The Sports Film: Baseball

The Ball Game (Edison, 1898 USA)


The Natural (Levinson, 1984 USA)


Bull Durham (Shelton, 1988 USA)


A League of Their Own (Marhsall, 1992 USA)

Avatar and Pocahontas: The Mashup

CFV 426 - Avatar/Pocahontas Mashup FINAL VERSION from Randy Szuch on Vimeo.

Hurt Locker Sweeps 'British Oscars'

Prince William honors Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Pattinson causes a frenzy, and The Hurt Locker picks up six awards at Britain's answer to the Oscars.

From The Daily Beast

February 21, 2010

The Hurt Locker blew James Cameron's Avatar out of the water at Sunday's British Academy of Film and Television Awards, picking up six awards, including best film and best director for Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman ever to take home that prize. Avatar, which shattered box-office records this winter, walked away with only two minor awards, including (no surprise here) special visual effects.

It's the home stretch for the Academy Awards, and though Inglourious Basterds is still in the running, the real race for Best Picture will be between Avatar and The Hurt Locker. And though the Golden Globes honored some actors expected to be shoo-ins at the Oscars, the BAFTAs—the United Kingdom's equivalent to the Oscars—offer the latest clues about who will take home Academy Awards on March 7.

For the past 10 years, however, Best Picture winners at the BAFTAs have had little bearing on the Oscars. Only Gladiator in 2000, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003, and last year's Slumdog Millionaire won both the BAFTA award and the Oscar for Best Picture. The British awards have a higher success rate in predicting Oscar winners in the acting categories; 22 of the past 36 actors have won both awards. This year, it seems as if that pattern may only hold true in the supporting categories, as BAFTA honored the much-nominated Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Basterds and Mo'nique for her role in Precious. Colin Firth (A Single Man) and Carey Mulligan (An Education), who won Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, are homegrown talents who are not favored to win Oscars.

When Firth picked up the award for his role in Tom Ford's A Single Man, he joked: "What Tom Ford doesn't know is that I have the email in my outbox saying I couldn't possibly do this, when a man came to repair my fridge. I clearly don't know what's best for me. So I'd like to thank the fridge guy."

Mickey Rourke, last year's winner for Best Actor, went off the teleprompter when presenting the award for leading actress to ask: "Do you want this bareback or with a raincoat?" The winner, newcomer Carey Mulligan, seemed unfazed. Mulligan, honored for her role in An Education, said: "I was here a year ago and never imagined it in a million years."

In the Best Supporting Actor category, Oscar shoo-in Waltz picked up the award for his role as Colonel Landa in Basterds. "A supporting actor is a supported actor," Waltz said as he accepted the award, before lavishing praise on the film's director, Quentin Tarantino. "No Quentin, no Inglourious Basterds," Waltz said. "No Quentin, no Colonel Landa. No Quentin, no Christoph at the BAFTAs—or anywhere else." Mo'nique, who won the Golden Globe for her supporting role in Precious and who is also the Oscar favorite, picked up a BAFTA Sunday night—but wasn't in attendance to accept the award. The film's director, Lee Daniels, took the stage to accept the statue instead.

While Twilight was one of this year's biggest successes at the box office, it has gotten no love at awards shows—until now. Robert Pattinson caused his usual frenzy on the red carpet, but inside Kristen Stewart took home the Rising Star Award, which is voted on by the British public. "I guess first I have to thank all the fans of Twilight for proving and again and again to be the most devoted and attentive fans ever," she said.

Prince William, the new president of BAFTA, made an appearance to present Vanessa Redgrave with a BAFTA fellowship, the highest honor in recognition of outstanding contribution to film. And though Redgrave was a leader in the Marxist Workers' Revolutionary Party in the 1970s, she gave the prince a big kiss (and a kneel) onstage. "You've done me in," a teary-eyed Redgrave said onstage. "Your Royal Highness, my dear beautiful Uma [Thurman], and my dear BAFTA friends, yes, you've done me in." She turned to the prince to say, "If my mother were here, she would tell me to blow you a kiss." She continued: "Here I am on the stage at the Royal Opera House, and I stood outside there, so many times on the pavement, queueing for seats way up there, so I could see the great prima ballerinas, hoping someday to be one of them."

