Awards I Would Give for Movies in 2008

Best Film That Nobody Saw But That I Loved Maybe More Than Any Other Film:

Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh + Sally Hawkins = True Love Always)

Runner up: Frozen River (I have not yet met one other person in the face who saw this. See this.)

Best Films That Nobody Saw Including Me And That I Should Probably See:

4 months, 3 weeks, 2 Days

The Visitor

Best Big Film That Was SERIOUS Enough To Get Nominated For a Best Picture Oscar:

Tie: Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler

Runner Up: Doubt (I don’t care what you say about how it was shot. I liked it. I liked the words wot he wrote and the actors how they said’um.)

Best Film That Was Better Than A Lot Of SERIOUS Films But Could Never Be Nominated For Best Picture Because They Were Comedy Or Genre Films And A Little Too Much Fun:

The Dark Knight

Runners Up: Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Iron Man 

Most Overrated Film Not Only Of This Year, But Possibly One Of The Most Overrated Films Of All Time:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (NOTE: Maybe if I had gotten up five minutes earlier the morning I saw this film and not stopped my car to pick up that German guy who took too long to give me directions, making me late to the Specialty Cream Puff Store, leading to my showing up at the Arclight one specialty cream puff short of a dozen, which made the people sitting with me break my pinky finger so that my whole career was ruined, I would have liked this film better. But you never know what’s coming for you, I guess.  Except at Oscar season, when you know that what’s coming for you is that people will try to insert whimsical, neato sequences that have no business being there in their movie because at first glance an audience will mistake them for profound.)UNLESS this is all one long candid camera joke on me and all of you are in on it and i’m gonna get surprised soon and told that it was all a joke. In which case, GOOD ONE.

Runner Up: Revolutionary Road (Fuck. This. Noise. You are not fooling me. These People Are Just Assholes.)

Best Film That Brad Pitt Should Have Been Nominated For Acting In, If Anything, Because He Was Good In It And Wasn’t Attempting A Cajun Accent, Which Is Too Much Hoid Woik Foi A Gah Who Caint Do Aiccents Sah Gud:

Burn After Reading

Best Terrible Movie:

The Happening (Have you guys heard? About these bees?)

Runner Up: Vantage Point

Worst Terrible Movie

4-Way Tie: The Ruins, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, 88 minutes and The House Bunny

But I haven’t Seen: Made of Honor or Beer for My Horses

Movie That Most Made Me Want To Punch Its Writer/Director/Actors In the Face:

Tie: Righteous Kill and Sex and the City

Best Use of Quiet Riot In A Motion Picture (Drama): 

The Wrestler

Guy Who I Most Want To Win An Oscar Because He’s Never, Ever Been Less Than Great In Anything, Not Even The Core:

Richard Jenkins

And Finally, The Jim Carey Award For Enough From You In With The Hoping This Will Win Him An Oscar Movies Already Goes To:

Leonardo DiCaprio

 

I Am The Ben Lyons of Hating On Ben Lyons.

I was so amped to blow the doors off of the Ben Lyons Sucks issue this morning, but apparently some other people have beat me to it by like 6 months and 800 blogs. So because I don’t think I can add much to what has already been said by Roger Ebert, Eric Childress and the other critics who hate this guy, in true Ben Lyons style, I’m going to stand on the shoulders of these other guys without permission. I’m hoping that by taking this lazy route, I can at least raise a little awareness among those of you who haven’t yet discovered the joys of not liking anything about Ben Lyons.  To that end, dear reader, here is a profile of the man, the myth, the legend, the guy who makes you change the channel when you accidentally land on the new At the Movies.

Name: Ben Lyons

Age: 27

Occupation: film reviewer, ear assaulter, walking reminder that, American Dream talk aside, this ain’t no meritocracy we’re living in.

Influences: Jeffrey Lyons, natch.  Also, Mark S. Allen, Jim Ferguson, Earl Dittman, Bill Bregoli, Shawn Edwards. Probably Billy Bush.

Qualifications: dna of shill reviewer dad, mad nickelodeon game show hosting skills, dimples.

Known Likes: nepotism, puns made from own last name, posing next to famous people in pictures, movies with explosions in them, being asked to do cameos in films purely on his own merit and not at all because he’s a reviewer, I Am Legend. Fuckin’ RAGING at awesome parties with famous friends who sort of seem to not mind being hung out in the vicinity of, writing different top 10 lists with different films on them for different websites in the same year, texting during movies butonlyifitswayimportantbro, eating own poop.

Assumed Dislikes: Fairness, college, hard work, fair play, experience, film history, film theory, film school, the fairness doctrine, earning stuff, journalism, justice, good things, the written word, the spoken word, the integrity of critical discourse and/or that of the english language, mean people who have chops, believe in things and are totally cool and awesome.

Known associates: None who will admit it, seemingly.  20 year-old girls who hate movies and love dimples and this guy adore him from afar, though.

