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White Heat: a film noir to scorch the screen

White Heat was the last, great film noir of the 1940s, a picture that has lost none of its power to astonish and amaze.

James Cagney stars as Cody Jarrett, a mama-obsessed psychopath on a rampage of robbery and murder. White Heat ranks among the greatest films of the genre, unfolding with shocking violence (for its day), incredible dialogue, and a story lifted from Sophocles.

A bit of plot
Jarrett and his gang stage a daring daylight train robbery, murdering the railroad employees as they seize the loot. One of Jarrett's gang is mortally wounded in a freak accident during the raid. Decamping to their hideout, the robbers mull over what to do with their dying colleague. Jarrett's bug-eyed psychosis becomes obvious as he suffers a crippling seizure while arguing with an underling. But his devoted Ma (Margaret Wycherly, The Yearling), who is almost as dangerous as her grown son, comforts Cody and makes sure the gang does not see him in this compromised state. Any sign of weakness could lead to a power grab by Jarrett's associates: thieves and killers all.

Jarrett decides to take it on the lam with his sultry but duplicitous wife (Virginia Mayo, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) and calculating mother. As the cops close in, he hatches a plan to take the rap for a lesser crime committed by a hood in another state so he can avoid a death sentence for the railroad caper. His psychosis worsens in prison as undercover cop Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien) joins the inmates in an attempt to ingratiate himself with Jarrett and finagle a confession out of this killer. (Side note: A versatile character actor, O'Brien played Gringoire in the definitive 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He worked steadily during a 40-year career, collaborating with such cinematic luminaries as Cecil B. DeMille and John Frankenheimer.)

The men escape prison and plot a final heist as Jarrett creeps around town, settling scores with the double-crossers in his old gang. But stupid blunders by his colleagues, and even his aging mother, allow the police to triangulate Jarrett's position and corner the gang at an oil refinery for the justly famous, climactic confrontation.

Under the taut direction of Raoul Walsh (High Sierra), Cagney and the rest of the cast create an indelible portrait of criminals whose honor and trust exist only at gunpoint. Today the film is best remembered for Cagney's harrowing performance as a crazed psychotic, quick with a crude quip and a volatile temper that finds release only in murder. Cagney was a three-time best-actor Oscar nominee, winning for Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1943. That film and White Heat represent his most enduring work, followed by The Public Enemy (1931), a positively feral film in which Cagney famously mashes a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face.

As Cody’s morally flexible wife Verna, Virginia Mayo isn't quite a femme fatale in the classic mold, although her shifty opportunism keeps viewers guessing about her motives and schemes. Margaret Wycherly's performance as Ma Jarrett is a small treasure of the cinema. Her beady eyes, practically shimmering with madness, provide the first of many clues that Cody’s own deranged state has its origins in heredity. It is a stunning performance, every bit the equal of Cagney’s work. Wycherly had won an Academy Award in 1941 for another maternal role, that of Gary Cooper’s kindly mother in Sergeant York – the very antithesis of her work as Ma Jarrett in this classic gangster flick.

White Heat offers much more to amaze the first-time viewer. The violence is outrageous for a film made during the censorial reign of the Hays Code. Dialogue drips with venomous sarcasm. And in the 60 years since the film's release, no other mainstream movie has explored madness and unpleasant Oedipal obsession with such grim relentlessness. White Heat weaves the stuff of Greek tragedy into the hardest noir of the 1940s.

The screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts was inspired by crime writer Virginia Kellogg's short story. She earned an Academy Award nod for Best Story, the film's lone nomination (it's unclear why Goff and Roberts were omitted). And what fabulous writing it is: Characters bristle and bark at each other in spectacular torrents of verbiage that was simply unheard-of in 1949 and remains amazing today. A taste of that dialogue:

Gangster (voice trembling): “You wouldn't kill me in cold blood, would ya?”
Jarrett (sneering as he pulls the trigger): “Naw; I'll let ya warm up a little.”

At a fast-paced 113 minutes, fans might wish White Heat would unspool for another hour or more.

Thoughts on the DVD
Warner Bros., the studio from Hollywood's Golden Age that specialized in violent gangster pictures, unleashes White Heat with a superb set of disc extras:

Film critic Leonard Maltin introduces "Warner Night at the Movies 1949," an enjoyable time capsule featuring a newsreel, a comedy short, a Bugs Bunny cartoon (“Homeless Hare”), theatrical trailers, and White Heat, our feature presentation. Like the Night at the Movies features on other Warner discs, these selections can be played individually or in succession, which approximates the theatrical experience more than half a century ago when a ticket cost 25 cents, audiences actually got their money's worth, and they didn’t have to sit through asinine commercials.

