Mickey Rooney, the man whose 90-year career was the longest any actor has ever enjoyed in Hollywood, and whose many starring roles included turns alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn and Judy Garland, among other industry greats, passed away Sunday. He was 93.
From an accepted legend to a tireless aspirant, we transition (is there a graceful way to do so?) from Rooney to James Franco. The latter raised eyebrows when he was caught soliciting a 17-year-old on Instagram last week. Naturally, the teen posted their exchange online, including some pretty damning Franco selfies that made it well near impossible for the actor to deny his involvment, should he have wanted to do so. (Franco went on to issue a public apology.) Was the social media stunt just that -- a stunt, timed to coincide with the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of his new movie, Palo Alto, in which Franco stars as, yup, an older man who hits on a teen? Or is James Franco an irredeamable creep?
Does it matter? Seth Abramson of Indiewire wants to know.
Well, we would like to know how soon in advance we can buy tickets to the Tina Fey film in which Amy Poehler just agreed to co-star, The Nest.
We're thrilled by the news, and equally excited by the prospect of uncovering the next powerhouse female comedy team. The new Females First initiative from Dazed and Confused may do just that. The magazine's femme-centric project asks industry veterans to judge works from aspiring female filmmakers, and to select one film they believe worthy of note. Jane Campion and Helen Mirren are among the stacked jury.
Octavia Spencer would make for a great addition to the Females First team, though, so far as we know, she is not involved. Too bad, because the actress has some pretty insightful things to say about the state of the marginalized in today's film industry.
Finally, we leave off with a story that didn't technically make this week's headlines, but which did form the basis for the recent British movie, U Want Me 2 Kill Him? (Longform.org posted the archived story this week, so it makes the cut.) Fascinating, unnerving stuff.
The 2014 Sundance Film Festival kicks off tomorrow in Park City, Utah, with another round of indie offerings from both the established set and those eager to break through its ranks. There’s a host of movies already generating the de rigueur advanced buzz, with Richard Linklater‘s latest (Boyhood), Zach Braff’s follow-up to 2004 Sundance favorite Garden State (Wish I Was Here), SNL alums Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader’s foray into drama (The Skeleton Twins), Amy Poehler’s spoof of the romantic comedy (They Came Together), and another John le Carré adaptation (A Most Wanted Man) among them.
Will any of the above ascend to the heights of classic Sundance premieres Clerks, Spanking the Monkey, Primer, or Little Miss Sunshine? The festival has been around in its current incarnation for nearly 30 years (prior to 1984 it was known as the Utah/US Film Festival). Within that time, it’s acted as a critical and popular launching pad for directors like Quentin Tarantino, David O. Russell and Steven Soderbergh. The golden girl who can do no wrong – or rather, when she does, we like her even more for it – Jennifer Lawrence got her first star turn in a Sundance hit, 2010’sWinter’s Bone. Last year, USC film grad Ryan Coogler stole the show with his assured feature debut and current awards contender, Fruitvale Station.
To get you in the mood for all the coverage about to burst forth from the Utah hills alive with the sound of applause, we’ve tailored today’s list to reflect the Sundance legacy. Here are 10 of the most important and beloved films to have emerged from the American movie showcase:
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) Streaming on Netflix? No Widely regarded as the film that started the modern indie movement, Steven Soderbergh’s writer-director debut, about four people navigating their complicated relationships, sex lives, and, yes, lying about the two, is considered a contemporary classic. Unfortunately, Videotape isn’t available on either Netflix or Amazon, though if you were to buy the DVD sight unseen, you can rest assured your investment would be a worthwhile one. You can never have too much of James Spader in his prime.
Reservoir Dogs (1992) Streaming on Netflix? Yes Before Tarantino became Tarantino, the kind of guy whose name doubles as an adjective (Tarantino style, Tarantino violence, Tarantino-esque) he was a first-time director and writer pushing a film that vigorously nodded to the pulpy classics he grew up idolizing. It was the precursor to what is still his best feature, Pulp Fiction, and the film demonstrates many of the director’s hallmarks. The music, those names, that ear-cutting dance… you can’t consider yourself a connoisseur of cult classics until you’ve seen Dogs.
Hoop Dreams (1994) Streaming on Netflix? Yes Like Sex, Lies, and Videotape before it, Hoop Dreams pushed genre boundaries, this time as they applied to documentary film. In an interview with writer Jason Guerrasio, director Steve James recalls one executive meeting in particular. Dreams wasn’t serious enough, James remembers this executive telling him in no uncertain terms, as documentaries at the time focused on “sobering” issues (because adult pressures placed upon the backs of children, and the difficulties of lifting oneself out of urban poverty, are light-hearted themes). Instead, should the film’s subjects suddenly become drug addicts, or get killed, or something, then James would have a picture. Thankfully, those things didn’t happen, and the director’s sprawling portrait of two aspiring basketball stars got made and acclaimed, anyway. Which just goes to show: Guns are not the answer.
