Formalized grieving is a strange thing. Thus, I will avoid it entirely and just talk about this week’s movies, specifically:

“Because I Said So“: I like Diane Keaton a lot, I really do. But she has to stop making terrible movies in which she plays neurotic harridans who interfere in their daughters’ romantic lives, and in the process discover their own sensuality. I know, I know … as bad as it was, “Something’s Gotta Give” got her an Oscar nomination. This one won’t. On the other hand, former pop tart Mandy Moore turns out to be a surprisingly natural screen presence. But she’ll be just as good in her next picture.

“The Italian“: A Russian movie about a cute little orphan boy who goes in search of the mother he’s never known, just as he’s about to be shipped out to a life of cappucinos, Vespas and post-Berlusconi corruption investigations? The combination would usually send me screaming out of the theater, but somehow director Andrei Kravchuk and screenwriter Andrei Romanov make it work, even if the second half isn’t quite as strong as the first. I have the sinking feeling Roberto Benigni is going to try to remake this with himself as the five-year-old orphan, so see the original before his mark is upon it.

“The Messengers”: Screened really, really late — like, 9:30 pm on Thursday — so Metro won’t have my review until Monday, but that’s okay … it’ll probably take me a couple of days to come up with something, anything, to say about the Pang Brothers’ inane venture into American cinema, in which Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller and Kristin Stewart buy a creepy old farmhouse and get stalked by a sound mix for 98 minutes. Plus, John Corbett gives the performance of his career as a shotgun-toting farmhand, even if he doesn’t know he’s doing it. Or possibly because of that.

“Partition“: Vic Sarin’s clumsy attempt to turn the political and religious upheaval of 1947 India into a crowd-pleasing romantic melodrama along the lines of “The English Patient” or “Titanic” forgets one important thing: Neither of those films was shot on a shoestring in Vancouver. Also, both of those movies had directors capable of, you know, directing. Of course, neither of those films tried to sell Kristin Kreuk as a Pakistani Muslim, either.

“Sur la Trace d’Igor Rizzi“: I gave Noel Mitrani’s oddball comedy-drama — which stars Laurent Lucas as a washed-up soccer star moping around Montreal who takes a job as a contract killer despite having not the first idea as to how one goes about whacking people — a pat on the head when it played TIFF last fall; if you were intrigued, but couldn’t make it to the screening, it’s at the Royal all week.

Regular posting will resume shortly, I promise.

Just checking in quickly before the funeral, but I do want to point to a couple of new reviews, just in case you were feeling masochistic about seeing a movie tonight:

“Blood and Chocolate“: An American werewolf — sorry, loup-garou — in Romania finds herself awfully conflicted when she falls in love with a rather lunkheaded human, despite all those warnings about how humans are bad, mmkay? If you thought the “Underworld” films were lame and underdeveloped, imagine how bad they’d be without the vampires and the guns. Oh, and the budget. And what the hell is Agnes Bruckner doing in a crappy project like this?

“Epic Movie“: The guys who made “Date Movie” are back, and their success has emboldened them distressingly — this one’s even sloppier and more base than the last one, just throwing a bunch of really obvious references and parodies at the screen until there’s enough footage to constitute a feature. (Barely: It’s maybe 80 minutes long.) But this word, “satire” … I do not think it means what you think it means. And yes, I know it made all the money this weekend, but I don’t care. Some people can’t be saved.

Hey, here’s a thought: If you haven’t seen “The Departed” yet, why not see that tonight? It’s really good.

… is not a tragedy, sayeth Mr. Altman, who was in a position to know.

Still kinda sucks, though.

Percy Wilner, 1914 – 2007.

Traffic might be a little light this week, is all I’m saying.

The last Friday in January means two things: First, all the Oscar bait rolls back into theatres — and yes, I know “The Departed” will be on DVD in a couple of weeks, but see it on a big screen if you can — and second, everything else that opens is going to be absolute crap.

To wit:

“Blood and Chocolate”: Agnes Bruckner, of “Blue Car” and “Dreamland”, demonstrates that even her considerable chops cannot make a stupid werewolf movie work if no one is trying to help her. Full review in Monday’s Metro; all you need to know is that it’s terrible, and silly, and terribly silly.