Film historian Drew Casper delivers an insightful, feature-length commentary on an alternate track, dishing on all manner of production information and trivia for the true fan.

There's also a 17-minute featurette, White Heat: Top of the World, exploring the historic importance of the film, with insights from Martin Scorsese and other filmmakers who speculate on what was wrong with Cody Jarrett. Migraines? Epilepsy? Full-blown psychosis? Whatever his affliction, this short feature is informative and entertaining.

Coda
White Heat is a genuine noir classic. The print and sound on this DVD are pristine, the quality extras are comprehensive, and Warner packages the disc in a smart-looking case at an attractive price.

As for Cody Jarrett, his fate is sealed in film immortality: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

Ka-boom.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Rediscovering The Browning Version (1951)

The Browning Version: Criterion Collection
1951// 90 Minutes // Not Rated
Review by Steve Evans

“I am of the opinion that occasionally an anticlimax can be surprisingly effective.”

A masterpiece of British realism, The Browning Version features beautifully nuanced acting in the service of scabrous dialogue, as a repressed professor comes to terms with failure in his autumnal years. Characters practically ooze hatred for one another, yet they smile in their devotion to proper English manners. This faith in social proprieties may be all that keeps them from coming to blows, indeed, from killing each other. The teacher, his unfaithful wife, her lover, the school headmaster—these people practically suffocate under the weight of their life choices and the burden of maintaining a thin veneer of civility. Patience rewards the careful viewer, as seldom have such vicious conversations been delivered with such élan on film.

A Bit of Plot
During his final year as a classics teacher at an exclusive English prep school, embittered schoolmaster Andrew Crocker-Harris (Michael Redgrave, father of Vanessa) questions the meaning of his life as poor health and a disintegrating marriage lead him into depression. His students mock him behind his back. His casually malicious wife Millie (Jean Kent, who starred in the director's earlier The Woman in Question) indulges in an affair with Frank Hunter (Ronald Howard), her husband's colleague. Adding to these insults, scheming headmaster Frobisher (Wilfrid Hyde-White, The Winslow Boy) wants to deny Crocker-Harris his pension on a technicality — early retirement due to declining health.

As Crocker-Harris slowly comes to grips with these slights, he begins to evaluate the folly of pride and his own arrogance. Ever stoic, his rigid manner hides profound remorse over the cruel remarks he has made to colleagues and students through the years. He simply does not know how to express his sorrow. Only young Taplow (Brian Smith), a sincere and unassuming student, harbors any compassion for the stern schoolmaster.

The film’s title refers to a translation of Agamemnon, the so-called Browning Version of the classical play. Taplow finds a second-hand copy of the book, which he gives to Crocker-Harris as a farewell gift. This simple sentiment and Taplow's gentle inscription inside the book lead to a devastating emotional catharsis for Crocker-Harris. His farewell address to the school is both tearless confessional and understated plea for redemption.

Context, Significance of the Film
Only the most jaded viewer would dismiss The Browning Version as much ado about nothing, although a brief plot outline could give this impression. The characters are unpleasant, stiff, and devoid of feeling. Their plights are petty and mostly self-inflicted. Only when we discover their inner pain, the remorse that comes with the realization of a wasted life, do we feel pity for the universal humanity grown stagnant in their souls. At first blush the film seems similar to another classic dealing with a retiring English teacher, but The Browning Version is the very antithesis of the uplifting Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Directed with remarkable restraint by Anthony Asquith, the film draws most of its tension from Redgrave's career-defining performance and the screenplay by Terence Rattigan, which he adapted from his one-act play. Rattigan and Redgrave took best screenplay and acting honors at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival. Redgrave also takes credit for launching two other impressive thespian careers, those of his daughters Vanessa and Lynn. As Millie's lover, Ronald Howard displays a convincing crisis of conscience that elevates his character beyond that of a mere cad (trivia note: he is the son of Leslie Howard, who played Ashley in Gone With the Wind). Brian Smith, who was 19 when he made this film, portrays the adolescent Taplow as a kind-hearted innocent, unsullied by the conniving adults in his prep school and the world beyond.