Clerks (1994) Streaming on Netflix? Yes In the Darwinian or at least cinematic development of foundering twentysomethings, today’s hipsters evolved from yesterday’s Clerks. Kevin Smith’s day-in-the-life look at a 22-year-old slacker who comes in on his day off from work only to repeatedly close shop for various reasons, semi-legitimate and asinine alike, was a breakout comedic hit back in 1994. We were treated to deep thoughts on The Return of the Jedi as well as introduced to recurring Smith characters Jay and Silent Bob. The fact that the film was shot on a budget that would barely have covered shoe-strings for everyone involved, and took place in the store where Smith actually worked, only added to the avant garde indie aura surrounding Clerks.
Spanking the Monkey (1994) Streaming on Netflix? No One of the hottest directors in town first made waves with this darkly comedic take on a mother-son relationship. Raymond loses his prestigious medical internship and, increasingly, his grip on his life and longings when he is forced to stay home and care for his unhappy mother one steamy summer. David O. Russell’s memorable debut.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) Streaming on Netflix? No Available on Amazon Hedwig’s story is difficult to compress into one easy log line, but here’s a go: A transsexual punk rocker moves from East Berlin to the United States, where she falls in love with a shy musician who eventually makes off with her heart and songs. Great soundtrack, wonderful performances, and some seriously surreal pathos quickly turned Hedwig into that which Sundance does best: a cult classic.
Primer (2004) Streaming on Netflix? No Available on Amazon Former engineer Shane Carruth, who also holds a degree in math, refused to dumb down his film’s technical language and was subsequently applauded for the respect (or disregard, depending on your perspective) he afforded his audience. As you would expect, Primer is a tough film, which turns on questions of time, space, science, philosophy… and other minutiae. The movie was shot for an incredible $7,000 and still managed to achieve its lofty aims. It remains a testament to innovative filmmaking.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) Streaming on Netflix? No Available on Amazon With one of the best crowd-pleasing endings in years, Little Miss Sunshine first entertained Sundance attendees before it went on to charm the rest of the country. Throw a bunch of quirky family members into a van, shake well, and add a nicely timed pinch of Rick James. A recipe for comedic success.
Winter’s Bone (2010) Streaming on Netflix? DVD only Available on Amazon Or, the film in which Katniss Everdeen skins a rabbit. Winter’s Bone, of course, came out long before both Katniss and the actress who plays her, Jennifer Lawrence, became cultural reference points. Set among an impoverished clan living in the Ozarks, Bone follows 17-year-old Ree as she tries to track down her missing meth-addicted father before the authorities seize her family’s house. You can see the beginnings of an action star in Lawrence, whose character must hunt, fish, chop wood, care for her siblings, and otherwise weather harsh economic, to say nothing of emotional, conditions in order to survive.
Fruitvale Station (2013) Streaming on Netflix? No Available on Amazon Ryan Coogler was working towards a graduate degree in film at USC when 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot and killed by a policeman at the titular BART subway station in San Francisco. The tragedy inspired Coogler to write a movie about Oscar, imagining the victim’s last hours before the shooting. The resulting film, Coogler’s first feature, is a moving character study that plays with audience expectation: If you’re watching the movie, odds are you already know how the story ends, but that doesn’t stop you from improbably wishing things might turn out a little differently, this time. The ability to make people wish and hope on behalf of your character is a mighty fine talent. Coogler may one day join the ranks of acclaimed writer-directors about whom the organizers of Sundance can say: “I knew him when.”
Added bonus: Check out Vulture’s cache of classic Sundance photos here.
The industry news of the day is a far cry from the delights of watching the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler-hosted Golden Globes ceremony on Sunday. The telecast enjoyed its best ratings in seven years, thanks, in large part, to Fey and Poehler. But the realities of working females in Hollywood is nothing to smile about, so say the results of the annual “Celluloid Ceiling” survey released earlier today.
The employment survey focused on the top 250 domestic movies of 2013. According to the analysis, just 16 percent of the year’s 2,938 filmmakers were women, a figure that is down 2% from 2012. One of its unsurprising findings included a breakdown of employment by genre: women were most likely to be found working on drama, comedy and documentary films, and least likely to be found contributing to animation, horror and sci-fi projects.
Two major roles, those of director and writer, saw a decrease in women participants. The number of women directors currently stands at 6 percent, a downturn of 3 percent from 2012, while women make up 10 percent of working writers in Hollywood, down 5 percent.
