The Envelope In Print: The Best Picture / Documentary / Foreign Film Issue (December 17, 2008)
December 17, 2008
COVER STORY
Inside 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'
In "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," time doesn't just slip away. It surges like a tsunami, swamping cities and washing aside human lives like so much Mississippi Delta topsoil. It rolls backward and forward like a movie projector, un-spooling the tale of a man whose peculiar fate is to age in reverse, starting his life as a wrinkled old codger and ending it as a newborn babe.
December 17, 2008
A MOMENT WITH...
A moment with Mickey Rourke, back in the ring
The eyes are the same. Say what you will about Mickey Rourke's face -- ravaged by time, battered by boxing and altered by who knows what else -- but his eyes haven't changed. They still have the live-wire flash, moving from cocky charm to wounded pride to raw pain in an instant. Watching those eyes brings to mind the Mickey Rourke who once was, the guy from "Diner" and "The Pope of Greenwich Village" and "Year of the Dragon," the Brando of the early '80s.
December 17, 2008
OSCAR CONFIDENTIAL
Movies may win big over films
Rumor has it that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may actually honor some movies at this year's Oscar ceremony. Movies, as opposed to, you know, filmsfilms.
December 17, 2008
THE PERIOD FILMS
'Revolutionary Road,' 'Frost/Nixon,' 'Milk' and 'Doubt' have messages for today
As the Oscars approach, the only thing "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "Doubt" and "Revolutionary Road" seem to have in common is potential for a nomination. However, though they each tackle wildly different subjects, what they share is a desire to examine moments of social change in America's not-so-distant past -- moments that carry relevance to modern audiences but would perhaps feel too incendiary if put in a contemporary setting.
December 17, 2008
THE FOREIGN FILMS
The foreign films offer a window into each country of origin
The record 67 submissions for this year's foreign language Oscar make a mighty statement about the robust talents working around the globe. But the films, selected by national film commissions and industry committees, rarely have good things to say about their native lands. A survey of this year's list turns up a number of films focusing on dark episodes in their country's past or simmering social problems of today.
December 17, 2008
THE DOCUMENTARIES
Documentaries that dare to defy
Wandering the streets of her deluged New Orleans 9th Ward in one of this year's exceptional short-listed documentaries, "Trouble the Water," resident Kimberly Roberts rants before finding her uncle's body, dead and decomposing two weeks after the floodwaters: It's why "I'm so against this President Bush character, whoever he is. Look at this man, these people haven't been through my neighborhood yet looking for dead bodies. I bet my uncle is still in the house."
December 17, 2008
THE DOCUMENTARIES
Documentaries that take you for a walk in their shoes
While many of this year's feature documentary Oscar contenders focus on an inattentive (or worse) government, some are notable for their intimate portrayals of an individual. Kimberley Roberts, whose home-video footage of Hurricane Katrina forms the heart of Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's "Trouble the Water," lands squarely in both and she thinks that means something.
December 17, 2008
THE BIG PICTURE | PATRICK GOLDSTEIN
Score one for Batman
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has come to its senses, reversing its misguided decision to disqualify Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for "The Dark Knight." The academy had initially said there were too many composers listed on the music cue sheet. (The composers had listed a music editor, a sound designer and an arranger as a way of rewarding the people who worked with them on the massive project.) But now Zimmer and Howard can compete for honors in the original score category. So what happened? What made the academy, not an institution especially willing to admit its mistakes, willing to change its mind?
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