Remembering Stanley Kauffmann: a sampling of his works

Acclaimed film critic Stanley Kauffmann, whom the late Roger Ebert called “the most valuable film critic in America,” passed away from pneumonia earlier today. He was 97.

As Variety notes, Kauffmann may not be the most famous of the “Film Generation” critics (who include Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris), but his wit, insight and erudition – not to mention the assured manner with which this author of several novels and plays wrote euphonic, prose-like reviews – has earned him the mantle of cult favorite.  His career included a stop as chief drama critic for The New York Times and a long-held, beloved position as film critic for The New Republic. Kauffmann initially started off as an editor at Bantam Books, however. It wasn’t until he read a film review by William Tory of The Nation during the early 1930s that Kauffman came to appreciate the literary possibilities of film criticism. The realization that movies were as legitimate an art form as theater or books and so worthy of serious criticism was a revelation.

“I’m not sure that my jaw actually dropped, but that’s the feeling I remember,” Kauffmann wrote.

To cull through and annotate the very best of Stanley Kauffmann’s extensive film oeuvre would be a Sisyphean, though worthy, task. In the interests of remembering this accomplished forerunner of the work we love – film reviewing – however, we have compiled a brief if eccentric list (admittedly skewed toward my own tastes) of several of his reviews.

The following is a sampling of Kauffmann’s opinions on both famous and smaller works spanning the 1960s to the present day:

8 ½ (The New Republic, 1963)

My Fair Lady (The New Republic, 1964)

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (NYT, 1966)

The Departed (The New Republic, 2006)

Amour/Barbara/Beasts Of The Southern Wild (The New Republic,
2012)

Do you have favorite Stanley Kauffmann pieces of your own? We'd love to hear - and post! - your top reviews.

 

Oscar nominations reveal competing visions of America

What makes a film the "Best Picture" of the year? When it comes to the Oscars, it's not enough to be the most cinematically innovative or critical favorite. The movies also must be the kind those in the industry and out can look at and say, "Now this is why Hollywood movies matter." It's a rather inclusive test, but nevertheless one many films do not pass. This morning's Oscar nominations have a fair number of surprises and snubs, in a year that includes a number of incredibly strong films. They also offer competing visions of  America and Americans--even when the subject matter is foreigners. Go figure.

Lincoln led the nominations with twelve notices, including Best Director for Steven Spielberg and Best Picture. It's considered the favorite for Best Picture, but it's also the most "safe" movie. Lincoln is about showing an America everyone can be proud of. Lincoln is one of our finest presidents, and
attempts by the script to humanize him only show how much he accomplished in the face of adversity and weariness. Even nearly 150 years after the Civil War, the movie's message is progressive. All men are created equal--under the eyes of the law, Thaddeus Stevens finally concedes. Even today, that vision is still short of reality.

Beasts of the Southern Wild shows us inequality, but then offers us a hopeful vision in spite of adversity. If you can look through the strained father-daughter relationship, the misguided efforts of rescue workers, and some heavy drinking, you can see that Beasts also offers a vision of America to be proud of. The world outside the movie's Louisiana Bathtub may be harsh and cruel to those inside, but the residents exemplify the characteristics we Americans hold so dear. Self-reliance, independence, vibrant
culture, and strength in the face of adversity. Academy voters gave the film three important nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actress for Quvenzhané Wallis, is the youngest nominee in history Along with Amour, Beasts "took" a Best Director spot away from previous winners Tom Hooper and Kathryn Bigelow, who were considered strong candidates for the nomination. Lincoln will always be a bit on a pedestal, but Beasts takes that pedestal, chops it up, and uses it to keep out hurricane winds.

Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are both about intelligence operations abroad, but they couldn't be more different. Argo champions playful ingenuity. The glitz and glamour of a Hollywood shoot just serve as a smokescreen to get trapped Americans out of Iran during the hostage crisis. There's great style, music, and a cowboy attitude prevails. The movie inspired vocal reactions among those
watching in theatres, and it's hard not to leave without a gushing pride that America was clever and renegade enough to pull this off. This is a story of unequivocal pride, in the manner of Lincoln. Zero Dark Thirty is the equivalent of Beasts. It shows that terrorism begets torture. The CIA is ruthlessly efficient and technologically advanced. The battle against bin Laden is won, but this movie lets us know just how high the costs were. This wasn't just about personal sacrifice, but a sacrifice our nation made in the quest of vengeance. That's a message that hasn't sat well with everyone. After doing extremely well among critics' groups, the movie has picked up some
heat from politicians denouncing the movie.

