I don’t follow the career paths of each and every noteworthy online film critic, and I’m certainly not in the habit of monitoring press releases from the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s office. But something mind-blowing was announced and reported last Tuesday about a film writer I slightly “know” — i.e., Gabe Toro. His posts and reviews evaporated last August and some (LexG among them) have wondered what happened. He was arrested, is what happened. On 8.19.14. Last Tuesday’s press release plus two news accounts state that Toro, a 31-year-old resident of the Bronx, has pled guilty to online enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual conduct, and that he’ll face at least ten years in the slam when he’s sentenced on 6.25, and that he’ll have to register as a sex offender when he gets out.
With the ecstatic gushing for Les Miserables following Friday’s Avery Fisher Hall screening, it’s a given that the backlash will kick in…when? After the first round of LA screenings this weekend? Or a bit later? I knew a backlash was in the cards when Lyn Stairmaster wrote at the end of his rave, “Questions, bitches?” That meant “put up your dukes….the fans of this film will face you on the barricades.” But if Les Miz is as good as some insist, the counter-backlash will kick in sometime in mid-December and it’ll be clear sailing.
If Gabe the Playlist is reading this, I’d appreciate a thought or two.
This is Helen Hunt‘s finest, most affecting scene in her entire career. The way she says “fries” is dead perfect. And she handles Jack Nicholson‘s classic line with just the right…hesitancy. And acceptance. I don’t care what Guy Lodge or Gabe the Playlist or anybody else says — at times this film has a quality that really, really works. It’s obviously the last successful emotional touch movie that James L. Brooks made. The Bluray is out tomorrow.
Let’s say for the sake of argument I’m having this hypothetical conversation with these other guys, and someone asks if there’s a clear Best Picture frontrunner out there now. Let’s imagine this conversation and see where it goes.
“The Descendants has it all,” I would say. “And so does Moneyball. You or yours may not like that idea, but they both mix honest emotionalism (as opposed to cloying sentiment) with smarts and great style and thematic wholeness. They’re the top dogs of the quality-movie fraternity right now.
“The Artist is a lovely homage to Hollywood’s silent, black-and-white past as well as the tradition of A Star In Born and Singin’ in the Rain. It’s a must-see for even half-hearted Movie Catholics. But it’s also sloshing around in cloying oatmeal sentiment. The dog alone takes it out of consideration in my book.”
And this other guy, let’s say, says “not that I agree at all with the idea that The Artist is ‘sloshing around in cloying oatmeal sentiment’, but even if it was, since when would that be an Academy turn-off?”
And then he says there’s a certain comfort in knowing that others beside himself aren’t that much love with The Descendants. It’s Alexander Payne ‘s “least adventurous or affecting film,” he asserts. Beginnings of an anti-Descendants cabal?
And this other guy, let’s say, says he’ll take all serious bets that “there’s no way in hell either The Descendants or Moneyball win Best Picture. They’ll both get nominations but other than possibly Clooney for Best Actor and Best screenplay, Payne’s movie will have to be fine getting nominated but not winning anything.”
And I say that this “no way in hell” proclamation about The Descendants or Moneyball “is precisely why I loathe and despise the industry criteria that everyone associates with a Best Picture Oscar win.
“People want the ‘big thing,’ the lump in the throat that pulverizes, the movie that delivers some profound bedrock truth about our common experience, that makes you want to hug your father or your daughter….and if I ever get to the point that a movie like War Horse (if it follows through on the indicatoions of the trailer and the ads) or The Artist or The Help makes me feel that way, then take me out behind the building and shoot me in the head, twice.”
Somebody says this is an antiquated definition of a Best Picture Oscar winner, and I respond that “i didn’t say people won’t settle for this, that or the other thing when it’s Crunch Decision Time. Obviously they went for something less or different or more granular with The King’s Speech, The Departed, Chicago, No Country For Old Men, The Hurt Locker. But they’re always looking for the “big thing” element at the outset. They always want that comfort, that assurance, that meltdown, that touch of a quaalude high.
And then I add that “when Gabe The Playlist begrudgingly said there ‘wasn’t a dry eye in the house’ toward the end of a recent NY screening of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, I felt a little button-push sensation in my chest. I thinking it might be the one….maybe. He said he’s not a Stephen Daldry or a Sandra Bullock fan and that he didn’t care for the Asperger’s kid, but he still recognized or acknowledged that it delivers the emotional payoff that it set out to deliver. That impressed me.”
And then another guy points out another factor in Extremely Close‘s favor is that the Academy “truly loves Daldry. He’s the only director who has been nominated for every single feature film he’s directed to date.” So it’s looking like Extremely Loud might have an edge at this stage…maybe, sorta kinda, bullshit-wise.
From HE reader/journalist Gabe@ThePlaylist, posted earlier today: “I mostly liked Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and I’m not sure if I’m just touchy about 9/11, or that you genuinely have to be an asshole to HATE it. But it kinda gave me a headache, and the kid was unbearable. Still, except for me, not a dry eye in the house. I haven’t seen a movie work like that in awhile.
“It turned me around on a lot of things: (as) Favorite Stephen Daldry movie by far…though I am not a fan; (b) Favorite Sandra Bullock performance. Again, definitely not a fan; (c) Max Von Sydow‘s character feels gimmicky. Of COURSE he’ll get Oscar attention. Though I would throw it Bullock’s way, and I think Jeffrey Wright has a great scene near the end that straddles the line between ‘I am answering a lot of questions for myself right now’ and ‘I am touched by the context you’re bringing to this.’ Only great actors make those similar reactions into completely different attitudes; (d) Some of the mother/son stuff is TOUGH. I think there’s a lot of misplaced rage people have when they lose a loved one, and when it’s a hyperactive child, it’s tenfold. I was impressed how dark and affecting this was.
“I think, as far as Academy voting [is concerned], it works on every necessary level. Tugs appropriately at the heartstrings, has just enough edgy content, plays with colorful editing and ‘edgy’ unconventional storytelling, and grandma will love it.”
- All Hail Tom White, Taciturn Hero of “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Roughly two months ago a very early draft of Eric Roth‘s screenplay for Killers of the Flower Moon (dated 2.20.17,...
More » - Dead-End Insanity of “Nomadland”
Frances McDormand‘s Fern was strong but mule-stubborn and at the end of the day self-destructive, and this stunted psychology led...
More » - Mia Farrow’s Best Performances?
Can’t decide which performance is better, although I’ve always leaned toward Tina Vitale, her cynical New Jersey moll behind the...
More »
- Hedren’s 94th
Two days ago (1.19) a Facebook tribute congratulated Tippi Hedren for having reached her 94th year (blow out the candles!)...
More » - Criminal Protagonists
A friend suggested a list of the Ten Best American Crime Flicks of the ‘70s. By which he meant films...
More » - “‘Moby-Dick’ on Horseback”
I’ve never been able to give myself over to Sam Peckinpah’s Major Dundee, a 1965 Civil War–era western, and I’ve...
More »