Am Sonntag werden wieder die Oscars verliehen und auch wenn die Veranstaltung schon lange keine große Aussagekraft mehr hat, ist es doch immer wieder unterhaltsam sie anzusehen und mitzufiebern. Dieses Jahr drücken wir natürlich vor allem Pina die Daumen. Wer mitraten möchte, kann drüben bei mostlymovies.de seine Tipps abgeben und dabei dann vielleicht auch etwas gewinnen. Macht mit!

In dem sieben Minuten langen Beitrag aus Arte Kurzschluss sprechen Filmkuratoren von Kurzfilmfestivals über ihre Arbeit. Spannend.

Eine Dokumentation über den französischen Hochstapler Frederic Bourdin, der 1997 die Identität des verschollenen Amerikaners Nicholas Barkley annahm und zu dessen Familie nach Texas zurückkehrte. Hier der erste Trailer (via):

Nach Repo! The Genetic Opera gibt es nun einen weiteren Rockoper-Horrorfilm aus der Feder von Darren Lynn Bousman. Der Teaser verrät nicht viel, macht aber schon mal richtig Stimmung. Der richtige Trailer folgt am 16.03. (via)

• I MARRIED AN ARMENIAN: Said matter-of-factly to us by a woman publicist. Stanley thought it a great title for a 1940s-style Warner Bros. musical.
• IF ONLY THE FÜHRER KNEW!: This was a common saying in Germany in the 1930s whenever something went wrong or somebody did something wrong. Used mockingly with the eyes looking upwards.
• HOT SHEETS, LEG CANDY, LEG MAGIC, FEEL TIGHT, PARTITION MAGIC: Five vehicles for Sharon Stone. Partition Magic was the name of a software package in the days of DOS that almost allowed you to run two programs concurrently.
• ONLY MINISTERS OF THE THIRD REICH MAY USE GREEN INK: Stanley read somewhere that this was, in fact, true. He thought it would make a great art house double bill with Wim Wender’s 1971 film, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick.
• COFFIN NOT INCLUDED: A 1940s noir thriller. When I was researching props for the morgue scene in Eyes Wide Shut I had a catalogue from a company that supplied funeral parlour equipment. One of the illustrations showed a bier with a coffin on it. The caption read: “The Excelsior Bier (coffin not included.)”
• DR STRANGLE-GLOVE: Stanley’s title misunderstood by a switchboard operator at Shepperton Studios while he was making the film.
• OSMIROID AND OBLIVION and OTHER BARRELS, OTHER NIBS: Two art house films about European writers. Lots of sensitivity, lots of angst. Osmiroid made some of Stanley’s favourite fountain pens. Oskar Werner in the lead?)
• TWIG THE ENHANCER: Heroic quest and Tolkien-type fantasy. Stanley’s house was in a sink as regards mobile phone reception, so, the company put in an enhancer to boost reception and transmission. After a few weeks it went down. An engineer turned up and fixed it. We asked him what he had done. He replied, “I had to twig the enhancer.”
• NIGHTCLUBS, MORGUES, HOSPITAL: A comedy with Steve Martin.
• IN THE PENILE COLONY: Not penal … Kafka meets Marilyn Chambers?
• ONE BAG, ONE NOTEBOOK: Art house angst, Oskar Werner again.
• THE WIZARD OF AUSCHWITZ: A concentration camp film with a feel-good ending.
• AUSCHWITZ AND ME!: A musical. The follow-up to Springtime for Hitler?
• SHARP SHADOW ON THE WALL: Arty noir film set in the 1940s with not a lot happening.
• THE TWO WALLYS: From Wally Veevers and Wally Gentleman, two of the SFX supervisors on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• SIGHT GAGS FOR PERVERTS: How Dr. Strangelove was described on its release in a review in the Bulletin of the American Film Institute! Stanley cherished this.
• SOME LIKE IT COLD and JACK THE SNIFFER: An intriguing double-bill for forensic science buffs.
• SPEAKING ALARMS: Low budget Brit film seen by nobody.
• KIRA THE KARAOKE GIRL: A low budget art house film from somewhere in the Balkans. Lots of tears. Depressing ending.