"It’s
impossible to leave this movie untroubled by the contemporary
parallels...[to author Victor] Hugo’s progressive political and moral concerns," noted Wendy R. Weinstein in her review of Les Misérables. Sure, maybe the movie would have been a hit nevertheless, but two of the other most successful musicals in recent years (Chicago and Dreamgirls) tackled big questions about fame and the American experience. As the country lifts from recession and questions topics like the incarceration of people of color who have committed minor drug offenses, for example, it recalls Jean Valjeans's life-ending punishment for stealing a loaf of bread. Like Lincoln, Les Misérables shows us that the search for justice and equality can be a never-ending process.

Which story will triumph when the statuettes are doled out? The film that wins Best Director nearly always wins Best Picture. This year, three frontrunners aren't even nominated: Les Misérables, Argo, and especially Zero Dark Thirty. Does this mean that Lincoln will win? In a year of films that spoke to the American experience, this one is the sturdiest and most uncontroversial. But the nominees that stand beside it share ultimately triumphant views of what it means to be an American, a human in society. When victories come, they are always qualified, and always at some cost. This isn't a year of fairy tales, but it does have the strongest slate of nominees in recent memory, one where multiple films can be heralded as examples of why movies matter.

Sarah Sluis' Top Ten Movies of 2012

2012 has been a great year for big Hollywood films. In 2009, 2010 and 2011, my top ten lists were stocked with underdogs and the kind of specialty fare that only sometimes made it big at the box office. This year, most of the "specialty" releases I selected are destined for expansion and great play in theatres, so I'm a little light on the underdogs. The list reflects only the movies I saw in theatres this year: 70, a number many critics could easily double. In no particular order, here are my top ten:

1. Zero Dark Thirty. The biggest surprise for me was that the film's protagonist, Maya, was female, "a woman clothed, like Athena, in willful strength and intellectual armor," as described by The New Yorker's David Denby. She's the kind of female protagonist you don't realize is rare until you see her up on the screen. Beyond Maya (played expertly by Jessica Chastain), director Kathryn Bigelow lays out an incredibly detailed account of the years leading up to Bin Laden's death that feels real, immediate, and important. It's a cinematic (and partly fictional) version of reading The 9/11 Comission Report.

2. Next to Maya, Gina Carano was the second most awesome female protagonist of the year in Haywire. The lean spy actioner had some of the most riveting, realistic fighting I've ever seen. Like Zero Dark Thirty, there's a lot that director Steven Soderbergh didn't bother to explain. I like a story where a filmmaker or actor has the courage or confidence not to show something, and this movie was one of them.

3. Flight showed little restraint. The final minutes added a moralizing touch that felt old-fashioned and uncomfortable. Like the car crash scene in Adaptation, Flight has one of the best action sequences ever appearing in a drama. It stays with you for the rest of the film. Another great movie about alcoholism that didn't quite make the list, Smashed, is an interesting companion piece: substitute a plane crash for a faked pregnancy and you end up with a quite similar character arc.

4. Argo was so much fun to watch. Even though I had read the magazine article that was the source material and knew the end plane sequence didn't really happen, it managed to combine real drama with comedy in a way that so few others have. I think this is why audiences finally returned to the "box-office poison" of Middle East-set features. This one had you clapping and gasping in suspense, but it also had great laughs and didn't take itself too seriously.

5. The documentary Searching for Sugar Man centered on folk musician Rodriguez, a man so befuddling and enigmatic it was hard to wrap your mind around him. But that's why I like documentaries: They can offer character portraits that would never work in fiction films, because audiences would find them too frustrating. Some key would need to be provided to the audience to unlock his or her motivations. But we never get one for Rodriguez, whose life as both a star and an aesthete becomes a koan on character and fame for the audience to meditate on. In one forest, Rodriguez's music fell on deaf ears. In another (South Africa), it became a symbol of cultural revolution.

6. Les Misérables promises to shake up the way musicals are filmed for the screen. The live recordings of the actors strip away the distance that always seems to crop up in musicals. Sure, Les Misérables is one of my favorite musicals, but that only raises expectations. Mine were met, and then some.

7. Beasts of the Southern Wild may also change the world of indie film. I'd rather have a crop of indie imitators try to tackle a project like this than sit through another Mumblecore, but given the immense resolve required of those who soldiered through the bayou-set production, I doubt there will be too many. Beasts opened up dialogue about New Orleans and Katrina and made the experience of seeing a movie feel new again. For that, it gets a spot in the top ten.

8. I'm still not quite sure what to think about Django Unchained. I admire director Quentin Tarantino for traversing into the quicksand territory that is race relations and America's history of slavery. So far, people have only taken issue with small things, like the use of the N-word. Surely more thoughtful cultural critiques are to come. What I remember most about Django is its use of guided awe. Django (Jamie Foxx) rides into town on a horse, prompting head-turning stares from every person in town. A black person on a horse? Tarantino draws attentions to anachronisms, but the emotions of hatred and revenge never feel far removed from the present.

