December 11, 2008 – 11:12 am
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced its list of 2008 Golden Globe nominees this morning. Leading the pack in nominations: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Doubt" and "Frost/Nixon" with five nominations and "The Reader," "Revolutionary Road," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Slumdog Millionaire" with four noms. TCFF goers will remember "Vicky," Woody Allen's latest, as the film that opened the festival this year, while "Slumdog" (which has been garnering unanimous critical acclaim) will begin its run at the State Christmas Day.
Other movies that played at the State Theatre this year that made the nominee list: "In Bruges" (one of my favorite films of 2008) - three nominations, "Happy-Go-Lucky" - two nominations, "Mamma Mia!' - two nominations, "Wall-E" - two nominations, and "The Dark Knight" - one nomination. There are also a few films on the list that have first-runs coming up at the State in the next month or so, including "Milk" and "The Wrestler." (Keep an eye on the State schedule for more details coming soon.)
This has been a strong year in cinema - there's hardly a choice in the HFPA's list I disagree with. My one disappointment is that "Dark Knight" didn't get a Best Picture nod, though I was glad to see Heath Ledger get recognized (Best Supporting Actor nom) for his turn as the Joker. I know "Knight" is a comic book movie, a genre anathema to HFPA and the Academy - however, not only is Chris Nolan's film one of the best comic book movies ever made, it stands on its own as a dark examination of morality, insanity, and the degrees of good and evil that coexist in every human being. It'll be interesting to see if "Watchmen" has any better luck during awards season next year, or if "Knight" will still get its proper dues from the Academy or the critic circles who haven't announced their picks yet for 2008.
The 2008 Golden Globe Awards ceremony will air live on Sunday, January 11 at 8:00 p.m. on NBC. To view the complete list of nominees, click here.
December 2, 2008 – 12:33 am
The cynic in me hates to admit it, but if I have to choose between optimism and pessimism, I go for the glass that's half-full every time. Life's too beautiful and short to entertain prolonged doom-and-gloom about our pithy existence on this planet. However, a few decades around other humans can give almost anyone pause about the redeeming value of mankind - which is why I generally find relentless optimism nearly as maddening as unremitting pessimism. The key is moderation: to feel hopeful about the future, yes, but to also acknowledge the rough patches and jerks that can make the journey so damn unbearable along the way.
Sally Hawkins as Poppy in "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Poppy, the heroine of Mike Leigh's new film "Happy-Go-Lucky," is not someone I'd spend time with in real life. This much I could tell from the trailer. Aggressively cheerful, upbeat to a fault, Poppy spends her days perpetually peering through rose-colored glasses. In situations where no one should react positively - having your bike stolen, for example - her smile barely wavers. It's the kind of personality that'd drive you crazy on an airplane, and yet - Poppy easily (and quite satisfactorily) fills 120 minutes of screen time.
Much is being made of Sally Hawkins' performance in this film, and she is indeed a revelation as Poppy. But credit must also go to director Mike Leigh, who's famous for allowing his actors an enormous amount of improvisational leeway, and to a few subtle but important dark undercurrents in the screenplay that provide necessary tension between Poppy's idealism and the sordid unpleasantness of real life. Particularly key is Eddie Marsan, who plays Poppy's embittered and angry driving instructor. Polar opposites of one another, the two engage in a seemingly innocous but heated series of debates during Poppy's lessons, until their final encounter during the third act, which takes an unexpectedly serious and heartwrenching turn. Marsan is brilliant in this scene, hinting at past traumas and unleashed rage that Poppy can only begin to guess at understanding. Her climatic realization that she can't, in fact, make everyone happy adds a crucial layer of levity to an otherwise joyous, infectious performance.
As with many films with rich characters, "Happy-Go-Lucky" is light on plot, focusing instead on the development and interaction of its narrative stars. Fortunately, the characters in this film are so entertaining and complex, you're more than happy to sit back and watch as they meet up at pubs, gossip in coffee shops and go about their day-to-day lives. You'll undoubtedly hear a lot about Sally Hawkins this awards season; watching her exuberant Poppy come to life on screen, it's easy to understand why.
