Academy's expanded Best Picture category rewards 'top 10' films

By Sarah Sluis

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it was expanding the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten, most people speculated two things would happen: 1) crowd-pleasing, high-grossing movies would receive nominations. 2) smaller, independent movies would receive nominations. Well, the answers are in: the first thing happened, and the second not so much.

Three of the ten Oscar nominees for Best Picture were in the 2009 box-office top ten. Avatar is currently #1 for 2009, Up is #4, and The Blind Side is #8. If any movie was a long shot for Best Picture, The Blind Side was it. Many critics would have preferred to see Bright Star, a tiny but well-reviewed film, in that spot.

The last time a top ten film was even nominated was at the 76th Academy Awards, when Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (the #1 film of the year) swept the awards in Titanic-like fashion. That means that before this year, five years passed where no movie in the top ten received a Best Picture nomination. If the goal of expanding the number of nominees is to boost ratings and make more average, non-eclectic moviegoers feel the Academy Awards reflect their own "Best Films," it appears the Academy has succeeded.

That's not to say these movies are bad or don't deserve to be nominated. Last year seemed to be a particularly strong one for blockbusters. I'm right there with Avatar and Up. District 9 (#27) was good, but it didn't make my top ten and I don't think it's quite original enough (beyond its opening sequence) to deserve the nomination. But with a heavy-handed look at racism a la Crash, I guess I shouldn't be surprised it was nominated.

On the other hand, movies at the other end of the spectrum haven't entirely been neglected. The Hurt Locker (#130), A Serious Man (#142) and An Education (#144) all received nominations. Last year, the lowest-ranked film was #120 (Frost/Nixon), so not only are these films a bit lower on the list, there are also three of them instead of the expected two you would get when you double the amount of nominees.

Overall, I think the inclusion of ten nominees better reflects the amount of quality movies out there, and does allow for more commercial (to a greater extent) or more specialized (to a lesser extent) films to receive nominations. At least when a so-so movie squeezes in, there are nine, instead of four, other movies there to balance it out.

A few good films in 2009

By Sarah Sluis
Perhaps it's the part of me that grew up in a world where "participant" ribbons were a standard consolation prize, but I wanted my top ten of 2009 to include some movies that won't be seeing much play at the Oscars or in other top tens, but are good films in their own right. In particular, I wanted to reward fine genre works, whether it was an arthouse take on a police procedural (Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans) or that rarest of the rare, a comedy that makes me laugh out loud (almost all of those made the list).

The Hangover: This is not an Oscar comedy. It's not dark and ironic, the protagonists are young, it made lots of money, and it's definitely, definitely not "quiet" or "black." The raunchy comedy earns my top honors because instead of that cringe-worthy tactic of having its characters get into deeper and deeper trouble for laughs (a no-no for sensitive souls like myself), it created humor from having its characters try to pick up all the pieces. Miraculously, it managed to find new ways to shock audiences, and it had the best missing big cat since Bringing Up Baby.

Avatar: James Cameron's work feels like the sci-fi epics I loved

growing up: movies like Jurassic Park and Independence Day that broke

new technological ground and backed it up with a winning story (though

I'm not sure how well Independence Day holds up today). Cameron is a

master at his craft, and no adult will look at 3D the same way. Bonus

points for its environmental bent.

I Love You, Man: Another innovative comedy that turned romantic comedy conventions on their head and used the "falling in love" montage for the film's bromance. Its Rotten Tomato rating (in the eighties) is higher than most "awards" films, but it's received little end-of-the-year love. Having suffered through many terrible romantic comedies this year, it was a pleasure to watch something that was actually laugh-out-loud funny, and a welcome addition to the Judd Apatow-style comedy-bromance genre.

(500) Days of Summer: My indulgent, hipster choice. Young love has never been so ebullient than in this film that mixed up its chronology to make its kiss 'n break-up story novel. Its fantastic musical sequence (staged by director Marc Webb, a veteran of music videos) was proof that good things can come from music video-influenced films. It also violated the most important romcom trope: getting together at the end.

Thirst: Stylistically rigorous, this vampire tale is far, far from New Moon. Its scenes of sex and violence will have you wriggling in your seat in discomfort, but director Chan-wook Park (Oldboy) is truly a master at his craft, taking Asian horror to an artistic high, with a bit of a moralistic bent.