9. I don't ever want to see The Impossible again, but its account of a family torn apart by the tsunami in Thailand was harrowing and intimate. It was essentially a two-hour ordeal of getting choked up and holding back tears. Those in search of an emotional ravaging need to look no further.

10. Everyone seems to be hating The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey but I thought it was a nice solid Hobbit meal. Suddenly, Lord of the Rings made sense to me. With fewer deaths and a lighter tone, this is the kind of fantasy adventure that would have been a great kickoff to the film series. The Harry Potter books started off light and got darker and darker, and the same holds true for The Hobbit. This one was actually still close to the Prisoners of Azkaban-level in terms of darkness, but the movie makes my list just because it's such a relief to finally get a series I never really latched onto.

 

Gotham Awards favor 'Beasts of the Southern Wild,' but 'Moonrise Kingdom' wins top prize

The first awards results are in. At last night's Gotham Awards, Beasts of the Southern Wild won two prizes. Both were for director Benh Zeitlin, who won both the Breakthrough Director award and the Bingham Ray award, which comes with a check for $25,000. However, the top prize for Best Feature went to Moonrise Kingdom.

Both films have the potential to grab a Best Picture nomination in the Oscar race. On GoldDerby, Beasts of the Southern Wild appears more frequently than Moonrise Kingdom in the critics' top ten picks for the Best Picture nod. Both pictures generally appear in the last few spots, below heavyweight frontrunners like Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, Lincoln and Les Miserables. Last year's co-winner for Best Feature at the Gotham Awards, The Tree of Life, earned a Best Picture nomination, so Gotham Awards can predict what happens at the Oscars. The question is if Beasts and Moonrise will end up with a spot on the Best Picture list, or if just one will prevail.

From a story standpoint, both Anderson and Zeitlin have a narrative that fits with a nomination. Moonrise director Wes Anderson has been nominated twice before, once for "Best Animated
Feature" for Fantastic Mr. Fox and a decade ago for his screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums. His latest was a summer hit, earning $45 million and reinvigorating his reputation. What better time for the Academy to reward him? In contrast, Zeitlin made his debut feature completely outside the Hollywood system, and the result astonished critics and audiences. For Zeitlin and Beasts, a nomination would be a feel-good story about a rise to fame. But will the Academy want to embrace something done on such a shoestring budget, with no guilds or Hollywood professionals involved? For both the movie and the outside story, my money's on Beasts of the Southern Wild, not Moonrise Kingdom. But enough people disagree with me that this year's Best Picture picks will be a nail-biting surprise.

'Ted' mines comedy gold with surprise $54 million weekend

Nearly doubling industry estimates, Ted scored big with a $54.1 million gross this weekend. In comparison, 2009's The Hangover debuted to $44 million. That means Ted has set the new record for an opening of a non-sequel, R-rated comedy. Not only did it earn a lot of money, audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore. I'm sure Universal will want to follow up this comedy's $50 million weekend with a sequel, so there may be a Ted 2 a couple of summers from now.

For the first time ever, two R-rated comedies opened above $20 million. Magic Mike beat that figure by a lot, earning $39.1 million crumpled one-dollar bills in just three days. Channing Tatum stars as a male stripper with big dreams in this Steven Soderbergh-directed flick, which appears to have delighted both critics (78% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) and audiences. Both Ted and Magic Mike are set up for strong follow-up weekends thanks to the Fourth of July holiday.

Most expected Disney's Brave to spend a second weekend in first place, but instead the feature dropped 48%, on the high side for animated movies. That left the princess movie with $34 million over the three-day period. Still, with kids out of school this feature will perform well on weekdays. In fact, it's already earned double its opening weekend (for a total of $134 million) due to strong performance Monday through Thursday.

In fourth place, Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection grabbed $26.2 million, also on the high side of expectations. Lionsgate reported that Perry's audiences are normally 80% black, but the casting of Eugene Levy and Denise Richards made the comedy more of a crossover hit, with the figure plateauing at 70%. One thing remained the same. Perry's pictures are beloved by females, who represented around 70% of the audience.

Squeaking into tenth place, the family drama People Like Us earned just $4.3 million. Audiences gave it a so-so B rating in exit polls.

Critical darling Beasts of the Southern Wild averaged $42,000 per screen in four locations over the weekend, a robust start for the Louisiana-set tale.

Moonrise Kingdom, which made a national, 854-screen push, brought in $4.8 million. This made the Wes Anderson-directed film his second-highest grossing feature to date. The Royal Tenenbaums earned $52 million in 2001.

Tomorrow, The Amazing Spider-Man will get a head start on Fourth of July crowds. The 3D concert doc Katy Perry: Part of Me will follow on Thursday, and Oliver Stone's Savages will open on Friday.