Technically, the film can stand as an equal with anything from the period by Asquith's British peers, notably David Lean (Great Expectations), Carol Reed (The Third Man), and Alfred Hitchcock (The 39 Steps, whose protagonist, Robert Donat, would later star in Goodbye, Mr. Chips). Here, Asquith uses stunning deep-focus cinematography to fill the frame with gloom and shadow—techniques reminiscent of The Third Man and Citizen Kane before it. The superb camerawork and taut direction cleverly obscure the visual limitations of what is essentially a filmed play.

This seldom-seen film deserves a wider audience, especially for the ripe dialogue and rich performances. Students of sharp cinematography will be absorbed by the crisp work of cameraman Desmond Dickinson, who also shot Asquith's The Importance of Being Earnest and, in 1948, had framed Hamlet for Laurence Olivier.

Noted British director Mike Figgis (Secrets and Lies), filmed the 1994 remake of The Browning Version with Albert Finney (Tom Jones). In an extensive video interview on this disc, Figgis calls the original film a work of subtle genius. He describes Crocker-Harris as "the ultimate passionate stoic"—a paradox of repression brought to life by Redgrave's spot-on performance. Beneath the teacher's barely contained restraint and self-loathing lurks a seething rage, coiled tightly like a venomous snake.

On the commentary track, film historian Bruce Eder describes the picture as a "heartbreaking study of rigidity." He notes that the teacher has over-intellectualized life to the exclusion of joy or any other emotion. Crocker-Harris has become so detached and disaffected that he is practically a bystander to his own existence. The character of wife Millie, Eder says, remains a villainess rivaled only by Lady Macbeth in all of English theater and film. Yet she is not entirely unsympathetic. Caught in the soul-deadening trap of a miserable marriage, both Millie and Crocker-Harris resort to vile, rhetorical torments in a futile effort to escape from their marital prison. Eder also supplies fascinating insights into the production, mainly historical aspects of the story and subversive content in the subtext. (Playwright Rattigan remained a closeted homosexual for much of his life, using his writing to explore—and possibly editorialize upon—the dysfunction he perceived in male-female relationships. Knowing this, it’s probably only a matter of time before an ambitious grad student writes a thesis comparing and contrasting Rattigan's work with the writings of Alan Ball, who won an Academy Award for his American Beauty screenplay.) Eder's running commentary provides excellent insight into the film and comes highly recommended.

The cineastes at The Criterion Collection present a flawless package, as is their custom, replete with generous extras, including a 1958 interview with Redgrave. Video and audio are pristine.

Caveats
Asquith directs at a mannerly pace, building his themes methodically. Younger audiences weaned on flash-cutting and cursory character development may grow impatient with these unlikable characters. Anyone who has endured a miserable marriage (not least of which is the discovery that one’s ex-wife is a conniving sociopath), and survived the experience can relate to the quiet desperation on display in this film. But we ought to approach these stuffed shirts with compassion — or at least appalled fascination — in order to appreciate their plight. Redgrave's repressed professor, while an inspired creation, is still an arrogant and obnoxious man. Only in the final act does his essential humanity force its way to the surface. But it is Redgrave's ability to transform this unsympathetic man into a pitiable figure that ultimately makes the film such a rewarding experience. That, and the jaw-dropping dialogue. There are lines in this picture that slice clean to the bone.

Coda
Crocker-Harris gives his own valediction. Criterion receives high praise for its production and release of superb DVD packages, offering unsurpassed quality for the discriminating collector.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Charles H. Schneer (1920-2009): An Appreciation

Mention the name Charles H. Schneer and blank stares and head scratching will surely follow. But film buffs of a certain age will instantly recognize outlandish images of a strange creature called a Ymir, a giant octopus tearing down the Golden Gate Bridge, a cloven-hoof Cyclops roasting men alive on a spit, or sword-wielding skeletons battling Jason and the Argonauts.

Schneer, who died Jan. 21 in Boca Raton, FL, produced many of the great fantasy films of the 1950s and enjoyed a career with Columbia Pictures that lasted three decades. He is best remembered for his collaborations with special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen, whose stop-motion animated creatures were a source of wonder for wide-eyed children at Saturday matinees during the height of the Cold War. That was a time when going to the movies meant more than an afternoon of entertainment; films were a great escape from troubled times at the dawn of the Atomic Age.

Indeed, the plots of Mr. Schneer’s films often hinged on nuclear mischief or science gone awry. This led often enough to radioactive monsters grown to gargantuan size. An early entry in this genre was Schneer's 1955 production of Harryhausen’s overgrown octopus epic, It Came From Beneath the Sea, featuring a beastie with only five tentacles, which were cheaper and faster to animate than the traditional eight appendages. A sage man with a production dollar, Schneer predicted correctly that no one would notice. With three fewer tentacles to animate, Harryhausen brought the picture in on time and under budget.