Week 4: Road Films

OLIVE
I'd like to dedicate this to my grandpa,
who showed me these moves.

PAGEANT MC
Aww, that is so sweet.

[Audience applauds]

PAGEANT MC
Is he here? Where's your grandpa
right now?

OLIVE
In the trunk of our car.

—Abigail Breslin as Olive in
Little Miss Sunshine (Dayton/Farris, 2006 USA)

M 2.22/W 2.24: Road Films
In-class: “An Introduction to Road Films, Pt. II”
Screening: Thelma & Louise (Scott, 1991 USA)
Due: OSR 2 (1940-1959)

Upcoming:

M 3.1/W 3.3: Sports Films
In-class: “An Introduction to Sports on Film, Pt. I”
Screening: Rocky (Avildsen, 1976 USA)

Survival Tips for Oscar Newbies

First-time nominees have plenty to think about.

By Timothy Gray, Variety.com
Thurs., Feb. 18, 2010

Academy Awards are being presented at the Kodak Theater March 7. To those who have already attended, no explanation is necessary.

To those who have never been there, no explanation is possible.Still, that doesn't deter me. Here is some handy advice for nominees, particularly first-timers:

• Bring a snack: You leave the house at 2:30 p.m. and it's seven hours before you get a meal. Protein bars and trail mix are dandy little sources of brain food. And avoid the booze. Believe me, if you win, you don't want to be light-headed.

• Make things easy for security: If you're bringing your own car, just be aware that security people are very democratic, and scan all cars equally. In other words, clean out your trunk.

• Keep breathing: Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Concentrate on those breaths. It sounds obvious, but it can be deeply calming during moments of stress.

• Bring lozenges: If your throat gets dry, suck on a Halls or an Altoid. In theory, you could drink a lot of water, but that leads to other complications (lines to the loo during commercial breaks can be daunting). But don't chew gum. Gum is fine for Lakers games, but it's amazing how all that carefully chosen black-tie finery is undercut if the camera catches you lost in thought, chewing on your Wrigley's.

• Prepare a speech: Ingrid Bergman, Sally Field and Cuba Gooding Jr. made memorable acceptance speeches that seemed totally spontaneous. That's three people in 81 years. Most of us have forgotten (or happily repressed) the many other folks who've clambered to the stage and given rambling, stream-of-consciousness speeches because they hadn't prepared anything ("I didn't think I would win!").

• Prepare a speech: In other words, no laundry lists. It's boring. It's also self-destructive: If you rattle off 30 names, there will still be No. 31 and 32 who feel slighted. At Monday's Oscar nominees luncheon, Bill Mechanic, one of the show's producers, warned against such a recitation, "It is the single-most hated thing on the show." Second, if you've won awards this season, try to come up with a different speech for the Oscars. Many have lamented the fact that Oscar's TV ratings have never equalled the "Titanic" levels during the past dozen years. But is it just the lineup of contenders, or is it the speeches?

When viewers have seen a star rattle off the same litany of thanks at the Broadcast Critics, the Globes, the BAFTAs and the SAG Awards, who wants to watch it again? So this year, nominees, you can start a precedent: A new speech for each kudocast. Talk about what it's like to work in your field, give an inspiring thought to young folks, say what it means to be recognized after such a long (or relatively brief) career, or thank the one person who changed your career (a parent, a teacher, a mentor). Espouse a cause. Please, please. I don't ask you for many favors, but please grant me just this one.

• Keep perspective: Some years ago, I was nominated for a journalism award. Frankly, I'd never heard of these particular awards, nor the org that was handing them out. So I was pleased but detached. However, once I arrived at the ceremonies, the chatter was all about the awards, the awards, the awards, so by the time my category arrived, my heart was pounding out of my chest. I had gone past "I want to win" to "I MUST win!" I didn't. I was crestfallen. My whole world had collapsed. The next morning, I woke up mystified: I wasn't sure how I'd gone from flattered indifference to this. Was I nuts? And the answer is: Yes, I was.

