More New Year's Resolutions

I already made a list of specific movie-watching goals, but here are some general ones. You know, the kind nobody ever keeps.

» I want to go see more concerts. I say this every year. Next item.

» I want to volunteer at something. My friend Shane volunteers as an ESL (or do they call it ESOL down there? whatever) tutor, and it sounds like fun.

» I want to see more obscure films next year. Maybe I'll ditch my "Stinker of the Month" category for "Obscurity of the Month." I live in the third best movie-watching city in the United States, and I seldom take advantage of the opportunity to see anything that you couldn't eventually see in the middle of Iowa. We have several great venues for foreign and independent film, and I'm going to frequent them.

» I want to take an acting class. My dream is to make movies, and I feel like if I want to direct actors, I should know a bit about what it's like on their side of the lens. Also, I think it would help my reviewing, since I think I am weakest when I am attempting to describe a performance.

» I want to make more friends, both in person and online, and see my existing ones more often. I realize that there are only three or four people I see on a regular basis, and one of them is moving at the end of the summer. Also, in the past year I've cultivated a few friendships with fellow online movie reviewers, and I'd like to find more.

» I want to find a transcendent pizza experience in Chicago. Why is it so hard to find a really good slice here? Oh, right, because this city is laboring under the delusion that nasty cheese loaf deep dish pizza is better. It's good to be known for something culinary, but why did this city pick crappy pizza? It is possible to get really good pizza; both places are in Wicker Park. But there must be other options.

» I want to start learning a second language. Since this is the United States, I think it should probably be Spanish.

Happy Birthday to Me

You are all invited to join me in celebration of my 31st birthday. My birthday is Sunday the 8th, but we'll be celebrating on Saturday the 7th. First up is a screening of Josef von Sternberg's first sound film, Thunderbolt, at my theater (the LaSalle Bank Cinema, 4901 W. Irving Park Rd. in Chicago, at 8 pm). After the film, we will repair to Artemio's Tacos, a pretty decent Mexican place across the street. If you were around for my last birthday celebration, this will all sound familiar to you.

New Year's Resolutions: Movies

In 2006, I resolve to watch the following:

Three Ingmar Bergman films (I've seen only two of his):
Autumn Sonata, The Hour of the Wolf, Persona

Three Federico Fellini films (I've seen only three):
La Dolce Vita, Nights of Cabiria, Juliet of the Spirits

Three Rainer Werner Fassbinder films (nada, zip, zilch)
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Marriage of Maria Braun, Fox and His Friends

Three older Japanese films that aren't directed by Akira Kurosawa:
Shinoda's Double Suicide, Okamoto's The Sword of Doom, Ozu's Tokyo Story

Three Iranian films (none so far, although I own a book about Iranian cinema):
Haven't picked yet. Suggestions?

Three Russian films (pathetically few):
Haven't picked yet. Suggestions?

Three films from the Balkans
Haven't picked yet. Suggestions?

Three African films (again, pathetically few):
Haven't picked yet. Suggestions?

Three "important" documentaries (you know, the ones that end up on best-of lists)
Harlan County USA, Grey Gardens, Nanook of the North

I hope I won't conveniently forget these. It's often easier for me to rent a mainstream film than more serious fare, much like it's easier to down a cheesburger than a salad. But salads end up tasting good, and I usually enjoy more serious films. We'll see how well I do. That's only 27 out of the approximately 130–150 films I'll watch next year, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Intelligent Design Rejected

The federal court in the Kitzmiller et al. vs. Dover Area School District has come to a predictable decision (pdf): Intelligent Design is creationism in disguise, and as such cannot be taught in public schools. The link is to the entire decision, which is really long but worth reading. It debunks the idea that Intelligent Design is science, along with ID's criticisms of evolutionary theory.

Specific to the Dover case:

In summary, the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere.

And:

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

The Discovery Institute, which is the nation's leading think-tank supporting ID, responds. I hope someone appeals this to the Supreme Court, so we can get a final word on this nonsense. (Of course, perhaps we don't want this going before a Bush-appointed Supreme Court.)

Of note: Judge John Jones III was appointed by Dubya. Damned activist judges.

Oscar Predictionations

Because I am bored at work, I present you with my Oscar predictions, a full month or so before the nominations are even released. Winners are in bold.

Best Picture
Brokeback Mountain
Good Night, and Good Luck
Memoirs of a Geisha
Munich
Walk the Line

Best Director
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
David Cronenberg, A History of Violence
Paul Haggis, Crash
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Steven Spielberg, Munich

Best Actress
Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger
Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Keira Knightley, Pride and Prejudice
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

Best Actor
Jeff Daniels, The Squid and the Whale
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line

Best Supporting Actress
Maria Bello, A History of Violence
Catherine Keener, Capote
Scarlett Johansson, Match Point
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain

Best Supporting Actor
George Clooney, Syriana
Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
Terrence Howard, Crash
William Hurt, A History of Violence

Best Original Screenplay
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Match Point
The New World
The Squid and the Whale

Best Adapted Screenplay
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
The Constant Gardener
A History of Violence
Syriana

Best Cinematography
Brokeback Mountain
The Constant Gardener
Good Night, and Good Luck
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha

Those are the only categories I really care about. What are your thoughts or predictions?

Golden Globe Nominations

Warren Beatty once said, "The Golden Globes are fun. The Oscars are business." That's probably not as correct as it was when he said it, but at least the Golden Globes take themselves less seriously.

Sometimes I like that they split dramas and comedies/musicals into separate categories. I think comedies are as good, and in many cases better, than dramas, but I think that most voters don't think so. They're giving out an award, and comedy seems so frivolous to them. As most actors I know have told me, it's a lot harder to do comedy than it is to do drama, but it looks easier when you're sitting in the audience.

Anyway, the Brokeback train keeps a'chugging, and both Good Night, and Good Luck and A History of Violence racked up more Oscar cred. I thought The Constant Gardener was pretty good, if not particularly successful, and I thought people had forgotten about it, but I was wrong. One film that is surprisingly absent is the overearnest Crash, which I didn't particularly like but which I thought of as Globes fodder.

Down with the musicals and comedies is Walk the Line, a solid biopic but not, in the end, particularly memorable aside from its lead performances. The Squid and the Whale continues to be overpraised—I liked it, but it's a long way from being the masterpiece many people have crowned it.

The expanded categories allow them to throw some recognition to performers who won't make the Oscar cut, like Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow, Maria Bello in AHOV, and Cilian Murphy in Breakfast on Pluto (which I haven't seen, but he looks great in the preview).

And then there's all the TV stuff. Where's "Arrested Development"? It's the funniest show made in the past 300 years. Approximately.

More Awards

Awards season continues with the National Board of Review, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Boston Society of Film Critics releasing their awards. Brokeback Mountain continues to win a lot, along with William Hurt and Grizzly Man.

New York named Maria Bello as best supporting actress for A History of Violence, which strikes me as the best surprise pick; Boston named Kung Fu Hustle as best foreign language film, which strikes me as both completely bonkers and completely wonderful at the same time. I haven't seen a lot of the winners—Brokeback isn't out here yet, and I missed 2046—so I'm starting a little bit behind.

I've always had, and will likely always have, a problem with the National Board of Review, which started in 1909 as the National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures. Sure, it was an early attempt to fend off government censorship, and sure, they have certainly changed their ways. But they often (at least recently) show questionable taste—Finding Neverland for Best Picture in 2004, The Hours in 2002, Moulin Rouge! in 2001—and, well, I can't forget that they started as a censorship group.

I wasn't really an awards fiend before this year. I'd watch the Oscars, and the other awards were really only about figuring out who might get nominated for the big one. But several sites I've started reading in the past year or so, specifically Nick's Flick Picks and Cinemarati, are into them, and their enthusiasm is infectious. So, you can blame them for the increase in awards coverage here, and you could find worse ways of spending your time than reading their sites.

Calling All Film History Geeks

Ok, I did have something. What's with people getting out of the wrong side of the car in old movies? You'll have two people in the front seat of a car. The car stops, and they both slide out the same side, usually the passenger side. I just watched the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and there's a prominent instance of this, which reminded me that I've always wondered about this phenomenon.

Is it a matter of the cars not being fully functional, i.e., modified somehow for use in the film? Is it a matter of getting out of the car on the side facing the camera (although I don't remember this being the case in many old movies)? Or did people just slide out the same side of the car back in the good old days?

Keep an eye out for examples, and email them to me if you remember. Perhaps someday I will write the definitive book about the subject, and I will thank you in the acknowledgments.

Hello and Los Angeles

It's the 1-month anniversary of my last blog post, so I thought I'd post again. I don't have a lot to say, though. My favorite art historian has been in England, and I've been watching a lot of movies. Yep. Pretty exciting.

Oscar season got started recently with the release of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award winners; Brokeback Mountain seems to be an early favorite, and I was happy to see Capote and Grizzly Man win some awards. I'm puzzled by William Hurt's win for A History of Violence: the worst part of the film, the only thing that really didn't work, was the part where he appeared, and he really didn't even seem to be inhabiting the same movie as everyone else. I was really happy to see Richard Widmark, one of my favorite actors, get some recognition.

Hmm, what else? It got cold. Cold and snowy. I hate it. That is all.