“Catch and Release“: In which Jennifer Garner mopes, cries, bangs her dead fiance’s best friend, and learns to live with grief. Also, Susannah Grant demonstrates that she really, really shouldn’t be allowed to direct her own work. Dude, Kevin Smith was right there on the set! You couldn’t ask him for pointers?

“Mount Pleasant“: If one tried to imagine a cynical attempt to fuse “Happiness” and “Crash”, one could probably imagine a movie considerably better than this dull cable drama about the miserable lives of three interconnected couples in the titular Vancouver neighborhood. Catch it on TMN, perhaps sooner than the filmmakers would like.

“Smokin’ Aces“: In which Joe Carnahan demonstrates that he is not, in fact, the second coming of Guy Ritchie, though he really, really thinks he is. (Curiously, it also has the side benefit of making Tom Cruise look like a genius for waiting him out on “Mission: Impossible III”.) Points to Ben Affleck for never acknowledging the full idiocy of his moustache. Points off to Andy Garcia for somehow becoming Texan during his last big monologue.

No screenings of “Epic Movie” at all, but I’m catching it later this afternoon. I hope it’s funnier than “Date Movie”, is all I’m saying. But then, how could it not be? All it would take is one successful gag …

The post-nomination debates are raging in the newspapers, but the National Post’s front page summed it all up nicely:

SNUBBED BY OSCAR: No Best Picture nod for Dreamgirls; Jack Nicholson, Borat and Brad Pitt get shunned.

The lack of a Best Picture nom for “Dreamgirls”, yeah, that’s kind of newsworthy in light of the film’s eight nominations … but, well, is “shunned” really the right word?

I mean, it’s not as if Nicholson doesn’t have three Oscars already; it’s not as if “Borat” wasn’t, you know, actually nominated for something; and it’s not as if Pitt, whose production company produced both “Babel” and “The Departed”, was told he couldn’t attend the ceremony this year.

I know, I know. It’s all about grabbing eyeballs and telling people what they think they want to hear. And, evidently, they want to hear how great it is that big Hollywood stars (and that “Borat” guy you’ve been hearing so much about) have been shown up at the whole being-famous thing, while our very own Deepa Mehta — a national treasure! — has been honored with a nomination for Best Foreign-Language Film for “Water”.

Now, I know we need homegrown stories, but really … I was at the Varsity yesterday morning for a screening, and the Deepa machine was going full-bore, with journalists lining up to chat with her about her year-and-a-half-old movie and how great it is that — how did she put it in the Globe? — oh, right, that was just a picture of her sitting in an auditorium, she wasn’t actually quoted or anything.

Yes, she’s a lovely person and she’s entitled to every bit of exposure she can scrape out … and because we’re very nice up here in Canada, no one will mention that “Water” is kind of disappointing, and probably doesn’t stand a chance against “Pan’s Labyrinth”, “The Lives of Others” or even “After the Wedding”.

Still, what else were we going to put up for the nomination? “Bon Cop, Bad Cop”?

Salma Hayek must have been up at three in order to look as good as she did for the press conference announcing the Oscar nominations, which is held at 5:30 PST in order to dominate the day’s news on the East Coast … and even so, she looked kind of groggy, like she’d nodded off in the makeup chair just moments earlier.

Hell, maybe she thought she was still dreaming, being present at the biggest rally of Mexican talent in the history of the Academy Awards. With the not-so-curious excision of “Dreamgirls” from most of the major categories — clearly, it was supplanted in Oscar’s kitsch slot by “Little Miss Sunshine”, though it still managed to pick up a total of eight nominations — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Babel” became this year’s dominant force, with nominations for Picture, Director, Screenplay and two Supporting Actress nods, for Adriano Barazza and Rinko Kikuchi.

Meanwhile, Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men” and Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” — probably the two best films of 2006, each of them far superior to Inarritu’s festival of artfully lit misery porn — had to settle for consolation prizes. But those prizes are still fairly impressive: “Pan’s Labyrinth” is up for no less than six statuettes, including Best Foreign-Language Film and Best Original Screenplay; that’s more than just the pat on the head the Academy has offered to most critical favorites in the past, that’s genuine recognition.