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers appeared the following year with incredible scenes of destruction filmed in miniature. There's an almost gleeful recklessness on display as Harryahusen's flying saucers level the Washington Monument, crash into the Supreme Court and collide with the Capitol Dome (a scene that brought whooping cheers from the audience when I caught the film on a revival screening 20 years after its original release).

These early efforts launched a long and fruitful collaboration with Harryhausen, whose fascination with giant monsters had begun in 1933 when he saw King Kong on its original release. Together the men made a dozen fantasy pictures, including a trio of Sinbad adventures, the best of which has to be The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, a film filled with non-stop wonders: the giant Cyclops, a fire-breathing dragon, the mythical roc (a bird the size of a jumbo-jet) and the pièce de résistance, Sinbad dueling with a skeleton. Bernard Hermann composed the lush soundtrack for strings and woodwinds.

Such was Schneer’s facility with frugal film production that he was able to shoot the Sinbad pictures in Spain and Malta, hire top talent like Hermann (who was Alfred Hitchcock's favorite composer) and shoot in expensive Technicolor, while Harryhausen would labor for a year or more in his small studio, bringing his puppet models to life one frame at a time. The laborious process of stop-motion animation often meant that Schneer could produce other films while Harryhausen completed his special effects. Perhaps the most notable of Schneer’s non-Harryhausen production credits was Hellcats of the Navy (1957), the only picture in which future president Ronald Reagan and his second wife Nancy Davis appear together.

An excerpt from the climactic battle in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad:



The final Schneer-Harryhausen production, Clash of the Titans (1980), enjoyed less than titanic box office, despite the presence of stars such as Laurence Olivier. Soon after, computer-generated special effects were capable of engineering photo-realistic monsters, rendering Harryhausen’s techniques all but obsolete and effectively forcing the duo’s retirement. Fans, myself included, would argue that stop-motion animation imparts a charm and sense of magic that CGI beasties can only approximate. The very artificiality of Harryhausen’s creations, blending almost seamlessly with live action, is what makes these films so effective even half a century later.

While Harryhausen’s name is most closely associated with these magical movies (the team’s mutual favorite was the 1963 production of Jason and the Argonauts), the films themselves might never have been made without Schneer’s sharp eye for affordable locations and his negotiating skills. In those pre-Star Wars days, studio executives did not always see the financial potential in fantasy flicks featuring mythical creatures and mostly unknown B-movie actors. Harryhausen needed an advocate and found a formidable ally in Schneer, whose business acumen and hands-on production style allowed the special effects wizard to work in peace. Their professional relationship was a true example of collaboration between artist and businessman, each drawing on the strengths of the other to produce a remarkable body of cinematic work.

Their films brought great joy and endless wonders to my childhood. And now, on DVD, their immortal pictures continue to invoke this magic for my children today.

Schneer was 88.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Guilty Pleasures

“Learn to see the ‘worst’ films; they are sometimes sublime.”
— Ado Kyrou, Surrealisme au Cinema

What does bad cinema share in common with strawberries covered in Belgian chocolate? Beer-simmered bratwursts smoked over hickory and served with peppers and onions? Tortilla chips slathered with melted Monterey jack, jalapeño peppers and spoonfuls of extra-hot salsa?

Hell, I dunno. But I do enjoy a guilty pleasure now and again. Here's a short list of movies that probably aren’t good for you, but taste mighty fine:



The Horror of Party Beach (1964), directed by the incomparable Del Tenney, was billed as “the first horror monster musical.” I s’pose that counts as a recommendation, although it’s basically a retread of the Creature From the Black Lagoon on a wee budget. We do get good value for our entertainment dollars: Babes in bikinis go-go dancing. Bikers. Beaches. Beefcake brawling over Cheesecake. Radioactive sea monsters with their mouths stuffed full of bratwursts (see it for yourself, then believe). And the great surf-rock band The Del Aires (from Connecticut!) perform 6 rockin’ tunes, including the Zombie Stomp. A maid named Eullabelle saves the day. Verily, friends, this is one of the greatest movies ever made. Filmed entertainment just doesn’t come any better.