R-rated 'Ted' and 'Magic Mike' aim for adult fun

Earlier this summer, just one wide release was opening every weekend. This week there are four. Each of these 2,000 to 3,000-screen releases, however, will have a hard time beating last weekend's Brave, which is in release on over 4,000 screens. The animated Pixar film opened to $66 million, so even a 50% drop will leave it above $30 million.

Ted (3,239 theatres) has the widest release of the bunch. I attended the screening with a Seth MacFarlane fan who was disappointed with the "Family Guy" creator's feature writing/directing debut. The fantasy concept of a foul-mouthed teddy bear and his adult best friend is pulled off with ease. The big surprise is that the comedy feels like a conventional rom-com, albeit with a talking teddy bear as the third wheel and romantic obstacle. FJI's Michael Sauter was more receptive to the "comedy, [which] wants to simultaneously shock, delight and knock you a little bit sideways," and predicts it will be a "smashing success." If its predicted opening in the high $20 millions counts, Ted may be just that.

Channing Tatum was actually a male stripper, and probably a good one too. He shows off his impressive dance skills and flips in Magic Mike (2,930 theatres). Steven Soderbergh directs the dance-fueled drama, which has received generally good notices from critics. FJI's David Noh disagrees. Except for Tatum, he wasn't intrigued by the dancers or their moves, and feels the whole movie has a "strange lack of sexiness." Cinema Blend's Katey Rich came out positively for the feature, noting that with its message "about dreams that curdle and get deferred, about how you need more money than what's stuffed in a G-string to make it in this world, but how those $1 bills can make it easier to wait" could have been "disastrous when combined," but "Soderbergh makes it look easy." During Thursday midnight screenings, Ted earned $2.6 million and Magic Mike $2.1 million, so both R-rated flicks are set to perform well over the course of the weekend.

A man finds out he has a half-sister after his father's passing in People Like Us (2,055 theatres). "Enough honest hurt pokes through to make it impossible to dismiss the film outright," FJI critic Daniel Eagan says of the "sentimental" film featuring soul-baring that's "simultaneously moving and manipulative." With a kind of generic premise and not a lot of marketing support, it could be tough for this drama to even crack $10 million.

Tyler Perry's signature funny grandma character returns in Madea's Witness Protection (2,161 theatres). Audiences have slightly tired of Perry's outings lately, but loyal fans should bring the comedy's opening above $20 million. The recession-influenced tale includes a church that was ripped off by duplicitous investors, a ripped-from-the-headlines premise that could pull in additional viewers.

Sundance prizewinner Beasts of the Southern Wild (4 theatres) opened on Wednesday, when it earned $6,700 per screen. That's not particularly high, but the weekend will be the true test for the unusual, expressionistic drama. Some are saying its box-office target will be similar to the one for Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, another Fox Searchlight release which ended up with $13 million last summer.

Also in the specialty mix this weekend is Take This Waltz (2 theatres), an unwieldy exploration of a love triangle that left me with mixed feelings. I found most of the film boring but really liked the ending (when it finally happened). Moonrise Kingdom expands to 854 theatres this weekend. I've seen plenty of TV ads supporting the expansion, which I predict will unfold quite well for the strongly-performing release.

On Monday, we'll see which of the four releases broke from the pack, and if Beasts' debut adds more momentum to its critical buzz.

Fox Searchlight picks up 'Beasts,' 'Surrogate' at Sundance

For film buffs not attending the Sundance Film Festival, the hardest part is hearing the great raves for a film you might not be able to see for months, if not a year. This year's Sundance market has been hot for pickups. Fox Searchlight has picked up two high-profile films so far at the festival. Fortunately, both are set to release theatrically later this year.

Beasts of the Southern Wild. The director of this movie, Benh Zeitlin, actually graduated from my college a couple years before me. His talent was evident. His thesis film, "Egg," a stop-motion, silent, animated recreation of Moby Dick taking place inside an egg that itself was about to be destroyed, was a sight to behold. It later won the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance. 

Beasts reportedly has a similar fantastical bent, with Variety calling it a "stunning debut" and THR naming it "one of the most striking films ever to debut at the Sundance Film Festival." Set in New Orleans and starring a poor black girl, the movie likely offers oblique commentary on the post-Katrina landscape. Fox Searchlight paid $6 million for the pickup, a high but not record figure.

The Surrogate. John Hawkes stars as a man confined to an iron lung who wants to lose his virginity. The plot sounds sad, but THR reassures that the movie is more similar to The King's Speech than The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. In his review, Todd McCarthy characterizes the 1980s-set movie as a "feel-good fairytale," a "cheerful" story that "argues in favor of living a full life, whatever one’s personal constraints." Still, an iron lung sounds tougher to market than a king with a lisp, but the message could have a nice awards resonance. Searchlight is also planning a 2012 release.

I'll continue to report on the Sundance films that have been picked up to open in a theatre near you.