As disheartening as it is to read a litany of these statistics, the female talent that is currently breaking through the ranks, bumping into that “celluloid ceiling” until it gives, is top-rate. There have been many articles written about the untapped wealth of women filmmakers, and they have inspired us to contribute our own small share of the positivity. The below list names just a few of the successful women working behind-the-scenes today, in roles that are indispensable to their lauded projects.
And for a great, thorough breakdown of female influence in Hollywood, take a read through indiewire’s “A to Z” list of women in film here.
Director: Nicole Holofcener, Enough Said The pack of talented directors whose 2013 films have been raking in award nominations and box-office receipts is undoubtedly one of the strongest in years. Steve McQueen, David O. Russell, Alfonso Cuaron… they have produced important, fun work all. But the acknowledgment of their talent doesn’t make it any less of a shame that an innovative, albeit unshowy director like Nicole Holofcener should get widely overlooked when it comes time to tip our hats to the best films of the year. Enough Said is small, quiet, awkward, funny, sad, awkward-funny, awkward-sad, and pretty darn true to life. We love that star Julia Louis-Dreyfus has received some well-deserved attention, but Holofcener should be running the awards circuit alongside her. We do have confidence, however, that someone with such a resonant voice can’t be marginalized forever, and Hollywood at large will eventually catch up.
Eventually.
Writers: Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith,Saving Mr. Banks It seems only natural that one of the best female roles of the year, the difficult and complex Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers, should have been written by two women. Saving Mr. Banks is a tough story to tell, as so much of the present action between Travers and Walt Disney is dependent upon an understanding of Travers’ past. Although some, like our critic David Noh, found the Banks script a little thin, Marcel and Smith succeeded in fully fleshing out the most important part of the film, Travers herself. It helped that they had feminist firebrand Emma Thompson to bring their character to life, too. Marcel will next tackle the hyped 50 Shades of Grey script. If that choice gives some female advocates pause, no one can say Marcel hasn’t landed one of the most hotly anticipated, and therefore most competitive, films of 2015.
Producer: Megan Ellison,American Hustle Ellison is a fascinating story, one which may warrant a film in its own right someday. The daughter of the third-richest man in America, software company Oracle Co-Founder Larry Ellison, 28-year-old Megan’s brief list of producing credits thus far is, frankly, ridiculous. True Grit, The Master,Spring Breakers, Zero Dark Thirty, Her, and, of course, American Hustle (you might have noticed her up on stage with the rest of the cast when Hustle won for Best Musical or Comedy at the Globes Sunday night), to name just a few. As a 2013 story in Vanity Fair recounts, when Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal were seeking financing for Zero Dark Thirty, trying to find backers for their film outside of the major studios, Ellison offered to write a check for the movie’s entire budget herself. Lest you think Ellison is one who simply likes to swing her weight about with the help of Daddy’s hefty checkbook, however, the aforementioned list of projects testifies to the fact that she has a nose for this kind of thing. She’s currently working on the new Terminator reboot series, and the Seth Rogen-penned animated comedy, Sausage Party. Starting off with money helps, of course, but clearly Ellison knows how to make her own.
Editor: Thelma Schoonmaker,The Wolf of Wall Street Behind every successful man is a woman, and behind every successful director is an editor. You’ve got both in the person of Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese’s longtime collaborator. The 73-year-old Schoonmaker is the recipient of three Oscars herself, for Raging Bull, The Aviator, and The Departed, accolades that only underscore the fact that without her, there would be no heralded Scorsese oeuvre. More recently, there would be no Wolf of Wall Street if Schoonmaker hadn’t worked tirelessly to cut the film down to its current runtime of 179 minutes. In an interview with Variety, Schoonmaker admitted the final stretch of cutting Wolf was “particularly horrendous.” But does she mind not being front-and-center alongside Scorsese, mind never having directed a picture herself? “I think if I was working on disappointing films, well maybe” she would direct, she muses. “But I get this wonderful treasure trove. How many editors can say that?”
Cinematographer: Rachel Morrison,Fruitvale Station Young film student and director Ryan Coogler may be the hot topic of conversation surrounding Fruitvale Station, but, like Schoonmaker, without Morrison’s expertise, there would have been no Fruitvale Station, and no breakout for Coogler. Morrison has been carving out her niche in one of the industry’s most male-dominated roles (which is saying something), cinematography, since 2002. She’s worked on kitschy TV series “Room Raiders” and “The Hills,” and, more recently, on the Alan Cumming indie Any Day Now. But it was her collaboration with Coogler that brought her work to a broader audience, a coup that will hopefully land her more of the same interesting, progressive projects in the future.