Point Break (1991) delivers terrific action set pieces and the greatest football game ever filmed at night on a beach, which almost compensates for the fact that this is one of the dumbest movies in cinema history. A pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves stars as the improbably named Johnny Utah, an FBI agent who gets so angry in the second act that he leaps from a plane -- without a parachute -- to pursue a bad guy getting away. Now that's square-jawed determination. Long before that ludicrous moment, we get some great surfing sequences, a bank robbery with crooks wearing rubber masks with the likenesses of ex-presidents, a rare opportunity to hear Arthur Lee's psychedelic band Love on a movie soundtrack, and a shoot-out involving drug dealers and a lawnmower. Patrick Swayze did his own skydiving stunts, but Gary Busey steals the film as a smart-ass Fed who likes Calvin & Hobbes and meatball sandwiches. Look fast for Anthony Keidis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as a surfer dude. Whoa.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987) is a ridiculous-looking giant, rubber shark with frequently visible control cables dangling from its belly. Michael Caine appears in a supporting role, looking decidedly embarrassed to be in this one. He has this expression in several scenes as though he just farted loudly and is hoping no one will immediately blame him for the crime. While Caine was filming this flick in the Bahamas, he passed on an opportunity to attend the Academy Awards in 1987, when he would win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Woody Allen’s Hannah and her Sisters. Later, a reporter asked Caine if he realized how awful Jaws: The Revenge would turn out to be. Caine admitted candidly: “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”

Mesa of Lost Women (1953). Jackie "Uncle Fester" Coogan plays a mad scientist (is there any other kind?) who wants to infuse beautiful women with the strength and agility of tarantulas. WTF?! Several ding-dongs land a plane on his mesa and start snooping around. Shot on a budget of about three dollars, the picture features the saddest-looking giant spider puppet yet committed to film. It was also the sad beginning of a long career descent for Coogan, a former child actor from the silent era whose mother and stepfather squandered his fortune. A millionaire at 7, Coogan was broke by the time he turned 18. That's more tragic than anything in this inept picture.

If you can endure the annoying-as-hell flamenco guitar and piano soundtrack that plays incessantly throughout this picture (and was also used by Ed Wood in his hypnotically awful Jail Bait), then the first round of beers is on me. Trivia note: the composer for this mind-numbing soundtrack was a young musician named Hoyt Curtin, who would go on to compose the familiar “Scooby Doo” jingle for the popular cartoon. Aren’t you glad you know that, now?

Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973) was a “blind-buy” I purchased for five dollars on the strength of the title alone. Seriously. Rare indeed is a film that lives up to its title: There are bee girls. They invade. Some of them prance around nekkid. Others hang out in a laboratory and say pseudo-scientific things while holding their instruments incorrectly and frequently upside-down. Bee girls will do that, don't you know? I got my money’s worth.

I also enjoy everything written or directed by Ed Wood, especially Bride of the Monster (1955) and The Violent Years (1956), which he wrote but did not direct. In the latter, a gang of delinquent girls runs amok. They break into their school and shove desks around, hold up gas stations and, in the scene that will have you staring in disbelief, they kidnap a guy in the park, drag him out of his car and into the woods, where they “have their way” with him, despite his strenuous objections. This sort of thing never happens to me.

I have no use for the jackals of bourgeois sensibility who would look upon these delightful movies with a disdainful eye. Those who criticize mindless fluff are mental lightweights themselves – too insecure to realize what they’re missing, much less to open their minds long enough such that they might experience some serious fun.

Pass the popcorn.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Oscar Winners 2009: Steve Predicts

Oscar nominations were announced this morning to little fanfare and few surprises. As it happens, 2008 was a ho-hum year for cinema, punctuated by predictable hits.

David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button leads the Oscar pack with 13 nods, including best picture and director. You heard it here first: the film will win both top prizes.

Why? There is no serious competition this year for Benji Button, an ambitious narrative about a man who ages backwards, with A-list talent and a maverick director who's overdue for one of those little golden men. Plus, Oscar politics are typically transparent for anyone who knows a little academy history. This year is no exception. Edgy material has to make do with the honor of a nomination; the top award invariably goes to the picture made in the grand, old Hollywood style: big production, sharp acting and superb craftsmanship, but very little in the way of a “message,” especially anything controversial. Sure, Best Picture winner Crash (2006) was a film about the evils of racism, but no one publicly argues with that. It’s just another film that takes a stand without taking any chances. Such are the choices before us this year.

