Review: Entertaining "TRIANGLE OF SADNESS" is Not as Clever or as Sharp As it Thinks It Is

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 21 of 2023 (No. 1910) by Leroy Douresseaux

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

Running time:  147 minutes (2 hour, 27 minutes)

MPA – R for language and some sexual content

WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Rubin Östlund

PRODUCERS:  Philippe Bober and Erik Hemmendorff

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Fredrik Wenzel (D.o.P.)

EDITORS:  Mikel Cee Karlsson and Rubin Östlund

Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring:  Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Vicki Berlin, Dolly De Leon, Zlatko Buric, Sunnyi Melles, Iris Berben, Amanda Walker, Oliver Ford Davies, Ralph Schicha, Henrik Dorsin, Jean-Christophe Folly, Alicia Eriksson, and Woody Harrelson

Triangle of Sadness is a 2022 satirical film and black comedy from writer-director Ruben Östlund.  It is the Swedish Östlund's first English-language film, and it is an international co-production between four nations:  Sweden, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.  The film follows a celebrity couple, who are both fashion models, as they join a doomed luxury cruse for the super-rich.

Triangle of Sadness introduces Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean).  Yaya is a successful fashion model, and Carl is male model, who is not as successful as Yaya.  Yaya expects Carl to pay for their meals, although she makes more money than him, and her ambition is to be a trophy wife.  Yaya is an “influencer,” and she is in a relationship with Carl for the social media engagement it earns them.

Carl and Yaya are invited on a luxury cruise aboard a super-yacht in exchange for its social media promotion.  Among the wealthy guests are the Russian oligarch, Dimitry (Zlatko Buric), and his wife, Vera (Sunnyi Melles), and Jarmo (Henrik Dorsin), a lonely tech millionaire who flirts with Yaya.  Paula (Vicki Berlin), the tightly wound head of the ship's staff, demands that the staff obey the guests' every request, even the absurd ones.  The ship's Captain (Woody Harrelson) will not leave his room and seems to be drunk all the time.  The captain's neglect of his duties, Paula's insistence on placating the super-wealthy guests, and the guests crazy demands culminate in a single disastrous evening.

Eventually, a small group of the yacht's guests, including Carl and Yaya, find themselves on what seems to be a deserted island.  Now, the balance of power has shifted from the wealthy and powerful to a rather skillful cleaning woman, Abigail (Dolly De Leon).  Will the guests adjust to this new status, and how well will they adjust?

There are some fun, outrageous, and outrageously funny material, moments, and scenes in Triangle of Sadness.  The film critiques and mocks the obscenely wealthy, but I think that its strongest points are made when it takes swipes at how some people get rich and famous.  Some are wealthy because they sell things that are destructive to humanity (things used in war), and some are rich and famous … for being rich and famous.  Some people's wealth does not make their lives better, such as the lonely Jarmo.  Some, like the Russian, Dimitry, merely happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right stuff to sell.

For all his film's political commentary and moral lessons, writer-director Ruben Östlund seems to be a tad too mannered.  It's as if he doesn't know that while his film is edgy, he seems to be dulling the sharp edges that would really go after his social and political targets.  Is Östlund saying that the super-rich and famous are obscene and that they need to be brought down to the level of ordinary people in order to regain their humanity?  By the end of the film, it seems that way.

I would recommend Triangle of Sadness (which takes its title from a modeling term used in the film) to fans of foreign movies.  Most movie fans can get a similar message, more or less, from the classic Eddie Murphy-Dan Aykroyd film, Trading Places (1983).  I like Triangle of Sadness because it is a genuinely good film, but it feels like Ruben Östlund left the hardness of its allegories and metaphors on the cutting room floor.

7 of 10

A-

★★★½ out of 4 stars

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

NOTES:

2023 Academy Awards, USA:  3 nominations: “Best Motion Picture of the Year” (Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober), “Best Original Screenplay” (Ruben Östlund), and “Best Achievement in Directing” (Ruben Östlund)

2023 BAFTA Awards:  3 nominations: “Best Supporting Actress” (Dolly De Leon), “Best Casting” (Pauline Hansson), and “Best Screenplay-Original” (Ruben Östlund)

2023 Golden Globes, USA:  2 nominations: “Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” and “Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture” (Dolly De Leon) 

2022 Cannes Film Festival:  2 wins: “Palme d'Or” (Ruben Östlund) and “CST Artist-Technician Prize” (Andreas Franck, Bent Holm, Jacob Ilgner, and Jonas Rudels)

The text is copyright © 2023 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: Mads Mikkelsen is the Best Reason for "ANOTHER ROUND"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 35 of 2021 (No. 1773) by Leroy Douresseaux

Another Round (2020)
Original title: Druk (Denmark)
Running time:  117 minutes(1 hour, 57 minutes)
MPAA - not rated
DIRECTOR:  Thomas Vinterberg
WRITERS: Thomas Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm
PRODUCERS:  Kasper Dissing and Sisse Graum Jørgensen
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Sturla Brandth Grøvlen
EDITORS:  Janus Billeskov Jansen and Anne Østerud
Academy Award winner

DRAMA with elements of comedy

Starring:  Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, Lars Ranthe, Maria Bonnevie, Magnus Sjørup, Silas Cornelius Van, and Susse Wold

Druk is a 2020 Danish drama film from director Thomas Vinterberg.  Druk is also known by its English title, Another Round, the title to which it will be referred in this review.  Although the film is an international co-production between Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden, Another Round won the “Best International Feature Film” Oscar at the recent 2021 / 93rd Academy Awards as a representative of Denmark.  Another Round focuses on four high school teachers who binge drink alcoholic beverages to see how it affects their lives and work.