Up: Best thing about Up, #1: It makes you cry. Instead of adding double entendres for adult laughs, Pixar used the wide age range of its audience to make older viewers cry. The little kids next to me didn't get it, but I was wiping away tears underneath my 3D glasses. Best thing about Up, #2? It makes you laugh. The talking dogs were my most memorable chuckle of the year.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: I thought I was so sick of police procedurals, but Nicolas Cage brings the genre back with the baddest, most insane performance of the year. The seediness of New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina is made absurd by director Werner Herzog's inclusion of iguana point-of-view shots and the depictions of off-the-cuff abuse of power and drugs. A strange, strange movie, in all the right ways.

Precious: Based on the Novel �Push' by Sapphire: A tearjerker with equal parts horror and heart. Precious' world is so foreign to most of us, but director Lee Daniels makes it even more of a nightmare with his use of dream sequences and subjective point-of-view. Mo'Nique put in a jaw-dropping performance, and her final monologue is a gutsy move made by Daniels that raises more questions than it answers.

Up in the Air: Yes, this is one that's on a lot of top ten lists, and its tone of comedy mixed with anomie comes straight from the Academy playbook. But it's good. My favorite sequence was when George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick form their unlikely trio, learning from each other and crashing a party.

Food, Inc.: A well-researched complement to Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation, this documentary covered the food industry from moo to mouth and back again. I spouted "Did you know�?" to friends and families for weeks based on what I learned about the food industry. It's already out on DVD, calling out to me for a second viewing.

Why stop at top ten when there are a few films that deserve honorable mentions, but didn't make it into my rather loose list. An Education: The debut of Carey Mulligan with a fantastic performance from Rosamund Pike. Pike's glamorous and perfectly assembled look made her as attractive to adult-pining Mulligan as Peter Sarsgaard. The Cove: Environmental activism meets Ocean's 11, so controversial it had a hard time playing in Japan. And they're feeding dolphins to your children! The Young Victoria: a decidedly unstuffy costume drama and romance that should make Emily Blunt a star.

'Gamer' makes a play for the top spot

By Sarah Sluis

Labor Day weekend is typically a slow one for the movie business: people are enjoying the last bit of summer, and the kids are heading back to school, making the first few weeks of September less profitable, since there's no one to go to weekday matinees. Studios make the weekend even more anemic by releasing movies over the holiday that barely had a chance anyway. 2009 is no exception.

Releasing in 2,251 theatres, All About Steve is a romantic comedy that should have everyone running at the sight of Sandra Bullock's mullet-like haircut. She plays "a writer of crossword puzzles whose motor-mouth drives everyone other than her forgiving parents to near suicide." Apparently, that also includes the audience. Kirk Honeycutt also called the film "seriously wrong," the kind of movie that makes you "guess what the filmmakers thought they were doing."

Gamer (2,502 theatres) is a futuristic, video-game action movie that appears to borrow most of its "futuristic" plot points from other movies. Like Death Race, the car-race-for-freedom movie, it features death row inmates who are allowed to go free if they can win in a game. In this case, gamers control the bodies of the criminals and play war games with them. Gerard Butler plays one such criminal--a prodigy who is close to completing the thirty missions required to be freed from prison. With its appeal to young males, Gamer is most likely to go number one at the box office.

Extract (1,611 theatres) is the best reviewed film of the bunch, according to Rotten Tomatoes, but that still puts the comedy at a measly 57% approval rating. Honeycutt found the film "depressing" and its characters "wildly dysfunctional" to the point of contrivance. Mike Judge had directed a cult hit, Office Space, which he followed up with Idiocracy, a miss, and it seems Extract may fall somewhere in the middle.

Releasing on the sidelines is Carriers (100 screens), a horror movie about a virus that comes just in time for H1N1 season. Star Trek is re-releasing on 93 IMAX screens and 175 select theatres, hoping to draw back Trekkies for a last chance to see the movie on the big screen. The Final Destination, with its 3D screens, could hold its appeal beyond the first weekend that tends to bring in the bulk of a horror movie's audience. On Tuesday, we'll be back from the long weekend to dissect the weekend's winners and losers.

