YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

REVIEW: How to Survive a Plague

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

Haunting and uncomfortably real, How to Survive a Plague uses the passion for its subject and the aggressive passion of it subjects to tell a powerful story of hope. With candid footage that shows people suffering from AIDS on the precipice of American authorities being forced to take notice, the film journeys through the struggles of a nation adverse to change and the affects of turning a blind eye to illness because of prejudice. What makes How to Survive a Plague ascend simply talking about an epidemic, that remains deeply misunderstood and under-reported, is how it shows with vigor that ignorance is not without the confident opposition of people courageous enough to stand up.

Midway through How to Survive a Plague, we see some of our main subjects asked pointedly, “Do you think you will die?” With virtually no hesitation each person says, “Yes.” Central to this story are people who refuse to allow indifference or platitudes to defer what they feel are rightful crusades to reverse a fatal disease. Throughout the story, the group of activists, known as ACT UP, are shown protesting, yelling out, confronting politicians, and ultimately refusing to have conversations that don’t end in “change.” Their passion drives the film and their one-tracked mindedness helped to at least stymie a problem that was about destroy more and more lives.

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Posted in Documentary, Films, Movies, Reviews | Tagged Act Up, AIDS, David France, documentary, Fiction, Films, History, How to Survive a Plague, Ken Burns, Movies, Nonfiction, The Central Park Five | 1 Comment

Suspense and the Sound of a Mission in Zero Dark Thirty

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

Time has gotten away from me and this blog over the past few weeks, thus I’ve had a hard time updating as much as I’d like. My review of Les Miserables is forthcoming (I didn’t love it), but for now here’s a short video about the sound work in Zero Dark Thirty. I know I say this a lot, but the sound – along with the pitch perfect editing – of this movie truly was the one aspect that stood out. From the terrifying gargling sounds of a detainee being water-boarded to a Black Hawk crash landing into the Bin Laden compound, the soundscape did for me emotionally what the writing didn’t: grabbed me and held me there. Likewise, the mid-section of Zero Dark Thirty is the weakest and it’s there where the sounds take a backseat to character development. Though this video illuminates Kathryn Bigelow’s interest in limiting her music use, I also thought the score to this film was incredibly effective. If you haven’t seen it yet, see Zero Dark Thirty in a theater with appropriate acoustics.

SoundWorks Collection – The Sound of Zero Dark Thirty from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Posted in Films, Movies, News, Zero Dark Thirty | Tagged Best Sound Mixing Editing, cinema, Films, Jason Clarke, jessica chastain, Katheryn Bigelow, Movies, Sound Design, SoundWorks, The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty | 1 Comment

REVIEW: Zero Dark Thirty

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

For all the talk of torture, accuracy, and gut-wrenching portrayal, little has been said about what specifically intrigues the world about the already highly-praised Zero Dark Thirty. Could it be it’s arm’s length approach to a realistic event? Perhaps it’s the woman in the lead who seems to have a beat on Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts from the very beginning. Maybe Zero Dark Thirty makes us feel at once strong and vulnerable without pulling too hard on the heartstrings. Whatever it is, Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty is an icy procedural that’s distant and observational to a fault. As both its greatest asset and its biggest drawback, the film eagerly avoids any semblance of manipulation in its retelling of the events leading up to one of the biggest takedowns in military history.

In some ways, one might see Zero Dark Thirty as three separate stories all connected to the inevitable climax. The first, the most interesting, and most talked about, presents the desperation with which American intelligence brutally tortured detainees in the direct aftermath of 9/11. What’s compelling about this portion is the animalistic helplessness of American operatives whose wounds of being attacked are so fresh that life maintains little value. Also, the smart introduction of Jessica Chastain’s Maya – done as cutaways to her shocked reactions to the torture – might implicate her as “soft.” Yet, when faced with the pleas of pained detainee, her stern, “If you tell the truth, it might stop,” finally tells of a woman just as hardened as the men. This revelation propels us into the meat of the film, where Maya will become central to Bin Laden’s capture.