Another Round opens in Denmark and introduces Martin (Mads Mikkelson), a middle-age high school teacher.  He is married to Anika (Maria Bonnevie), and they have two teenage sons, Jonas (Magnus Sjørup) and Kasper (Silas Cornelius Van).  Martin is a close friend of three of his colleagues:  Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), Peter (Lars Ranthe), and Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) at a gymnasium school in Copenhagen.  All four men struggle with unmotivated students, and each feels that his life has become boring and stale, especially Martin, who is the instructor for senior history.  In fact, his students and their parents are so concerned that he is not preparing them for their graduation exams that they meet with him.  Martin is also depressed because of troubles to his marriage to Anika.

At a dinner celebrating Nikolaj's 40th birthday, the four men begin to discuss Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud (a real-life person).  The “Skårderud hypothesis” says that man is born with a deficit of 0.05% blood alcohol content (BAC).  A 0.05 BAC makes a person more creative and relaxed.  Thus, Nikolaj suggests that the four of them engage in an experiment to test the Skårderud hypothesis.  The experiment will involve the four of them consuming alcohol on a daily basis in order to make sure that their BAC should never be below 0.05.  The initial results are good, especially for Martin, but will flirting with alcoholism always yield good results?

If Danish actor Mads Mikkelson is not an international movie star, he should be.  He career includes appearances in several Danish Oscar-nominated foreign language films, besides Another Round, and those are After the Wedding (2006), A Royal Affair (2012), and The Hunt (2013).  He has also made appearances in some Hollywood big-budget event movies, including the James Bond movie, Casino Royale (2006); the remake, Clash of the Titans (2010); and Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange (2016), to name a few.

Mikkelson's Martin defines the themes of Another Round that deal with the midlife crisis, marital strife, family discord, and professional dissatisfaction.  His costars give good performances, but Mikkelson is the star here.  His nuanced and layered performance as a man in full midlife depression is radiant, and the story seems to lack quite a bit of energy whenever he is not on screen.

As films about midlife crises go, Another Round is enjoyable, and it is quaint compared to the lurid American Beauty (1999), a “Best Picture” Oscar winner that is as pretentious as it is salacious.  Truthfully, neither film really excites me, as I could give a crap about middle crises.  I can't see myself recommending Another Round except to Americans who enjoy “international films.”  Still, Another Round has Mikkelsen, and if it must be remembered, it should be remembered as an entry in his exceptional filmography.

7 of 10
B+

Tuesday, May 18, 2021


NOTES:
2021 Academy Awards, USA:  1 win: “Best International Feature Film” (Denmark) and 1 nomination: “Best Achievement in Directing” (Thomas Vinterberg)

2021 Golden Globes, USA:  1 nomination:  1 nomination: “Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language”

2021 BAFTA Awards:  1 win: “Best Film Not in the English Language” (Thomas Vinterberg, Sisse Graum Jørgensen, and Kasper Dissing); 3 nominations: “Best Leading Actor” (Mads Mikkelsen); “Best Screenplay-Original” (Tobias Lindholm and Thomas Vinterberg), and “Best Director” (Thomas Vinterberg)

The text is copyright © 2021 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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Review: "Midsommar" is Both Familiar and Freaky

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 (of 2020) by Leroy Douresseaux

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

Midsommar (2019)
Running time:  147 minutes (2 hours, 27 minutes)
MPAA – R for disturbing ritualistic violence and grisly images, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language
WRITER/DIRECTOR:  Ari Aster
PRODUCERS:  Patrik Andersson and Lars Knudsen
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Pawel Pogorzelski   
EDITOR:  Lucian Johnston
COMPOSER: Bobby Krlic

HORROR

Starring:  Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Vilhelm Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter, Ellora Torchia, Archie Madekwe, Henrik Norlen, Gunnel Fred, Isabelle Grill, Agnes Rase, Mats Blomgren, and Hampus Hallberg

Midsommar is a 2019 horror film written and directed by Ari Aster.  The film follows a group of friends that travel to Sweden to visit a isolated village and attend its mid-summer festival only to find themselves in the clutches of a pagan cult.

Midsommar introduces college student, Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh), who has recently been traumatized by a bizarre family tragedy.  Dani is also involved with an emotionally-distant boyfriend, Christian Hughes (Jack Reynor), and the incident with Dani's family further strains their tenuous relationship.  Dani learns that in the upcoming summer, Christian and his friends, Mark (Will Poulter) and Josh (William Jackson Harper), have been invited by their Swedish friend, Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), to accompany him to Sweden.