Memorable At The Movies Quotes:

“This is one of those films that every movie after this will be judged against this film” –remarking in typical restrained style on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

“Coming in at just an hour and 15 minutes long, this indie film is slow and downright boring at its core,” –waxing poetic on character study Wendy and Lucy

“You know what’s frustrating in the film though, Mank? You don’t get to hear the little boy’s side of the story at all and I felt like he was kinda pushed to the side and was almost an afterthought even though he’s the subject of the film.” Remarking to averge on his own, Pauline Kael by comparison co-reviewer Ben Mankiewitz on how he wishes Doubt would have shown the perspective of the kid, the lack of which produced all that DOUBT you may have heard about.

“But I want a Golden Goose NOW, Daddy!” –Expressing immediate needs to father Jeffrey  while on a visit to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Best Ever Quote about a Ben Lyons’ Quote: “If he were 12 and had only seen 50 movies in his lifetime, it would still be one of the dumbest statements ever made by a human being named Lyons,” –Eric Childress, on Lyons’s pronouncement of I Am Legend as one of the best films ever made.

Miscellaneous: Detailed here and here by people who hate Ben Lyons more than I do, who I didn’t know were legion until I sat down to write this morning, and who I am deferring to for most of this blog because they’re all doing excellent flogging that makes me feel like I can sit back, relax, and be mediocre at it much like Ben Lyons would do in my position.

 

Post-Holidays, Post-Golden Globe Blog of CONTROVERSY!

I have just inserted myself into the tiniest controversy in Hollywood.  Loveleen Tandan got a co-director credit on Slumdog Millionaire and now a critic from Chicago and a few blogs and websites are all up in arms because she hasn’t been nominated for best director and have started a letter-writing campaign to the Golden Globes, which the leader of the campaign plans to take to the Oscars now that the Globes are over.  Since a lot of this site is supposed to be talking about industry minutiae, and that’s what this issue boils down to for me, and since i spent the morning writing emails instead of blogs, I’m going to reprint my email on the subject:

To Whom It May Concern,

I stumbled across this website while looking for an answer to a student’s question about Loveleen Tandan, who was given a co-director credit on Slumdog Millionaire.  I have to admit I was kind of dismayed that a woman’s organization had chosen this battle when it comes to the problem of how few women directors there are.  I study women in film production culture and i have to say i was NOT upset about Tandan’s co-directing credit, even though Danny Boyle is nominated for a Golden Globe and she’s not. Rather, I was pleased by it.

A co-directing credit is something somewhat different from a standard directing credit.  Traditionally it has been assigned to people who help direct animation or who second unit work and often work with big crowds.  In this case Tandan did the latter and helped with questions of Indian culture in addition to casting the film and Boyle thought she was so wonderful that he gave her a co-direct credit, from what i read because he thought she’d make a great director and wanted to credit her up so that she would have a little more cache with which to possibly  direct her own film.  Again, co-direct is a different thing than director credit, as is assistant director credit, second unit director credit, etc.  If he’d chosen to share his directing credit (which would have been odd since she didn’t direct any first unit stuff and didn’t work on the project in the development stage at quite the same level as Boyle), she’d be listed next to his name with an “and” in between, as is the case with the coen brothers or any others who really do share directing tasks. Instead, she’s got her own title card because she was instrumental in making the film but she wasn’t it’s director.

Because I’m  concerned with the difficulties experienced by women directors today, and want so much for there to be more opportunity for women to direct and more recognition given when they do, I’m really bothered by calls by women’s organizations (i think i may have seen one other site doing something similar) for Tandan to be listed on the ballot, and accusations that she’s not because she’s a woman. Here is a case where someone said “this person should be a director. I’m a director. I’m in the boy’s club, and I’m going to help her,” and instead of saying “great. someone created more opportunities and possibly a new female director will emerge in part due to those opportunities,” we’re saying “why isn’t she on the ballot?”

I think we need to pick our battles. Why weren’t several of the excellent films directed by women in recent years nominated for globes or oscars?  Why weren’t more films helmed by women this year? Why is there seemingly less funding for stories written and directed by women or about women?  All good questions which deserve our attention.

I implore you to stop any further letter-writing campaigns or at least do a little more research before you proceed.  I think this is a positive story of an established director wanting to give a woman directing opportunities based on her talent and I’d hate to see that story eclipsed by one of a woman being sidelined in favor of a male-dominated field of directors.  Because that happens and should be pointed out when it does, but it’s not happening here.

There you go, dear reader. Real controversy between people who are very far away from the film industry and me, someone who is a marginal at best, at least in terms of real power.  Thoughts?  Also, Tandan is embarassed by this controversy.  Also, she is going to direct the next film she works on.  That, to me, is the real story here.

Thoughts? Anyone still out there? Next week I am going to devote my entire blog to Ben Lyons’s qualifications as a film reviewer, but this week I would love to hear what you think of all of this.  Maybe I’m an apologist, but I’m mofo fired up so I don’t think so!

Edit: I made some cuts on this blog just now. The overall argument is the same but it was too long. I normally tinker afterward, but I took a few chunks out this time, so if anyone is checking back and notices a discrepancy, that’s why.