Category: Film

Packed Weekend

The weekend was packed, as usual. Highlights include:

  • seeing the National Ballet of Canada on Saturday afternoon. It was a mixed programme, but I was there to see Monotones I & II, choreographed by Frederick Ashton. The music was Erik Satie‘s Prélude d’Eginhard and Trois Gnossiennes for the first part, and Trois Gymnopédies(which you will hear in the film The Royal Tenenbaums, though it’s not on the soundtrack) for the second. Satie was at least fifty years ahead of his time, writing spare, beautiful music that would be right at home in films. Combined with the minimalistic costumes and set decoration, the piece would have been right at home in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mesmerizingly beautiful.
  • watching, on Saturday night with our little film group, The Philadelphia Story (1940), with Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and James Stewart. Razor-sharp and filled with intelligent laughs. Why can’t they make films like this anymore?

Women’s Hockey Gold/Ghost World

Now, I’m not much of a hockey fan. But I was proud of the way our women’s hockey team played tonight. Killing off 13 penalties called by the American referee (and forgive me here, but isn’t there supposed to be some semblance of impartiality in the appointment of referees, especially in the gold medal game?) and playing with incredible grit and determination, Canada took home gold. No offence to the US team, who were also amazing. I thought it was a really great game, and coming from me, that’s high praise. Now maybe it will light a fire under our flaccid men’s team…

The second half of my evening was spent finally sitting down to watch Ghost World, the DVD of which Brooke bought me more than a week ago. We hadn’t seen it in the theatre, but I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. As a fan of the comic book, I thought it was translated to the screen quite faithfully, and I thought Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi’s performances were wonderful. I’m crossing my fingers that it wins the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Waking Life Snubbed

I agree with Roger Ebert, who says Richard Linklater’s Waking Life was unfairly overlooked in the Best Animated Feature category in this year’s Oscar nominations. His theory is that Hollywood and its huge CGI industry didn’t like an indie film director’s use of off-the-shelf Macintosh computers and home-brewed animation software to challenge their supremacy.

What do you think of this year’s nominations overall?

Oscar Nomination Oddities

Looking over the list of Oscar nominees, I’m very disappointed that Gene Hackman was overlooked. Usually winning the Golden Globe award pretty much assures a nomination for the Oscar, and in his case it was sorely deserved. I didn’t see Training Day, but really, two nominations for acting in a film that didn’t get any other notice seems odd.