Remarkable "Garden"

Johnny Mercer tunes aptly serenade the remarkable 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and not just because the murder at the core of the actual story occurred in the Mercer Savannah homestead. Mercer's beautiful antebellum town with its amazing characters also provide the springboard for this movie. 

The Deep South setting makes it truly remarkable that:

1. A Californian, directed it.
2. His daughter, born in Santa Monica, plays the love interest.
3. Some guy from New Jersey delivers the perfect Southern gentleman.
4. An Aussie creates an exceptional Southern lawyer.
5. A refined Brit makes a freaky Southern redneck.

Where Clint Eastwood got his sense of the South and its manners, outside of his many roles in Westerns, is anybody's guess. This film may show his true talents lie in directing.

Kevin Spacey was born to play Jim Williams. He was also born in New Jersey. How does a New Jerseyan play a Southerner to such perfection?* Maybe his roommate at Northridge Military Academy was from the South. Or the Julliard School really is worth the money.

Jack Thompson deserved an Academy Award for playing Southern lawyer, Sonny Seiler — and he's Australian. Remarkable.**

The actual "lady" who stole the book still steals the movie.

Casting real-live people as themselves in motion pictures, no matter how talented, can be a little risky. But not every real-live person has the talents of The Lady Chablis. She steals the movie in her very first film role.*** Truly remarkable.

Dorothy Loudon as the dotty Serena Dawes and Michael Rosenbaum testifying as George Tucker remarkably prove the old adage that there's no such thing as a small part in acting.****

And Irma P. Hall as Minerva is a piece of cinema history.

These actors, delivering themselves or carefully-developed characters for us to enjoy, largely serve as set pieces for one of the most remarkable courtroom scenarios in American cinematic history — somehow a cross between To Kill a Mockingbird and My Cousin Vinny. 

The most remarkable thing about this remarkable film is how it survived its lead actor doing his best to single-handedly destroy it. Mr. Cusack was making another movie, apparently, while repeatedly rolling his eyes upward like a nervous tic. As one of four films he made in 1997, maybe he just didn't have time or inclination to prepare like the other actors did, deciding rather to wing it. 

With this super-talented, prepared crowd — giving us an acting seminar on the screen — that seems a poor choice indeed.

"Ridiculous Performance"

"I rule out Leonardo immediately because it’s a ridiculous performance," says this longtime voter in the executives branch. "They are running his campaign based on how hard it was to make the movie, right? I’m tired of hearing about it — that's what he gets paid for!"

Oscar voter

"That the Movie is Popular"

"Sniper is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism. The only thing that forces us to take it seriously is the extraordinary fact that an almost exactly similar worldview consumed the walnut-sized mind of the president who got us into the war in question.

It's the fact that the movie is popular, and actually makes sense to so many people, that's the problem."

Rolling Stone

"That Really Saved Me"

"I found God doing Fury. I became a Christian man, and not in a f***ing bullshit way - in a very real way. I could have just said the prayers that were on the page. But it was a real thing that really saved me."

Shia LaBeouf

"No Detective"

“It’s not as if an American director like me is going to uncover the truth of what happened 40 years ago. I’m no detective. The tragedy is that Pasolini was in the prime of his creative life – a passionate, compassionate man lost to the world.”

Abel Ferrara

director, "Pasolini" 

The Black List May Be an Unproduced Screenplay’s Best Friend

Screenwriters worldwide spend every free moment researching their topics and working on their scripts. For most this painstaking process does not always end with a movie deal no matter how good their script may be. In 2005 film executive Franklin Leonard began compiling a list of respected and well-received screenplays that were not picked up for production. Since then, the Black List has created a number of well-known box office hits.

From the Black List to the Oscars

Whoever thought being on a blacklist would be a good thing? Unlike other blacklists, Leonard’s highlights the best in screenplays as a means to encourage producers to take a second look. No one is shamelessly coerced with swag or promotional t shirts, a mere mention on the Black List and a quick read are all that is needed.

Some Black List favorites from the last year have been biopics. For example, the script centering on the rising star of a young Hillary Rodham, the life of Ted Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss or the football drama about Buffalo Bills general manager Sonny Weaver. For these scripts a mention on the Black List is like a political supporter using campaign yard signs to get their candidate elected. Many of these scripts go on to receive accolades and awards.

Screenwriters everywhere should take inspiration from the scripts that made it to the big screen garnering Hollywood’s highest honors. Here’s a list of some Oscar winning films whose scripts may still be sitting on a shelf somewhere in Hollywood if not for Leonard’s Black List.

And the Oscar goes to:

1. 2013 Argo
   
   
2. 2012 The Descendants
   
   
3. 2011 The King’s Speech
   
   
4. 2009 Slumdog Millionaire
   
   
5. 2008 Juno
   

Since it’s inception, 250 screenplays have been selected from the Black List and produced as feature films. These films have been honored with 171 Oscar nominations. Seven of the last twelve have won Oscars for screenwriting. It’s hard to imagine how many of these would never have made it to theaters if not for the Black List.