Awards have a way of undoing all sense of logic and priorities (i.e., they have ways of messin' with your head, to borrow a phrase from my youth). So go on March 7 and have fun, enjoy the achievement, but try to keep things in perspective.

Christopher Nolan, the Savior of Superman?

Can the Batman filmmaker whip the Man of Steel into shape?

By Joey Esposito, Crave.com
Feb 15, 2010

Last week, DC Entertainment made the announcement that Batman Begins and The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan will be "mentoring" the latest iteration of Superman on the big screen. Coupled with the fact that after the immaculate success of The Dark Knight in 2008 Warner Brothers execs publicly spoke about giving all of DC's slated film projects a "mature" and "darker" edge, the involvement of Nolan in a new Superman movie begs the question: will it be true to the source material?

It's important to note that no one knows what the hell "mentoring" a film means. Is Nolan going to take the movie to the Boys & Girl Club and play basketball with it? Are the credits going to read "Big Brother - Christopher Nolan"? For all we know, Nolan is going to help find a director and then never give it a second thought. The point is, all we can really do at this stage is speculate. So gladly, I'll add some fuel to the fire.

Nolan has said more than once that his world in the new Batman films has no place for characters like Robin, let alone superpowered heroes. A lot of fans seem to be assuming that this move by DC Entertainment is an effort to begin constructing a cohesive film universe, like Marvel is doing with their big screen properties. I'm not sure if that's the case or not, but I think it's important to consider the new restructuring over at DC Entertainment. The purpose of the new system was to couple filmmakers with key DC creators to keep the films true to their source while being the best movie it can be.

That said, anyone that has fears of Nolan turning Superman into a character that lives in the shadows can rest easy. Firstly, I think Nolan has enough common sense to stay true to the character, whether he's a comic book fan or not. And, if for some reason he tried to go against the grain, the structure of DC Entertainment, as its intended to do, would prevent the defacing of its character. Of course, this assumes that the promises spit out by DC/Warner Brothers isn't a cloud of smoke to reassure fans.

What Nolan did so well in Begins and The Dark Knight is spotlight the humanity of the Bruce Wayne/Batman character. Surely, finding the humanity in Superman would make fans rejoice. But guess what? Finding humanity in Superman is exactly what Bryan Singer accomplished in Superman Returns and fanboys cried to their message board faux-friends in peril. I can understand the movie not being a commercial success considering its outrageous budget, but there was drama and humanity coupled with a lot of other perks: throwbacks to the original films, a new twist on the typical Superman/Lois relationship, and humor. There were glaring problems, but overall not a bad addition to Kal-El's filmic history.

Fans may point out that Nolan did a great job of combining action and drama in The Dark Knight, but that brings the issue back around to what exactly Nolan's role in the film is. He's not directing, so really, how much influence will he have in the specifics? He may assist in general tone or plot, but as far as the dynamics of the film and its pacing, I doubt he'll have little interest.

As I said, all we can do at this point is speculate. And my own, personal speculation is that Nolan's "involvement" is essentially a jumpstart for the long problematic Superman movie franchise. I assume that Nolan will help get the production back on its feet (ie, not wading in an endless stationary pool of rumors), get it rolling with the right people, and then back off. Time will tell, but in the meantime, let the furious Internet debates begin.

Week 3: Road Films

CHE
Even though we are too insignificant to be
spokesmen for such a noble cause, we believe, and
this journey has only confirmed this belief, that the
division of American into unstable and illusory nations is
a complete fiction. We are one single mestizo race from
Mexico to the Magellan Straits. And so, in an attempt to
free ourselvesfrom narrow minded provincialism, I
propose a toast to Peru and to a united America.

—Gael García Bernal as Che Guevarra in
Diarios de motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries)
(Salles, 2004 Argentina/US/et al.)

M 2.15/W 2.17: WGHS Winter Break
NO CLASS

Upcoming:

M 2.22/W 2.24: Road Films
In-class: “An Introduction to Road Films, Pt. II”
Screening: Thelma & Louise (Scott, 1991 USA)
Due: OSR 2 (1940-1959)