Love, Peace and Horror: Two horror franchises go up against 'Taking Woodstock'

By Sarah Sluis

Where better to put a "solid but minor film from Ang Lee" (according to Kirk Honeycutt) than the last week of summer, when it's the most enticing offering of the bunch? Taking Woodstock, which opened on Wednesday in New York and L.A., expands to 1,393 theatres today. The "low-wattage film about a high-wattage event" is episodic and behind-the-scenes, and focuses on the small, peripheral moments over the big, iconic ones. Fascination with hippie culture has yet to wane, so the subject matter is certain to entice both the original hippies and the younger generations that have adopted some of their core values.

In the horror realm, it's death by serial killer or death by fate Neither Halloween 2 nor The Final Destination screened for critics, though a Variety reviewer did manage to see The Final Destination and pronounce it "as developed as a text message," which should cement its appeal among the text-messaging crowd. The Final Destination will release in 3,121 theatres, including 1,678 3D screens, so the premium ticket prices at half its venues should give the horror flick an edge over Halloween 2. Directed by Rob Zombie, Halloween 2 (3,025 screens) is a remake of the 1981 horror flick--after Halloween 8 or so, they decided to start back at the beginning. Zombie has a legion of fans and is renowned for his mastery of the grindhouse aesthetic, so the movie has a good chance to draw in horror aficionados. However, its off-holiday release date isn't ideal, though it's tough to say how much people will care.

Six screens in the fashion capital, New York City, will show The September Issue, a behind-the-scenes look at the woman who inspired The Devil Wears Prada: Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour. The documentary follows Wintour and her staffers as they create the 2008 September issue of Vogue, traditionally the biggest and most filled with advertising. Like the editors the filmmakers documented, the film itself (and specifically the editor Azin Samari) "stylishly distills hundreds of hours of footage into a vibrantly energetic narrative."

On Monday we'll circle back and see who won the weekend: Will the Nazi killers in Inglourious Basterds have a second week of glory? Will the hippies rise above? And how will horror fans choose between The Final Destination and Halloween 2?

Glorious opening for 'Basterds'

By Sarah Sluis

Brad Pitt, the Nazis, and Quentin Tarantino? The combination proved to be a box-office success, as Inglourious Basterds racked up $37.5 million over the weekend. The movie played steadily throughout the time period, dropping just 10% on Saturday and an additional 20% on Sunday. Some attributed the performance to strong word-of-mouth, as documented by Twitter.

Live action/CGI hybrid Shorts debuted at number six, earning $6.6 million. Coming in at the tail end of a summer filled with the usual CGI sequels and an exemplary Pixar film, the movie drew in a tiny audience, a fraction of those who saw director Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids franchise.

Post Grad also attracted a small, niche audience, and suffered from being a Fox Atomic release that was moved to Fox Searchlight after Atomic shuttered. It squeaked into the top ten with a $2.6 million gross. With a target audience of girls under the age of star Alexis Bledel, it just couldn't attract enough attention at the box office.

Julie & Julia leveled its fall, dropping the least out of the movies in the top ten. Its take went down by 25% (compared to 38% in its second week), allowing it to cook up another $9 million. Fending off competition from Inglourious Basterds, District 9 dropped 49% to come in at number two with $18.9 million. Even as it dropped screens, Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince brought in another $3.5 million, with a total of $290 million over six weeks.

Among specialty releases, X Games 3D: The Movie wiped out, badly. It brought in $572 per theatre at 1,399 locations. Reviews were lackluster, and the adrenaline-seeking fan base either didn't know about the movie, or didn't find it worthy of the big-screen treatment.

Next week will be particularly light on movie offerings, with just two horror movies coming out. The casual moviegoer will have the chance to catch up on movies they missed--and kids will start heading back to school and away from weekday matinees.

Audiences savor 'Julie & Julia'; 'Joe' muscles into top spot

By Sarah Sluis

This week's box-office winner was no surprise. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra made $56.2 million and packed its 4,002 theatres with an average of $14,000 per screen, despite the fact (or perhaps because?) film critics didn't have a chance to weigh in on the film. While not nearly as successful as Transformers, another Hasbro toy adaptation, the movie is on its way to being profitable thanks to strong overseas performance, and, of course, the expected resurgence of the action figures. Toy sales, of course, are proof that the intended audience for the movie is a pre-teen boy (or one in spirit).

