Pride, Unprejudiced
Wrapping Up 2008
by Ray Pride

Sea changes in production and distribution surround us, but I wouldn't complain about the movies I've been able to see this year. I missed some larger events, and I bet there's a lot more to admire from 2008 out there, even if it's only another fistful of sweet grace notes. The two most magnificent sound-and-image experiences of my year were witnessing a moving masterclass by Terence Davis at Thessaloniki International in November, and the deafening-blinding My Bloody Valentine concert at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom in September.

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There are two ways to follow everything that's going on in Park City this year ... First, there is our 10 Days of Sundance Page, which willl roll out the best of everything that's written about the festival every day. We'll be pushing MCN content as well as linking to everyone else's. Second, there is the 10 Days Of Sundance Blog, which will be the first repository of information from all four of our main writers - Gregg Goldstein, Kim Voynar, Ray Pride, and David Poland - throughout the fest. When there is gossip, we will report it as Gossip, news as News, our views as Views, and all kinds of Content. But we hope there will be multiple postings every waking hour of the day, from how the movies are to how much they may be selling for to, yes, even some stupid celebrity coverage.

Frenzy on the Wall:
Spring Preview '09: Part Two
by Noah Forrest

I read the graphic novel quite recently; I was worried that if the film wasn’t any good, then the novel would be ruined for me so I wound up reading the thing in an afternoon and found out why the comic was so lauded. Now, my anticipation level is through the roof and I’m praying that Zack Snyder has done justice to this fascinating, difficult material that transcends the superhero/comic book genre.

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The Ultimate DVD Geek
The Chronicles of Narnia
Prince Caspian
by Doug Pratt

The science of sequels has bedeviled Hollywood for years. Which elements should be retained? Which altered? The makers of the follow up to The Chronicles of Narnia The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe faced an even more vexing problem. Should they go with the next C.S. Lewis book in the series, which has a compelling story but very few of the characters from the previous book, or should they skip ahead to the next book that has most of the central characters that appeared in the boxoffice hit, even if its story is moderately less involving?

MCN DVD
Pineapple Express

If James Franco is far more likely to receive an Oscar nomination for his superlative work in Milk, than for playing a space-case dope dealer in Pineapple Express, it's only because being stoned to the gills isn't up there with autism, cancer, elephantiasis or ALS as Oscar bait.

Also .. Babylon AD, Righteous Kill, The Grocer's Son, The Royal Air Force at War, Death Race

DP/30
Mike Leigh Sally Hawkins Happy-Go-Lucky	Sally Hawkins Happy-Go-Lucky	Darren Aronofsky Mickey Rourke The Wrestler
Peter Morgan Frost/Nixon	Benicio del Toro Che'	Richard Jenkins The Visitor
30 Minutes With The People Who Make The Movies

Voynaristic:
No Regrets: Why Even "Amateur" Films Deserve Honest Reviews
by Kim Voynar

The whole issue of what's amateur versus what's professional, and whether such things should be even be considered at all in reviewing them crops up all the time, especially for those of us who spend a lot of our time on the fest circuit or have a stack of indie screeners sitting on our entertainment centers.

Do you review independent films and studio films by different standards?

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The Gurus look at the top 8 categories post-Globes. Not a lot of changes in Best Picture ... but Kate Winslet moves up in the actress categories. Gurus January 12 Gurus: December 30 Gurus: December 12 Gurus: December 9

Weekend Report
by Leonard Klady

In general the performance of the top titles and new entries was substantially greater than expectations and tracking reports. Gran Torino had high-end hopes of $25 million and even that figure was viewed as perilously high, as no film by actor-director Clint Eastwood had ever cracked a $20 million bow. The strategic expansion should provide traction for the film’s prospects in the acting category and in several other Oscar ballot slots.

