In Contention

Tag: The English Patient

  • LIFE WITHOUT OSCAR: 1995 and 1996

    Catch up with the idea behind this series here.

    I saw “Braveheart” on video and I’m not positive if that was before or after it won Best Picture at the Oscars. Whenever it was, Mel Gibson’s historical epic immediately became this 13 year old’s favorite movie of all time. My second favorite movie of all time back then was “Apollo 13,” so it was a good Oscars for me.

    1996 became famously known as the “Year of the Indie” and “The English Patient” walked away with just about every award under the sun. I seem to remember Andrew Lloyd Webber quipping, “I’m glad there wasn’t a song in “The English Patient,”” while collecting his prize for “Evita.”

    Cuba Gooding Jr. completed the first phase of his future career as a punchline by winning Best Supporting Actor for “Jerry Maguire,” while Juliette Binoche etched her name at the top of Lauren Bacall’s shitlist by winning Best Supporting Actress in a huge upset.

    Speaking of punchlines, Whoopi Goldberg delivered them in ’95 before Billy Crystal’s triumphant return in ’96. Goldberg, who remains my least favorite MC of all the broadcasts I’ve watched, thought that following Vanessa Williams’s performance of “Colors of the Wind” with a glance behind her and the line, “What color is my wind?” constituted great comedy.

    But I digress.

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  • Check the figures

    Russell Crowe in A Beautiful MindA few things puzzled me about this Variety piece in which Iain Blair takes on a familiar chestnut of a topic: the box-office divide between public favorites and Oscar contenders.

    The first is that he considers the “disparity between art and commerce” to be “accelerating” — a curious argument to make at a time when “Avatar,” “Up” and “Inglourious Basterds” (none of which Blair mentions) look likely to feature on the Best Picture list. Blair’s argument is well-tailored to last year’s Oscar race, but reads somewhat stale now.

    The second is, well, this entire paragraph:

    Sure, “Titanic” grabbed a ton of Oscars and racked up the biggest box office in history. But more recent critically acclaimed best picture winners such as “Shakespeare in Love,” “A Beautiful Mind” and “Chicago” did middling to poor business. And “Crash” and “The English Patient” simply crashed and, well, burned at the box office.

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  • THE LONG SHOT: What is an “Oscar movie” these days?

    George Clooney in Up in the Air“God, that thing’s just going to shit Academy Awards out of its ass next year, isn’t it?,” I overheard a journo behind me remark to his companion, as I made my way out of the “Up in the Air” press screening on Sunday. “It’s such an Oscar movie.”

    Two things struck me as interesting about this throwaway remark, both relating to the lack of care with which both Oscar pundits and “serious” film lovers tend to regard the Academy Awards.

    The first was that, isolated and in print, the guy’s words appear dismissive of “Up in the Air,” yet they actually capped a mostly enthusiastic response to the film. His tone dipped almost apologetically as he applied the “Oscar movie” label, as if it somehow sullied an otherwise fine effort.

    More to the point, however, the remark seemed indicative of the transitive stage the Academy Awards seem to be in at the moment, as simultaneously resistant and vulnerable to industry change as the protagonist of Jason Reitman’s film – and facing a similar crisis of purpose. For 15 years ago – if not necessarily 15 years before that – “Up in the Air” wouldn’t have been decreed an “Oscar movie” at all.

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  • Finding trends in Oscar’s ten

    Ralph Fiennes in The English PatientOver at MCN, David Poland has offered his first formal Oscar column of the season (can we say “the season” in July?) and he has some strong points to make. Prediction junkies who just jump straight to his top 10 forecast for Best Picture will find some (delete according to taste) interesting/exciting/eccentric choices in the mix — he’s certainly the first pundit I’ve heard suggest that Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” is a frontrunner, while “Julie & Julia” hasn’t previously entered the discussion much either.

    But the column itself is of more interest, largely because he brings up a key (and I think under-discussed) point about the potential impact of a 10-nominee race: namely, that with such a broad field, it becomes much more difficult to pinpoint voter and industry trends from year to year:

    How will 10 nominees change the dynamic of desperate efforts to spin trend stories? How can it be The Year Of… anything with such inevitable diversity?

    It could, I guess, be The Year of Matt Damon, who has Invictus, The Informer!, the animated Miyazaki film, Ponyo, and maybe even Green Zone coming out. It could be The Year Of Not Bio-Pics, in spite of the Nelson Mandela film from Eastwood, Invictus, and Meryl Streep invoking Julia Child.