Besides Button, these films are up for Best Picture:

Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon got a chilly reception at the box office, although this adaptation of the stage play, itself a recounting of David Frost’s historically significant 1977 interviews with a disgraced president, was met with almost-universal critical favor. Still, who thinks of Nixon in connection with a great movie? All the President’s Men (1976) centered around the 37th president, but we never actually had to look at him. There's another obstacle working against this fim: Howard won a directing Oscar eight years ago for A Beautiful Mind. Two in his lifetime seems a bit of a stretch for this former child actor and inconsistent directing talent, when you consider the appalling number of brilliant directors who never received an Oscar for their work. Stanley Kubrick, anyone?

Milk, directed by Gus van Sant, is the biopic of Harvey Milk, a gay San Francisco city councilman who was murdered by a political rival. Sean Penn will score Oscar gold for his performance in the title role and everyone in Hollywood will opine on the importance of Harvey Milk as an activist for gay rights, while lamenting the tragedy of his death. And academy members will quietly vote for a different best picture. It’s like people lying on exit polls on election day. More importantly, I’m still annoyed with van Sant for his stupid and unwanted “shot-for-shot” remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho a decade ago. Anne Heche as Marion Crane? Puh. Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates?! Zzzz.... Whatever credibility he may have had as a filmmaker went out the window like an errant fart when van Sant decided to pursue that silly-ass idea.

For The Reader, academy voters will tell themselves that just getting the Best Picture nomination is honor enough. A film dealing with an illiterate former Nazi, even if portrayed by Kate Winslet, doesn’t have the gravitas of a Schindler’s List or The Piano. Baiting for an Oscar can backfire when the ploy seems so obvious. When academy members screen “The Reader,” for Best Picture consideration, you can bet they’ll turn the page.

Slumdog Millionaire, directed by the intensely humanistic Danny Boyle, plays more like a foreign art-house effort. Filmed on location in India, Slumdog Millionaire is the story of Jamal Malik, a street urchin who, against the odds, manages to land a spot as a contestant on a TV game show – and starts winning. It’s another triumph-of-the-human-spirit picture wowing audiences who apparently haven’t seen many triumph-of-the-human-spirit pictures. A nomination for Slumdog also allows the academy to acknowledge the importance of diversity without handing the top honor to a film that, at its heart, explores universal human feelings. In sum, they will consider the nomination good enough for this little indie film that's been kicked around the studios for nearly two years.

Just a glance at past Oscar winners shows the academy really has only one clear choice this year.
Benjamin Button has A-list stars (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett), a solid yet unusual storyline, and the immense talents of director Fincher, whose dark, misanthropic vision plays to maximum effect in films like Se7en, Fight Club and the hugely underrated Zodiac. Here, Fincher goes for pathos and flexes his directing muscles in new ways. Academy voters like that.

The film received 13 nominations this morning (surpassed or matched only by All About Eve 1950], Ben Hur [1959], Titanic [1997], and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King [2003]). Frequent collaborator Pitt got an Oscar nod for his work in the title role and the picture is up for a slew of technical awards, so it's already approaching critical mass. Bet on it: Benjamin Button will beam like a three-year-old on his birthday come Oscar night.

Every Best Picture nominee this year is also up for the Best Director award. That’s common. What’s uncommon is the year when a film wins Best Director but not Best Picture. So if Fincher makes an appearance on stage clutching an Oscar, start collecting on your bets, for Benjamin Button will have surely won the top prize.

Oh: that Batman movie everybody loved -- What was it called? The Dark Knight? -- picked up eight nominations, but only one in a major category: best supporting actor for the late Heath Ledger. The nom was an all but foregone conclusion. If Ledger wins, it will be the first posthumous Oscar to be presented since Peter Finch failed to show up for his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Network (1976). I doubt any of this will enhance Ledger’s career, although it will probably goose DVD sales of his movies.

Here’s the full list of nominees, with my predictions for the winners (in bold):

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor” (Overture Films)
Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon” (Universal)
Sean Penn in “Milk” (Focus Features)
Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler” (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Josh Brolin in “Milk” (Focus Features)
Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder” (DreamWorks, Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt” (Miramax)
Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.)
Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Angelina Jolie in “Changeling” (Universal)
Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Meryl Streep in “Doubt” (Miramax)
Kate Winslet in “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Adams in “Doubt” (Miramax)
Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (The Weinstein Company)
Viola Davis in “Doubt” (Miramax)
Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler” (Fox Searchlight)

