Admit one

I didn't follow any Sundance related news. Too painful.

Road to the Oscars - first impressions

As a Script Supervisor I will always stand by my battle against the Academy for not recognizing our phenomenal, precious, creative and hard work. But secretly, way down in my dungeons, I have an Oscars shrine. Shhh.

Now for 2012 as award season progresses and I try as usual to watch all the nominated films - kind of hard since I'm in Italy and My week with Marylin yet has to get a release date here - two things come to mind.

Actress in a supporting role:

In a Criccicentric perfect Sims world I would make Jessica Chastain win. Will go as far as to say that out of everything from The Help, which by the way I did not like, she gave the most surprising performance, however small. It's easier to impress playing the fat black harassed woman, just saying. Her character went through a whole series of different phases, including dislikable asshole, and in that little screen time I believe she did a painstaking job at letting every single one of her emotions come through.

That said if someone could please explain Melissa McCarthy to me. I mean she was funny and shiz and I am all for including farting among honor worthy talents but... Big question mark.

Best motion picture:

I have recently seen The Artist and you don't have to fight the urge to know what I thought about it for you can read this. And I have watched The Help back in LA but didn't see what other people saw. I like Emma Stone, and I will write it again in capitals, I really LIKE her, but this time I couldn't go past the hair and the lisp. I'm sorry. She was plastic. And so was the plot... I don't know. Bryce Dallas Howard ate shit, so what? A little girl with some frizz problems makes all the black women wanna join her/their cause, woosh, over my head. The wannabe emotional parts were too long foreseen and by the time they actually hit you you were already thinking about how much you would be paying for parking. If I may, 50/50 did a better job at messing with my lacrimal gland.

My two cents on: The Artist

And then he puts a glass down with a thud.

There are many reasons why The Artist may be a contender this year, one of them called Harvey Weinstein, and the fact that people like him will not accept to be called crazy.

But it is not so much the courage to go for it that impressed me. Neither was the acting, or the plot.

It was the mustache.

I'm kidding.

There's a certain revenge-of-the-nerds pride in seeing a silent black and white movie woe the masses. There is definitely appreciation for Jean Dujardin's independent eyebrows. And most of all there is obsequious reverence towards the reconstruction of the talkies' advent. Carbon copy Singing in the Rain.

I don't read reviews before I see a movie. I don't even like to see trailers most of the times so I usually try to enter the theater a virgin, unless the gods forbid me of course. I knew for example that Bella Swan falls in love with a vampire, and a warewolf, and can't act. Some things are just common knowledge. But in this case I foresaw nothing, so when it became apparent to my oblivious mind that I was about to be witness to a tale of good looking people in Hollywoodland in the late twenties I peed in my pants. I live in a 1944 building built for screenwriters at Paramount, so you can appreciate my being drenched into the specific subject matter.

But, as I am a film graduate and cinema technician first and foremost, the key to me here is  the use of the craft's main tools that had been long lost beneath piles of crane shots, photoshop brushes and the void in Kristen Stewart's eyes.

First of all the 4:3 frame format. I didn't notice it right away, I was kind of raptured by the Metropolis-esque opening. But something was indeed missing, or quite differently concentrating the action to the core of my sight span. It's a little touch, but very thoughtful towards the roundness of the watching a silent movie experience.

Secondly, a few minutes into the movie Mr. Mustache, our hero, has breakfast, and dinner and lunch with his wife, sometimes intent in reading a paper. The camera angle, the focal length, everything screams Citizen Kane, as it should I guess when you're paying homage to cinema. For a minute I was kind of hoping a superimposed room would start spinning over their faces, but the filmmakers didn't go there, and all in all upon second consideration I'm kind of glad they didn't as it made the homage more graceful, and there's only so much you can do when you want to approach Orson Welles.

Some time later Mr. Mustache meets a girl while shooting a scene of a movie and she gets under his skin, without saying a word. So humorous I am. The moment is sapiently told through the same means of the moment itself. Hold on, it's a mind-fuck. He is a star, she is an extra and they have to interact all through scene #20. A dolly across a room full of people dancing. We get to observe all the numerous takes, along with board in between them, directly from (meta)camera point of view as we sweep around the ballroom, and giggle at how time after time he doesn't seem to be able to get his mind off of her and onto acting. Delicious. I almost cried.

And then there was the time I had to gasp for air. Executive producer John Goodman tells Mr. Mustache that talkies are the future of movie making but he refuses to compromise his integrity as a silent movie artist for what he believes to be just a fad. So he stomps back to his dressing room. And then he puts a glass down with a thud.