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Posted in Films, Movies, Reviews, Uncategorized, Zero Dark Thirty | Tagged 2012, alexandre desplat, Chris Pratt, Films, Jason Clarke, jessica chastain, Joel Edgarton, Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Megan Ellison, Movies, Osama Bin Laden, oscars, Zero Dark Thirty | Leave a comment

Those Oscar Missed: Best Live Action Short

Posted on December 22, 2012 by filmscorehunter

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

Best Live Action Short is one of the few Oscar categories that home viewers would probably not be very familiar with. As with the other two short film categories, I was originally not going to include them in my journey through major Oscar snubs (mostly because trying to determine which shorts actually qualified as MAJOR snubs would take weeks, months, perhaps even a year of research). Without time to present major snubs for the short film categories, I’ve decided to present contenders for the short film categories that were NOT nominated for an Oscar, but could’ve (perhaps should’ve) been. I’m doing this to be fair to the short films and so that I will have covered every current Oscar category. Some of the shorts might be familiar to you; some might not be. Please take a look at these possible contenders.

1962’s La Jetee is a black-and-white live action short that was written and directed by Chris Marker. This French sci-fi (comprised of stills) short tells the story of underground scientists in a post-nuclear war Paris testing time travel on prisoners in the hope of sending one of them back in time to prevent the war that destroyed the world, but things become complicated when the only successful time-traveling prisoner meets and falls in love with a woman who had appeared in a pre-war childhood memory of his. It’s such a shame that Marker wasn’t nominated for his work here since he never received a single Oscar nod.

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Posted in Oscar Talk | Tagged A Place To Stand, A Soccer Story, Academy Awards, American Graffiti, Best Live Action Short, Big City Blues, By Courier, Chris Marker, Corpse Bride, Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, Frankenweenie, George Lucas, Happy Anniversary, I Want To Be..., In God We Trust, Jason Reitman, Jorgen Leth, Juno, La Jetee, One Day Crossing, oscars, Paddle To the Sea, Pan, Pierre Etaix, Seraglio, Sky Over Holland, Snubs, Star Wars, Stop Look and Listen, Tales of Meeting and Parting, The Cadillac, The Cliff Dwellers, The Painted Door, The Perfect Human, Tim Burton, Up, Up In the Air | 2 Comments

Foreign Film Oscar Race Narrows to Nine

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

I’m a little surprised by the exclusions of Barbara and Lore, but otherwise this list is about what was expected. Having recently seen War Witch and Kon-Tiki (both of which are quite good), I could see either getting into a final five that will likely include Amour, The Intouchables, and No. Here’s the full nine:

“Amour” (Austria)

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Posted in Amour, Films, Foreign Films, Movies, Oscar Talk | Tagged A Royal Affair, Academy Awards, Amour, Austria, Barbara, Films, Foreign Film, France, Iceland, Kon-Tiki, Michael Haneke, Movies, No, Norway, oscar, oscars, Sister, The Deep, The Intouchables, War Witch | 2 Comments

Those Oscar Missed: Best Animated Feature

Posted on December 20, 2012 by filmscorehunter

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

Animated films have been with us for so many decades, and yet the Academy only created an official category for them just over a decade ago (it’s especially odd considering how many decades the Best Animated Short category has been around). I remember when it was first created; there was a lot of talk that we’d never see an animated film get a Best Picture nod ever again (1991’s Beauty and the Beast was the first and only animated film to do so). Despite the presence of this category, 2009’s Up and 2010’s Toy Story 3 still received Best Picture nods. As for the major snubs, even I was surprised when I actually managed to find some.

One major snub is 2001’s Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the “Final Fantasy” video games, directed this groundbreaking animated film (the first photorealistic computer animated film) about a pair of scientists who are trying to free a post-apocalyptic Earth from a deadly yet mysterious alien race known as the Phantoms. Featuring the voices of Ming-Na Wen, Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, and Peri Gilpin, the critical reception was mixed and the film was not a box office hit (largely due to the fact that it was based on a video game). Its acceptance has grown since then, but it’s still such a shame that Sakaguchi wasn’t nominated for his work here (especially when Jimmy Neutron, which I liked, was nominated). He has yet to receive a single Oscar nod.

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Posted in Best Animated Feature, Oscar Talk | Tagged A Cat in Paris, Academy Awards, Alec Baldwin, Andy Serkis, Ari Folman, Back To the Future, Beauty and the Beast, Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Short, Bolt, Brother Bear, Chico and Rita, Chris Van Allsburg, cinema, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Daniel Craig, Donald Sutherland, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Films, Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Finding Nemo, Forrest Gump, Herge, Hironobu Sakaguchi, James Woods, Jamie Bell, Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, John Ford, Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2, Letters From Iwo Jima, Mary and Max, Millennium Actress, Ming-Na Wen, Minsters Inc., Movies, Munich, Nick Frost, Peri Gilpin, Ponyo, Puss In Boots, rango, Riaders of the Lost Ark, Robert Zemeckis, Satoshi Kon, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Shark Tale, Shrek, Shrek 2, Simon Pegg, Snubs, Steve Buscemi, steven spielberg, The Adventures of Tintin, The Color Purple, The Incredibles, The Polar Express, The Triplets of Belleville, Three Godfathers, Tokyo Godfathers, Toy Story 3, Up, Ving Rhames, Wall-E, Waltz With Bashir, war horse | 1 Comment

