Tag: The Royal Tenenbaums

Asteroid City Review

Wes Anderson’s mix of melancholia and quirky humor is abundant in Asteroid City with its massive cast and dueling aspect ratios. This is a stunning looking feature focused on the behind the scenes made for TV airing of a play (shot in black & white). The play itself is presented via Technicolor hues in a Western desert setting in the 1950s. Whether it’s the characters they’re playing or the actors and directors themselves, they exist in Anderson’s wheelhouse of themes. From dealing with grief to unlikely romances and coming-of-age under unique circumstances, any filmmaker would be rightly accused of ripping off Anderson if this weren’t made by him. Whether it works will depend on how into him you are. I’m not a die-hard though his signature style popped for me in The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and more. It can also leave me cold. That happened in portions of his previous effort The French Dispatch while other segments were more successful. This City was lukewarm.

The play we see (which takes up the bulk of screen time) happens in the sleepy title dwelling awoken by a youth astronomy convention. One of the top outcasts competing is Woodrow (Jake Ryan), the movie’s Max Fischer from Rushmore but nicer. His father is war photojournalist Augie and he’s played by Jason Schwartzman, who played Max in Anderson’s acclaimed dramedy from 1998. He’s recently widowed and (in a gag that works throughout) hasn’t figured out how to tell his son and three young daughters who might be witches that mom has passed. Tom Hanks is his wealthy father-in-law who lives on a golf course and reluctantly is teeing up accommodations for the family.

Another competitor is Dinah, daughter of Midge (Scarlett Johansson), a sullen movie star who assumes her fate will be similar to ingenues like Marilyn Monroe. She engages in a fireworks free tryst with Augie while Woodrow develops a crush on Dinah.

We’ve seen plenty of all-star casts in his oeuvre, but Anderson outdoes himself in Asteroid City. From Steve Carell’s motel manager to Matt Dillon’s auto mechanic or Tilda Swinton’s scientist and Rupert Friend’s singing cowboy who’s sweet on Maya Hawke’s teacher, the cast is a loaded group. Some are practically blink and you’ll miss them appearances – hey there’s Jeff Goldblum! And Hong Chau! Jeffrey Wright, who gave a segment stealing performance in The French Dispatch, has a highlight scene as a General judging the convention.

Without going into spoiler territory, the plot eventually employs sci-fi elements in an idiosyncratic Wes way. While this is happening, we get monochrome interludes with Bryan Cranston’s host introducing and commenting on the teleplay, Edward Norton as its writer, and Adrien Brody as the randy director. These are great performers, but the best moments come in Asteroid City. The backstage business of meeting the performers counterparts didn’t have a deep impact with me.

Neither did Asteroid City as a whole. Schwartzman and Johansson (who really sells her considerable star magnetism) have a couple memorable scenes of courtship. The technical work, particularly the production design, is impeccable. Yet the emotional and comedic payoff that has worked in Tenenbaums and beyond feels more remote in this bright wasteland.

**1/2 (out of four)

Oscar Predictions: Paint

Owen Wilson’s character in Paint might be named Carl Nargle, but he’s obviously based on the late coater of happy little trees PBS host Bob Ross. The comedy is written and directed by Brit McAdams and debuts in limited release this Friday. Costars include Michaela Watkins, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ciara Renée, and Stephen Root.

The review embargo has lapsed and most critics are hardly deeming it a valuable work of art. It has just a 31% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Wilson actually received an Oscar nomination over 20 years ago for co-scripting The Royal Tenenbaums with Wes Anderson.

This won’t grant him a second. Based on the mostly negative reaction, it will be easy for voters to brush this one off. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…

The Lone Screenplay Nominee: An Oscar Prediction Analysis

We are getting the nitty gritty on nailing down Oscar predictions on this blog and it’s time to consider a prevailing trend in the 21st century when it comes to the Adapted and Original Screenplay contests. That would be The Lone Screenplay Nominee.

What’s that you ask? For the last 20 award ceremonies, at least one movie has been nominated in its screenplay race and in no other additional category. That’s a rather startling statistic, but it’s true. You have to go all the way to 2000 to find a year in which the ten nominated films in those two derbies didn’t get a nod elsewhere.