Best animated feature film of the year
“Bolt” (Walt Disney), Chris Williams and Byron Howard
“Kung Fu Panda” (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount), John Stevenson and Mark Osborne
“WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Andrew Stanton

Achievement in art direction
“Changeling” (Universal), Art Direction: James J. Murakami, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration: Victor J. Zolfo
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Peter Lando
“The Duchess” (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Art Direction: Michael Carlin, Set Decoration: Rebecca Alleway
“Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Art Direction: Kristi Zea, Set Decoration: Debra Schutt

Achievement in cinematography
“Changeling” (Universal), Tom Stern
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Claudio Miranda
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Wally Pfister
“The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Anthony Dod Mantle

Achievement in costume design
“Australia” (20th Century Fox), Catherine Martin
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Jacqueline West
“The Duchess” (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Michael O’Connor
“Milk” (Focus Features), Danny Glicker
“Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Albert Wolsky

Achievement in directing:
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Fincher
“Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Ron Howard
“Milk” (Focus Features), Gus Van Sant
“The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Stephen Daldry
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Danny Boyle

Best documentary feature
“The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)” (Cinema Guild), A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
“Encounters at the End of the World” (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment), A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
“The Garden” A Black Valley Films Production, Scott Hamilton Kennedy
“Man on Wire” (Magnolia Pictures), A Wall to Wall Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
“Trouble the Water” (Zeitgeist Films), An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

Best documentary short subject
“The Conscience of Nhem En” A Farallon Films Production, Steven Okazaki
“The Final Inch” A Vermilion Films Production, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
“Smile Pinki” A Principe Production, Megan Mylan
“The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306” A Rock Paper Scissors Production, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde

Achievement in film editing
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Lee Smith
“Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
“Milk” (Focus Features), Elliot Graham
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Chris Dickens

Best foreign language film of the year
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” A Constantin Film Production, Germany
“The Class” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Haut et Court Production, France
“Departures” (Regent Releasing), A Departures Film Partners Production, Japan
“Revanche” (Janus Films), A Prisma Film/Fernseh Production, Austria
“Waltz with Bashir” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production, Israel

Achievement in makeup
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Greg Cannom
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (Universal), Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Alexandre Desplat
“Defiance” (Paramount Vantage), James Newton Howard
“Milk” (Focus Features), Danny Elfman
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), A.R. Rahman
“WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Down to Earth” from “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
“Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
“O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam

Best motion picture of the year
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), A Kennedy/Marshall Production, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
“Frost/Nixon” (Universal), A Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment and Working Title Production, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Eric Fellner, Producers
“Milk” (Focus Features), A Groundswell and Jinks/Cohen Company Production, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Producers
“The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), A Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH Production, Nominees to be determined
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), A Celador Films Production, Christian Colson, Producer.

Best animated short film
“La Maison en Petits Cubes” A Robot Communications Production, Kunio Kato
“Lavatory - Lovestory” A Melnitsa Animation Studio and CTB Film Company Production, Konstantin Bronzit
“Oktapodi” (Talantis Films), A Gobelins, L’école de l’image Production, Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
“Presto” (Walt Disney), A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Doug Sweetland
“This Way Up” A Nexus Production, Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

Best live action short film
“Auf der Strecke (On the Line)” (Hamburg Shortfilmagency), An Academy of Media Arts Cologne Production, Reto Caffi
“Manon on the Asphalt” (La Luna Productions), A La Luna Production, Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
“New Boy” (Network Ireland Television), A Zanzibar Films Production, Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
“The Pig” An M & M Production, Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
“Spielzeugland (Toyland)” A Mephisto Film Production, Jochen Alexander Freydank

Achievement in sound editing
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Richard King
“Iron Man” (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Tom Sayers
“WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
“Wanted” (Universal), Wylie Stateman

Achievement in sound mixing
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
“WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
“Wanted” (Universal), Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

Achievement in visual effects
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
“Iron Man” (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

Adapted screenplay
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
“Doubt” (Miramax), Written by John Patrick Shanley
“Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Screenplay by Peter Morgan
“The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Hare
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Original screenplay
“Frozen River” (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Courtney Hunt
“Happy-Go-Lucky” (Miramax), Written by Mike Leigh
“In Bruges” (Focus Features), Written by Martin McDonagh
“Milk” (Focus Features), Written by Dustin Lance Black
“WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter

Five Affecting Films

Friends shake their heads in bemusement when they discover I have devoted more than 25,000 hours (a conservative estimate) to watching films during my 40-year fascination with the cinema. For context, that works out to nearly three solid years, 24 hours a day, sitting in a darkened theater enjoying film. (I do go hiking and mountain biking once in a while. Fishing, too.)
After some reflection I realized that in all that time, absorbed in all those movies, there are really only five core films that have had a profound and lingering impact on my appreciation for the filmmaker’s art. Curiously, these are by no means my top favorite films, though they are exceptionally polished with at least one key scene that is positively breathtaking in its brilliance. Each has knocked me down with the scope of the director's vision, the mastery of technique on display in every frame. Two of the five are Best Picture winners. All of them represent a broad range of overlapping genres that run the gamut of human experience – love, death, family and marriage, hope and despair, jubilation and terror, hilarity and horror.

Cinematic Cteve sez check ‘em out:

City Lights (1931) By turns hilarious and poignant, this may be Chaplin's masterpiece in terms of the full development of the themes he explored in virtually all of his films: perseverance, pluck and determination, the transformative power of love. I cannot help but shed a tear at that closing shot...every...damn..time. A gentle masterpiece.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Call it sentimental Capra-corn, but this movie is actually much darker than most people remember. Small town corruption, gossip, alcoholism (Uncle Billy, Mr. Gower), financial ruination, thoughts of suicide -- heavy stuff that demands an upbeat ending to counterbalance all the preceding gloom. Donna Reed radiates love and sensuality. Jimmy Stewart begins to display the post-war maturity and a hint of the brooding obsessiveness that he would later present con gusto for Hitchcock in classics like Rear Window and Vertigo.

Jaws (1975) Unless you saw it during the summer of '75 on its original theatrical run, it can be hard to understand the flat-out terror this movie invoked in an audience. Steven Spielberg played us like a fiddle and we didn't mind the manipulation one whit. This movie works because the mechancial shark didn't: First time they put the prop in the water, it sank to the ocean floor. Second time, the hydraulic mechanism in the head exploded, the shark went belly-up, yep, and sank to the ocean floor (thus providing the inspiration for the crowd-pleasing climax). While the special effects department repaired the vulcanized villain, Spielberg made a sage decision borne on equal parts inspiration and necessity: he kept the clunky beast off screen for most of the film. He saved time and money, but more importantly he put our imagination to work in service of the plot. Hitchcock intuitively understood this and Spielberg learned from the master. It's all psychological, really. What we think we see is far more frightening than anything a director can actually show us. Verna Fields' Oscar-winning editing helped tremendously with fast cuts that presented tantalizing glimpses of the monster. And so, halfway through the picture, when the rubber fish successfully rears its head and scares the begeezus out of Roy Scheider (above), we are already sweating with fear. Need a bigger boat? Damn straight. But the biggest scare -- the scene that made me leap out of my seat -- comes much earlier in the film:

I will always remember Hooper's discovery of Ben Gardner's badly damaged boat and the surprise waiting just below the waterline. When the big boo came, three guys in the front row of the long gone University Theater in Charlottesville, VA, stood up and screamed: a bloodcurdling cry. The audience positively freaked. Summer movies – and Hollywood – would never be the same.

The Deer Hunter (1978) Forget the historical inaccuracies. Forget the fact that the wedding sequence runs damn near 45 minutes. Forget, for a moment, that the movie is set in Vietnam (this picture is less a war movie than it is a study in character). The scene that can still elicit a cold sweat and make me quake, of course, is the prison-camp horror. When Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken sit down to play Russian roulette as their tormentors gamble and laugh, we are witness to nothing less than a small masterpiece of live-wire tension, positively electrifying. I know of no one who has made it through that sequence and not been left shaken, pale and jolted by adrenaline pumping through the heart.

"Mau!" screams the Vietcong guard, his face twisted in a horrible rictus of hatred and evil. He slaps his captive hard across the face, forcing the prisoner to make an untenable choice. He does. De Niro's response explodes into 20 classic seconds of savage revenge and machismo, a cinematic catharsis still unmatched more than 30 years later. On the short list of De Niro's finest moments. Unforgettable.

The English Patient (1996) An illicit affair turns tragic in this remarkably mature, complex look at love, relationships and, above all, consequences. Only a jaded fool would not want to experience the intensity of emotion shared between Almásy and Katharine. Exquisitely photographed, acted and expertly directed, this may be the most intense, yet delicately layered love story the cinema has offered. Ralph Fiennes' primal scream of anguish haunts me to this day. Oh, and Juliet Binoche can prop her feet on my coffee table any time she pleases.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.