In a smaller wide release of just 2,354 screens, Julie & Julia brought in $20.1 million, a promising start for a film that cost just $40 million to make. Many of my family, friends, and relatives have seen (or are planning to see) the movie, and have spoken warmly of the viewing experience, even cracking out some Julia Child cookbooks afterward. By virtue of its intergenerational protagonists, biography, and culinary history, I anticipate Julie & Julia will become a word-of-mouth hit, or at the least become part of the summer movie zeitgeist. Within the weekend, its Saturday gross spiked 16% over Friday, and its Sunday gross is estimated to be only slightly under Friday, a performance that bodes well for its longevity week-over-week.

The more forgettable A Perfect Getaway opened at number seven with $5.6 million. For a low-budget horror movie, however, the numbers are only slightly below target.

Judd Apatow's Funny People dropped heavily in its second weekend. The 65% was the steepest fall of any film in the top ten, and its $7.8 million gross brings its total to a lackluster $40.4 million. Still, with his three-picture deal signed with Universal, Apatow will have plenty of chances to pitch another box-office and critical home run.

Specialty film (500) Days of Summer finally cracked the top ten. It brought in $3.7 million, more than doubling the theatres in its release, from 266 to 817 locations. Cold Souls, which debuted in 7 theatres, had the second-highest per-screen average of the weekend, $9,000. Opening in a more robust 38-location release, Paper Heart brought in $5,400 per theatre for a cumulative gross of $206,000. While normally specialty releases aim for a $10k+ per-screen average, this week has been quiet, and only major release G.I. Joe made it past this threshold, a sign the summer is winding down.

This Friday, six films will open in wide release. The Time Traveler's Wife, Bandslam, District 9, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, Taking Woodstock, and Ponyo are all planned to hit theatres and grab the last of the summer box office.

Social issue films have their day at ShoWest

By Sarah Sluis

ShoWest coordinated a first-of-its-kind panel discussion Thursday morning on "The Emergence of Social Issue Films" before the screening of the Sundance Audience Award winner The Cove. Ricky Strauss, president of Participant Media, producer of this acclaimed documentary and other socially engaged films like Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth and Good Night and Good Luck, called theatre owners "unsung heroes" in Participant's mission to "inspire and compel social change through great storytelling."

Howard Cohen, co-president of Roadside Attractions, distributor of The Cove along with Lionsgate, noted that "people are getting more used to seeing documentaries" and that "when the subject matter hits people, [a documentary] can work very broadly."

Without a doubt, The Cove has the potential to play very broadly indeed. It's the powerful story of the efforts of former dolphin trainer Richard O'Barry (the man who trained TV's beloved Flipper) to expose the wholesale slaughter of dolphins in the fishing town of Taiji, Japan. The film's director Louis Psihoyos, a National Geographic cinematographer and founder of the Ocean Preservation Society, joins a team of divers and technology experts in their dangerous mission to record this horrific practice, which has been covered up by the Japanese government.

Speaking of his experience, Psihoyos told the ShoWest audience, "It was like I walked into a Stephen King novel." His movie has the suspense of a high-tech thriller, while being an endearing love letter to our aquatic neighbors and an expose of the savage, pointless murders happening in Japan's notorious cove. And let's not even talk about the film's revelations about the potential for mercury poisoning in our food. The Cove will surely be one of the most acclaimed and watched documentaries of the year and, more importantly, a real agent for change in the Participant spirit.

Live 3D sports events win raves from Rave, Carmike and Empire

By Sarah Sluis

"I'm convinced this is the future. The business model has changed. The possibilities are endless."

Those are the words of Fred Van Noy, chief operating officer and senior VP of operations at Carmike Cinemas, speaking at Cinedigm's Live 3D presentation at ShoWest Thursday morning. Van Noy and two other exhibitors recounted their success with Cinedigm's recent live 3D offerings of the BCS Championship Game and the NBA All-Star Saturday Night, the first such national sports broadcasts in cinemas.

Tom Stephenson, president and CEO of Rave Motion Pictures, reported that the BCS event sold out in nine Rave locations and overall accounted for seven of the top ten grossing cinema attractions that night. What's more, concessions (which at Rave included beer, wine and nachos) posted an increase of $5.23 per patron.

