“Mimzy” is Oscar material?
New Line’s “For Your Consideration” site is trumpeting three ’07 releases — The Golden Compass, Hairspray and The Last Mimzy. In a normal year the obvious third-ranked contender would be Gavin Hood‘s Rendition, which hasn’t much of a shot at anything but has some decent performances to its credit. Peter Sarsgaard and Meryl Streep are stand-outs, and Esquire recently hailed Jake Gyllenhall‘s lead perf as a conflicted CIA guy. But it’s all been tossed aside so that a vanity project can enjoy a nominal day in the sun.
Sarsgaard’s always good, but did someone not hear Streep’s accent or see the one-dimensional interpretation of her neocon character? She was laughably bad — but only to those of us who live in the real world, not to a Hollywood so blinded by ideology it’s undermining their film-judgement from production, final product, and finally to analysis.
It’s a good thing Streep didn’t have a mustache, because no doubt she would’ve twisted it throughout.
I actually think The Last Mimzy is much more successful at what it’s trying to do than Rendition. It’s just a better movie. Not that it’s so great, but Rendition is really that bad and who wants to award a decent performance in a bad film? Sarsgaard is fine, but it’s nothing like his performances in Kinsey or even Jarhead.
Excuse me, Roger Ebert said Rendition was “a perfect film”. I consider this a settled issue.
How did “The Last Mimzy” get left off of Ian Sinclair’s Best Picture list?
I didn’t know Ebert said Rendition was a perfect film. I take back everything then. My bad.
Unless The Golden Compass gets fabulous, better-than-LOTR reviews, I’d say it doesn’t much matter what New Line does or doesn’t stress for awards this year, and if I were them I wouldn’t spend too much on a room and hors d’oeuvres for the after party.
Good to see you’ve come to your senses, DH. By the way, Ebert also gave Redacted three and a half stars so I’m sure you’ll want to take back the ugly things you said about that film. After all, there is no way that ideology could have influenced the reviews of a Pulitzer Prize winning critic.
(I should say here, I really do like Ebert. I wish him the best with his health. But I in recent years he has become much too, um, generous in his reviews. Maybe now would be a good time for him to look again at his thumbs down to “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.)
While not perfect, I thought Rendition was quite good, and the performances were all excellent. Some people bitched that Gyllenhaal was too passive, but that was the quality I liked best about his character and his performance. I also thought the narrative twist (or revelation) at the end was pretty awesome. And underrated movie.
Just back from Hawaii, where any sensible Englishman spends their Thanksgiving holiday. Hope everyone enjoyed their turkeys.
The Golden Compass? Well, I told you Beowulf was a good movie and you all thought it would suck and fail and now it’s fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and is selling out all of it’s 3D screenings and is headed for a Best Animated Picture nomination.
I told you Enchanted was a good movie and you all thought it would suck and fail and now it’s 93% at Rotten Tomatoes and made $50m over thanksgiving.
I told you Amy Adams was so good in Enchanted she would get an Oscar nomination and you all laughed and now she’s favourite for the win.
So when I tell you that The Golden Compass is a terrific picture and it’s absolutely good enough for a Best Picture nomination what will you do? Laugh, I suppose.
Well, go ahead and laugh. I’m getting used to laughing last, and loudest.
He who
Ho ho, rather.
Don’t know about her Rendition performance, but Streep was exceptional in “Lions for Lambs.” Her scenes with Cruise sizzle.
Minority here (in more ways than one, no doubt) but I still think “Hairspray” was the guilty pleasure of the summer, and I hope Pfeiffer gets noticed for this or “Stardust” – she really is like no one else on screen for me – no matter the quality of the project, she puts 100% in.
Suddenly I see Redacted in a whole new light and am right now lighting my once-treasured Butch and Sundance DVD on fire.
Kidding aside, I too love Ebert. He’s not a sideline carper, but someone who adds to the breadth and history of film in a productive and positive way. I’ve found him too generous for years now, but better an enthusiast then a cynic.
