his jock friends that he liked Brokeback Mountain) proved to be one of the few things in 2008 that warmed this cynic's cold heart.

8. The Visitor
Directed by Thomas McCarthy
What I loved most about Thomas McCarthy's quiet, studied and controlled The Visitor was the fact that one of its subplots was about illegal immigration, yet McCarthy DIDN'T feel the need to go all Paul Haggis on us and preach about the inhumanity of the deportation process. For that, I'm deeply grateful. The Visitor, instead, spends it time focusing on Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins, a beacon of quiet suffering barely covering some deeper pain under the surface) and his reconnection to society and intimate human contact after the death of his wife. Seeing him reemerge from his life as a zombie, just going through the motions of living, to help these people he has grown to care for is one of the most poignant experiences I've felt at the movies this year; in fact, The Visitor may truly be the first film of the Obama Era.

7. Burn After Reading
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Coming after a huge Best Picture win, most directors would either take some time off or work on a serious picture that proves that the win wasn't a fluke. Well, the Coen Brothers have never been "most" directors. After the enormous success of the ultra serious No Country for Old Men, the Coens went back to their kooky black comedy origins with Burn After Reading. To describe the plot of this film seems almost masochistic because, as with most Coen comedies, the film is about the journey, not the final destination. With a cast full of intelligent actors playing some of the dumbest people you can even begin to imagine- most notably Brad Pitt, in possibly the best performance of his career, as a dimwitted gym trainer who thinks he has the skills to negotiate a high sum of money for a CD that may or may not have secret codes on it- the Coens make sure that the journey through Burn After Reading is one you will never forget.

6. The Wrestler
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
The most interesting thing about The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky's back-to-basics redemption drama after the surrealistic Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, is that it can be appreciated by different people for completely different ways. Personally, I was fascinated by the fact that Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert D. Siegel treat professional wrestling, a sport I grew up watching, with the respect it deserves, instead of making fun of its theatricality or for being "fake." But then, soon after watching it, I was having a conversation with Nick about The Wrestler and while he had no idea about any of the wrestling stuff (he wasn't privileged enough to grow up with it), he was fascinated by it in a very different way. The Wrestler works on so many levels- character study, sports film, father/daughter drama, Mickey Rourke comeback vehicle, budding romance between two vulnerable people- there's something for everyone. And this doesn't even begin to describe the powerfully subtle and deftly handled performances from Rourke , Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, who all wisely dodge whatever clichés their roles/personas throw at them; I think this is probably the closest any film came to "realism" in 2008.

5. WALL-E
Directed by Andrew Stanton
Animated films are for kids, or so we've been programmed to believe all of our lives. You're allowed to love and/or be obsessed with Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, etc before you hit puberty, but after that, it's just "weird" and "immature." Thank the Lord then for Pixar and their contributions to the animation renaissance. Starting with Finding Nemo and with each film thereafter, they have continually expanded the audience for animated films and allowed people to start taking these films seriously as actual pieces of art (although it could be argued that Miyazaki's 2002 masterpiece Spirited Away could have gotten the ball rolling, too). Everything came together for Pixar in 2008 with Andrew Stanton's visually stunning WALL-E. You would think that an epic love story between two robots set during a time in the future when Earth becomes inhabitable for humans with an opening 30 minutes that are generally wordless would be a tough sell, but Stanton makes WALL-E a completely enthralling experience from the opening frame to the last. The world Stanton creates is simply astounding to look at, prompting "oohs" and "aahs" at any given moment, and the love story that takes place in this world between the endearingly determined WALL-E and the kick-ass EVA makes every other romantic plot in any film you've seen in the past decade look absolutely dire in comparison.

4. Rachel Getting Married
Directed by Jonathan Demme
The spirit of Robert Altman's best works are alive and kicking in Jonathan Demme's deceitfully simple but really painfully complex depiction of family struggling to deal with an attention-seeking drug addict who happens to bring out the worst in all of them. Demme weaves in and out of different threads and characters of the film as skillfully as Altman did in Nashville and, like that film, most of these threads hinge on the actions of one character. The "Barbara Jean" of this film is said drug addict Kym, played by Anne Hathaway, who proves that all of her hard work these past eight years has not been in vein. Rachel Getting Married has more going on than this Kym storyline- hello, there's a wedding going on!- and there are some that don't directly involve her, but Kym will be damned if she somehow can't turn every fleeting moment into something about her. This is exactly what Rachel Getting Married will do to you for days after you see it: turn every thought you have and direct it somehow towards the movie.

3. Reprise
Directed by Joachim Trier
From the opening shot onwards, you can practically feel all of Joachim Trier's influences on this film: the ice cold starkness that permeates throughout the compositions from Ingmar Bergman, the role of fate and chance in seemingly everyday occurrences from Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run, the idea that young men can just sit around and talk about nothing in particular from Barry Levinson's underseen Diner, etc. What Reprise does so well, and hence it's placement so high on this list, is that it takes these influences and creates something refreshingly new and personal with them. As I'm growing into my 20's, I can relate to the trials and tribulations of maintaining a longtime friendship as we grow into people that would have been unrecognizable just a few years ago. Reprise captures this complex fact of life with a precision and grace that is rarely discussed in cinema.