Dean Leland, VP of studio and media relations at Canada's Empire Theatres, said his circuit charged $20 plus tax for the NBA spectacular at his Toronto location, and company research showed that many patrons drove in from other cities and said they would return for a similar experience.

Cinedigm COO Michele Martell reported some impressive stats for each event: The BCS game, she said, did 2000% more business than the number-one movie that day, while the NBA event earned 45% more than nine of the top ten movies that Saturday night.

The audience at ShoWest got a look at footage from both events, and the NBA highlights were particularly impressive, with multiple 3D angles on the action produced exclusively for theatres.

Van Noy noted that, with the help of Disney and ESPN, Carmike first experimented with a live 3D broadcast of a Morgantown, West Virginia home football game in 2005, and patrons willingly paid $10 to $12 for something they could see free at home on TV. The tailgate parties in the parking lot and the cheering crowds were Van Noy's first inkling that "we've got something here."

On opening weekend of Monsters vs. Aliens, Carmike purposely played the 3D animated feature on 110 2D screens in addition to its 439 3D screens for comparison purposes. The difference in business was striking, as high as 17 to 1 in one Carmike multiplex, Van Noy reported.

Rave's Stephenson encouraged his fellow exhibitors to come aboard the 3D train. That's where the business growth is, he asserted, as audiences get accustomed to a whole new brand of cinema experience.

3D all the rage at ShoWest

By Sarah Sluis

FJI Executive Editor Kevin Lally reports on movie highlights at the annual ShoWest Convention in Las Vegas.

The $59.3 million opening weekend for DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens was a timely prelude to the 3D programming that dominated the second day of ShoWest, the convention for the movie theatre business now taking place in Las Vegas. As if engaging in a game of one-upmanship with DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg and his fervent campaign to get cinemas on the 3D bandwagon, Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Group President Mark Zoradi hosted a nearly two-hour program highlighting Disney's ambitious slate of 17 3D films coming up in the next three years.

Zoradi revealed that the reconfigured 3D Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will debut as a double feature in a two-week limited engagement in October, whetting the public's appetite for Pixar's all-new 3D Toy Story 3 on June 18, 2010.

Meanwhile, Cars 2 in 3D will be preceded by a series of 3D shorts dubbed "Cars Toons." ShoWest delegates got an exclusive look at one such short, "Tokyo Mater," a fantasy in which the countrified tow truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy finds himself competing in a manic Tokyo drift race. It's fun to see the familiar Cars characters in a sleek, glittery Tokyo setting�an opportunity for director John Lasseter (and Pixar head honcho) to show his well-documented love for Japanese animation.

The Vegas audience also got to preview the opening sequence of Disney's 1991 classic Beauty and the Beast repurposed for 3D. It was a refreshing reminder of the charms of hand-drawn animation, here surprisingly smoothly adapted to the 3D medium, and the particular delights of the only animated feature ever nominated for Best Picture. I can't wait to see the whole movie in this new guise.

Disney is also reviving a property that laid some of the groundwork for today's computer animation�the experimental 1982 cult feature Tron, which placed live actors in a surreal game-racing environment. Zoradi showed a test sequence for the 21st-century Tron which showed lots of exciting potential, complete with the welcome return of the original movie's star, Jeff Bridges.

Zoradi also made note (without screening actual footage) of two upcoming 3D projects from major directors: Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture A Christmas Carol, with Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and all three of his ghostly intruders, and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which will combine live-action, motion-capture and CGI. Alice will also open on IMAX 3D screens.

The second half of the Disney program was a screening of the first 47 minutes of Pixar's first 3D feature, Up, which was recently chosen as the first animated and first 3D film to open the Cannes Film Festival. Director Pete Docter, of Monsters, Inc. fame, was on hand to enthusiastically introduce his handiwork. ShoWest forbids advance reviews of its screenings, but I think I can safely say this project is as original as we've come to expect from Pixar, and absolutely wonderful. In fact, I dare say the first ten minutes, which show the life story of the old man at the center of the tale, is as artful and poignant as any live-action sequence you'll see this year.

Docter noted that the Pixar folks consider all their films to be in 3D, but "we've just never showed them to you in stereo."

