Haiku Review: Oldboy (2003)

Oldboy (2003)
Director: Park Chan-wook
Starring: Choi Min-sik, Yu Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong
Rating: 5/5
Review:
How the holy fuck
Is this remake going to work?
I don't understand.

Alternatively:
Ew ew ew ew ew
ew ew ew ew ew ew ew
ew ew ew ew ew

Seriously. Spike Lee's doing an American version starring Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Olsen, and there's a certain plot twist that's so dark and disturbing it left me wondering how the hell Lee's going to pull it off. Will he change it? Downplay it? The obvious, and preferable, answer is none of the above, because it works in the original Oldboy and is essential to, y'know, the plot of the entire movie.

But damn. I guess I'm just surprised that something so thoroughly messed up (this was my approximate reaction to THAT SCENE) would be getting the Hollywood treatment. Even if it is being directed by Spike Lee and not, I dunno, Michael Bay.

Haiku Review: Masquerade (2012)

Sometimes there's a lot I want to say about a movie. And sometimes there's only about 17 syllables' worth. Thus: Haiku Review.

Masquerade (Gwanghae, Wangyidoen namja) (2012)
Director: Chang-min Choo
Starring: Byung-hun Lee, Hyo-ju Han, Seung-yong Ryoo
Rating: 2/5
Review:

This movie sure has,
for an historical epic,
a lot of fart jokes.

Jamie Bell is Getting Into the Spy/Cabbage Farmer Market with New AMC Period Drama

Jamie Bell

AMC is doing its first period drama, and the pilot will star Jamie Bell as a Revolutionary War-era cabbage farmer.

OK, the cabbage connection probably isn't all that relevant, but my eyes caught on the phrase "cabbage farmer" over at EW.com and I won't apologize for it.

Via EW:

The show is set in 1778 and tells the story of a New York cabbage farmer (Bell) who bands together with a group of childhood friends to form The Culper Ring, an unlikely group of spies who help turn the tide in America’s fight for independence. In the pilot, Bell’s character is caught smuggling his crop on the black market and is then pressed into spying for the Patriot cause.

A cabbage

Revolutionary War. Spies. Jamie Bell. Cabbage smuggling. I mean, you're great and all, The Walking Dead, but you don't have cabbage smuggling.

In all seriousness (CABBAGE!), this sounds like it could be good. It's called Turn (blah title) and is based on the book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring (better title).

Oscarpalooza 2013: Bring the Pain

Every year before this one I've said I'm not going to come down with a case of Oscar fever, and then I do anyway. This year I said screw it. I'm excited. The Oscars give film nerds like myself an unparalleled opportunity for bitchery. To that end, here's who I predict will win, and who I want to win.

Best Picture
Will Win: Argo
Want to Win: Beasts of the Southern Wild. I like Argo; it was a good, solid film. Of the crop this year it's probably in second or third place. But Beasts gave me something new and unexpected on top of being a well-made film. I'll be happy with Argo winning, if it does. Ditto Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln. If Silver Linings Playbook manages a win I might throw something at my TV.

Director
Will Win: Ang Lee for Life of Pi. Affleck's not nominated for Argo, so I imagine the Academy just throwing their hands up and saying "Fine, give it to anyone, we already screwed this category up. I don't care." Spielberg could easily take it as well, but I'm gonna mentally flip a coin and say Lee.
Want to Win: Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild. The mixture of fantasy/reality in Beasts could have been very easy to screw up. I've heard from other people that it didn't quite work for them, but I was absorbed in the world Zeitlin created the whole time. Not a chance in hell he'll win though.

Actor
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Want to Win: Daniel Day-Lewis. I actually wasn't all that fond of his Lincoln performance, though—it was all inspiring speeches and "Man, look at Lincoln, he's so wise" and very little of what was actually going on inside his head. The film treated him as an idol rather than a real, complicated person, and while that's a valid choice for Spielberg to make (I saw the main character more as America itself than Lincoln), it didn't give Day-Lewis anything particularly interesting or meaty to do. Wasn't that impressed by Hugh Jackman in Les Mis or Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. And Joaquin Phoenix is disqualified for The Master only because I haven't seen it yet. And who are we kidding, DDL's getting it.

Actress
Will Win: Jessica Chastain. Something tells me she'll pull the upset over Jennifer Lawrence.
Want to Win: Quvenzhané Wallis. No way in hell it'll happen. But it would be nice.