"Happy-Go-Lucky" is playing at the State through Thursday. For showtimes and ticket information, click here.
November 29, 2008 – 2:55 pm
Congratulations to the St. Francis Warriors, who won their Division 7 state championship football game against the Ubly Bearcats this morning. Thanks to a great offense by the Warriors and a number of critical errors by the Bearcats, St. Francis handily won the title, 41-13. The game was broadcast live to a standing room-only crowd at the State Theatre.
Last year's Warriors championship game at the State
Photo courtesy Jan-Michael Stump/TC Record-Eagle
From football games to presidential debates to the Met Opera to the latest in independent and classic films, the State is the premier community gathering place for the Northwest Michigan region. For a complete schedule of upcoming events at the State, click here.
November 14, 2008 – 3:30 pm
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Traverse City Record-Eagle, the State Theatre is showing five of the best newspaper-themed films of all time this week. It's a stellar lineup, including a number of films with personal significance to me and a few can't miss-events for film lovers, starting with the granddaddy of cinema itself.
1. "Citizen Kane" - Sunday, November 16 at 6:00 p.m.
What do you say about this film that hasn't already been said? It's impossible to call yourself a movie buff and not have seen "Citizen Kane." On a personal level, Orson Welles has singlehandedly driven my obsessive need to achieve since I first saw the film at age 17. If nothing else, he's a great benchmark to measure your mid-20s by (as in - "Orson Welles made 'Citizen Kane' when he was 26, and I can barely decide if I want to get off the couch and jog today. Real inspiring, Milligan.") To pass on the opportunity to see this film on the big screen is almost a crime against cinema itself. Expect a full house Sunday night.
2. "Newsies" - Monday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Here's where the personal revelations start to get embarassing. "Newsies" is one of those films no adult should ever admit to liking. Period. However - I've had enough conversations where someone accidentally mentions it, there's an awkward pause where everyone decides how to react, and then someone bursts into "Sante Fe" to know that a frightening number of us do, in fact, like it. Not even just like - love. Nonsensical, creepy (what was that prostitute doing with those 12-year-old boys?) and over-the-top cheesy, "Newsies" nonetheless remains my highwater mark for Disney musicals. (I mean, just look at that poster. That is the Dark Knight himself doing a leaping pirouette off a stack of newspapers, people. It doesn't get any better than that.)
3. "Deadline - U.S.A." - Tuesday, November 18 at 7:30 p.m.
If ever there's a compelling reason to visit the theater, it's to see a lost treasure that's not available anywhere else on video or DVD. Enter "Deadline - U.S.A.", a great Humphrey Bogart film that inexplicably remains unavailable to moviegoers 56 years later, except for movie screenings like this one. Humphrey takes on a racketeering gangster and tries to close out his newspaper with a bang in this suspenseful and realistic take on the newspaper world in the 1950s.
4. "The Year of Living Dangerously" - Wednesday, November 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Back before Mel Gibson swerved off the racist/religious deep end, he was making some pretty great films in the '80s and early '90s. One of those films was "The Year of Living Dangerously," the story of a young foreign correspondent who gets caught up in a love affair while covering the political turmoil of Indonesia. Featuring an Oscar-winning turn by actress Linda Hunt, this is a classic entry in the journalism film canon.
5. "All the President's Men" - Thursday, November 21 at 7:00 p.m.
What does it take to convince a high school senior that journalism, not marine biology, is the career she should be pursuing? For me, it came down to a combination of working on the high school newspaper and watching "All the President's Men." The journalism gene had been hereditarily present, but until the day I saw Redford and Hoffman wearily pounding the streets, shaking down Deep Throat and pursuing a dangerous and top-secret government story, the gene lay dormant. No more after that. "All the President's Men" remains an inspiration for generations of investigative journalists - even after leaving the newspaper world to focus on marketing, I still get the urge to give it all up and make peanuts chasing leads every time I watch this film.