The Disney program went so long, lunch at the show was unusually late. But first, before we could eat, hosts Sony Pictures and RealD somewhat cruelly showed us two sequences from Sony's 3D adaptation of the popular children's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, in which a young scientist's experiment results in food raining down from the sky. The 3D effects looked great�particularly the meatballs plopping in the foreground�and kids should, please pardon the pun, eat it up.

Overgrown kids of all ages, particularly unrepentant frat-boy types, will love The Hangover, which director Todd Phillips of Old School and Road Trip fame previewed during the part of the morning session conducted by Warner Bros. Entertainment president and COO Alan Horn. Judging by its wild and funny trailer, this comedy about a bachelor party run amok is destined to be one of the surefire hits of the summer. Horn also brought on the energetic McG to show an extended trailer for his Terminator Salvation, which looks like an action bull's-eye, and the ever-wry Robert Downey, Jr. to tout the cheeky, big-budget, action-oriented approach to his next starring vehicle, Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes.

From the glimpses gained on ShoWest Day Two, it looks like the momentum of the movies in 2009 will be continuing for months to come.

81st Oscars get a lively makeover

By Sarah Sluis

This year the Academy promised to mix up the awards show, and the vibrancy and attempt to nix the

yawn-inducing moments was a success. Even their missteps made me laugh and supplied good Oscar party chatter, so in my opinion the Academy delivered. One of the biggest improvements was removing the clips that introduce each nominee in an acting category. The clips never really seemed to capture the performance, and the stars had to act humble and sheepish about their work when the camera would cut to them afterwards, which was incredibly boring. Replacing the clips with words of praise from a winner in that category (with five past award winners assigned to praise the five nominees) added to the sense that the winner would be joining a club, a legacy, and also focused on the compliment and honor of a nomination.

Oscar presentations are known for their cheesy, overlong musical numbers and montages, but, again, the ridiculous lyrics were at least entertaining. One of my favorite moments in the opening number was the bit on The Reader. Bowing to the fact that there is always at least one movie that no one has seen (and the box-office numbers support this fact), host Hugh Jackman merely intoned "The Reader...The Reader..." in a mechanical voice while the dancers did an abstract dance. Also, instead of longish clips from each of the Best Picture nominees, the producers showed montages/shorts surrounding a genre that included non-nominated films (and made you truly appreciate the fact that Hancock and Space Chimps did not receive nominations) The comedy bit (which Judd Apatow helped create) was strong, featuring the expected jokes about Milk and misplaced laughter at dramatic moments, but what stood out to me was the irreverence of laughing at film during an awards presentation that aims to elevate movies, which also happened earlier with the Reader bit. Curious.

This year had few tight races. Sean Penn's win for Best Actor over Mickey Rourke was one of the few surprising moments of the night, as many expected Rourke to win. The other upset, especially among those participating in Oscar pools, was the choice for Foreign Language Film. Japan's Departures won over the widely publicized Waltz with Bashir, which was considered a frontrunner, and The Class, another film that was more widely seen in the United States. For the smaller categories (also more difficult to predict in those Oscar pools) the Academy put effort into explaining the technical challenges of sound mixing, editing, and art direction. Adding award-specific props to the set enhanced the visual appeal of the telecast, which was also helped by the more intimate, rounded shape of the auditorium and the interplay between the audience and the stage (which I predicted). In the end, Slumdog Millionaire received eight awards, including Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay. Most-nominated Benjamin Button came away with makeup, art direction, and visual effects, a sign that the film's technical achievements just weren't matched on a narrative level. A predictor of its impending win, Slumdog received a box office boost of 10% this weekend, and will surely cross the $100 million mark next weekend, adding to the film's success.

'Storm' and 'High Life' highlight Berlin Film Festival

By Sarah Sluis

Guest correspondent Heike Scharrer reports on two standout films from the 2009 Berlin Film Festival, just concluded.

In the past decade, the Berlin Film Festival has become known as a launchpad for politically minded



cinema. This year was no exception, with political thrillers like Storm, the contribution of Berlin School director Hans-Christian Schmid, re-examining war crimes and human-rights violations in the former Yugoslavia.