There, the group will travel to Pelle's ancestral commune, the Harga, in Halsingland and experience a midsummer celebration, a nine-day feast, that occurs every 90 years.  Christian reluctantly invites Dani to come along.  As soon as the group arrives, however, bizarre and horrible things begin to happen, and some of their friends begin to disappear.  Will Dani and her friends uncover the truth about this idyllic village in time to save themselves?

Midsommar is the second feature film from writer-director Ari Aster, who wowed audiences with his 2018 film, Hereditary (which I have not yet seen).  Midsommar is creepy, bizarre, troubling, and unsettling.  Some of the film has stayed with me in the eight hours since I finished watching it, and I can't stop thinking about both some of its scenes and some of the pagan practices, rituals, and iconography depicted in the film.  Midsommar is a beautiful looking film, especially the costumes of the Harga villagers, the flower arrangements, and the sets.

That said, much of Midsommar is a reworking of decades-old films that have dealt with murderous pagan cults.  That includes the British films, Eye of the Devil (1966) and The Wicker Man (1973), and also the 1978, two-part NBC miniseries, “The Dark Secret of Harvest Home” (1978).  In fact, I recognized a lot of ideas in Midsommar that are similar to plot threads in “The Dark Secret of Harvest Home,” which was based on Thomas Tyron's 1973 novel, Harvest Home.

So Midsommar is good and creepy and unsettling and disturbing.  However, it isn't so much original as it is the revival of genre of cult movies that are about cults.  If you have not seen the earlier films, Midsommar is a good place to start.

B
6 of 10

Friday, April 10, 2020


The text is copyright © 2020 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.

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2018 Oscars - "Best Foreign Language Film" - "A Fantastic Woman"

Foreign Language Film

A Fantastic Woman - Chile - WINNERS

Nominees
The Insult - Lebanon
Loveless - Russia
On Body and Soul - Hungary
The Square – Sweden

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Nine Foreign Language Films Vie for 5 90th Academy Award Nominations

9 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS ADVANCE IN OSCAR RACE

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that nine features will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 90th Academy Awards ®.  Ninety-two films had originally been considered in the category.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Chile, “A Fantastic Woman,” Sebastián Lelio, director;

Germany, “In the Fade,” Fatih Akin, director;

Hungary, “On Body and Soul,” Ildikó Enyedi, director;

Israel, “Foxtrot,” Samuel Maoz, director;

Lebanon, “The Insult,” Ziad Doueiri, director;

Russia, “Loveless,” Andrey Zvyagintsev, director;

Senegal, “Félicité,” Alain Gomis, director;

South Africa, “The Wound,” John Trengove, director;

Sweden, “The Square,” Ruben Östlund, director.

Foreign Language Film nominations for 2017 are determined in two phases.

The Phase I committee, consisting of Los Angeles-based Academy members, screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and December 11, 2017.  The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.

Academy members eligible to participate in the Nominations round of voting in New York, London, Los Angeles and, for the first time, the San Francisco Bay Area, will screen the nine shortlisted films in theaters over a three-day period from Friday, January 12, through Sunday, January 14, with three films screening each day.  Additionally, international members (who live outside of the U.K.) will be invited to opt-in to stream the nine shortlisted films on the Academy’s member site.  Members must see all nine films before casting their ballots.

Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards® will be announced on Tuesday, January 23, 2018.

The 90th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT.  The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

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"The Salesman" Wins "Best Foreign Film" Oscar

Foreign Language Film

Nominees
Land of Mine - Denmark

A Man Called Ove - Sweden

The Salesman - Iran - WINNER

Tanna - Australia

Toni Erdmann - Germany

Dark Horse Announces an American Edition of Swedish Grahpic Novel, "Alena"

Kim W. Andersson’s “Alena” Arrives in America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MILWAUKIE, OR— Kim W. Andersson is making waves in the international comics and film community. His original Swedish graphic novel Alena was adapted into a feature-length film in Sweden that just received a critically acclaimed US debut at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2016. Now the graphic novel will see full US distribution through Dark Horse Comics.

Alena’s life is a living hell. Since she arrived at a snobbish boarding school, she’s been harassed every day by Philippa and the girls on the lacrosse team. But Alena’s best friend Josephine is not going to accept that anymore.

Not from the counselor or the principal, not from Philippa, and not from anyone else at that horrid school. If Alena does not fight back, then Josephine will take matters into her own hands.

There’s just one problem . . . Josephine has been dead for a year.

Author and artist Kim W. Andersson (The Complete Love Hurts) is the winner of the Swedish Comics Academy’s Adamson statue—Sweden’s most prestigious comics award—and a creator to watch in the coming year.

Alena (978-1-50670-215-5) is in stores August 24, 2016.