    Some will try to make it The Year of The Woman, with Nine leading the way for such hopefuls as Julie & Julia, Bright Star, Precious, An Education, Broken Embraces, the 2 SPC Coco Chanel movies, Amelia, Cheri, and even the female director of The Hurt Locker. And maybe they will have a point… there could be 5 nominations in that group.

    Or not.

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  • Just because I don’t get it, doesn’t mean it’s not good

    Citizen KaneKris is taking some heat in some quarters for his comments on “WALL-E,” and while he has never said it was a bad film, he didn’t fall over himself seeking superlatives for it either.  In fact, the movie did not do much for Kris, which is an unpopular sentiment, given the critics awards and rave reviews for the film.

    Why is this not okay with some people?  Similarly, why is not okay to say that one does not feel “Citizen Kane” is the greatest film of all time? I don’t think it is and you have no idea the heat I take for that. Kris made a bold decision, one he believed in, one he felt was right, one that was honest.

    When will people realize that at the end of the day we are all critics with an opinion, but some of us are fortunate enough to do it for a living?  Does that set us apart?  Not really.

    Watching a film is connected to the oldest of rituals, similar to the ancient Greeks filing in to see a play and watching with rapt attention the players on stage. They then left the play and discussed it, just as we do today with cinema. Maybe we like the film, maybe we don’t…it is all opinion-based and at the end of the day, no one is really wrong.

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  • INTERVIEW: Kristin Scott Thomas

    Kristin Scott ThomasWhen interviewing Kristin Scott Thomas, the woman who for many audiences represents the living portrait of English upper-crust serenity, Led Zeppelin isn’t exactly the first name you expect to crop up in the conversation. And yet, halfway through our Transatlantic chat, that is exactly what happens.

    “Seeing the guys, well into their sixties, just getting up on stage and doing their thing … it’s just so inspiring,” she says, referring to the British rock gods’ reunion concert that took place in London a year ago. “And spanning generations too — my son is into them. It’s a reminder that you don’t stop being interesting or relevant at a certain age. I’d love to do that.”

    As entertaining as the idea of Thomas belting out “Whole Lotta Love” to a screaming arena of thousands is, it’s a weirdly apt comparison. Where many actresses her age recede (albeit not usually by choice) into mumsy bit parts and dreary disease-of-the-week movies, Scott Thomas, now (incredibly) 48, has recently been taking on the most challenging, intriguing work of her career to date.

    As if to prove the point, she is speaking from New York, where she is tackling one of the theater’s greatest female roles in her first ever Broadway gig. Her witty, ferocious interpretation of Arkadina in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” earned her an Olivier Award for the play’s original London incarnation and is now garnering breathless raves Stateside.

    It’s her recent film work, however, that has made 2008 a banner year for the thesp. Two highly entertaining, highly contrasting supporting roles — as a worldly lesbian in the smash French thriller “Tell No One” and an icy matriarch in period comedy “Easy Virtue” — are mere appetizers to her staggering, career-peak performance as an introverted, grief-ridden ex-con, reconnecting with family and society alike, in Philippe Claudel’s superb debut feature “I’ve Loved You So Long.”

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  • Alone: when you hate a movie everyone else seems to love

    Miramax Films\' The English PatientIn 1996 I remember sitting in a packed screening room watching “The English Patient”; it was close to the end when Ralph Fiennes leaves Kristin Scott-Thomas in the cave, promising to come back, never to return, leaving her (through no fault of his own) to perish.

    I couldn’t help thinking at the time: “For fuck’s sake woman, DIE so we can all go home.”  I hated the film — hated it, hated it, hated it — and yet the reviewes were pretty much raves.  Of course the damned thing won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. I did not believe the love connection between the leads (there was no heat) nor that anyone, quite frankly, could fall for an ice queen like Scott-Thomas, much less risk their life for her.

    And yet all around me was this avalanche of praise.  Even the person I did a TV show with named the film the best of the year.  I went with “Trainspotting.”  “The English Patient” was being hailed as this great historical epic while I championed “The Crucible,” which Fox fumbled in releasing, and as the critic who disliked the film, I looked very silly.

    I admire the craftsmanship with which Anthony Mingehlla made his film, but I think he surpassed it with “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and the wonderful “Cold Mountain.”  And of course “The Englsih Patient” was not the first critically acclaimed film I disliked, nor will it be the last, but it does put one in an odd position. You second guess yourself (sometimes) and wonder if you missed something along the way.

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