(More discourse after the jump.)

Continue reading How ‘Bout Them Oscars? →

Here’s my Metro review of “The Hitcher“, producer-demon Michael Bay’s latest attempt to cash in on the horror remake trend. It’s about as successful as his “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” pictures, which is to say it’s extremely violent, logistically questionable and — when you get right down to it — entirely unnecessary.

The original “Hitcher” is not a great movie, but it lingers well in the mind — the dynamic between Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell is charged with homoeroticism as well as sadism, Eric Red’s script slithers along with the implacable logic of a nightmare and the violence, when it comes, is genuinely shocking.

None of that made it into the new version. It’s just wall-to-wall screeching tires and screaming victims, with Sean Bean stalking a couple of fresh-faced idiots across New Mexico, killing everyone with whom they make eye contact. There are a couple of boo! moments, but no real scares. This is what the kids are looking for in a horror movie nowadays?

Well, maybe not: It seems “The Hitcher” came in fourth at the box office over the weekend, behind “Stomp the Yard”, “Night at the Museum” and “Dreamgirls”, respectively. Maybe the kids stayed home and spun up the DVD of the original film. About half an hour in, that’s what I wished I’d done.

The Academy Award nominations are announced on Tuesday, which means the studios are playing it safe this weekend — widening the runs of a couple of likely honorees (like “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”), and bringing back a few Golden Globe successes (like “The Last King of Scotland”, which roars back onto screens after Forest Whitaker’s Best Actor – Drama award, and “Babel”, which expands considerably in the wake of its Best Picture – Drama win).

Also, there’s the week’s requisite dead-zone genre picture; today, it’s “The Hitcher”, which didn’t screen for critics until last night and therefore avoids a slew of opening-day reviews that will call it unnecessary, superficial and silly. (Don’t worry, I’ll be using those terms on Monday.)

And then, tucked away in small runs, there are two very good little movies:

“13 Tzameti“: In Gela Babluani’s striking debut, a young man (the director’s brother George) sees an opportunity for a big score and winds up trapped in a terrifying nightmare. Don’t watch the trailer, don’t read any other reviews, don’t even look at the poster — just go down to the Royal, buy a ticket and strap yourself in.

“Venus“: Age has not dulled Peter O’Toole’s magnificent screen presence, and he makes the most of his sympathetic wobbliness in this only slightly trite drama about a decrepit actor who’s smitten with a comely — if rather obnoxious — young woman. Director Roger Michell packs the film with marvelous performances: There’s Vanessa Redgrave as O’Toole’s tolerant ex, Leslie Phillips and Richard Griffiths turn up as O’Toole’s fellow luvvies, and newcomer Jodie Whittaker very nearly steals the picture as his yawpy crush object.

Also opening this week is “This Film is Not Yet Rated”, which Rick reviewed for Metro and therefore slipped past me. But since Mongrel’s releasing the DVD in a couple of weeks, I expect I’ll see it soon enough.

Home for twelve hours, and I’m already racing to catch up with myself — CTV NewsNet is having me on in the 10:30 AM block to discuss the Golden Globes, which means I have to get there in about fifteen minutes. So, well, check it out if you’ve got cable. In the Toronto area, Rogers subscribers can find it on channel 62.

And as far as the Globes … “Babel”? “Dreamgirls”? Really?

The Palm Springs film festival, she is concluded, and we have our winners:

Best Foreign Language Film

Pan’s Labyrinth, directed by Guillermo del Toro

Best Actor

Mads Mikkelsen, “After the Wedding”

Best Actress

Blanca Lewin, “In Bed”

You can find more specific coverage, including my expanded review of “Pan’s Labyrinth”, as it goes up at the FIPRESCI site. Now, however, it is time to crawl into bed and get as much sleep as we can before the obscenely early wake-up call, and then it’s off to Toronto with the customary bagful of American candy.

(It turns out they still sell mint chocolate M&Ms at Christmas … just not in Canada. But now they’re really cheap!)

I am such a six-year-old sometimes. But a six-year-old who gives prizes.