Today, screenwriters and producers can go to the Black List’s website, launched in 2012, and submit their screenplays to get found by those in the film industry. Producers can also visit the site to find compelling screenplays from around the world to be made into feature films. The site also offers educational resources and tips on writing screenplays. The Black List is certainly a screenwriters best friend.

American Moral Shock-Ability and Film

Moral shock generations in the U.S. can be divided into:

1. The Psycho Generation (September 1960 on): shocking for its suspenseful horror when first released in 1960, it's almost humorous now (the blood going down the drain was really chocolate syrup). Still, back then, the whole country couldn't sleep for weeks--or take a shower, for that matter.
2. The Graduate Generation (December 1967 on): nowadays it may seem pretty tame, but his one completely upended social mores of the time with its adulterous theme. 
3. The Godfather Generation (March 1972 on): seemingly outrageous violence for the time, especially domestic, the horse head scene was all the country talked about for months, now high school kids laugh at the depictions. This was back when we could still be morally outraged.
4. The Pulp Fiction Generation (October 1994 on): not only could the nation no longer be morally outraged, director/writer Quentin Tarantino encouraged the audience to laugh at the fact that a moral line between acceptable and unacceptable no longer existed. 

The inclusion of Psycho here suggests it's more about shock-ability than just moral outrage-ability, though stabbing a girl in the shower would seem to cross some line or another (as would stuffing your mother).

Great Movie

All about masculinity, and what made America great.  I promise it'll bring a tear to your eye . .

'Downton Abbey' Is Brilliant

Maggie Smith was always my favorite.  Episode III Christmas Day!!

A Great Film

See All the Reviews for 'Anonymous'

http://oberonshakespearestudygroup.blogspot.com/2011/09/joyrich-called-it.html

The Premiere of 'Anonymous'

'I think you will all love it. I also think that the movie will on the whole be a good thing for the Oxfordian movement. Certainly, Stratfordians will have a field day nitpicking all of the liberties that Emmerich has taken with history and "received wisdom", but they will not be able to stop people from finding this a great story and wanting to know more about it. That's where all of us come in. I hope we will be ready for it.'

SEE: Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Anonymous: William Shakespeare Revealed (Newmarket Pictorial Moviebook)

One of two official movie tie-ins—With 165 color images, a large-format visual companion to the political thriller film Anonymous, which imagines Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the plays credited to William Shakespeare. A riveting story and a striking portrayal of the Elizabethan period—full of opulent costumes, greedy nobles, illicit romances at the royal court, and bawdy playwrights—the movie Anonymous is captured in this stunning pictorial book that describes how the film was developed and produced. Divided into five sections, it includes:

• a fascinating essay by director Roland Emmerich about what he calls "the single greatest filmmaking experience of my life"
• an essay by screenwriter John Orloff (Band of Brothers, Legends of the Guardians, A Mighty Heart) explaining how this idea finally became a major motion picture over the span of ten years
• a humorous piece by Mark Twain discussing the Shakespeare authorship question
• an enticing argument by Charles Beauclerk, author of Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom, suggesting that his ancestor, Edward de Vere, is the true author
• commentaries from the cast and crew on the film's production, costume design, locations, sets, cinematography, and visual effects
• production sketches, concept illustrations, script excerpts
• sidebars on historical references, chronologies
• an extensive bibliography

Hardcover: 168 pages
Publisher: Newmarket Press (September 13, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1557049750
ISBN-13: 978-1557049759

'Anonymous' Trailer

'An Education'

I would've liked to have gotten an education from the "audio commentary" of this 2009 film.  Alas, it was narrated and commented upon by the entirely self-absorbed and almost completely vapid actors themselves--and an only slightly more listenable and aware director. Their fatuous commentary was all about what they "loved" in a scene, as in "I just love this or that" or "I love what I'm wearing in this scene", or when things go bad "this is where I look the absolute oldest."  If they themselves weren't in the scene you'd hear not a single word about any of the other actors, unless something or somebody "just kills me" or it's "I just love it when she does that". Peter Sarsgaard even had to ask what the younger fellow's name was (Matthew Beard), after appearing in a film with him(!) Self-obsession at its most extreme; painful to watch.

God knows what the great Alfred Molina did to all of them, they said not a word about him--except when Mulligan takes the knife out to say "He wraps after this scene".

Most remarkable to me was that the director finds it "ironic" that Sarsgaard's character smokes Bachelor cigarettes, almost as if noticing for the first time. "But maybe that's right for the part," she muses.  The last time Carey Mulligan pulls these cigarettes out of the glove compartment, as she'd done so many times before, but this time we see the brand name is also the moment she discovers Sarsgaard's been married all along. One of those oh-so-smart cinematic moments of great meaning . . and yet . . the director herself apparently had not a clue.