In Contention

Tag: My Winnipeg

  • All in good taste

    There’s no real reason to pay attention to the Chlotrudis Awards,which took place on Sunday. After all, they’re a casually organised set of honours determined by an enthusiastic group of Boston-based film lovers — that apparently get mentioned on IMDB and precisely nowhere else.

    But hey, when their taste is this exemplary, they deserve a bit of notice. After all, in the thick of awards season, people actually bother with the innumerable, obscure regional critics’ awards and their largely yawnsome copycat choices. The Chlotrudis Awards, by contrast, go commendably against the grain.

    Any organisation that singles out the exceptional, Oscar-snubbed work of Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein in “I’ve Loved You So Long” is in my good books, while “The Edge of Heaven” is a pretty fresh, adventurous choice for Best Picture of 2008. “Happy-Go-Lucky,” meanwhile, continues to generate affection, taking Supporting Actor kudos for Eddie Marsan and half a Best Director award — in another inspired move, Mike Leigh and Guy Maddin (“My Winnipeg”) tied for that honour.

    OK, so nobody really notices or cares about these awards, but it’s the principle that counts. I applaud them. Check out a full list of winners and nominees here, if you’re so inclined.

  • How did ‘Man on Wire’ become the favorite in a field of superior documentary features?

    Man on WireIt often seems that when there isn’t an obvious, populist pick in the Academy’s documentary feature category (such as “Bowling for Columbine,” “March of the Penguins” or “An Inconvenient Truth”), the field is rife for an upset.  Last year a number of awards watchers were sure that either “No End in Sight” or “Sicko” would walk away the winner, while maybe five of us new the power of “Taxi to the Dark Side” would prevail.  “Born Into Brothels” caught a few by surprise in a year that a great many thought would see “Super Size Me” take the gold.

    “Murder on a Sunday Morning” over “Children Underground,” “One Day in September” over “Buena Vista Social Club,” it seems there is always something of a surprise waiting to happen here, and I think it’s because the groupthink always takes such a vigorous hold in a category with little precursor clues as to what the actual film industry thinks of the field.

    This year, it’s a foregone conclusion that the critically acclaimed “Man on Wire” will win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.  The film has nearly swept the circuit.  Only “Trouble the Water” (also nominated) and Guy Maddin’s “My Winnipeg” have popped up with this critics organization or that.  But I submit that, not only is “Man on Wire” quite vulnerable, but it may be the least likely of the nominated docs to win the Oscar in a little less than two weeks’ time.

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  • The Sans weigh in

    Francisco and Diego, that is. Anyone else think there are a tad too many critics’ awards floating around out there? Seriously, what do they all mean? New York, Los Angeles, Boston and the National Society are the only ones that really register with me… maybe Chicago, if I’m feeling generous.

    The rest really kind of blur into one, particularly when they elect the same winners over and over again. Anyway, you won’t be surprised to hear that the San Franciscans went for “Milk” in a big way, while San Diego continued the lovefest for “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    The San Francisco picks:

    Best Picture: “Milk”
    Best Director: Gus Van Sant, “Milk”
    Best Actor: Sean Penn, “Milk” & Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
    Best Actress: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
    Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei, “The Wrestler”
    Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, “Milk”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: Peter Morgan, “Frost/Nixon”
    Best Foreign Language Film: “Let the Right One In”
    Best Documentary Feature: “My Winnipeg”
    Best Cinematography: Wally Pfister, “The Dark Knight”

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  • A voice of dissent

    Whether it’s on blogs like this one or in loftier film publications, there appears to be a general consensus that 2008 hasn’t been the best year at the movies, particularly in terms of American cinema. Lots of promising projects, ambitious ideas, isolated moments of genius, but very few bull’s-eyes — especially when compared to last year’s bumper crop.

    Well, one person disagrees. Roger Ebert, in fact. He believes 2008 has been “a great year for movies, even if many of them didn’t receive wide distribution.” Indeed, he thinks it so great that he can’t limit himself to a standard year-end Top Ten, instead listing his 20 favourites in alphabetical order:

    “Ballast,” “The Band’s Visit,” “Che,” “Chop Shop,” “The Dark Knight,” “Doubt,” “The Fall,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Frozen River,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” “Iron Man,” “Milk,” “Rachel Getting Married,” “The Reader,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Shotgun Stories,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Synecdoche, New York,” “W.” and “WALL-E.”

    He rounds out the last with his own “Special Jury Prize” winner, Guy Maddin’s “My Winnipeg,” which I’ve been itching to see for a while. And of equal standing, he says, is his list of the five best documentaries (which actually reads like a plausible Oscar slate): “Encounters at the End of the World,” “I.O.U.S.A.,” “Man on Wire,” “Standard Operating Procedure” and “Trouble the Water.”

    Of course, it’s hard to argue with a personal list. Each to their own, and all that. But I must confess to feeling dismayed that only two foreign-language films made Ebert’s cut in a year where, for me, the likes of “Gomorrah” and “The Class” showed more conceptual breadth and storytelling verve than almost anything to emerge from Hollywood (or Indiewood) this year. And with so many included, I find the absence of “Hunger” and “The Wrestler” hard to fathom, particularly when something like “W.” is there.

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