Those Oscar Missed: Best Animated Short

Posted on December 19, 2012 by filmscorehunter

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

Best Animated Short should be the short film Oscar category that most people should be familiar with due mainly to Disney, Looney Tunes, Popeye, Tom and Jerry, and more recently Pixar. As with the other two short film categories, I was originally not going to include them in my journey through major Oscar snubs (mostly because trying to determine which shorts actually qualified as MAJOR snubs would take weeks, months, perhaps even a year of research). Since I have a deadline (the day the Oscar nominations are announced: January 10, 2013), I cannot present major snubs for the short film categories. I’ve decided, however, to present contenders for the short film categories that were NOT nominated for an Oscar, but could’ve (perhaps should’ve) been. I’m doing this to be fair to the short films and so that I will have covered every current Oscar category. Some of the shorts might be familiar to you; some might not be. Please take a look at these possible contenders.

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Posted in Oscar Talk | Tagged A Grand Day Out, Adam, Aleksandr Petrov, All Nothing, Balance, Best Animated Short, Bill Perry, Bill Plympton, Bruno Bozzetto, Christoph Lauenstein, Corpse Bride, Creature Comforts, Dianne Jackson, Disc Jockey, disney, Edgar Allan Poe, Eunice Macaulay, Ferenc Rofusz, Frederick Back, George and Rosemary, George Scribner, Grasshoppers, History of the World In Three Minutes Flat, Jan Svankmajer, Jiri Barta, Keith Griffiths, Looney Tunes, Mark Baker, Mark Twain, Michael Mills, Mickey Mouse, Nick Park, Peter Lord, Pixar, Popeye, Quay brothers, Stephen Quay, Tango, The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer, The Cow, The Fly, The Great Cognito, The Hill Farm, The Man Who Planted Trees, The Prince and the Pauper, The Snowman, Tim Burton, Timothy Quay, Tom and Jerry, Vincent, Vincent Price, War Story, Wat's Pig, Will Vinton, Wolfgang Lauenstein, Your Face, Zbigniew Rybczynski | 1 Comment

Homeland, Ep. 212: The Choice

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

Homeland’s Season Two finale, “The Choice,” came with only a portion of the anticipation that Season One’s brought. As it turned out, after one of the most surprising – yet somehow expected – conclusions I can remember, Homeland fulfilled my hopes for a classic send-off while also maintaining the new direction the show will go. In many ways, the shock of watching Estes’ body disintegrate into a rush of flames was like watching the writer’s howl that they no longer cared about blurring the line between reality and fiction and now would, quite literally, blow the lid off everything the show has been expected to build. Naturally, the creator’s of Homeland couldn’t have expected the scrutiny that this season has endured, yet watching them throw every angle possible at the viewer has to signal a sense of aggression about what this show can be and what the world wants it to be.

“The Choice” begins with Peter Quinn watching Brody as he retreats to his cabin for a night alone with Carrie. Inside the cabin, Carrie explains that she cannot be with Brody and work in the CIA. She must choose between him and her job. Meanwhile, Saul, still held captive, warns of Peter’s assassination to no avail. The following morning, Carrie grabs breakfast while Brody prays and Peter chooses not to take a shot on him. That night, Peter tells Estes that Brody isn’t a bad person and he only kills bad people. At the funeral for Vice President Walden, attended by hundreds of high-ranking officials, Carrie tells Brody that she chooses him. While Abu Nazir is buried, a bomb from Brody’s car goes off at the funeral, killing almost everyone. Now Brody will be seen as a terrorist. Carrie helps him flee the country.