Praise for Kim W. Andersson:

“Kim W. Andersson’s graphic novel Alena has unsurprisingly been described as Let the Right One In meets Show Me Love set in a boarding school. Count on vengeance, violence and broken teenage hearts.”—Stockholm Film Festival

“Not for the faint of heart, but wicked fun for the right audience.”—Booklist

“Kim Andersson is able to play around with many different styles, and it works. He does a good job bringing a different side of love to life.”—San Francisco Book Review

Also available from Kim W. Andersson:
The Complete Love Hurts TPB | 978-1-61655-859-8 | $19.99


About Dark Horse
For 30 years, Dark Horse Comics has proven to be a solid example of how integrity and innovation can help broaden a unique storytelling medium and establish a small, homegrown company as an industry giant. Founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson, the company is known for the progressive and creator-friendly atmosphere it provides for writers and artists. In addition to publishing comics from top talent, such as Eric Powell, Mike Mignola, Geof Darrow, Brian Wood, Gail Simone, Stan Sakai, and Guillermo del Toro, and comics legends, such as Will Eisner, Milo Manara, Kazuo Koike, Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller, Dark Horse has developed its own successful properties, such as The Mask, Ghost, X and Barb Wire. Its successful line of comics, manga and products based on popular properties includes Dragon Age, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, Conan, Tomb Raider, Halo, The Witcher, Serenity, Game of Thrones, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Today Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent comic book publisher in the US and is recognized as one of the world’s leading entertainment publishers.

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2015 San Diego Film Critics Society Award Nominations - Complete List

The members of the San Diego Film Critics Society write and/or broadcast for a San Diego County based outlet. The society’s mission statement is “to provide diverse critical opinion about movies, advance film education and awareness, and recognize excellence in cinema.”

2015 San Diego Film Critics Award nominations were announced December 11, 2015.

San Diego Film Critics Society Top Films of 2015 nominees:

Best Picture

EX MACHINA

BROOKLYN

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

ROOM

SPOTLIGHT

Best Director

George Miller, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

John Crowley, BROOKLYN

Lenny Abrahamson, ROOM

Tom McCarthy, SPOTLIGHT

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, THE REVENANT

Best Actor, Male

Leonardo DiCaprio, THE REVENANT

Jason Segel, THE END OF THE TOUR

Matt Damon, THE MARTIAN

Bryan Cranston, TRUMBO

Jacob Tremblay, ROOM

Best Actor, Female

Saoirse Ronan, BROOKLYN

Brie Larson, ROOM

Charlotte Rampling, 45 YEARS

Charlize Theron, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Alicia Vikander, EX MACHINA

Best Supporting Actor, Male

Mark Rylance, BRIDGE OF SPIES

Tom Noonan, ANOMALISA

Oscar Isaac, EX MACHINA

Paul Dano, LOVE & MERCY

RJ Cyler, ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL

Best Supporting Actor, Female

Alicia Vikander, THE DANISH GIRL

Jennifer Jason Leigh, THE HATEFUL EIGHT

Helen Mirren, TRUMBO

Kristen Stewart, CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

Olivia Cooke, ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL

Best Original Screenplay

Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig, MISTRESS AMERICA

Alex Garland, EX MACHINA

Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

Quentin Tarantino, THE HATEFUL EIGHT

Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer, SPOTLIGHT

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nick Hornby, BROOKLYN

Emma Donoghue, ROOM

Charlie Kaufman, ANOMALISA

Donald Margulies, THE END OF THE TOUR

Drew Goddard, Andy Weir THE MARTIAN

Best Documentary

AMY

HE NAMED ME MALALA

CARTEL LAND

MERU

THE WRECKING CREW

Best Animated Film

INSIDE OUT

ANOMALISA

SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE

THE GOOD DINOSAUR

THE PEANUTS MOVIE

Best Foreign Language Film
PHOENIX (Germany)
TAXI (Iran)
WHITE GOD (Hungary)
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE (Sweden, Norway, France, Germany)
GOODNIGHT MOMMY (Austria)

Best Editing

Margaret Sixel, Jason Ballantine MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Joe Walker, SICARIO

Pietro Scalia, THE MARTIAN

Michael Kahn, BRIDGE OF SPIES

Nathan Nugent, ROOM

Stephen Mirrione, THE REVENANT

Best Cinematography

Roger Deakins, SICARIO

Yves Belanger, BROOKLYN

Dariuz Wolski, THE MARTIAN

John Seale, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Emmanuel Lubezki, THE REVENANT

Best Production Design

Colin Gibson, MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Mark Digby, EX MACHINA

Arthur Max, THE MARTIAN

Francois Seguin, BROOKLYN

Adam Stockhausen, BRIDGE OF SPIES

Best Sound Design

THE MARTIAN

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

EX MACHINA

SICARIO

LOVE & MERCY

Best Visual Effects

THE MARTIAN

EX MACHINA

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

THE WALK

JURASSIC WORLD

Best Use Of Music In A Film

THE HATEFUL EIGHT

LOVE & MERCY

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

SICARIO

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

Breakthrough Artist

Alicia Vikander, THE DANISH GIRL, EX MACHINA

Jacob Tremblay, ROOM

Emory Cohen, BROOKLYN

Abraham Attah, BEASTS OF NO NATION

Sean S. Baker, TANGERINE

Best Ensemble

SPOTLIGHT

THE HATEFUL EIGHT

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

INSIDE OUT

THE BIG SHORT

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

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Paolo Sorrentino's "Youth" Named "Best European Film of 2015"

The European Film Awards recognize excellence in European cinematic achievements.  The awards are are presented annually since 1988 by the European Film Academy and are given in over ten categories, of which the most important is “European Film,” the best film of the year award.  The European Film Awards are restricted to European cinema and European producers, directors, and actors.