Regular ticket prices apply for all films in the Newspaper Film Festival. For a complete listing of movies and showtimes at the State, click here.
September 27, 2008 – 2:22 pm
There's a great article in this month's issue of Moving Pictures Magazine about the Traverse City Film Festival. Author Judy Sandra gives background on the festival, talks about film and guest highlights from this year's event and shares her thoughts on the 2008 lineup. You can check out the article online at the MPM website - just click here: "2008 Traverse City Film Festival: Just Great Movies."
September 18, 2008 – 2:16 pm
Musical comedy goes divine in "Hamlet 2"
There will be a free screening of our hilarious first-run feature, "Hamlet 2," for high school and college students tonight at 7 p.m. at the State. The screening is sponsored by Northwestern Michigan College. This also happens to be our last screening of "Hamlet 2" at the State - the fantastic French thriller "Tell No One" opens tomorrow. Non-students can still attend tonight's screening at regular price. (Oh, and if you're wondering what all the "Rock Me Sexy Jesus" chatter is about, I can promise you - it's even funnier and more irreverent than it sounds.)
Come down and check it out!
September 11, 2008 – 12:37 pm
Television, in particular news television, has become increasingly problematic the past several years. While some would argue the popularity of 24-hour news channels like CNN and Fox News means a higher percentage of Americans are tuned in to current events, others have countered (like the directors of "War Made Easy") that the coverage offered on these networks is cursory, shallow and focused on sensationalism rather than hard-hitting news. After awhile, consuming a steady diet of network journalism becomes a little like having ice cream for every meal; you're eating, but you're sure as hell not getting nourished.
I first noticed this proclivity to ingest serious news stories with the same "entertain me now!" demands normally reserved for VH1 during, of all shameful occasions, Hurricane Katrina. The networks did their best to present the horrifying footage coming out of New Orleans in as sober a manner as the events deserved, but the same flashing graphics, orchestrated intro music and breathless headlines that dominate a story on say, Brangelina adopting another kid, also ushered in clips of levees breaking and a major U.S. city drowning before the nation's eyes. Like so many others, I felt heartsick and hopeless by what I saw, but I also felt angry with myself for feeling - with no other word to describe it, in the most crass meaning of the term - entertained by the coverage.
Flooded New Orleans
As I sat glued to my television, riveted by the images that were streaming in, I realized my strong feelings of compassion and grief seemed driven less by an authentic connection to what was happening than the kind of faux sadness that occurs when you're watching some tragic post-apocalyptic movie. I couldn't break through the cable media package to get to the heart of the hurricane; years of watching every news topic (regardless of how irrelevant) treated with equal frenzied importance had desensitized me to the point that I had become a greedy consumer, on the prowl for the next juicy sound bite. The disgust I felt with myself inspired me to begin seeking out independent news outlets for more substantial coverage of Katrina; from that day since, I have maintained a regular diet of indie news meals, with an occasional stop at the CNN ice cream store for dessert.
Filmmakers Carl Deal & Tia Lessin
I also discovered documentary films along the way, a great source of protein-filled sustenance in otherwise lean times. In "Trouble the Water," a new doc by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal that played at this year's film festival, the directors accomplish what few in the media ever managed to do during Katrina - they put their viewers not only physically but emotionally into the eye of the hurricane. Using found footage from a charismatic, poverty-stricken female rapper in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, Lessin and Deal throw us smack dab into the nervous pre-storm banter of neighbors who couldn't get out of the city, the slow dawning of horror in the ward's residents as the wind begins to howl and the waters start to rise, and the desperate life-or-death struggle for survival when the levees finally break and a few loose shingles on the roof are all most people have to hold onto. Recordings of 911 calls highlight bone-chilling conversations between frantic residents trapped in their homes and dispassionate responders intoning, "I'm sorry, no one is coming out to rescue at this time." Helpless, one elderly woman finally whispers, "I'm going to die, then," and the silence on the other end of the line seems to confirm that yes, she probably will.