Sound and camera movement are at the heart of the modern cinematic craft, if you consider sound not merely as speech but as a way to get the audience to emote. At the utmost peak of the art behind The Artist is the capability of forgetting about the heaps of crap loaded over  filmmaking during the years and restore that simple way of expressing ideas through the moving image and silence, or sound. That very sound of silence, as opposed to background music, is molded as punctuation that enhances the image, which in itself already needs to be more expressive than ever because it has to tell a story without the help of any spoken word. And very few cards either. To be honest I was really impressed at how little these actors really were aided by words, both spoken or written.
But no one should hear the details from me. One should tap dance their way to the theater.

Not saying everyone out there should consider making silent films now, there has been a hundred years of evolution for a reason, but I feel like thanking Michel Hazanavicius for surprising me with a truth I had somehow lost.

Finchel

Glee's been messing with a bunch of unrealistic high-schoolers singing for no reason in front of majestic backgrounds in the auditorium of a public institution which supposedly has budget problems for three years.

Singing for no reason shouldn't really be allowed to last that long. But magically, it still wraps us all in its spell. Sometimes. After a few disgracing falls in the never ending pits of hell, like last year's Christmas special, the whole gang was dragged back up from the tail by a super bitchin' Summer Nights rendition. Then Sue wore The Fascinator and became my dream maid of honor. Lastly Finn asked Rachel to marry him. And that's what you missed on Glee.

Now I dislike Rachel as much as any of you and the thought of her going all bridezilla makes the pit of my stomach clutch, but you gotta admit the potential for over the top teenmance is unlimited with these two. New Glee airs tonight and although I'd love to see her go bald I'd also like her to say yes.

These are the possible scenarios:

• they marry and get to stay in town after graduation thus making for many more chances for Finn to actually cheat on her with Santana;
• they marry and Rachel's dads offer the couple to stay with them thus spinning a few renditions of classic disco music;
• they marry and Finn finally has to grow some balls and become a rounded character;
• they marry and Rachel finds out the hard way that Finn is a far cry from the popular jock he's perceived to be, has a tantrum and starts losing her hair.

All in all what's not to like?


Update: obviously I went ahead of myself but Glee actually never aired last night because of something called state of the union. One more week to think about Rachel going bald classic disco music renditions.

Save Ferris

I took a test today. Out of the entire vast array of 80s movies characters I was Ferris Bueller. I guess this makes me charming, witty, manipulative and Matthew Broderick.

I've lived in LA for the last 7 months and as I type I'm sitting in the room where I grew up in Rome, Italy, same room where it all started. On my flight back here I began reading a book, which I've been obsessing on ever since.

Two things have grown on me after moving to the West coast:

• wanting to watch loads of movies, like I ever needed to do that any more
• and an absolute desire to learn all things Hollywood.

Cue Entourage, and this book.

It tells the forgotten tale of a magical time when teen idols actual had pubic hairs, there was some sort of innovation in commercial features, Judd Nelson was still hot and everybody wrapped the day with cocaine.

Dealing both with the conception and the shoot of some good old movies it paints a vivd picture of what I now call my neighborhood back in the days when my eyes had yet to set sight on it. Very nostalgic and informative. I especially enjoyed the chapter "Becoming the Brat Pack". It thought me that you should definitely not trust anyone and most of all that Emilio Estevez hasn't always exactly been #winning.

Check its website if you too want to take the test, wink wink.

The person I have to thank for this great discovery is Jason Reitman. He was the sole author of one of the best nights of my life. The one I went to the LACMA museum to check out a reading of The Breakfast Club by a surprise cast. I guess I had been living in LA long enough without doing any radical chic cinematic intellectual outing and I had to fill the quota. The crowd gathers, the cast is introduced, Claire Standish suddenly appears in the body of actress Jennifer Garner.

I repeat, Jennifer Garner.

Please take a look at these pictures from the event. Jennifer Garner, and me seeing Jennifer Garner.

I also care to remind you about this.

It's easy to put two and two together and imagine how her divine appearance stimulated my thriving brain with subsequent need to conquer everything John Hughes. On the plus side I also learned something more about Hollywood: it fucking rocks!

But my thirst you know is unquenchable, so, I'm on season 5 of Entourage. Do not give me spoilers. Someone told me "You cannot live in Hollywood and not see it" and since no one can tell me what to do I started it the next day. Now I give the same advice myself to everyone I meet. Pay it forward.

There is one thing in particular that I like to picture at the sound of the word "Entourage" and that is this:

which can occasionally double up for Brandon Walsh so I guess I will be also picturing it for the words "Beverly Hills".