The winners of the 28th European Film Awards were announced at a ceremony on Saturday, December 12, 2015 in Berlin, Germany.

The 2015/28th European Film Awards winners:

EUROPEAN FILM 2015
Youth, dir: Paolo Sorrentino

EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2015
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years

EUROPEAN ACTOR 2015
Michael Caine, Youth

EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2015
Paolo Sorrentino, Youth

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD 2015
Marshland, dir: Alberto Rodríguez

EUROPEAN COMEDY 2015
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, dir: Roy Andersson

EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY 2015
Amy, dir: Asif Kapadia

EUROPEAN DISCOVERY – PRIX FIPRESCI
Mustang, dir: Deniz Gamze Erguven

EUROPEAN ANIMATED FEATURE FILM 2015
Song Of The Sea, dir: Tomm Moore

EUROPEAN SHORT FILM 2015
Picnic, dir: Jure Pavlovic

EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2015
Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou for The Lobster

PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED:

EFA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 2015
Charlotte Rampling

EUROPEAN CO-PRODUCTION AWARD 2015
Andrea Occhipinti

EUROPEAN SOUND DESIGNER 2015
Vasco Pimentel & Miguel Martins for Arabian Nights – Vol I-III

EUROPEAN COMPOSER 2015
Cat’s Eyes for The Duke Of Burgundy

EUROPEAN COSTUME DESIGNER 2015
Sarah Blenkinsop for The Lobster

EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER 2015
Sylvie Olivé for The Brand New Testament

EUROPEAN EDITOR 2015
Jacek Drosio for Body

EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER 2015
Martin Gschlacht for Goodnight Mommy

EUROPEAN ACHIEVEMENT IN WORLD CINEMA (Honorary Award)
Christoph Waltz

HONORARY AWARD OF THE EFA PRESIDENT AND BOARD
Michael Caine

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2014 Florida Film Critics Circle Award Nominations - Complete List

The Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC) was founded in 1996 is comprised of writers from various state-based publications.

The Florida Film Critics Circle Award (FFCC) nominations were announced on December 16, 2014.

2014 Florida Film Critics Circle nominees:

BEST PICTURE
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST ACTOR
Jake Gyllenhaal – Nightcrawler
Michael Keaton – Birdman
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

BEST ACTRESS
Julianne Moore – Still Alice
Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon – Wild

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Edward Norton – Birdman
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood
Jessica Chastain – A Most Violent Year
Emma Stone – Birdman

BEST ENSEMBLE
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST DIRECTOR
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Gone Girl
Inherent Vice
The Theory of Everything

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Birdman
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Interstellar

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar

BEST ART DIRECTION/PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Interstellar
Into the Woods

BEST SCORE
Gone Girl
Interstellar
Under the Skin

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Citizenfour
Life Itself
Jodorowsky’s Dune

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Ida (Poland)
Force Majeure (Sweden)
The Raid 2 (Indonesia)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Big Hero 6
How to Train Your Dragon 2
The Lego Movie

PAULINE KAEL BREAKOUT AWARD
Jennifer Kent – The Babadook
Damien Chazelle – Whiplash
Gugu Mbatha-Raw – Belle/Beyond the Lights

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9 Films Vie for 5 "Foreign Language Film" 87th Oscar Nominations

9 Foreign Language Films Advance in Oscar® Race

Nine features will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 87th Academy Awards®.  Eighty-three films had originally been considered in the category.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Argentina, "Wild Tales," Damián Szifrón, director;

Estonia, "Tangerines," Zaza Urushadze, director;

Georgia, "Corn Island," George Ovashvili, director;

Mauritania, "Timbuktu," Abderrahmane Sissako, director;

Netherlands, "Accused," Paula van der Oest, director;

Poland, "Ida," Paweł Pawlikowski, director;

Russia, "Leviathan," Andrey Zvyagintsev, director;

Sweden, "Force Majeure," Ruben Östlund, director;

Venezuela, "The Liberator," Alberto Arvelo, director.


Foreign Language Film nominations for 2014 are being determined in two phases.

The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and December 15.  The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.

The shortlist will be winnowed down to the category’s five nominees by specially invited committees in New York, Los Angeles and, for the first time, London.  They will spend Friday, January 9, through Sunday, January 11, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.

