By: Arab Times
Source: http://www.arabtimesonline.com
Category: Film School Online
NEW YORK, Jan 8, (RTRS): The apocalyptic psychological drama “Melancholia” was named the year’s best film on Saturday by the National Society of Film Critics, which chose its star Kirsten Dunst as best actress and Brad Pitt as best actor for the baseball drama “Moneyball” as well as “The Tree of Life.”
Lars von Trier lost out on the best director award for his work on “Melancholia” to Terrence Malick for “The Tree of Life,” a mystical period piece which also won the best cinematography prize.
But the big win by “Melancholia” bolstered the offbeat film’s chances for the upcoming Academy Awards, which will announce nominees later this month.
Set against the backdrop of a country wedding, the dark film explores the strained relationship of two sisters, one a bride played by Dunst, while a strange planet threatens to collide with Earth, wiping out all traces of human existence.
Contender
Pitt, already a strong contender for the Oscars, was honored for his roles as Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane in “Moneyball” as well as a strict father in “The Tree of Life.”
Critics’ awards are important in helping build momentum heading toward the Academy Awards, or Oscars, which are the world’s top film awards given out on the final Sunday in February by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The NSFC includes 58 members from major newspapers in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Chicago and other cities as well as from Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker and newspapers The Village Voice and the Boston Phoenix.
The group’s awards for best supporting performances went to Albert Brooks, who played a small-time hood in the drama “Drive,” and Jessica Chastain, who was honored for performances in “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter” and “The Help.”
Honored
Both Brooks and Chastain have been honored by other critics groups in early awards this season.
Several highly touted films, most notably “The Artist,” considered a front-runner for the Oscars, “The Descendants” and Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” were shut out, although Scorsese was a close second in voting for best director. The award for best foreign language film was won by the Iranian film “A Separation,” about a couple struggling with the decision about whether or not to leave their home country. The film also won the prize for best screenplay.
The film critics named Werner Herzog’s documentary “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” a 3D movie about a cave in southern France, as the year’s best nonfiction film.
Ken Jacobs won the experimental film award for “Seeking the Monkey King.”
The critics also announced “film heritage” awards to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for its recent Vincente Minnelli retrospective; to Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema for the restoration of the color version of George Melies’ “A Trip to the Moon”; to the Museum of Modern Art for its Weimar Cinema retrospective; to Flicker Alley for the box set “Landmarks of Early Soviet Film; and to Criterion Collection for its two-disc DVD package “The Complete Jean Vigo.”
For an actor, some roles are a challenge, some are Oscar bait, some have personal meaning, and a few are mostly just a paycheck.
One can only assume the role of a deranged mortician in this lackluster teen horror film falls into the latter category for star Dennis Quaid. Or maybe the attraction was simply that “Beneath the Darkness’’ was shot within spitting distance of Austin, which he calls home these days.
Ely Vaughn, Quaid’s loopy undertaker — he dances nightly with the embalmed corpse of his dead wife — is the major adult character in “Beneath the Darkness.’’ A former star high-school athlete, he is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town.
Viewers
“Beneath,’’ however, lets viewers know right from the get-go that Ely is both bonkers and a murderer. In the film’s opening scene, the recently widowed Ely pulls a gun on a neighbor out walking his dog, forces the guy to dig his own grave and then buries him alive.
Flash forward to two years later when the movie’s teen hero (Tony Oller) and several pals turn into high-school Sherlocks and start investigating rumors that the mortician’s house is haunted. After Ely murders one of them in front of Oller, the teenager and his girlfriend (Aimee Teegarden, a long way artistically, if not geographically, from her role on TV’s “Friday Night Lights’’) try to expose Ely — of course, the adults all disbelieve their story — before he can do away with them, too.
None of this, as directed by Martin Guigui (“Cattle Call’’) and written by the late Bruce Wilkinson (a Texas attorney, this was his first script), is especially scary, suspenseful or bloody. References to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart’’ and Shakepeare’s “Macbeth’’ — both about the corrosive effects of guilt — seem like heavy-handed attempts to inject profundity where there is none.
Given that the teen characters, both as written and performed, fail to register as particularly distinctive or witty, you’d have to be in their age group to actually care about their outcome.
Quaid, an actor capable of insightful performances (“Wyatt Earp’’ and “Far From Heaven’’), at least shows restraint here, reigning in the psycho theatrics until the final scenes. He even manages to wring out a faint laugh or two, as when Ely drawls, just before fatally stomping on a teen victim’s neck after pushing the doomed kid down a staircase, “Stairs can be very dangerous. Most accidents happen in the home.’’
Here’s betting, though, that when some years from now the lights are lowered and the highlight reel unspools at a career tribute to Quaid, there will be nary a scene from “Beneath the Darkness’’ popping up on the screen.