2. In Bruges
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh's first obstacle to overcome in In Bruges: making the overused "hitman's redemption" plot line seem fresh and spontaneous while turning the numerous clichés on their head. Martin McDonagh's second obstacle: delivering a dark comedy that deals with the serious issues in a mature and complicated way but also knows how to step back and laugh at them. I'm sure it goes without saying just how difficult it is to do this properly. Martin McDonagh's third obstacle: getting a rich, deeply layered performance from the normally disconnected and generally uninteresting Colin Farrel as said remorseful hitman, a role that requires both excellent comedic timing (something we had never seen from Farrel before) and the ability delve into a pathos-driven moral minefield. The fact that McDonagh surmounts all of these seemingly impossible obstacles with the grace and ease of a veteran filmmaker makes In Bruges even more special.

1. A Christmas Tale
Directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Dysfunctional family dramas are, along with inspirational teacher dramas, one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Give me some beautiful people with big problems, high-strung emotions and a couple of choice quips preferably taking place over a major event like a holiday or funeral and I'm perfectly content. So, it should come as no surprise that Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale, with it's cast of beautiful French actors including the legendary Ice Queen Catherine Deneuve, Anne Consigny, Mathieu Almaric, Melvil Poupaud, Emmanuelle Devos and Chiara Mastroianni (and that's not even including the warm and fuzzy father figure Jean-Paul Roussillon and up-and-comer Emile Berling), would be warmly received by me. What took me by surprise was just how much of a wallop A Christmas Tale packs. Days passed and all I could think about was the film's intricate, absorping plot that's so overstuffed it could have collapsed with one false move, Desplechin's ability to capture years of backstory with just one look or line of dialogue and the way he relishes these moments more than the big emotional outbursts, the depiction of a family falling apart for reasons, beyond their control, that can't even begin to be put into words, etc. As you can see, I can talk about this film for days, and that's precisely why it's the best film of the year. It can stand up to weeks of scrutiny in my head and still reign supreme over all other films. This is the true test of genius and, ladies and gentlemen, A Christmas Tale has it and more.

Fuck You, Golden Globes

How can you say no to this...

...but yes to this?

WORST. NOMINATION. EVERRRRRRR!!!!!!

Sorry, I had to let out my Joan Crawford inner-angst there for a second. Minus the above nomination for this grossly overrated and unfunny performance (Tom Cruise in a fat suit, dancing to Ludacris...that's hilarious! Fucking gag me with a spoon), the nominations weren't too bad. In Bruges, aka the best movie of the year so far, picked up three (3!) nominations for Best Picture (M/C) and for Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson for Best Actor. Brilliant! James Franco also got a nom for Pineapple Express, which is possibly the funniest performance of the year. And RDJ, man. It would make me so happy if he could ride this Tropic Thunder momentum all the way to an Oscar nomination.

Best of 2008 (So Far): Movies

Let me be blunt about something: I've only seen 16 films from 2008 so far (bad me) and most of them have been mediocre at best, with only a few truly great ones. This is why these lists are kind of limited and may seem rather sucky in the grand scheme of things. I hope to catch up on all I can before I go back to school at the end of August.

Top 5 Films

5.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Nicholas Stoller)
It's no Superbad or The 40-Year Old Virgin, but Forgetting Sarah Marshall is definitely worth a look at, if only for a peek at the superb script by star Jason Segel which has a similar plot to most romantic comedies, but stays clear of cliche and corniness.

4.

Stop-Loss (Kimberly Peirce)
The first 20 minutes were absolutely brilliant- probably the scariest war scene I've seen since Saving Private Ryan- and even if the rest was a slight letdown, it was still more inventive and exciting than anything else playing in the theaters in early April.

3.

Cloverfield (Matt Reeves)
My mini-rant here.

2.

WALL-E (Andrew Stanton)
My mini-rant here.

1.

In Bruges (Martin McDonagh)
My mini-rant here.


Best Performances

Best Actor

Colin Farrell, In Bruges
Between Farrell's breakthrough in Tigerland and this film, I have either managed to avoid seeing his stinkers or haven't been particularly impressed by his work. In In Bruges, however, Farrell ably carries the dramatic heft thrust upon his shoulders while doing the comedy it also asks for...without dropping the ball once. It's an impressive performance that I will remember for awhile.

Best Actress

Natalie Portman, The Other Boleyn Girl
Not necessarily her greatest performance, but it's certainly a hoot. Portman, unlike co-star Scarlett Johansson, knows how to do camp and isn't afraid to go all out.

Best Supporting Actor

Ralph Fiennes, In Bruges
Again, this may not be Fiennes' greatest performance, but his foul-mouthed gangster was uproariously funny.

Best Supporting Actress

Isla Fisher, Definitely, Maybe & Imelda Staunton, Cranford (tie)
Staunton isn't given much to do in Cranford (a British made-for-TV miniseries that I caught on PBS a few months ago) besides play the town gossip, so, like the pro that she is, she relishes every joke and one-liner she is given and plays them for all their worth. The only reason I would ever recommend Definitely, Maybe to someone is so they can see Isla Fisher's impressive performance as one of the three potential mothers to Abigail Breslin. She completely understands where the character is coming from and plays down the kookiness enough so that she seems like a regular person we all would fall for.