Kerry Fox in 'Storm'

The film focuses on a lawsuit at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, which is scheduled to be shut down by 2010 due to lack of funding. Schmid provides thorough insight into the Tribunal's complex and often hidden bureaucratic system, while probing the role of justice in achieving reconciliation. The geographical complexity is complemented by an impressive multilingual cast hailing from countries ranging from Sweden and Denmark to Romania and New Zealand.

Hannah Maynard (Kerry Fox) leads the trial against Goran Duric, a commander of the Yugoslavian National Army who has been significantly involved in ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. However, it looks as if the trial will be cut short, as key witness Alen Hajdarevic (Kresimir Mikic) has committed suicide. Attending the funeral in Sarajevo, Hannah comes across Alen's sister Mira (Anamaria Marinca, star of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), who turns out to be a true witness to the deportations and rape of Bosnian Muslim women in the spa town of Vilina Kosa.

Sparked by this encounter, Hannah sees her chance to continue pursuing Duric, with Mira as a key witness in her game bag. But having just built herself a new life in Berlin, Mira is reluctant to join in; she doesn't want to put her family at risk. Slowly the two women make friends and, confronted by recurring memories of the incidents in Yugoslavia, Mira finally decides to put aside her private interests and testify against Duric.

Hannah faces bureaucratic obstacles and conflicting diplomatic and political interests. When colleagues within her own ranks bend to the bureaucratic machine, disallowing Mira's testimony, Hannah has to resolve the inner conflict between her idealism and the fulfillment of her institutional duties.

The character of Hannah is based on Carla del Ponte, The Hague's ambitious and largely successful female prosecutor. It's evident Schmid spent a great deal of time researching the subject, given the complexity and level of detail involved. Ultimately, the film's message is that justice depends on one's perspective.

Employing handheld camerawork and clinical, nondescript locations, Schmid strives for authenticity, the traditional documentary style in narrative filmmaking of the Berlin School, which idolizes directors like John Cassavetes. But Storm's aesthetics are as conventional as an average TV drama's; handheld camerawork is no longer a novelty. Schmid also shuns flashbacks to the incidents in the former Yugoslavia, which is consistent with the film's documentary style and avoidance of sensationalist traps.

***

Arriving in Berlin one year after Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, Gary Yates' genre film High Life offered a new angle on life in the Canadian provincial city of Winnipeg. Based on a play by Lee MacDougall, this upbeat black comedy follows four hapless small-time criminals trying to pull off a bank heist.

We find ourselves in Winnipeg in 1983, where it is supposedly so cold one might be better off being locked up in prison (where it's warmer). Dick, a slacker and morphine addict, has just started his first serious job in a real hospital when the past catches up with him. His mate Bug unexpectedly turns up at his workplace and gets him fired just like that.

The two lowlifes and their friends continue living out their pink morphine dreams in a warehouse loft, while hatching plots for the future. Dick is in urgent need of cash to get some more dope and pay back his mate who took his rap. A compelling idea soon arises: The ATM has just been invented, offering a chance to defy the cold hand of new technology. Donnie, another member of the clique, has already had experience with the new devices, as a pickpocket specializing in debit-card scams. Since he's a nice guy, he always returns the wallets to the original owners as "it's a disaster if you lose your purse." The three guys finally decide to face the challenge, joined by handsome womanizer Billy, who enjoys life as it comes�even when he finds himself bloodstained all over in a convenience store, he still has a flirting eye for the cashier girl. Surreal details, like a horse standing around in Dick's apartment during a drug session, seem perfectly at home in the dream world of the four protagonists.

The look of High Life is highly stylized and reminiscent of graphic novels, intensified by high-contrast lighting. This often leaves the faces of the actors slightly darker than their surroundings, with a light edge at the side�a common practice in graphic novels.

The color pink dominates the film. Pink is the color of sweet dreams and the morphine tablets that these amiable screwups are constantly consuming. The color pink also becomes their undoing as they try to get away with the bank notes, thanks to a color bomb which explodes, covering the protagonists in pink paint from head to toe and making the cash virtually useless.

High Life may not be utterly innovative, but it's an effective piece of contemporary genre filmmaking whose main strength is its amiable characters.

Sundance '09: Dispatch Two

By Sarah Sluis

Reporting from Park City, Utah, FJI contributor Daniel Steinhart lets us in on the films and acquistions of the Sundance Film Festival.

