Similar stories:
•
The Oscar goes to ... probably not these
Speculation will end Thursday morning. That's when this year's list of Oscar hopefuls will be announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Then the talk will turn to who was overlooked and who should be the winners when the statuettes are handed out Feb. 22.
There should be a few names and movies in the mix Thursday that come as no surprise. Look for "Milk" to be a nomination leader. There will be a revolt if Heath Ledger does not get a nod for his portrayal of The Joker in "The Dark Knight." The announcement of nominations for such movies as "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Reader" and "Revolutionary Road" should not come as a shock. And names like Clint Eastwood, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett and Sean Penn have become standards for the awards show.
On the other hand, there are some very deserving movies and performances from the last year that -- short of a miracle -- will not get an Oscar nomination. No, not such obvious bombs as "The Love Guru." We're talking about well-made,
•
Lighthouse Productions' 'Challenge of the Champions' Documentary Wins 2009 Wrangler Award!!
"Challenge of the Champions" has won the coveted Wrangler Award for Outstanding Documentary Film given annually by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center.
The "Challenge of the Champions" celebrates the lives and careers of professional bull riding's two greatest celebrities: 1987 PRCA World Champion bull rider Lane Frost and 1987 PRCA Bucking Bull of the Year, Red Rock. Red Rock was pro rodeo's most famous bull who went unridden for his entire professional career, 311 times before Frost finally rode him in 1988 during The Challenge of the Champions - a 7-match series. Frost was killed on July 30th, 1989 after dismounting from an 83 point ride on the bull "Takin' Care of Business" during Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. He was 25.
The film, produced and directed by multi award-winning filmmaker David Wittkower includes historical rodeo footage and interviews with some of the people closest to the sports two best known competitors: Lane's parents Clyde & Elsie Frost, riding partner, friend and rodeo
•
Despite rule change, Oscar will still ignore the best
There's merit in the Oscar folks' plan next year to double the number of best picture nominees to 10.
In theory, anyway.
It could mean that foreign language films, documentaries and animated features - long ignored by voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in favor of the usual big-studio narrative films - at last will find themselves on the short list.
•
Oscars: some delights, some groans
Fear is as much a part of the Academy Awards as the phrase "who are you wearing?" and the red carpet.
Sure, nominees must deal with stomach-churning terror. Their fear was nothing compared to what executives at ABC faced heading into Sunday night's telecast. That's because a bigger question than whether "Slumdog Millionaire" or "Milk" would win best picture was whether anyone would be watching when they did.
Last year's Oscars awards attracted the fewest viewers since rating numbers were counted. The final count was about 32 million viewers. A scant 10 years earlier 57 million watched the awards.
•
The best movies of the year
1. "Milk": A warm, sprawling, immensely heartfelt biographical movie about assassinated San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk that marches forward with insistency and purpose. Like a great novel, a biopic has to do more than scratch the surface of history. It has to rip into it. Then it has to let us slip through that rip and immerse us in the times, flavor and color --the intensity -- of a specific person in a specific era. As "Milk" moves toward its inevitable conclusion, we connect with Penn's performance in a way that makes it feel as if you're standing alongside him. (DM)
2. "The Dark Knight": Christopher Nolan continues to reinvent the comic-book film genre with this dark tale of good and evil. Standout performances by Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart give the movie an acting punch that is dazzling. It is proof that an action film can be explosive and smart. (RB)
3. "Frost/Nixon": Frank Langella and Michael Sheen duke it out in Ron Howard's mesmerizing re-creation of the famous post-Watergate
Interesting, isn't it, how the bigness of Watergate -- all that drama, the daily revelations, the hearings, the intrigue, the trauma of this nation's first presidential resignation -- seems to diminish in size as the years go by. Watergate was the pivotal event of the day. Now it's just an event from history. Perhaps that's inevitable. Government, and the country, marches on.
Yet a single television event that came several years after President Nixon's fall -- the series of interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and the disgraced former commander-in-chief -- has swelled in the popular imagination as the years have gone by.
"Frost/Nixon," one of the best films of the year, does more than just re-create that interview. It finds and connects us to the magnetic pop-culture appeal of what became one of the most-watched TV programs in history. Director Ron Howard takes us back to the raging '70s in a way that captures the zeitgeist of an era.
With a mammoth performance by Frank Langella as Nixon, who squares off against an equally impressive Michael Sheen as Frost, there's a taut, tight, punchy equilibrium to the film. If this were a boxing match, it'd be for the heavyweight championship.
Basing a movie on an intense and intellectually brisk Broadway play isn't the easiest task for a director, as we've seen this season in the less-than-superlative "Doubt." Compared to that effort, Howard is much more successful with "Frost/Nixon" in transferring a prose-heavy play to the big screen without damaging its delicate innards.
After Nixon's resignation, he realized he was in disgrace, but he also shrewdly realized that he was still a marketable commodity. After giving so many interviews over the years because that was what politicians did, he relished being able to say no -- or, in what many saw as an incredibly crass move -- to ask for payment.
Frost was thought of as an intellectual lightweight, a mere entertainer, someone who certainly didn't move in the same circles as the Washington journalism establishment.
And he was willing to pay, which -- according to the movie, at least -- was a prime incentive for Nixon to sit down for an exclusive, no-holds-barred interview.
In the film, the preparations for the interviews and the supporting players behind the scenes in each camp give a riveting glimpse of what happened backstage. On Nixon's side, the loyal aide Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon in prime harumphing form) tries to keep him from being overconfident. On Frost's side, James Reston (an idealistic Sam Rockwell) and Bob Zelnick (a scurrying Oliver Platt) serve the same function.
Even if you have no memory of the original Frost-Nixon interviews, and have no idea what transpired in them, it's clear -- just by the fact that great drama has been spun from them -- that they were much more than just a case of a polished politician stomping out an outclassed questioner. The gotcha moments are compelling, but the strength of the film comes from the way it shifts from mere cat-and-mouse games to the stuff of sheer Greek tragedy as we watch a tragically flawed figure succumb.
Langella's triumph is letting us feel the weight on Nixon's soul, a weight pressing down so firmly that his hardened self-confidence starts to crack. It's a role that captures to perfection the adage that the bigger the targets, the harder they fall.
E-Mail
Print
@Nyx.CommentBody@