UPDATED: Oscars 2013 Predictions

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

Some changes/updates here and there. The news that Hitchcock will bow in 2012 shakes up the race a bit, but I don’t really expect it to make too huge a splash in the Best Picture category (call me stupid). Anthony Hopkins certainly looks like a threat in the Best Actor race, however. The Promised Land trailer has the look of an Oscar contender, though I wonder if it will play more like Ides of March. I’m feeling a little more confident in Django Unchained right now, so I’ll throw it in for the time being. Also, as I suspected, the buzz for Silver Linings Playbook might be wearing a bit. I think it will sneak in and not have the lasting effect.

And now then:

Best Picture:
Argo
Silver Linings Playbook
The Master
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Django Unchained
Amour
***********
Promised Land
Moonrise Kingdom
Hitchcock
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Anna Karenina
The Impossible
Flight
Zero Dark Thirty

Continue reading →

Posted in Oscar Talk, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

ESPN’s Arnold’s Blueprint

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

Earlier this week, ESPN premiered its newest 30 for 30 Shorts series with a 10-minute film called Arnold’s Blueprint (watch it here), about the years leading up to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s unique and unprecedented rise to fame. These documentary projects are important looks at compelling sports stories from around the globe. The quality of the pieces vary, with some, like June 17, 1994 or No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, being genuinely fascinating and others, such as Straight Outta LA, being well-intentioned but inadvertently slight.

While I’m thrilled to see these short non-fiction hits, this Arnold piece falls sadly on the side of slight. There’s some strong talking head interview edits, where Arnold’s charisma and the sheer girth of his face dominates the frame. Most interesting are the cuts to moments of silent contemplation or sadness. It’s different to see emotion overcome this man’s face as he made a career out of subverting truth behind muscle and fantasy. Directors Jeff and Michael Zimbalist gathered an array of wonderful photographs of Arnold from his days in Austria. Even as a 12-year-old, his face wore a charm that stood out from the crowd. How could you not stare a boy with such a unique look as Arnold’s? This film, like My Week with Marilyn, made me wonder if there are certain people who are just born to be watched.

Continue reading →

Posted in Arnold Schwarzenegger, Documentary, ESPN 30 for 30, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Detropia Trailer and Doc Rants, Rants, Rants

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

I started hearing about this film when it had a Kickstarter campaign for distribution funding. From the directors of one of the most terrifying films I’ve ever seen, Jesus Camp, Detropia turns its lens on the abandoned metropolis of Detroit. If you’ve ever been to Detroit, you know the city looks a lot like a movie backlot for films that take place in burned-out buildings and empty back alleys. The metaphor of a once prosperous city now looking like a forgotten cinematic version of itself has always struck me as the most tragic irony of all. Detroit has its loyalists, but economic realities are proving too trying to overcome. Detropia looks like a much needed harsh-as-nails glance on an example of what corporate greed and systemic economic meltdown can do to a beautiful American culture. Detroit has given us some of the most important pieces of Americana – “the birthplace of the middle class” – and we’ve left it behind.

Even though it may be the most important film currently in theaters, Detropia can be found on less than a dozen screens. None of which are west of the Mississippi or in the states likeliest to turn a blind eye to this kind of topic, brainwashed by the guise of Mitt Romney’s “hope for traditional America” pledge. As a documentary lover, this leaves yet another bitter taste in my mouth.

Continue reading →

Posted in Detropia, Documentary, Errol Morris, Films, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Bond Newbie’s Thoughts on 007: Casino Royale

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

Short Take: Overall, I’m impressed with my first real venture into the Bond world. While Casino Royale’s storytelling often seemed as disjointed as a hyperactive cat chasing an unraveling ball of yarn, I did always feel engaged.

Spies kill. Just like soldiers and assassins, spies are bred to dispose of their enemies by any means necessary. The movies, namely the Bond movies, have painted a regal portrait of spies that puts them in trying situations they often can wriggle out of with death-defying, oddly non-violent (at least not mortally violent) ease. The perplexing black and white opening of Martin Campbell’s Casino Royale immediately sets the tone for a very different kind of spy picture. Sure, Bond is handsome, but he’s also dirty, gritty, and downright gruesome at times. There’s a realism to this Bond that feels opposite the white collar marketing I’ve grown used to. From what I can gather, this is no Pierce Brosnan. The opening also serves the picture in an unexpected way. The random plot point and it’s arbitrary style choice never fully connect to the story we are about to see. Supported by some well-drawn sequences, Casino Royale succeeds as a loosely wound thriller, even if it’s barely held together by elliptical scene jumps.