Rapper Kimberly Rivers Robert & husband Scott ride out the storm in "Trouble the Water"
This is the Katrina I could never get my arms around back on those hot August afternoons in front of my television. These are the details, so small in the scope of the disaster and yet so meaningful to understanding its impact, that seemingly got swept away in the storm. Blocks from the city's worst-hit neighborhood, in the brutal aftermath of Katrina, a previously evacuated Naval base with hundreds of empty rooms is zealously protected by guards - not from looters, but from the displaced and starving citizens of New Orleans. Turning their automatic weapons on the pleading crowd, including women and children, the guards explain their duty is to secure the empty barracks - one of the only safe, dry refuges left standing in the city - for the protection of the government. It's a poignant line that somehow got drowned out by the battle drums of Fox News' outro music during its round-the-clock 2005 Katrina coverage.
"Trouble the Water" theatrical poster
"Trouble the Water" is currently playing in limited release around the country (it wrapped up its run at the State last week); stay tuned here for more details coming soon on its DVD release. In the meantime, be sure to check out this interview between co-director Tia Lessin and Interlochen Public Radio's Brad Aspey, recorded during this year's film festival. With last week's Hurricane Gustav offering a dangerous peek at just how unsafe New Orleans' levees remain three years later, "Trouble the Water" provides a much-needed reality check and pivotal election discussion point on how we would handle such a disaster if (and when) it should ever strike again.
September 8, 2008 – 9:49 pm
Be sure to check out these upcoming film events at The Art Place's new home in downtown Traverse City, located in the basement of the Weaver Building at 122 South Union St. TAP has some cool screenings and animation classes for children and students coming up this fall - read on for more details.
TAP Open House
TAP holds an open house for its new digs on September 15 from 4:00-6:30 p.m., which includes a light dinner before the 7:30 p.m. Suttons Bay High School Film Club presentation of their own movie shorts produced this summer and the feature "Le Papillon." All are welcome!
Classes at TAP
TAP is offering after-school sessions learning the art of animation starting September 23 in its new home! The workshops are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-5:30pm and are geared toward kids 8 years and older. The session cost is $40 and requires pre-registration. Contact TAP at 231-271-0104.
Session One is September 23, 25, 30, October 7, 14, 16, 21, 23
Session Two is November 4, 6, 11, 13, 18, December 2, 9, 16
Session Three is January 6, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, 29
Session Four is February 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26
Session Five is March 3, 5, 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, 26
Session Six is April 7, 9, 14, 16, 21, 23, 28, 30
Session Seven is May 5, 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28
September 4, 2008 – 4:52 pm
Here's a message from Michael that went out today about the Republican National Convention screening tonight at the State. It's going to be a rainy night, so head down to the cozy theater for a historic night with McCain-Palin! The action starts at 8:00 p.m.
"There are still lots of tickets for tonight's free viewing of John McCain's acceptance speech at the State Theatre, part of our "Election '08 at the State" festivities. Last week we turned hundreds away from the standing room only crowd at the Obama speech. C'mon Republicans and others interested in the political process, let's pack the place again tonight! We've got State Sen. Jason Allen calling in live from the convention floor in St. Paul, local Republican officials will be on hand to greet you, we might even have an elephant outside on Front St. if we can find one! It all starts at 8 p.m. and goes until 11. Bring the kids and let them see history in the making! The State Theatre is for everyone. See you tonight!"
August 16, 2008 – 10:34 am
Interlochen Public Radio has the film festival's complete lineup of morning discussion panels available to listen to for free online. Featuring insights into filmmaking and the film industry from guests like Phil Donahue, Larry Charles, John Lyons, Stanley Donen, Michael Moore and others, these podcasts are a fascinating glimpse into behind-the-scenes of Hollywood. Click here to check them out.
|
|
|
Powered by FireStats