Supporting Actress
Will Win: Anne Hathaway
Want to Win: I honestly don't know on this one. Hathaway's performance in Les Mis bugged me—it was so over the top and dramatic. You don't need to emote that much when you're in close-up, Anne! Kind of overdoing it a bit. Then again, A) big performances are kind of what the supporting category is for, and B) I honestly don't know who I'd want to win instead. Sally Field was the most meh part of Lincoln, and though I love 'er I have no clue why Jacki Weaver was nominated for Silver Linings Playbook. Her character didn't even do anything! And I didn't see The Sessions or The Master, though I suspect if I'd caught the latter I'd be rooting for Amy Adams hardcore.

Supporting Actor
Will Win: Tommy Lee Jones
Want to Win: Tommy Lee Jones. I wasn't entirely thrilled by Lincoln, but I came out of it thinking "If Tommy Lee Jones doesn't win for that I will punch someone." Not that he cares what goes on at awards shows.

Animated Feature
Will Win: Wreck-It Ralph
Want to Win: ParaNorman. That movie is a triumph, and I want it to win everything. But Wreck-It Ralph was good too, as was Brave, which also has a fair shot at winning.

Cinematography:
Will Win: Skyfall cinematographer Roger Deakins is a legend, and he hasn't won yet. With all the attention and prestige Skyfall's been getting for being such an unexpectedly (to some) quality Bond film, I think the Academy will feel A) comfortable and B) cool giving it to him this year.
Want to Win: Seamus McGarvey for Anna Karenina. The camera movements he did with the whole stage set-up was amazing. Dude's a wizard.

Original Song:
Will Win: Adele, Skyfall. No question.
Want to Win: Same.

Dwarf beard swag

Hair and Makeup:
Will Win: Les Misérables
Want to Win: The Hobbit. Dwarf beards.

Documentary
Will Win:  Searching for Sugar Man
Want to Win: Ditto.

Editing
Will Win: Argo
Want to Win: D-d-ditto. That scene at the airport was a thing of beauty.

Original Screenplay
Will Win: Zero Dark Thirty, though Django could take it as well. I don't understand the Academy's boner for Tarantino.
Want to Win: Zero Dark Thirty. That's some quality story condensation right there.

Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: Argo
Want to Win: Argo

Tell me why-ee

Visual Effects:
Will Win: Life of Pi
Want to Win: Life of Pi. JFC, that tiger. The visual effects in this movie were amazing. I wish I could say the same of The Hobbit, and on balance they were, but that damn plastic-looking Pale Orc screwed it up for me.

In Which the Online Availability of Short Films is SRS BSNS

There's a bit of a short film Oscar kerfluffle going on right now, and seeing as I only have a few days left that I can talk about the Oscars before I enter the post-awards season zone, I'm gonna talk about it. Because darnit, it pisses me off.
A few weeks back Disney put Paperman, one of the five films up for the Oscar for Best Animated Short, up for free online. Seeing all the buzz that film was getting, the other nominees did the same.

But then Shorts International, which organizes theatrical screenings of Oscar-animated shorts (I've been to three this year), got all butthurt about moviemakers releasing things online that people were supposed to pay for. They demanded the moviemakers take the shorts down.


Up until this point I'm kind of/sort of somewhat sympathetic to Shorts International. They release this shorts program, presumably dealing with contracts and agreements with the filmmakers so they can do so, and then they turn around and the films are being offered for free. It affects their bottom line. It's a sucky thing.


But the rhetoric in the letter from Shorts International's Chief Executive Carter Pillcher asking the nominees to take their shorts offline just ticked me the hell off. In it, he says:

Unlike Webbies or Ani's, the Academy Award is designed to award excellence in the making of motto pictures that receive a cinematic release, not an online release. Since 2006, we have built theater audience significantly and created widespread interest in the films themselves and their place in the movie theater. This release of the films on the Internet threatens to destroy 8 years of audience growth and the notion that these film gems are indeed movies—no feature length film would consider a free online release as a marketing tool!

Can your sanctimonious BS, Pilcher. Outside of your series, which runs a few weeks a year, and scattered film festivals that most people don't or can't attend, short films don't get theatrical release. The fact that you're upset at being affected financially is valid, but your language here seems to imply, what, that these moviemakers aren't appreciating their films enough by putting them online? Heaven forbid filmmakers want their films to be seen by as many people as possible, and like it or not with short films the Internet is pretty much the only way that's going to happen.


Should they have waited until after the Oscars to upload to YouTube? Maybe. As Pilcher points out in the letter, the Academy voters have their own screeners, so having the films online shouldn't necessarily affect how the voting goes. But there's more interest in these shorts in the weeks before the Oscars, not after. More people will want to see all of them, not just the one that walked away with that statuette. It's, forgive the pun, a golden opportunity for the teams behind these shorts to get the films they've worked so hard on seen by a general populace that, generally speaking, doesn't watch short films unless they're… wait for it… on YouTube.