Here’s the list from 2001-2020 of pictures that got The Lone Screenplay nomination (abbreviation are AS for Adapted and OS for Original):

2001 – Ghost World (AS), The Royal Tenenbaums (OS)

2002 – About a Boy (AS), My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Y Tu Mama Tambien (OS)

2003 – American Splendor (AS), Dirty Pretty Things (OS)

2004 – Before Sunset (AS)

2005 – Match Point, The Squid and the Whale (OS)

2006 – Borat (AS)

2007 – Lars and the Real Girl (OS)

2008 – Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges (OS)

2009 – In the Loop (AS)

2010 – Another Year (OS)

2011 – The Ides of March (AS), Margin Call (OS)

2012 – Moonrise Kingdom (OS)

2013 – Before Midnight (AS)

2014 – Nightcrawler (OS)

2015 – Straight Outta Compton (OS)

2016 – 20th Century Women, The Lobster (OS)

2017 – The Disaster Artist, Logan, Molly’s Game (AS), The Big Sick (OS)

2018 – First Reformed (OS)

2019 – Knives Out (OS)

2020 – The White Tiger (AS)

Clearly the writing branch of the Academy enjoy singling out a pic or two that doesn’t get any love elsewhere. And it’s a tradition that I haven’t really factored into my predictions for 2021’s hopefuls. That changes today.

My latest round of predictions from last week were the following for Adapted Screenplay and Original Screenplay:

Adapted – CODA, Dune, The Lost Daughter, The Power of the Dog, West Side Story

Original – Being the Ricardos, Belfast, Don’t Look Up, King Richard, Licorice Pizza

Here’s the problem – all ten of those pictures are highly likely to find nominations elsewhere.

So… what’s vulnerable and what are the movies that could fit the Lone Screenplay Nominee mold when the announcement is made on February 8?

Glad you asked. In Adapted, Dune could absolutely miss. The voters in the screenplay race could decide that it’ll get plenty of tech nods (it will) as well as Picture and Director mentions (highly probable). Its screenplay nod could  wait until its sequel.

So what are the contenders in Adapted that may not get nods elsewhere? There’s The Last Duel, which could get points for its unique script that tells its medieval tale from three differing perspectives. It appears to have little chance at Picture or even Jodie Comer’s acclaimed performance in lead actress.

There’s also Passing, but that’s assuming Ruth Negga misses out in Supporting Actress (and I’ve got her in). Other possibilities are Nightmare Alley (though it should at least be recognized for Production Design) and Tick, Tick… Boom! (which could be in line for Picture but especially for Andrew Garfield in lead actor). The Lost Daughter could be the one. However, I have a hard time seeing Olivia Colman not getting in for Best Actress.

Moving to Original Screenplay, my five current nominees all seem destined to achieve mentions elsewhere. I look at King Richard and Being the Ricardos as potentially being two that could miss the screenplay cut.

There are three pictures with original scripts that could fill the slots and be The Lone Nominee and they are:

    • C’Mon C’Mon. And there’s history here. Mike Mills was the writer/director for the aforementioned 20th Century Women from 2016. With Joaquin Phoenix as a long shot for Best Actor inclusion, this is the type of nominee that the writers might celebrate.
    • Mass. It looked like a potential BP nominee for some time but it has fallen (it’s not even in my top 15). Ann Dowd could score a Supporting Actress nomination, but I currently have her ranked 7th. It’s a pic that’s all dialogue between four actors and that could strike the voters fancies.
    • Parallel Mothers. The Pedro Almodovar pic was not Spain’s selection for International Feature Film and is therefore not eligible. Penelope Cruz is a possibility for Actress, but I have her outside the top five.

When I update my estimates for all categories this weekend, expect to see one of these titles (either in Adapted or Original or maybe both) selected. History says it’s the right call. Stay tuned!

Movie Perfection: Did Ya Smile?!?!?

Gene Hackman can be very funny onscreen (rewatch The Birdcage or The Royal Tenenbaums or his sole scene in Young Frankenstein for a reminder). Yet if there’s a trait that I most frequently attribute to the two-time Oscar winner, it’s intensity. Few actors display it in the way that Hackman does. We can see it in The French Connection or Crimson Tide and Unforgiven. 

Nowhere is that hair raising intensity more potent than in a barbershop sequence in 1988’s Mississippi Burning. A historical drama based on real events, the pic recounts the investigation into the murders of three activists in 1964. It casts Hackman as an FBI agent who cut his teeth as a sheriff in the title state. He’s paired with a younger agent (Willem Dafoe) and the two don’t exactly see eye to eye when it comes to interrogation tactics.

This is most evident during the aggressive questioning of Brad Dourif’s small town deputy. Hackman’s Agent Anderson does so with by employing close shave methods and I’m confident Dourif didn’t have to act much to look as terrified as he does. It is my favorite example in his long and impressive filmography as to just how menacing Hackman can be. This time around, you’re rooting for him. The scene also expertly shows (in that brief glimpse of when Dafoe tries to enter the business) the difference between the two protagonist’s means to their ends.

Mississippi Burning earned seven Oscar nominations and is notable for being Frances McDormand’s first nod as Dourif’s abused wife that Anderson assists. He’s not in the mood to help her husband in that barber shop. He’s out to scare the daylights out of him and the whiskers off his racist face. It’s a sequence that’s Movie Perfection due to Hackman’s brilliance and I smile just thinking about it.