Source:http://www.arabtimesonline.com/NewsDetails/tabid/96/smid/414/ArticleID/178194/reftab/73/Default.aspx
Source: http://www.arabtimesonline.com
Category: Film School Online
NEW YORK, Jan 8, (RTRS): The apocalyptic psychological drama “Melancholia” was named the year’s best film on Saturday by the National Society of Film Critics, which chose its star Kirsten Dunst as best actress and Brad Pitt as best actor for the baseball drama “Moneyball” as well as “The Tree of Life.”
Lars von Trier lost out on the best director award for his work on “Melancholia” to Terrence Malick for “The Tree of Life,” a mystical period piece which also won the best cinematography prize.
But the big win by “Melancholia” bolstered the offbeat film’s chances for the upcoming Academy Awards, which will announce nominees later this month.
Set against the backdrop of a country wedding, the dark film explores the strained relationship of two sisters, one a bride played by Dunst, while a strange planet threatens to collide with Earth, wiping out all traces of human existence.
Contender
Pitt, already a strong contender for the Oscars, was honored for his roles as Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane in “Moneyball” as well as a strict father in “The Tree of Life.”
Critics’ awards are important in helping build momentum heading toward the Academy Awards, or Oscars, which are the world’s top film awards given out on the final Sunday in February by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The NSFC includes 58 members from major newspapers in Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Chicago and other cities as well as from Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker and newspapers The Village Voice and the Boston Phoenix.
The group’s awards for best supporting performances went to Albert Brooks, who played a small-time hood in the drama “Drive,” and Jessica Chastain, who was honored for performances in “The Tree of Life,” “Take Shelter” and “The Help.”
Honored
Both Brooks and Chastain have been honored by other critics groups in early awards this season.
Several highly touted films, most notably “The Artist,” considered a front-runner for the Oscars, “The Descendants” and Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” were shut out, although Scorsese was a close second in voting for best director. The award for best foreign language film was won by the Iranian film “A Separation,” about a couple struggling with the decision about whether or not to leave their home country. The film also won the prize for best screenplay.
The film critics named Werner Herzog’s documentary “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” a 3D movie about a cave in southern France, as the year’s best nonfiction film.
Ken Jacobs won the experimental film award for “Seeking the Monkey King.”
The critics also announced “film heritage” awards to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for its recent Vincente Minnelli retrospective; to Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema for the restoration of the color version of George Melies’ “A Trip to the Moon”; to the Museum of Modern Art for its Weimar Cinema retrospective; to Flicker Alley for the box set “Landmarks of Early Soviet Film; and to Criterion Collection for its two-disc DVD package “The Complete Jean Vigo.”
For an actor, some roles are a challenge, some are Oscar bait, some have personal meaning, and a few are mostly just a paycheck.
One can only assume the role of a deranged mortician in this lackluster teen horror film falls into the latter category for star Dennis Quaid. Or maybe the attraction was simply that “Beneath the Darkness’’ was shot within spitting distance of Austin, which he calls home these days.
Ely Vaughn, Quaid’s loopy undertaker — he dances nightly with the embalmed corpse of his dead wife — is the major adult character in “Beneath the Darkness.’’ A former star high-school athlete, he is a pillar of the community in his small Texas town.
Viewers
“Beneath,’’ however, lets viewers know right from the get-go that Ely is both bonkers and a murderer. In the film’s opening scene, the recently widowed Ely pulls a gun on a neighbor out walking his dog, forces the guy to dig his own grave and then buries him alive.
Flash forward to two years later when the movie’s teen hero (Tony Oller) and several pals turn into high-school Sherlocks and start investigating rumors that the mortician’s house is haunted. After Ely murders one of them in front of Oller, the teenager and his girlfriend (Aimee Teegarden, a long way artistically, if not geographically, from her role on TV’s “Friday Night Lights’’) try to expose Ely — of course, the adults all disbelieve their story — before he can do away with them, too.
None of this, as directed by Martin Guigui (“Cattle Call’’) and written by the late Bruce Wilkinson (a Texas attorney, this was his first script), is especially scary, suspenseful or bloody. References to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart’’ and Shakepeare’s “Macbeth’’ — both about the corrosive effects of guilt — seem like heavy-handed attempts to inject profundity where there is none.
Given that the teen characters, both as written and performed, fail to register as particularly distinctive or witty, you’d have to be in their age group to actually care about their outcome.
Quaid, an actor capable of insightful performances (“Wyatt Earp’’ and “Far From Heaven’’), at least shows restraint here, reigning in the psycho theatrics until the final scenes. He even manages to wring out a faint laugh or two, as when Ely drawls, just before fatally stomping on a teen victim’s neck after pushing the doomed kid down a staircase, “Stairs can be very dangerous. Most accidents happen in the home.’’
Here’s betting, though, that when some years from now the lights are lowered and the highlight reel unspools at a career tribute to Quaid, there will be nary a scene from “Beneath the Darkness’’ popping up on the screen.
Source:http://www.arabtimesonline.com/NewsDetails/tabid/96/smid/414/ArticleID/178194/reftab/73/Default.aspx