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Posted in Homeland, Reviews, Television | Tagged Best Drama, cinema, Claire Danes, Damien Lewis, Emmys, Episode 12, film, Finale, Homeland, Movies, Showtime, television, The Choice | 5 Comments

Those Oscar Missed: Best Film Editing

Posted on December 18, 2012 by filmscorehunter

CONTRIBUTED BY JAKE THOMPSON

Best Film Editing is one of the more creative Oscar categories. Film editing itself is an art form that is unique to cinema, although there is a similarity to the editing process when it comes to poetry and fiction writing. The film editor takes raw footage, selects shots, and combines them into coherent sequences, then makes any alterations to enhance or improve the final version of the film. A lot of great editing has been nominated (and won) over the years, but there are times when the Academy doesn’t quite get it right. It’s hard to believe, but I managed to find some major film editing snubs.

One major snub is 1967’s Point Blank. Film editor Henry Berman, inspired by director John Boorman and the films of the French New Wave, used jump cuts, slow-motion, repeated scenes for emphasis and amplified sound effects to create a fragmented sense of time. He also used disconcerting narrative rhythms like long, slow passages, which contrasted with the sudden outbursts of violence. It’s such a shame that Berman wasn’t nominated for his work here. Berman is a one-time nominee (1 win for 1966’s Grand Prix).

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Posted in Oscar Talk | Tagged 127 Hours, A Passage To India, Academy Awards, All the President's Men, Amadeus, An Officer and a Gentleman, Apocalypse Now, As Good As It Gets, Barry Malkin, Beach Red, Best Film Editing, black swan, Blazing Saddles, Bound For Glory, Breathless, Broadcast News, Chinatown, Doctor Dolittle, Duck You Sucker, Earthquake, Films, French New Wave, Grand Prix, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Henry Berman, In the Heat of the Night, Inception, John Boorman, Kingdom of Heaven, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Movies, Network, Once Upon A Time In America, oscar, Point Blank, Rocky, Romancing the Stone, Sergio Leone, Snubs, Taxi Driver, Terms of Endearment, The Cotton Club, The Dark Knight, The Deer Hunter, The Dirty Dozen, The Fighter, The Godfather, The Killing Fields, The King's Speech, The Longest Yard, The Right Stuff, The Social Network, The Towering Inferno, Tom Rolf, Two-Minute Warning | 1 Comment

The Gospel According to St. McConaughey

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Zac Petrillo

This has been mentioned a numerous times throughout the Internet and the idea of writing the name “McConaughey” over and over is a vaunted one, but it must be said again: Dear Matthew has had quite a good year in 2012.

Having just finished Killer Joe, my last in the quadruplet that was, for a moment, expected to signal the renaissance of Matthew McConaughey, I was struck by the realization that I have never seen anything quite like this. Not that McConaughey hasn’t won support from film critics who admire his work in all four movies, but that somehow the actor, a former “leading man” who never quite cracked the public bubble of sexy and talented, managed to be the shining light in four of the most fascinating films in one calendar year. In many ways, the achievement is how esoteric all four films are and McCounaghey’s willingness to choose such material.

With Magic Mike, McConaughey has drawn raves, including the Best Supporting Actor award from the New York Film Critics. McConaughey plays a Gentleman’s Club owner who, over-the-hill and still gyrating his hips, oozes charisma and hopes for the kind of entrepreneurial fortune promised by America. While the film, of the four, is the soggiest in the middle, it’s not for a lack of trying and every time McConaughey touches the frame, it’s some of the most enjoyable minutes you’ll see in movies this year.

The Paperboy, a campy, humid, and overcooked thriller utilizes McCounaghey’s beefy charms as a sexually-confused family man, determined professionally, but vulnerable about his nature. Bernie allows McCounaughey to dance on the fringes of straight comedy as he’s tossed into a bizarrely loving murder mystery as a Texan town’s caricature lawyer. Killer Joe, perhaps the most compelling of the foursome, watches McConaughey stoically unravel as a sexual predator and mildly sadistic hitman whose heart somehow can be swayed by a sense of honor. That honor, however, comes at the cost of a 12-year-old girl and a mercilessly dysfunctional family.

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Posted in Films, Matthew McConaughey, Movies | Tagged Actors, Bernie, best supporting actor, cinema, Films, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, Movies, New York Film Critics, The Paperboy | Leave a comment

YARDS OF GRAPEVINE | Movies, TV, Oscars & S'more

REVIEW: How to Survive a Plague

Suspense and the Sound of a Mission in Zero Dark Thirty

REVIEW: Zero Dark Thirty

Those Oscar Missed: Best Live Action Short

Foreign Film Oscar Race Narrows to Nine

Those Oscar Missed: Best Animated Feature

Those Oscar Missed: Best Animated Short

Homeland, Ep. 212: The Choice

The Gospel According to St. McConaughey

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