Weekend Estimates (Full List)
2008 Market Share

Wilmington on Movies
Bride Wars, Last Chance Harvey, The Reader, and Not Easily Broken
by Michael Wilmington

We get to watch an expertly handled late-life love story, as interpreted by the masterly little guy Dustin Hoffman and the marvelous and somewhat taller (at least in heels) Emma Thompson, both at the top of their games. It’s not a great movie, or completely original, but a good one, a nice one -- and it boasts what I would call a great movie kiss. (Thank you, Dustin and Emma. I hope it was as much fun as it looked.)
Wilmington on DVDs

Bride Wars	-	-	-	-
The Unborn	-	-	-	-	-
Not Easily Broken	-	-	-	-
Last Chance Harvey	-		-	-
Marley & Me	-	-	-	-
Defiance	-				-
Good		-	-	-	-
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button	-
Revolutionary Road	-				-
Valkyrie	-		-	-
The Spirit	-	-	-	-
The Wrestler	-	-	-	-

20 Weeks of Oscar
6 Weeks to Go: Almost There
by David Poland

The truth is, the field always narrows, there are always expected award players that turn out to be misses, and there are always a few big surprises… but on that last one, not this year.   

I think the lack of surprise is a combination of certain surprise tricks no longer being surprising and the films that hoped to film that place just not being compelling enough to overcome the more expected films. 

The Charts
Director | Picture | Screenplay
Actor/Supporting Actor | Actress/Supporting Actress

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Oscar Outsider
Considering the Best Original Screenplays of the Year
by Kim Voynar

I've already taken a closer look at several of the adaptations in contention for Best Adapted Screenplay, so I thought it would be a good time to look at the contenders in the Best Original Screenplay category that I feel most strongly about. Here are the five I'd like to see have a shot at Oscar gold; interestingly enough, all but one, The Wrestler, were both written and directed by the same person; perhaps all those would-be screenwriters submitting scripts to big studios and hoping to hit it big enough to get out of their day jobs should take notice.

285 Top Ten Lists tallied; 265 films listed; 106 films with a single vote -- proving there's some love out there for almost everything Updated Top Ten Scoreboard The Top Ten Lists

Headlines, Awards, Top Tens, Features and Reviews at MCN's Awards Watch.

Frenzy On The Podcast
Che's Peter Buchman
by Noah Forrest

This week Noah chats with Che screenwriter Peter Buchman about working with Soderbergh, researching Che Guevara, and his stalled Alexander the Great project.

Noah also talks with ..
Matteo Garrone
John Patrick Shanley
J. Michael Straczynski

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Pride, Unprejudiced
Body Art: The Wrestler
by Ray Pride

The Wrestler sears because of its two central roles, Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a beat-down wrestler in his early 50s, and Marisa Tomei as "Cassidy" (nee Pam), a stripper he feels close to as the walls of his life close in around him. Brave and sometimes literally naked: they make a tremendous match as performers. And that dovetailing seems a suitable fit for the films Darren Aronofsky's made so far: Try as the mind might, thought cannot save the flesh.

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Yes, it is a cliché, but 2008 truly was the best of times and the worst of times.

The box office broke new records, including a brand new #2 domestic film of all-time, yet New Line was dumped by Warner Bros, three studios dropped their Dependents, a fourth found a sucker to snap up a Dependent Dependent, and a fifth basically shut down their DD without so much as an announcement.

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Voices
The Muse Behind Daisy
by Mark Wheaton

In the film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Cate Blanchett plays a willowy ballet dancer who begins her career in what would have been one of the first classes of the School of American Ballet in New York, going on to become a favorite of choreographer George Balanchine, an instructor there. 

For fans of ballet, particularly of Balanchine, this story should sound familiar as it mirrors closely the life of Balanchine’s fourth wife, Tanaquil Le Clercq. 

How Ill Is Steve Jobs?
Earlier - Jobs Cites Health As Reason For Leave From Apple Until June; Intends To Stay Involved In Major Strategic Decisions

Can You See The Dead Trees For The Dead Crickets?
LA CityBeat's Andy Klein Latest Told To Go Opine Elsewhere

"Boss! The Gates! The Pearly Gates!"
Ricardo Montalban Was 88
Plus - Are You In The Market For A 1975 Chrysler Cordoba?