The 87th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 15, 2015, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.  The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

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Review: Andreas Wilson Makes Star Turn in "Ondskan" (Evil)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 205 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Ondskan (2003)
Evil – 2006 U.S. theatrical release
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Sweden; Languages:  Swedish and Finnish
Running time:  113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
Not rated by the MPAA
DIRECTOR:  Mikael Håfström
WRITERS:  Hans Gunnarsson and Mikael Håfström (from the novel by Jan Guillon)
PRODUCERS:  Ingemar Leijonborg and Hans Lönnerheden
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Peter Mokrosinski
EDITOR:  Darek Hodor
COMPOSER:  Francis Shaw
Academy Award nominee

DRAMA

Starring:  Andreas Wilson, Henrik Lundström, Gustaf Skarsgård, Linda Zilliacus, Jesper Salén, Filip Berg, Johan Rabaeus, and Marie Richardson

The subject of this movie review Ondskan (Evil), a 2003 private school drama from director, Mikael Hafstrom.  The film is based on the 1981 Swedish autobiographical novel, Ondskan (The Evil) by Jan Guillon.  The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States in 2006.

After numerous fights in which he brutalized his victims, a rebellious teenager, Erik Ponti (Andreas Wilson), is expelled from high school after the headmaster declares him “Evil,” while also noting what a good student Erik is.  Erik also has a pitiful home life, in which his bullying Stepfather (Johan Rabaeus) beats him while his Mother (Marie Richardson) suffers in silence.  Erik’s mother sells off some of her family heirlooms to send Erik to the prestigious boarding school, Stjärnsberg.  This is Erik’s last chance to finish high school, which will allow him to move to the next class (called “forms”), the “Sixth Form.”  However, if Stjärnsberg expels him, his chance at law school is finished.

Erik is determined to live in peace at his new school, but after having endured so many beatings from his stepfather, Erik is shocked to learn Stjärnsberg has a similar attitude of abuse.  He faces a constant barrage of verbal and physical threats from the school’s senior class, in particularly a group of students (whose families are nobility) – led by a pompous bully named Otto Silverhielm (Gustaf Skarsgård).  They torment the younger students mercilessly, but Erik refuses to accept a low place on the totem pole and just wants to be left alone.  Although he takes some of their punishment, they want to crack him, but he won’t crack or lash out in violence.  When Otto turns his anger towards Erik’s best friend and roommate, Pierre Tanguy (Henrik Lundström), Erik must face the evil within him and the evil of Otto and his gang of bullies.  Erik also has a romantic entanglement with Marja (Linda Zilliacus), a member of the school’s kitchen staff, which, if discovered, will get him expelled and her fired.

Mikael Håfström’s film Ondskan – English title Evil – received a 2004 Academy Award nomination for “Best Foreign Language Film” as a representative of Sweden.  Although the film may remind some U.S. viewers of Dead Poets’ Society because both share an elite boarding school the setting, Ondskan is probably closer to the 1992 prep school drama, School Ties.  Based on Jan Guillon’s novel (which in turn was based upon some of his experiences as a boarding school student), Ondskan is a rumination on both the evil in people (as manifested by their actions) and the evil they accept (the actions of others that they tolerate out of habit or because of social conventions).  Mikael Håfström manages to delve into the script’s, which he co-wrote, more thoughtful pursuits, while extracting the tense drama the setting – a boarding school full of conflicting ideologies, social classes, cliques, motivations, etc. – allows him.

He has a star in Andreas Wilson, the kind of young actor with the fierce charisma needed to play a screen tough like Erik.  Wilson’s ability to portray quite determination and also hate, rage, and evil boiling under the surface with such subtlety both drives and carries this film.  Hollywood taking notice of him would be a good thing.

8 of 10
A

Saturday, September 30, 2006

NOTES:
2004 Academy Awards, USA:  1 nomination:  “Best Foreign Language Film” (Sweden)

Updated: Wednesday, February 19, 2014


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"Easy Money" Finds the Mean Streets of Stockholm

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 23 (of 2013) by Leroy Douresseaux


Easy Money (2012)
Snabba Cash (2010) – original title
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Sweden; Language: Swedish and others
Running time: 125 minutes (2 hour, 5 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence, pervasive language, drug content and some sexuality
DIRECTOR: Daniel Espinosa
WRITERS: Maria Karlsson with Hassan Loo Sattarvandi, Fredrik Wikström, and Daniel Espinosa (based on the novel by Jens Lapidus)
PRODUCER: Fredrik Wikström
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Aril Wretblad
EDITOR: Theis Schmidt
COMPOSER: Jon Ekstrand

CRIME/DRAMA/THRILLER

Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Matias Padin Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, Lisa Henni, Mahmut Suvakci, Jones Danko, Lea Stojanov, Dejan Cukic, Annika Ryberg Whittembury, Fares Fares, and Maxim Kovalevski

Snabba Cash is a 2010 Swedish crime thriller from director Daniel Espinosa. In 2012, it was released in the United States as Easy Money. The film is based on Snabba cash, a 2006 novel by Jens Lapidus, a Swedish author and criminal defense attorney. The film follows a poor college student who becomes involved with drug dealers in order to maintain his double life.

Johan “JW” Westlund (Joel Kinnaman) is a promising student at the Stockholm School of Economics, but he leads a double life. JW is a poor man pretending to be a rich man in the upper class areas of Stockholm. He illegally drives a taxi and does odd jobs for shady businessman, Abdulkarim (Mahmut Suvakci), in order to earn the money that helps him keep up the façade of his pretend lifestyle. After he meets wealthy heiress, Sophie (Lisa Henni), JW believes that he needs more money and is lured into Abdulkarim’s world of drug dealing and violence.