via /Film

On the ice gewann bei der Berlinale 2011 den Preis für den besten Film in der Sektion “Generation”. Die Begründung der Jury:

“Dieser Film hat uns von der ersten Minute an gefangen genommen und bis zum Ende kein einziges Mal losgelassen. Mit einfachen Mitteln wird hier zwischen Einsamkeit und unendlicher Weite eine Atmosphäre von erstickender Enge geschaffen. Unser Gewinnerfilm entführt uns in eine Welt, die uns ganz und gar unbekannt war. Eine Welt, in der alles in Dunkelheit getaucht scheint, obwohl die Sonne nie untergeht.” (via)

Der diesjährige American Society of Cinematographers 2011 Award geht an Emmanuel Lubezki. Weiterhin nominiert waren die Arbeiten für The Artist, Hugo, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy und The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Ich bin sehr erfreut darüber, da The Tree of Life obgleich seiner schwerfälligen Geschichte einfach der schönste Filme des Jahres war. Lubezki hatte den Award bereits einmal für Children of Men gewonnen; weiterhin filmte er auch Alfonso Cuarons neuen Film Gravity und Terrence Malicks neues Projekt.

via First Showing

The Artist räumt auch im ganz großen Stil bei den BAFTAs ab. Ich fand ihn ja wie viele andere auch super, aber so ein langweiliger Durchmarsch bei den Oscars würde mir übel aufstoßen. Hier nochmal die Nominiertenliste und folgend die Gewinner:

Best Film:
The Artist

Best British Film:
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Outstanding Debut by a British Director:
Tyrannosaur – Paddy Considine

Director:
Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist

Leading Actor:
Jean Dujardin – The Artist

Leading Actress:
Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady

Supporting Actor:
Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Supporting Actress:
Octavia Spencer – The Help

Adapted Screenplay:
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Bridget O’Connor, Peter Straughan

Original Screenplay:
The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius

Animated Film:
Rango – Gore Verbinski

Documentary:
Senna – Asif Kapadia

Best Film Not in the English Language:
The Skin I Live In – Pedro Almodóvar

Production Design:
Hugo – Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo

Cinematography:
The Artist – Guillaume Schiffman

Editing:
Senna – Gregers Sall, Chris King

Original Music:
The Artist – Ludovic Bource

Costume Design:
The Artist – Mark Bridges

Sound:
Hugo – Philip Stockton, Eugene Gearty, Tom Fleischman, John Midgley

Visual Effects:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Make Up & Hair:
The Iron Lady – Mark Coulier, J. Roy Helland, Marese Langan

Short Film:
Pitch Black Heist

Short Animation:
A Morning Stroll

Outstanding Contribution To British Cinema:
John Hurt

via FirstShowing

Set in the strange and oppressive emotional landscape of the year 1983, Black Rainbow is a Reagan-era fever dream inspired by hazy childhood memories of midnight movies and Saturday morning cartoons.

Wait, what? Der Trailer macht auch nicht wirklich mehr Sinn, schaut aber ganz interessant aus.

via First Showing

Douglas Trumbull, Regisseur von Silent Running und VFX-Pioneer, der für Tree of Life, Blade Runner, 2001, Star Trek und Close Encounters verantwortlich war, versucht gerade seinen eigenen Hard Science Fiction Film umzusetzen. Seine Zitat liest sich wie der feuchte Traum eines jeden SciFi-Fans.

“I can only say that it’s a 200-years-in-the-future science fiction space epic that’s going to address very big, lofty issues, like man’s place in the universe, and how our contact with an extraterrestrial civilizations that are so mind-bogglingly in advance of our own that it will go into some of the same territory that 2001 went into, and it’s going to do it in a very plausibly scientific way, not a fanciful way. There are no alien monsters, and the earth is not being attacked by anybody. It’s going to be a much more intelligent, what we call hard-science fiction, and I think there’s absolutely nothing out there like this. I think the studios believe that they have to dumb everything down and the audience is not scientific, not up for anything truly intelligent, but I think just the opposite. I think we’re in the most technologically advanced society of all time, and people can go with that immediately.”

via First Showing