India Awaits D. Boyle's Mumbai Meller
And - A. R. Rahman Wants Oscar For "Jaiho" From Slumdog
While - The Hindu's Writer Thinks Slumdog's One Shot Away
Earlier - Bollywood Big Amitabh Bachchan Bad-Blogs Slumdog
And - Bachchan's Unfiltered Blog-Of-Consciousness

Unsigns Of The Times: Times Square Virgin Megastore To Dim; Union Square Location Also Endangered

Newspaper Mega-Chain Gannett Sez All Non-Union Workers Must Take Week Without Pay
While - New York Mag Keeps Staff Writers, Trims Their Pay

Aronofsky On Fight Pics Pinned By Wrestler

UK's Nat'l Theatre To Broadcast Live To Cinemas, Starting With Dame Mirren In "Phèdre"

YouTube's Muting Videos That Mashup Makers Post With Unauthorized Tunes

"This global company gives filmmakers one-stop shopping with a more global focus."
Anne-T On Focus Features Go-Going Global

On The Battle Of Chicago's Newsstand Tabloids (Now There Were 3)

Patrick McGoohan Was 80
As Was - David Withers, Producer Of "The Prisoner"

Wim Wenders On Speed

Foundas Flies To Forefront Of Gomorrah Failure Fury

Polanski Has No Plans Ever To Return To The U.S.

Copy Rites: Matt Seitz On YouTube vs. Kevin B. Lee

Film In Focus Gets Filmmakers To Confess 2009 Resolutions

"It is a time for clear thinking and analysis, not uninformed speculation."
The New York Times Contests The Atlantic Monthly Article That Asserts They're Going Bankrupt This Spring

"'Is this once again a going-back to the West's voyeuristic obsession with joy amid poverty, vitality among the super-poor?' asked Hindustan Times columnist Mondy Thapar."

Another Confusing SAG Shilly-Shally: Doug Allen, Fired Negotiator, Un-Fired, Not Fired, Or Something, At Epic National Board Meeting

Costume Guild Dresses 13, Including Revolutionary, Milk, Button, Slumdog, Sex, Wrestler
And - Vancouver Crickets Make Rain For Milk

Shawn Levy Read "The Watchmen" Over The Weekend And Now Worries The Movie Could Never Be Good Enough

What's At Stake With Cablevision's Infinite TiVO? Money... Careers... Copyrights
And - Open Mic Music Nights Will Die, Not Because They're Often Crap, But Because Strapped Music Rights Orgs Are Suing Mom-And-Pop Bars For Allowing Singing

Oscar Shortlists Nine Foreign Language Noms

Tom O'Horgan, 84, Created "Hair," Directed B'way's "Lenny," "Jesus Christ Superstar"

Following A UK Precedent, Chicago Trib Going Tabloid For Street Sales

Ebert's 1987 Account Of Going On-Set For Barfly With Mickey Rourke And Bukowski
Plus - A Reporter's Unearthed Tale Of Two Months On The Set Of Easy Rider

The Times' First Substantial Sundance Stroke: Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers

Slumdog Drumroll, Please...
"The first emblematic film of the Barack Obama era. It is such a radical contender for Oscars, and in ways that correspond to what appears to be Obama's world view."

Is YouTube Cracking Down On "Critical Essays" That Use Copyrighted Footage?

"The awards are very flattering, obviously, and great for what I like to call my bathroom ego, which is the ego no one sees but me, when I look into the mirror. What's really important is the platform they give the film."
Danny Boyle Sez Awards Are A Bottom-Line Necessity For Pics Like Slumdog

The Headaches Caused By Studios' Rush To 3-D Without Enough Screens In Place

Why Movies Can't Learn From "The Wire"

Focus Announces 2009 Slate With Coens, Jarmusch, Ang Lee; Hippie-Hippie Shake MIA

Paul Newman Biographer Shawn Levy Finds The One Bad Photo Ever Taken Of The Great Man

The History Of "Miss Double G," The Woman With The Golden Globes In Her Hands

Is Stanley Fish's NY Times Top 10 Films Of All Time The Worst List Ever Typed?