Jorge Salinas (Matias Padin Varela) is a fugitive from prison, on the run from both the police and Serbian mobsters. Jorge hopes to broker a massive drug deal with Abdulkarim that will allow him to leave a life of crime forever. Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic) is a hit man and errand boy for Radovan (Dejan Cukic), a Yugoslavian mafia boss based in Sweden. Radovan sends Mrado on a hunt for Jorge, but Mrado’s efforts are complicated by the unexpected arrival of his 8-year-old daughter, Lovisa (Lea Stojanov). JW’s life becomes entangled with Jorge and Mrado in a dramatic struggle for life and death.

The press material for Easy Money’s DVD release declares “Martin Scorsese’s Presents ‘Easy Money’.” I can see why Scorsese might admire Easy Money. Director Francis Ford Coppola created the epic film series, The Godfather, which detailed the drama of American mafia royalty. However, Scorsese’s epic crime dramas, like Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995), center on the mob’s middle-management and assorted street-level types, like capos, local bosses, hit men, enforcers, and armed robbers. In his bid to win the heart of a rich girl and enter the world of the well-to-do, JW follows the easy money breadcrumb trail to a Goodfellas-like life. This is a darker side of the lower-class, one that can be unfamiliar, even to one of JW’s working-class roots.

Like Scorsese’s crime films, Easy Money is a tale of complicated, messy relationships between men who are criminals. Some of these relationships are born out of long held associations; others come about when men unite because of necessity. That’s what makes this movie so brutally real – the character drama that focuses on the bonds of men, bonds that are convincingly authentic to the viewer.

Director Daniel Espinosa wowed people with his 2012 Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds international thriller, Safe House, by unveiling the complexities of both Washington and Ryan’s characters. In Easy Money, Espinosa has a lead character in JW, but he turns his film into something like an ensemble character drama with JW as an axis. Thus, Espinosa gets strong, leading man-type performances from the rest of the cast, especially Matias Padin Varela as Jorge and Dragomir Mrsic as Mrado, in addition to the intense turn from Joel Kinnaman, who does his fiercest hawk-like face for the camera.

One glaring weakness of Easy Money is the relationship between JW and Sophie, which doesn’t make sense. Where are the scenes that convince us that Sophie would be so crazy-in-love with JW? Yeah, it’s cool that Sophie is ultimately a down-ass chick, but it’s difficult to see in the film where, when, or why that happened.

Easy Money is not an art house foreign film. It plays like the best of the big boys of American crime films. This isn’t a slick tale about cool anti-heroes and murderous hoods, like The Fast and the Furious. Easy Money follows in the footsteps of Scorsese and even Quentin Tarantino. The language barrier can’t stop the easy-to-like and hard-to-resist Easy Money from entertaining crime film fans the world over.

8 of 10
A

Monday, March 25, 2013

Noomi Rapace a Dragon in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 67 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
Män som hatar kvinnor (original title)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Sweden with Denmark, Germany, and Norway
Running time: 152 minutes (2 hours, 32 minutes)
MPAA – R for disturbing violent content including rape, grisly images, sexual material, nudity and language
DIRECTOR: Niels Arden Oplev
WRITERS: Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg (based on the novel by Stieg Larsson)
PRODUCER: Søren Stærmose
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Eric Kress (photographer)
EDITOR: Anne Østerud
COMPOSER: Jacob Groth
BAFTA winner

DRAMA/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Lena Endre, Sven-Bertil Taube, Peter Haber, Peter Andersson, Marika Lagercrantz, Ingvar Hirdwall, and Bjorn Granath

Män som hatar kvinnor is a 2009 Swedish drama and mystery thriller. The title literally means “Men who hate women.” This film is based on the 2005 novel, Män som hatar kvinnor, written by the late author and journalist, Stieg Larsson. In English-language markets, the novel and its Swedish film adaptation are known as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The film focuses on a disgraced journalist and a young female hacker who try to discover the circumstances behind the disappearance of an apparently murdered young woman.

The film opens in December 2002. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), publisher of Millennium magazine, loses a libel case, which gets him a huge fine and a three-month prison sentence. Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a young computer hacker who works as a surveillance agent, has been watching Blomkvist and researching his activities. Lisbeth delivers a comprehensive report on him to Dirch Frode (Ingvar Hirdwall). Frode convinces Blomkvist to meet his client, 82-year-old Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube).

Vanger hires Blomkvist to investigate the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, his niece who disappeared in 1966 and is believed to be dead. Vanger believes that Harriet was likely harmed by one of his family members, who are all part of the Vanger Group. Blomkvist’s investigation is going nowhere when Lisbeth intervenes and agrees to help him with the case. As they dig deeper into the Vangers, Blomkvist and Lisbeth discover dark family secrets that go back decades.

I rented a copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo from Netflix. I intended to watch the first half-hour of the film and then stop and watch the rest of it at a later time. Those plans were crashed. I could not stop watching this tremendously gripping thriller. Everything works. The direction is tight, and that results in a tautly-paced film in which the characters’ lives are always perilously close to going over the edge.

