In Contention

Tag: March of the Penguins

  • ‘Baraka’ time

    The occasion of Disneynature’s “Earth” release today should be met with screenings of Rob Fricke’s “Baraka” across the globe, for those uneducated and educated on the film alike.  Go out, buy/rent a Blu-ray, find the best 46″-plus screen you can and bask in its warm rays.  I think this exercise preferable to re-watching, say, Luc Jacquet’s “March of the Penguins” or even the BBC’s landmark “Planet Earth” documentary, to which “Earth” has been compared in recent weeks.  Of course, “Baraka” takes a different route than those largely Mother Nature-centered projects, but I think it does the best job of depicting a humanity in tune with its environment, and at this stage in the game, I think that’s the most applicable course of study.

    Here are the first nine minutes or so, just to whet the appetite.  I saw this thing projected on 70mm once.  Gorgeous.

  • Best in show 2005: the year in superlatives

    It’s time to really round out the year and offer up my picks for awards in 2005.

    In addition to the typical categories – which finally see their winners announced today – you’ll find some other fun arenas for awards citation. Call it a mish-mash of MTV-Awards-type kudos and other frequently heralded categories we find time to time in various critics’ awards and precursor ceremonies.

    No one is better at this sort of thing than Nat Rogers over at The Film Experience, so I recommend you all take a look at his Film Bitch awards when he dishes them out in the coming weeks.

    These will likely be my last extensive thoughts on the awards season this year, barring any brief comments I may or may not make here and/or there. There will, of course, be one final predictions update before the end of the year.

    It feels good to wrap everything up before Christmas vacation, I have to tell you. But the Oscar season is by no means over, so I’ll be diving right back in once 2006 finally rolls around.

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  • If I had a ballot

    Customarily, here in the midst of our year in review, it is time for me to fill out my ballot.

    I do this every year, pretending, for one brief moment, to be one of the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and fulfilling my own fantasies about who does and does not deserve Academy recognition in their numerous categories.

    Be sure to check back on Friday as we wrap up the “Year in Review” with a list of superlatives. There you will find the respective winners of the categories listed below (given the top ten list you can easily discern Best Picture), as well as a bevy of other random categories for your reading pleasure.

    If I had a ballot:

    Best Picture
    Batman Begins (Warner Bros. Pictures)
    Crash (Lions Gate Films)
    A History of Violence (New Line Cinema)
    Last Days (Fine Line Features)
    March of the Penguins (Warner Independent Pictures)

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