Japan's Prestigious Kinema Jumpo Film Awards Include Foreign Director Nods To Lumet And Penn

"The pressure of working for Lew Wasserman and Sid Sheinberg was so great, Tanen kept guns and ammunition in the trunk of his car, and would occasionally leave work and drive to the desert in the middle of the day to fire off some rounds and relieve some of the stress."
Producer Bill Horberg's "Minutes Of The Last Meeting Of The Ned Tanen Appreciation Society"

Profiling "The Mozart Of Madras," Slumdog's Millions-Selling A. R. Rahman

John Patrick Shanley On The Difference Between Doubt And "The Flying Nun"

The Cinema Editors Make Their Nominations

Carr Equates: How Can Media Address The Expectation That Everything Has To Be Free?
And - "12 Major Media Brands Likely To Close In 2009"

Trailering Sundance's Michael Shannon-Starring The Missing Person

Today Is HAL 9000's Birthday

Oscar-Winning Claude Berri Was 74; Producer Of Secret Of The Grain, Tess; Directed Jean De Florette

"The line in Lionsgate’s marketing division is that every job already includes 'D.F.E.,' or 'Do F---ing Everything.'"
New Yorker Goes Long On Lionsgate Publicity Pasha Tim Palen

Karina Longworth Really, Truly, Hits The Gongs That Mattered At The Globes

"I would like to grow up to be like Clint Eastwood. Eastwood the director, Eastwood the actor, Eastwood the invincible, Eastwood the old man. What other figure in the history of the cinema has been an actor for 53 years, a director for 37, won two Oscars for direction, two more for best picture, plus the Thalberg Award, and at 78 can direct himself in his own film and look meaner than hell? None, that's how many."

Hot Diggity Slumdog!
Globes Results Are Here

Rupert Pupkin's Payphones Are No More

Sussing Out The Underpinnings For Sales At Sundance This Year

How The Reaction To Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" Shaped Modern Western Society

SAG Set To Euthanize Deadly Strike Threat?

Bashir's Ari Folman On His Future Past

Nick Fraser On The Pitfalls Of Literally Faithful Biopics

The Sunday NY Times
Busby Berkeley Had The Moves (And Movies)
And - Waltz With Bashir "will always be up-to-date because something will always happen again."
Plus - Telling The Holocaust Like It Wasn't

Variety Tallies B.O. Of 2008's Top 250

The Digital Magic Behind Restoration Of Manhatta

IFC Daily's David Hudson Thinks Larger Picture On The Week's Media Upheavals

The Bagger On Why The DGA Awards Are A Bellwether, But Not The Globes

Mark Cuban Sez 3-D's The "LSD Of 2009"

Ray Dennis Steckler, 70, Directed The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies

"I went to a performance of five short plays by Beckett, held in a chilly lecture hall in the medical school of the University. A faint aroma of formaldehyde. Perfect."
Ebert Place-Drops Venice, London And Elsewhere

The Unlikely Big-Budget Sex Thriller Directed By Atom Egoyan, Produced By Ivan And Jason Reitman, From Erin Cressida Wilson, Writer Of Secretary

The Art Of The Title Takes The Fall

There Is Solace By The Quantum, As Sony Breaks U.S. Bond Record The Second Time In Two Tries

Art Directors Guild Produces Noms

Going Into The Green Zone With Paul Greengrass

The Latest On The Watchmen Dosey-Doe; Fox And Warner Apparently Will Spend Weekend Chatting

Ebert On Credit Crash Doc, I.O.U.S.A., Which CNN Preems This Weekend

Cash-Starved Chicago Sun-Times, Needing $50 Million In Cuts, Proposes 25-30 Copyediting And Layout Jobs Be Outsourced To India
Slumdog Copyeditors

Polanski Plea To Change Venue On His Appeal Squashed; Hearing Jan 21

Thank God It's Fire-Day
Alt-Art Arthur Mag Folds Again
And - Hearst Sez Seattle Post-Intelligencer Will Go Online Only Or Fold If Not Sold In 60 Days
And - Troubled Sun-Times Media Group Shutters 12 Chicago Suburban Titles
Plus - Warner Bros. To Outsource Office Work To Poland And India
And - Voice Media Continues Self-Cutting
Taylor Unmade: LA Weekly Axes Ella

TribCo Bankruptcy Complicates Cash-Out Of Chicago Cubs

Enlist For The First Six Minutes Of Valkyrie

Producer Larry Gordon Writes About Watchmen Foofaraw; Judge Refuses To Read His Letter, Calls It "Improper Communication" Violating Court Rules
Earlier - "There is a reason for contracts and for laws. They are not flexible. This is not an Orson Welles movie being left to die. This is not Mapplethorpe being censored in Cincinnati. This is business. Simply business."
Poland Responds To Watchmen "Open Letter"
"If the project had been sequestered at Fox, if Fox had any say in the matter, Watchmen simply wouldn't exist today, and there would be no film for Fox to lay claim on. It seems beyond cynical for the studio to claim ownership at this point."
Watchmen Producer Lloyd Levin Passes Open Letter To McWeeny

PBS Clothes Ian McKellen's "King Lear" Nude Scene

Don Galloway, 71, Known For "Ironside," Big Chill

Russian Gas Cut To Ukraine Leaves Bulgarian, Bosnian Cinemas In Cold

"The years from about 1957-1963 represented not only the best time to be alive in the U.S. for the greatest number of people but also the period when all the cultural explosions of the '60s were already latent, even evident."
McCarthy Confesses A Love For 1950s Melodrama Muddies His Take On Revolutionary Road

China's Most Commercial Director Breaks Another Record; But Feng Xiaogang "Would Never Make A Film To Win An Award"

BFCA Critics Choice Nods Include Slumdogx5; Penn; Tied Hathaway, Streep; Ledger; Winslet; Foreign For Bashir
And - The Updated Scoreboard

Hans Zimmer And James Newton Howard Tune Up Dark Knight On KCRW
While - Batmaniac Chip Kidd Unmasks More Bat-abilia, The Secret Trove Of Japanese Batmanga

WeinsteinCo Sells 60% Of Genius Video Arm To Investment Firm Affiliate

What If Sundance Isn't About Sales Anymore? (Bonus Mark Urman Quote!)

Incoming Obama Administration Asks For Postponement Of Digital TV Switch

Can You Pick One F---ing Favorite Movie Swear?

"'I don't mean to offend you, but you look like Janeane Garofalo.' I never really know how to respond to that: 'None taken?'"

Che To Go Roadshow In Chicago, Seattle, D.C., Boston, Dallas, Houston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, SF; Comm'l And Trailer-Free With That Nice Souvenir Book, Too

Matt Damon, King Of The Cameos

Why Did Revolutionary Road's Richard Yates Never Make The American Lit Big-Time?

Sensing Slow News Week, Ebiri Piles Up 10 Best Car Crashes On Film

STV Lowers The Boom On His Top 5 Bar-Lowering Top 10 Lists

DGA Nominees
Milk
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Slumdog Millionaire

The Cinema Audio Society Nominations

They Should Call The Character "Payday" Will Mickey Rourke Follow In T-Ho's Footsteps From Oscar Nominee To Iron Man Support Staff?

Bruce Lee's Hong Kong Home To Be Turned Into Museum

Tintin Turns 80 This Weekend And Here's Dozens Of Reasons He's Gay