Continue reading →

Posted in 007, Films, James Bond, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Bond Newbie’s Thoughts on 007: Introduction

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

I’ll admit it, I’m a film snob. Get me started on the most over used visual metaphor in cinema being reflective bars that signal emotional imprisonment and we may chat all night. Want to debate whether Pasolini’s handling of Jesus in gritty black and white for The Gospel According to St. Matthew was a humanizing contradiction to biblical epics or something of a neo-realism gimmick? I’m there. But trying to discuss the newest action film starring Jason Stratham or family drama with Sandra Bullock will leave me dumbfounded. It’s precisely because of this that I have decided to take on the gargantuan task of wading through all 50 years of James Bond. The Blu-ray’s are affordable, so why the hell not? I’m tired of feeling like a snooty troll. I know these films entertain millions of people and I want to know why, dammit.

Sam Mendes has inspired me with every feature he has made to date. While most critics find his work uneven, pat, or tried, I find him challenging, with a finger on the cultural pulse. His next film will be Skyfall, the first Bond movie I have ever in my life actually been excited for. Thus, I’ve decided to turn that interest into a creative exercise.

Continue reading →

Posted in 007, James Bond | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rare Kindness: The Intouchables

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

Like so many contemporary Europeans movies, especially those coming out of France, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s The Intouchables – France’s 2013 Oscar submission – borrows a typically Hollywood aesthetic. Somehow, even when existing along predictable plot points, fit with montages and TV-timeout humor, there’s an earnestness to this picture that stands out and makes it refreshing to watch. Aligned in contradiction with the cynical state of the world, The Intouchables puts class relations and human prejudices under a microscope in a way that has an encouraging amount of kindness to it.

Continue reading →

Posted in Films, Reviews, The Intouchables | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Benh Zeitlin’s Short Glory at Sea

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

If you’ve seen Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, you know that it announces a rare visionary talent on the independent American film scene. Anchored by two dynamic performances, one being the very best child acting you will see this year, Beasts effortlessly melds fantasy and neo-neo-realism into something virtually unseen on screen before. Doing away with narrative constructs, Zeitlin creates a world that thrusts viewers into the mind of a small, but fierce, girl as she lives out fantasies to make sense of a cruel, unforgiving world around her. In some ways the sense of living memories through the mind of a corrupted youth is achieved more successfully in Beasts of the Southern Wild than Terrance Malick’s similar, Tree of Life.

Zeitlin’s successful short film, Glory at Sea, signals a brewing talent on the horizon. It’s worth it to watch this early work to see how this filmmaker is thinking not in terms of the comfort zone of profiteering narrative but cinematic poetry. In Glory at Sea, like in Beasts, there’s shades of playful hope that remind of Guillermo Del Toro, allusions to the sentimentally raw Vittorio DeSica, and frustrated poetics similar to Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Perhaps what excites me most about Zeitlin and his team is their commitment to making films about New Orleans in the city itself. For American film to have a fighting chance as an art form, I believe filmmakers need to use new accessible means to create movements of cinema around the country, instead of being centralized in the over-saturated and increasingly cannibalized market of Hollywood.

Watch Glory at Sea and dream a little:

Posted in Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin, Films, Glory at Sea, News | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Paul Thomas Anderson & Symmetry

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

A nice video essay about Paul Thomas Anderson’s nuanced use of symmetry and mirroring in There Will Be Blood.

It’s enough to give you a headache – but it might be worth it – to think about how Anderson continues to refine his interest in visual and thematic rhymes in The Master.

Posted in Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Promised Land Trailer

Posted on September 22, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

At first glance, Promised Land looks a little like a superficial dramatization of Gasland to me. I hope Van Sant and company make me eat these words as I fully anticipate this could be a gripping drama that makes startling, if liberal, points about the state of America today. It feels like this film, together with Zero Dark Thirty, Lincoln, and Argo, is really tapping into the zeitgeist of a heated moment in our nation.

Continue reading →

Posted in Gus Van Sant, The Promised land | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Errol Morris v. Colbert

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

http://www.hulu.com/watch/403693

In anticipation of his newest book, A Wilderness of Error, Errol Morris appeared for a fun exchange with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report.

Morris is one my favorite filmmakers because of his commitment to using the documentary form as an effort not to expose truth but to expose the human instinct to need to create a truth – no matter how false. He makes seemingly unsympathetic characters, most effectively in Fog of War, grow sympathetic by allowing them to speak their minds. By getting at the root of motivation behind behaviors, Morris turns our preconceived notions about people on their heads. He has a commitment to making us look at humans as humans, multidimensional, warts and all. Perhaps no greater American director works today.

Continue reading →

Posted in Errol Morris, News, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment