"Animal Kingdom": All gangster, no glamour

I also managed to see two very compelling documentaries on my final day at the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival, but they were each, in their own way, so grim that they sort of canceled each either out in my mind, leaving me kind of mentally battered and bewildered.

Which certainly doesn't make them any less successful at telling important stories extremely well. The first was "Mugabe and the White African," which from the title alone you can tell is probably not going to have the happiest of endings. It follows the story of Mike Campbell, a white farmer in Zimbabwe who has taken leader Robert Mugabe to court to block Mugabe's land grab of all farms owned by white people. Using hidden cameras, the filmmakers get extraordinary access to Campbell and his family as they fight their fight and are menaced by Mugabe's thugs at every step. Hard to watch, but well worth catching when this hits DVD on Dec. 14.

After that, and for the last movie of the festival for me, I watched "Last Train Home," but like I said, I was unfortunately way to emotionally drained by that point to really enjoy it. The movie follows the misfortunes of one family in particular as it takes a look at the exodus of China's migrant work force back to their home towns for each Chinese New Year, described at the outset as the largest human migration in the world (and watching people fight for spots on the train, it's impossible to doubt that.) It hits very hard as it follows one married couple who work in the garment industry as they simultaneously fight to keep their children from following in their footsteps. Not sure when this might be coming to DVD, but check it out when it does.

Sandwiched in between these two grim affairs, thankfully, was "Animal Kingdom," an Australian gangster movie of sorts that I'm fairly certain will find a home on my list of the top 10 movies for the year.

As the movie begins, you can tell that our protagonist, young Joshua "J" Cody, has already had much of the life drained out of him as he calmly calls his grandmother to report that her daughter, his mother, has died of a heroin overdose as she sits on the couch beside him. From there, he's taken in by the Cody clan, a low-level Melbourne crime family with many of the trappings of crime families throughout movie history, but still a unique group to watch for both their savagery and, often, their ineptitude.

The Cody gang is made up of three brothers and a cousin as the soldiers, and a matriarch played by Jacki Weaver who is someone to keep your eyes on (though it will be impossible not to anyway.) As we meet them, they're clearly already on the downside of their rather petty criminal careers, and watching their fall is one of the many things that makes writer/director David Michod's debut feature film so grimly but thoroughly entertaining.

I don't want to give too much away, but the story here is about how Joshua (James Frecheville) is slowly drawn into their desperate world, and what measures he will go to to escape it. It always annoys me when gangster movies get compared to "The Godfather" (calling, for example, "Un Prophet" the French "Godfather," as I've seen many times), but in its lack of convenient catch phrases or stylish action set pieces, Michod's movie is, if anything, the anti-"Godfather."

Instead of resorting to any of these usual gangland conventions, Michod instead lets his movie be driven by a constant mood of terror that only increases as the flick unfolds, and by natural performances throughout from his cast, particularly Weaver and Ben Mendelsohn as the rather seriously unstable Andrew "Pope" Cody.

Even its ambiguous ending was a satisfying wrap up for me, and I think you'll be hearing at least Weaver's name with the Oscar nominations as Best Supporting Actress, and "Animal Kingdom" is so good that I'd have to think it's a dark horse for Best Picture too, since there will once again be 10 competitors.

I have no idea if this is still playing in theaters anywhere, but if it is, definitely check it out, and look for it in on DVD in January. I've included the trailer, which makes hilarious use of Air Supply's "All Out of Love," below. And with that, I've got to pack and return home from the first leg of my vacation. Peace out.

Oscar's big gambit: Power to the people?

Before we get into this madness with the expanded Oscars, there's news about two things out there today that will snag a bit of this aging geeks' money, so I thought I'd pass on what I know.

The first is that the Director's Cut for Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" should be a truly wild affair. It's set to come to DVD the third week of July or so, and if you're lucky enough to live in New York, L.A. and maybe a couple of other cities you will be able to see it in a theater for one weekend only right before that.

The flick will clock in at an admittedly rather ridiculous 188 minutes, but if you're like me and loved the movie almost as the funny book by Alan Moore, I think you'll happily sit through it all. No word yet on whether or not there will be a giant squid anywhere to be seen, but I do know that it will restore one scene that was just sorely missing from the theatrical cut: The murder of Hollis Mason. This is a very poignant moment in the comic, so it's about damn time.

Comingsoon.net also had a bit this morning about something from Zack Snyder that I can't say I'm terribly excited about: A sequel to "300."

Now, don't get me wrong, it certainly will look cool. But didn't "300" have a definite ending already? Frank Miller is apparently hard at work on the comic that would precede the movie, but personally, I'd much rather see what Snyder can come up with for "Sucker Punch." Though it sounds a whole lot like "Pan's Labyrinth," I'm betting his tale of a young woman who creates an alternative reality to escape from a mental institution will be nothing but cool.

The second thing that caught my eye this morning may well only appeal to me, but here goes anyway: They're actually making a Fraggle Rock comic book. Things just don't get much odder than that, but I'm definitely in.

It seem that the Jim Henson Company is partnering with Archaia Comics to release a whole bunch of comics, everything from "The Dark Crystal" to "Labyrinth," with "Fraggle Rock" set to start it all off. With Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller hopefully still working on a new muppet movie, we may be looking at a second golden age for Henson's creations, and that would be just fine with me.

But beyond what interests me, of course, the biggest news of the day is the Oscars' big gambit: To double the number of best picture nominees from five to 10.

The move, which sounds great to me, leads back to a much earlier era; The last the time the academy had 10 Best Picture nominees was from 1931 to 1943. But why now?

Well, both the most obvious and probably the right reason is what happened last year with "The Dark Knight." Many folks, though by only a nose, not me, thought Christopher Nolan's flick should have received a Best Picture nomination. And, to be clear, if I had had a vote and there were 10 slots, I indeed would have given one of them to "The Dark Knight."

But what might it mean for this year? Well, I think it almost certainly means that "Up" will finally break into the Best Picture pack, and given it's rather rapturous reception, could even come very close to winning. Beyond that, if geeks are allowed to dream, could "Star Trek" even make the cut too? Probably not, but you can see how the wider field opens a bunch of possibilities.

My only possible beef with any of this is that it will probably make the already unbearably long Oscar broadcast even longer. My suggestion: Cut, immediately, that extremely morbid bit where the audience offers dead folks varying degrees of applause. That just makes me cringe every time I see it.

But, of course, beyond expanding the field to a wider range of films, there is a bottom-line factor that plays big into this. Though they won't say it publicly, I'd imagine the ability to stamp "Best Picture nominee" on 10 DVDs rather than five each year had to play a big role in this decision.

So, there you have it. Please feel free to chime in with any thoughts you might have on all of this, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

Oscars on the brain, and Watchmen, Watchmen everywhere!

I guess the biggest non-Oscar news out there today is that Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro and Owen Wilson are set to star in "Little Fockers," which will of course revolve around the youngins. Hardly a high-brow movie, but I always at least give it a chance when De Niro goes for comedy.

But here today, it's all about the Oscars, a return to lists and - of course - "Watchmen"! Please feel free to stick around until the end for what I think are the first three clips of actual footage from the movie.

I'm set to record an Oscars video presentation (are those "vodcasts"? I have no idea) with my co-worker Phillip Ramati this afternoon, so they're definitely on my brain, and over my morning coffee I was perusing Wikipedia's list of all the Best Picture winners and nominees (and hoping it's accurate), which prompted these few brief thoughts:

Biggest snub

This is, of course, completely subjective, and for my purposes I restricted it to movies that actually were nominated rather than the almost infinitely broader category of worthy movies that didn't even get the nod.

In the former set, three jumped out at me, with the last one being the most amazing slight in my book. First up is "Dances With Wolves" over "Goodfellas" in 1990. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not sure I've ever seen Kevin Costner's film in its entirety, but I did try at least once. I have, however, probably seen Scorsese's gangster epic at least 10 times on DVD, so I think I can say with authority that this was just the definition of a dis.

Next up is "Forrest Gump" over "Pulp Fiction" in 1994, probably the biggest gap in quality between a winner and a nominee I can think of. I've made my hatred for "Forrest Gump" crystal clear here before, and while I know in my heart that, say, "Norbit" or "The Hottie or the Nottie" are probably worse movies, I still think "Gump" stands the test of time as the worst "good" movie of all. Along with the love of Zemeckis' flick, this vote just showed that the Oscars really weren't ready for something as innovative as Quentin Tarantino's breakthrough flick.

But the biggest goof in my mind goes back much further, all the way to 1939. Now, I have seen "Gone With the Wind," albeit not until it was re-released in theaters sometime in the 1990s. I really liked the overall experience, complete with intermission, so I can't knock anyone who is a devoted fan of the adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's grand Southern saga, but I still have to ask how in the world could this have beaten out "The Wizard of Oz"? Like most American kids of my era, there were two movies that we all gathered around the TV for year after year as events: "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Sound of Music." The former is still the one movie that I think would cause me to resort to actual rather than just threatened violence if I ever heard of plans for a big-screen remake, and for flicks that combine wild storytelling with sheer artistry and innovation, they just don't get much better at all. Hence, the winner in this category for me, but please feel free to add any others that jump out at you.

Favorite Best Picture winners

Nothing terribly surprising here, especially in the confirmation that the mid-1970s were indeed the golden age of American cinema, but just thought I'd share my 10 favorites anyway, arranged only by order:

1949: "All the King's Men"
1954: "On the Waterfront"
1965: "The Sound of Music"
1972: "The Godfather"
1974: "The Godfather Part II"
1975: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
1976: "Rocky"
1977: "Annie Hall"
1987: "The Last Emperor"
And, finally, 2007: "No Country for Old Men"

Favorite Best Picture losers

This, of course, took a bit longer, but it's always better to complain about who got hosed rather than congratulate the winner, right? I was gonna try to keep this to 10 also, but it soon became clear that would be impossible. So, here goes, my favorite nominees who failed to take home the big prize:

1939: "The Wizard of Oz"
1956: "The King and I"
1961: "The Hustler"
1962: "To Kill a Mockingbird" (probably my favorite movie of all time, but I suppose you can't gripe too much, since it lost out to "Lawrence of Arabia")
1964: "Dr. Strangelove"
1967: "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Graduate"
1970: "MASH"
1971: "The Last Picture Show"
1976: "All the President's Men" and "Taxi Driver"
1979 (truly a banner year): "Apocalypse Now," "Breaking Away" and "Norma Rae," with "Kramer Vs. Kramer" somehow beating all of those
1980: "Raging Bull"
1984: "A Soldier's Story"
1987: "Hope and Glory"
1990: "Goodfellas"
1991: "Beauty and the Beast"
1992: "The Crying Game"
1994: "Pulp Fiction"
1995: "Babe"
1996: "Fargo"
2000: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
2001: "Gosford Park"
And, finally, 2006: "Little Miss Sunshine"

Were the Oscars always so "snobby"?

I put that in quotes because I'm not thoroughly convinced they are now, but the backers of "The Dark Knight" (and you can count me firmly among them) could certainly make that case.

So, were the Oscars always so averse to rewarding movies that combine artistry with extreme box-office appeal? The biggest example that proves they weren't would have to be "Titanic," which took home the big prize and 9 other statues, among 13 nominations.

There are other instances, however, that better show that the Oscars once (and fairly recently) took the wishes of fans and real geeks to heart. Here goes, with some Best Picture nominees:

1975: "Jaws"
1977: "Star Wars"
1981: "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
1982: "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial"
and 2001-2003: "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy

And, finally, "Watchmen"!

Anyone who actually made it through all that certainly deserves a reward, so here it is: As far as I can tell, the first three clips of actual footage from the movie "Watchmen," for which you can count me just thoroughly geeked up.

First up is a clip of Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson) talking with Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) about the Comedian's murder:



Next up is a snippet of that great scene in which Nite Owl (Wilson) and Laurie Jupiter (Malin Ackerman) take the Owl ship out for a spin and rescue some folks trapped in a burning building.



And finally, my favorite of the three, which features an unmasked Nite Owl and Rohrschach (Jackie Earle Haley). I think this is the first time I've heard Rohrschach speak, and it's just nothing but cool.



So, there you have it. Our Oscars video should be up some time tonight, so please feel free to check back, and have a perfectly pleasant Thursday. Peace out.

Robert Rodriguez wants to wrack your nerves

Although he can make some seriously fun movies, Robert Rodriguez is also just a maddeningly uneven director in my book.

After making the purely entertaining "El Mariachi" and "Spy Kids" he felt the need to follow each flick up with a pair of thoroughly unnecessary and just increasingly bad sequels. "Desperado" - really just a useless continuation of "El Mariachi" - was just particularly irritating.

He also, however, channelled the spirit of Frank Miller's work perfectly with "Sin City" and made the easily more disgusting but still just insanely good half of "Grindhouse" with "Planet Terror" (I even found "The Faculty," certainly a lesser title in his filmography, to just be a lot of fun.) And now, after what seems like a very long break from working on movies of any kind, he's getting back in gear with something that could be as entertaining as any of those.

He will write and direct the "futuristic thriller" "Nervewrackers," and since the flick already has a release date of April 16, 2010, it seems very likely he will actually follow through on this one. Set in 2085, the story (according to Variety) centers on "a character named Joe Tezca who is part of an elite unit dispatched to quell a crime wave in a theoretically perfect future society."

Even if that does seem like a rather blatant ripoff of "Blade Runner," I suppose there are worse sources of inspiration, so for now I can only say welcome back, Mr. Rodriguez.

What's up with Ang Lee

I recently got around to watching Mr. Lee's "Lust/Caution" on DVD, and I have to say it made a surprisingly entertaining little spy flick. And he's just wrapped "Taking Woodstock," which as the title implies is a biopic of sorts of the life of Elliot Tiber, who was instrumental in the creation of the titular hippie fest.

That flick will be released in August by Focus Features, and Mr. Lee has now set his sights firmly on "The Life of Pi," which already has a script penned by "Amelie" director Jean Pierre Jeunet (who was originally slated to direct this too.)

I have to admit that the novel by Yann Martel, which won the Booker Prize and plenty of other acclaim, just left me a little cold, but I do think it has a lot of potential for an at least visually appealing film in these capable hands. The odd coming-of-age tale tells the story of Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, an Indian youth who survives the sinking of a freighter and ends up sharing a life boat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a Bengal tiger.

Plenty of people have fallen in love with the novel by Martel, so don't let my misgivings keep you away from this one.

Remember Agnieszka Holland?

I had almost forgotten all about the Polish director of "Europa Europa" and one of my favorite children's flicks, "The Secret Garden" (and - rather amazingly - three episodes of "The Wire" too), but this morning her name came up again on the French film site Cinempire, a daily stop for me.

It seems Holland is getting back in the game in a big way with an upcoming biopic about Polish super spy Krystyna Skarbek, also famous as Ian Fleming's mistress and allegedly the inspiration for the character of Vesper Lynd.

Skarbek, who took the nom de guerre Christine Granville, became a spy for the British and was celebrated for her sabotage efforts in Nazi-occupied Poland and France during World War II.

Interestingly enough, The Daily Mail reports that Eva Green, Vesper Lynd herself, is in the running for the lead role in this flick, which will be rather oddly titled "Christine: War My Love" and should start shooting in June.

Nothing but cool there, but now I have to unfortunately get ready for work. Sometime tomorrow or Friday, feel free to come back for a video presentation about the Oscars I'm cooking up with fellow Telegraph blogger Phillip Ramati (a k a The TV Guy). We pretty much agree about all the categories this year, but hopefully it will still be a bit of fun to watch (I'm even getting a hair cut for the occasion, somewhat of a rarity for me.)

And, even though it wasn't from an episode directed by Holland, I'll leave you with one of my favorite clips from "The Wire," in which Stringer Bell learns about and then imparts to his disciples the principles of macroeconomics. Peace out.