Even though attendance seems down his year, the Sundance Festival was in full swing Saturday night and all day Sunday. Shuttle buses were packed and Main Street in Park City was teeming with locals, tourists, cineastes and the odd celebrity.

At the festival's midpoint, favorites have emerged with rumors of buyers circling a half dozen films. Since the last update, Sony picked up the Blaxploitation homage Black Dynamite, Fox Searchlight signed a deal for the romantic drama Adam, and Magnolia Pictures nabbed Humpday (see previous post for my review of that film.)

In the Dramatic Competition, this viewer has yet to find anything on par with last year's impressive award-winner Ballast, which injected new life into American independent cinema. This year, Cherien Dabis' Amreeka looked to stand out from the crop of American indies. The film, actually a U.S.-Canadian-Kuwaiti co-production, follows a Palestinian divorce and her teenage son who emigrate to Illinois to live with relatives. They have high hopes for a new life of opportunity but arrive just as the U.S. invades Iraq, encountering prejudice and bad luck in their new home. Aiming to shed light on the effects of American aggression on the Arab diaspora in the U.S., the film doesn't offer much penetrating insight. Ultimately, the depiction of cultural differences and ignorance seems more in the service of melodramatic effects.

A different kind of cross-cultural story is offered up in Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls. Paul Giamatti plays a version of himself, an actor who finds it increasingly difficult to separate himself from his lead role in the Chekhov play Uncle Vanya. His solution is to have his soul extracted by a soul storage company. When his new soulless self produces only bad acting, he rents the soul of a depressed Russian poet, which seems to deliver the goods. In the meantime, his original soul is stolen away to Russia, where Giamatti must track it down. All of this should be original material, but the questioning of identity, the self-reflexive performance, and the mix of fantasy and comedy recall Being John Malkovich.

In the Documentary Competition, Jeff Stilson's Good Hair examines African-American hair culture with Chris Rock as guide. Like too many documentaries these days, the film uses a competition as a structuring device�in this case, an annual Atlanta hair battle with stylists staging ludicrous coiffures. This is the stuff of reality TV, but the film is thankfully saved by amusing tangents on the process of hair straightening and production of the weave.

Also in the Doc Comp, Tom DiCillo's When You're Strange serves as a personal love letter to Jim Morrison and the music of The Doors. This too could have been fodder for television, wherein band members and witnesses recount the formulaic rise, fall and redemptive coda of a rock star. Instead, DiCillo fashions his film entirely out of historical footage, overlaid with matter-of-fact narration. For Doors fans, the material will be familiar, but the concert and studio footage still holds amazing power. And it all moves with the driving rhythm of a song like "Not to Touch the Earth."

The World Dramatic Competition offered very strong work. Lone Scherfig's An Education has been one of the more highly anticipated films of the festival. This well-made British film tells the story of Jenny (wonderfully played by Carey Mulligan), a beautiful and intelligent 16-year-old who attracts the attention of an older and charming admirer (Peter Sarsgaard). Jenny, whose tastes and curiosity transcend her drab surroundings, is swept up by the worldliness of her suitor, but their infatuation comes at a devastating cost. The movie has many elements in the right place: a fine script by Nick Hornby, assured direction, and strong performances from its leads and supporting roles (Alfred Molina is particularly good as Jenny's father). This film will undoubtedly make its way to theaters and please crowds.

Another British film, Unmade Beds, takes a looser approach to love and longing. Made by Argentine director Alexis Dos Santos, the film is a nice evolution from his debut, Glue. While Glue focused on a punk teenager stuck in a dead-end Patagonian town, Unmade Beds opens up, exploring the lives of two foreigners searching for fulfillment in vibrant London. Axl is a young Spaniard in search of the father who abandoned him. Vera is a young Belgian reeling from a break-up and exploring a new romance. Both live in the same squat, yet their paths rarely cross, with objects�a mattress, a jacket, a Polaroid�connecting the two. Unmade Beds is episodic and a little nebulous, but Dos Santos brings an exciting, impressionistic style to the film and a natural sense of visuals and music. As Glue's soundtrack had me listening to the Violent Femmes' "Kiss Off" endlessly, this new film inspired me to put Good Shoes' "We Are Not the Same" on repeat. Not a bad way to pass the time on the bus between screenings.