Ebert, like Robert Osbourne and Dick Schickel truly love films and though I disagree with their politics, each is a rare treasure in this crazy business even though their business is mainly criticism and history. That doesn’t mean I always agree or that they haven’t made me angry (except Osbourne whom I adore), but their overall contribution is one that will last as long as movies themselves do.
Ian, you also predicited Elizabeth: The Golden Age would be a smash hit that would dominate the Oscars, so kindly stop being so proud of yourself. You haven’t even seen The Golden Compass, so give it a rest.
As I recall, Ian, you said that Beowulf was an almost sure-thing Best Picture nominee. When the iffy reviews of the preview reel started coming in, you reminded us that the film would be totally different in IMAX 3D.
I saw the film in IMAX 3D, opening weekend. There were about 40 people in the theater besides me. The movie was a lot of fun, but by no means a “serious” film. None of the characters were the least bit engaging. The motion capture was much improved, but many of the principals (and all of the background characters) still looked like zombie video game characters. And, for all its technical merits, Zemeckis still resorted to an awful lot of cheap 3D tricks. Roger Avary has as much as admitted that the screenplay was essentially a parody.
So, with all due respect, I call shenanigans on your prognostication skills.
An Englishman spends their Thanksgiving? Is that the royal they?
Grammar, Ian, grammar! (And what, exactly, is English Thanksgiving?)
“And what, exactly, is English Thanksgiving?”
I believe they celebrate it on the anniversary of Thatcher’s resignation.
That would be Ian giving English thanks for his shot at BEOWULF residuals…
“Her scenes with Cruise sizzle.”
Rod, are you Jeffrey Lyons?
“So when I tell you that The Golden Compass is a terrific picture and it’s absolutely good enough for a Best Picture nomination what will you do? Laugh, I suppose.”
How can Golden Compass be a terrific picture when it’s been gutted of its point?
I thought Streep was somehow worse in Lions. All those self-conscious tics and the ACTUAL handwringing… What was that shit with the thermostat…? How truly actor-y. Awful stuff.
Not that she had all that much to work with. Her scenes with Cruise weren’t written like a probing professional journalist trying to keep from being snake-oiled by a Senator — they were written like she was an ex-wife in a bitter divorce deposition unable to control herself from bringing up the past with a constant barrage of snotty asides.
There were very few decent performances in these hurry-up-before-we-win films. Tommy Lee Jones, however, was spectacular in Elah. It’s too bad the script let him down in the last half. Way down.
Jeff – Did you see some sort of internal memo that said the New Line site could only showcase three films? Unless you did, then stop applying A = B & B = C, so A must = C Freshman logic to drum up a nonstory. LAST MIMZY is being touted, had you cared to look, for best score because it has already won an award for Howard Shore’s music. How old is the site, did you at least do that much of your journalist’s job to find out? Who’s to say that by mid-week there won’t be a listing for RENDITION.
PerfectTommy – Again we are in agreement about something: Ebert’s slack reviewing, which goes back over 5 years now. He has given thumbs down to DONNIE DARKO, yet a thumbs up to HULK. I gave up on him pretty much when Siskel died.
IanSinclair – I’m sorry, but 70% on Rotten Tomatoes is not a great number for BEOWULF (ENCHANTED scored 93% and OCEAN’S 13 got 69%). Metacritic has it at 59 (while MICHAEL CLAYTON got 82 and SPIDER-MAN 3 also got 59).
And an Englishman’s Thanksgiving is obviously this: that he doesn’t have to actually LIVE in England apparently.
As far as Academy screenings are concerned, New Line is screening Hairspray, Golden Compass and Rendition, NOT The Last Mimzy. Maybe it’ll send the score out to voters, but Variety doesn’t list any Mimzy screenings on their site.
Better an enthusiast than cynic??? Everyone loves the guy who points out that we’re all standing in a pile of shit and isn’t it great that we still have our health.
And speaking of health, I cannot wait until Ebert is dead. That he survived but Siskel didn’t is an injustice to humanity, not to mention the cinema. I hope the lardbucket chokes on a goober while beating off to the Almost Famous director’s cut.
“Well, I told you Beowulf was a good movie and you all thought it would suck and fail and now it’s fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and is selling out all of it’s 3D screenings and is headed for a Best Animated Picture nomination.”