The screenplay is well-written, but the writers are enamored with Lisbeth, while too much about Blomkvist is left out. As the film progresses, Blomkvist becomes just an investigator – the P.I., the classic whodunit detective, the gumshoe, etc. The script even relegates the Vanger Family to the background and sidelines of the story, although the resolution is firmly nestled in the family’s extra-dark past and present.

However, it is easy to see why the script is in love with Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo. She lights up the story, and Noomi Rapace’s luminous performance brings Lisbeth to brilliant life. As Lisbeth, Rapace radiates unusual beauty, raw sexual power, exceptional strength, uncommon intelligence, and fierce independence. She’s a goddess!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a great mystery thriller, but its center is a dazzling character named Lisbeth Salander. She makes a great mystery thriller even greater.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
2011 BAFTA Awards: 1 win: “Best Film not in the English Language;” 2 nominations: “Best Leading Actress” (Noomi Rapace) and “Best Screenplay-Adapted” (Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel)

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Review: "Cries and Whispers" is Incredible Intense (Remembering Ingmar Bergman)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 78 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux

Cries and Whispers (1972)
Viskningar och rop – original title
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Sweden
Running time: 91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)
MPAA – R
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Ingmar Bergman
PRODUCER: Lars-Owe Carlberg
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Sven Nykvist
EDITOR: Siv Lundgren
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring: Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullman, Inga Gill (voice), Anders Ek, Erland Josephson, Henning Moritzen, and Georg Arlin

The subject of this movie review is Cries and Whispers (Viskningar och rop), a 1972 drama written and directed by legendary Swedish filmmaker, the late Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007). The film follows two sisters who watch over the deathbed of a third sister and all the complicated history between the three women. At the time, Cries and Whispers was only the fourth foreign-language film to be nominated in the “best picture” category at the Academy Awards.

Ingmar Bergman is one of the world’s most renowned film directors, and his 1972 film Cries and Whispers influenced much of filmmaker Woody (Annie Hall) Allen’s work. This is the first Bergman film that I’ve ever seen and, as the film’s tagline says, it, for me, was a haunting and shattering experience.

Two sister, Marie (Liv Ullman) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin), take care of their terminally ill sister, Agnes (Harriet Andersson), all under the watchful gaze of Agnes’s loyal servant Anna (Kari Sylwan), in Agnes’s Swedish manor, circa 1900. The sisters’ relationship, like the relationship of real people, is complicated, and Agnes’s looming death forces them to confront each other, as well as forcing Marie and Karin to relive painful moments with their husbands from the recent past.

Cries and Whispers starts off quiet slowly; in fact, it takes much patience on the part of the viewer to stick with this film. However, about a third of the way into the movie, you can catch its deliberately languid rhythm. Bergman gives every scene such astonishing individual attention that his film becomes a composition of pictorial frames. Each frame is like a separate painting that when viewed with the aid of light and speed becomes a complex and engrossing story. Director of Photography Sven Nykvist (who won an Oscar for his work here) washes the film in vivid, dark colors, especially red, so that the movie looks like one continuous oil painting.

Of the many things that I got from this film was Bergman’s fidelity to the visual purity of film. His dialogue, which is sparse, is efficient and rich in telling the story. However, so much of the film story is dependent upon what the viewer sees on the screen, be it in the facial expressions and gestures of the actors or the lavish and colorful settings. From actors, to props, to settings, each one creates a mood conveyed through sight that communicates to the viewer. Bergman, like the great painters, is telling a story with his canvas, and his entire painting doesn’t just contribute to the story, it is the story, from the frozen expression on a character’s face to the overwhelming crimson that covers the manor’s walls. It’s a visual feast that harkens back to silent films, before sound corrupted the purely visual sensations of cinema.

As much as Bergman’s prowess is on display in the story and composition of the film, the acting is superb, first rate, and award winning work. They’re all good, and each actor tells his or her part of the story, using the human body as an artistic tool. My favorite is Kari Sylwan as the maid Anna. She is the film’s moral center, the loyal servant who steadies Agnes in her suffering, her sickness being the catalyst for this tale. Hers is a quite and bravura performance, one of the best supporting roles that I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch.

Anyone who seriously loves cinema as an art and as a visual artistic experience has to see Bergman, and this, though not his most famous work, is a good example of what a film artist can do in the medium. I won’t provide spoilers of the story, but there are many scenes that could shatter the nerves and unsettle the viewer.

9 of 10
A+

NOTES:
1974 Academy Awards: 1 win: “Best Cinematography” (Sven Nykvist); 4 nominations: “Best Costume Design” (Marik Vos-Lundh), “Best Director” (Ingmar Bergman), “Best Picture” (Ingmar Bergman), “Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced” (Ingmar Bergman)

1974 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Actress” (Ingrid Thulin) and “Best Cinematography” (Sven Nykvist)

1973 Golden Globes, USA: 1 nomination: “Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film” (Sweden)

1973 Cannes Film Festival: 1 win: “Technical Grand Prize” (Ingmar Bergman)

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