Yes, all of those things are *obviously* mutually exclusive to the fact that it also sucks.
“I told you Enchanted was a good movie and you all thought it would suck and fail and now it’s 93% at Rotten Tomatoes and made $50m over thanksgiving.”
Well, anybody who thought that movie would fail is stupider than you, that’s true, but that’s not really saying much.
“I told you Amy Adams was so good in Enchanted she would get an Oscar nomination and you all laughed and now she’s favourite for the win.”
I am prepared to guarantee you that she will not win that Oscar.
“So when I tell you that The Golden Compass is a terrific picture and it’s absolutely good enough for a Best Picture nomination what will you do? Laugh, I suppose.”
I think it’s absurd if you’re suggesting that it will get one, but I think the ad looks pretty fun and I’m expecting a decent movie.
Harry you’re absolutely right. Streep was for once laughably bad, literally. I couldn’t supress a giggle or two. My friend in LA tells me out there it was considered a “wicked Karen Hughes impression”, but it was just all over the map. And she seemed deeply disinterested. The scene where she is confronted by Sarsgaard I swear she fell asleep for a second.
You gotta hand it to someone for being such a magnificent bastard that he’s proud of only being partially wrong.
I saw Beowulf on Thanksgiving and was generally disappointed. The motion-capture animation is still a work in progress. The scope of the film and of the characters were surprisingly limited. The story is underdeveloped with huge plot holes. I imagine it might get a Best Animated nomination but it won’t win.
Ian – I mean, Hunter – also said that Enchanted was going to be a Best Picture nominee. Does anyone who’s seen it agree with him?
I think it’s possible, given the lack of butt-obvious candidates this year, but no, I think Adams will be alone representing Enchanted this year.
And by possible I mean “not completely impossible,” not “there’s a good chance it could happen.”
“So when I tell you that The Golden Compass is a terrific picture and it’s absolutely good enough for a Best Picture nomination what will you do? Laugh, I suppose.”
Having seen “The Golden Compass,” I will do more than laugh. My chortling will require tissues to wipe from my eyes all the flowing tears of hilarity brought on by your asinine suggestion.
Burma: Little Karen Hughes — little Condi, perhaps?
And don’t get me wrong, I like Streep, but she seems afflicted lately with whatever DeNiro and Pacino have: that middle-aged actor-y ailment where they show off as opposed to create a real character.
It seems like they want us to always see Meryl, Bob, and Al “acting” as opposed to the character they’re supposed to be playing. She’s been hard to watch for a couple years now. Bob and Al, a full decade. Sad. They were great once.
Man, I miss Gene Hackman.
That’s what’s so tired about the slow-moving moviesaurus– 24 had a fake Karen Hughes (named, with thudding subtlety, Karen Hayes) two seasons ago. No doubt the next president will be Ellery Quentin.
Ian, you magnificent bastard. Thank you ever so much for your part in convincing me to have a look at Enchanted.
Though I have no one to blame but myself for listening to you, you’re off the Christmas card list, pal. And you’ve just doomed Golden Compass’s chances for my ticket purchse.
Yes I know New Line execs are weeping about it this very evening.
Meanwhile, during discussion of the war and the change of the guard in Australia on “Countdown,” Patton Oswalt managed to slip in a “Two Girls, One Cup” reference. Love that man.
pVice: Piss off. Die in a Fire. Go to Hell.
DirtyHarry, to cure what ails you for both Pacino and Streep, check out ANGELS IN AMERICA. It’s some of their finest work.
I just had to go look up what the Two Girls One Cup reference was all about didn’t I?
Damn my eyes.
I have this powerful urge for soft serve all the sudden though…
“Unless The Golden Compass gets fabulous, better-than-LOTR reviews…”
It screened in London over the weekend, and I feel absolutely confident in guaranteeing that it’s not going to get anything close to those reviews.
Ian also said that Love in the Time of Cholera was going to be a best pic nominee.
Btw, Golden Compass screened in LA last night and the reports I’ve heard are that it isn’t Best Pic material, either.