Rabbit Hole (5 out of 5)

Rabbit Hole is one of those movies that starts out about the death of a child and slowly opens up into new ideas and new realizations until it finally opens up into profound questions about the infinity of the universe, the mysteries of space and time, the complexities of happiness and the impossibility of life and death. It makes you realize just how finite and un-malleable time really is, how large and impossible life can be, how truly insignificant we are within whatever it is out there beyond the solar system that we have no concept of and that could, beyond all living logic and reason, stretch on forever and ever amen. It makes us appreciate the little, simple things that we can grasp onto and understand because, when it all comes down to it, it is, all we really know in this big, complex mess of a world. What’s above the clouds and beyond the stars isn’t for us to know, which is fine, we've got our own stuff to deal with anyway.


That’s what Rabbit Hole is about: it’s about whittling the world down into manageable things in order to take steps forward, one day at a time, to find order in the mess and ultimately guide a life into, hopefully, happiness with as little destruction and suffering along the way.

Oh yes, this is a movie of ideas. All true drama is. Howie (Aaron Eckhart) and Becca (Nicole Kidman) have lost their young son. Howie moves on while trying to appear as if life continues. He willingly goes to the loss groups and finds comfort in watching a video of him and his son on his Iphone.

Becca however, seems composed and yet cold, putting everything inside. She's confused but doesn’t know about what, can’t stand the pathetic people at the group, wants to rid the house of everything that reminders her of her son and resents her mother (Diane Wiest), who also lost a son, for trying to relate to her. Her son, after all, was a 4 year old who ran out on the road while her brother was a 30 year old heroin addict who overdosed.

Soon Becca, off from work, begins following the boy who hit her son until they finally meet face-to-face and talk in the park. She finds comfort in him, realizing that he is just a boy, riddled with guilt, trying to move on. Was he going too fast that day? It hardly matters in the grand scheme. The two spark up a friendship of sorts in so much as that they feel that each is probably essential to the others recovery or else just a way for Becca to continue to hold on as best she can. He may have taken her son but, is he really to be blamed? Is anyone?

And then the movie, without breaking it’s narrative simplicity or quiet emotional power, begins pulling back to reveal larger, more profound concepts, not just about life and death, but about the universe and the possibility that maybe there is another, alternate one where, right now, in their suffering, these people could be happy.

It’s not so much a question of Heaven, but rather a question of if this is all there is. Is life only as it appears before us; what you see is what you get? Or are there things out there, working, somewhere else out of our sight, where things are better, happier, nicer? Where little boys can’t be taken away because they aren’t 30 year old heroin addicts? And maybe there isn’t and such thinking is just a means to grab on to any semblance of hope in order to cope with the hand you’ve been dealt. The movie doesn’t try to answer these questions. How could it? These thoughts are simply the logical extension of death, which, in a sense, gives one a whole new perspective on life.

The film was directed by John Cameron Mitchell who has done an about face from the flamboyance and excess of his first two features Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus. Here Mitchell isn’t flashy or sexy but rather stark and desolate as he allows his characters to cope with this situation on their own natural emotional terms. Sometimes humour sneaks through, but then again, why wouldn’t it, as humour seems the only natural way to cope with tragedy.

And then the film ends, as Hereafter did, with the three most profound words that can come in any work that deals with life and death: I don’t know. That is, after all, all we every really know on the subject.

The Golden Globes 2011 Plus a Celebrity Connection

To all the people who spend weeks and/or months writing about awards shows in advance, making predictions, guessing who will what to whom and when and live blogging and all that jazz, well I am not for you, or you are not for me, or however Shakespeare put it. In other words, it's kind of a waste of time. Of course awards shows are fun to watch and talk about for about five minutes after the fact, but other than that, who cares?Like year end lists, awards don't represent what the Best Movie of the year is, how could it, there is, to quote William Goldman, no such thing; simply the reflection of which movie a group of people decided they liked more than the others. But regardless, while I should really be finishing that Rabbit Hole review or working at becoming a better critic, here's my 2 cents on what happened last night:

• Jason Segel, my favourite comedic leading man, got the biggest laugh of the red carpet when he did a rendition of Meat Loaf's I Would do Anything for Love. When a Jim Steinman musical finally happens, if ever, I vote Segel in the lead.
• Some have praised Ricky Gervais for mocking a ridiculous institution to it's face but I don't know, his routine throughout the night felt more like simply an amplification of last year. He tried to be quicker and more offensive while forgetting to be clever or laugh-out-loud hilarious and most of his targets were easy ones. The Charlie Sheen joke was Letterman grade stuff, suggesting the Hollywood Foreign Press take bribes was funny when he did it last year and really, Robert Downey Jr. rehab jokes jumped the shark when Downey announced the best special effects category at the Oscars a couple years ago. My vote for next year: Joan Rivers.
• Speaking of Downey he stole the show, as expected, with a line to Gervais, ""Aside from the fact that it's been hugely mean-spirited, with mildly sinister undertones, I'd say the vibe of the show is pretty good so far, wouldn't you?" And then went on with an introduction that started off funny and dragged on longer than it should have. 
• The only movie that deserved recognition, The Kids Are All Right won for best Picture - Comedy. Really, was The Tourist, Red or Burlesque better than Morning Glory, Hot Tub Time Machine or Easy A? 
• Clair Danes won for her performance in Temple Grandin and it was sweet to see the real Temple Grandin sitting there with her and yet all I could think of how William Goldman said he will never vote for "alcoholics or retards" because they are the easiest roles to play.
• Christian Bale showed up as Charles Manson doing Jesus and yet, outside of saying "shit" on network TV said something profound when he thanked Mark Whalberg for giving a quiet performance, the ones that no one ever recognizes, for him to give a loud one. There's something to be pondered here about the nature of acting and whether or not "award" type of performances are really great acting or not. I guess that explains why Colin Firth took it over Jesse Eisenberg.
• David Fincher looked miserable, just adding to his reputation as being an impossible man to work with. Seeing him win reminded me of one of my favourite Fincher stores as told by Sharon Waxman in Rebels on the Backlot. When one of the Fight Club producers heard Helena Bonham Carter's line to Edward Norton "I want to have your abortion," she begged and begged Fincher to change it. Finally he agreed on the condition that he got to change it to whatever he wanted and it would have to stay. Fine she agreed, nothing could be worse. Until she heard the new line: "Best f**ck I've had since kindergarten," and she begged him to put the other one back. 
• Al Pacino, you've won so many awards, why, all these years later, can you not compose a coherent acceptance speech?
• David O. Russell didn't headbutt anybody. Guess it's good George Clooney wasn't on site.
• Good for you Diane Warren, it's a great song even if the movie is suppose to be crap.
• Trent Reznor won a Golden Globe. Both of us have apparently grown a lot since The Downward Spiral.
• Dear Lea Michele: you are not attractive, you cannot act and your voice just sounds like a poor man's Vanessa Hudgens. Make of that what you will. 
• Inception didn't win anything. Good. It won't win Oscars either. It doesn't deserve them and it makes me sad to think that movies like True Grit or Rabbit Hole didn't get a nominations so that this one could. 
• Robert De Niro's speech was a better indictment of the HFPA than anything Gervais did and his quip to Matt Damon, "I loved you in The Fighter" was hilarious. Usually de Niro is so stern. Good for him. 
• All that said, Helena Bonham Carter made me think of Hitchcock's Vertigo in which Jimmy Stewart tries to transform a woman into a a former dead love:

Could Hena Bonham Carter actually be Edward Scissorhands in Disguise? You Decide

I'll Probably East Lunch in This Town Again: A Tale of my Falling out with the Move Business (Part 3)

Read Part One

Read Part Two

Let me speak a bit about offers. In the world of independent film, especially piddly little ones like the ones we were dealing with, which really (with the exception of a Canadian zombie movie) would be a waste to put into theaters, the most desirable deal is cash up front. That's probably the most desirable deal in any event but with movies in which there is a good chance that they won't perform, everything other than cash up front is more or less a last resort.

Cash up front minimizes the risk of the sales company losing money and puts the entire onus on the distribution company. The other kind of deals (the only kind I was ever offered) are what I will call 50/50 deals (although they can break down into any percentage and usually have a third number thrown in there to cover expenses). In this situation the distribution company takes it's cut in order to cover the expenses of releasing the movie and then the profit would be split between the sales company and the distribution company, that way, essentially insulating there investment. In the event that the movie did no business they would only be out their expenses.

As you can probably understand, such a deal is not desirable being it is essentially the equivalent of throwing the movie into the wind and seeing how it will land. If it does well, then great we've made good money and if not all our effort in not only selling the movie but preparing the delivery has gone down the tubes. Unless there is a lot of hot buzz around the movie or you have a big star to sell it's name on, this is risky business. Cash up front ensures that we get paid for our work and whether or not the movie does any business is someone else's problem. That's the best place to be in the movie business: put the risks on someone else, take the money, and run. X always used to say that the movie business was the "F**k Business." You have to f**k them before they f**k you.

The problem that I was running into while X was away on vacation was that the majority of the companies that I followed up with had indicated that they were going to pass because they were currently trying to focus on bigger titles. No company after all wants to focus forever on the cheap stuff no one wants to see, unless of course they are a niche company that focuses on either a certain genre (horror for example) or just gets by releasing the cheap stuff. X did talk about one day moving into bigger stuff and I truly hope that he does because it's certainly hard to get by peddling the stuff that you only got because no other sales company wanted to touch it.

Before I go on let's have a word on the actual definition of independent film. A lot of time the terms independent and Hollywood film get thrown around without the users actually knowing what distinguishes the two. The simple misconception is that if we see it in a multiplex it must be a Hollywood film and if we see it in an independent theatre it must be an independent movie. Not so much the case. An independent film is a film that is produced outside of a Hollywood studio. One of the summer of 2010's big hits The Expendables was an independent film.

I'll do my best to explain while keeping things as simple as possible (because nothing is ever simple or straight forward in the movie business). Big studios have different divisions one of which is Production in which there is a President of Production and maybe a VP and so on and then it hires on producers and gives them production deals. Ultimately it is for a producer to go out, find material, bring it into the studio and oversee it's development from buying the rights to the book (or whatever) hiring the screenwriter, getting rewrites, hiring the director, etc. Joel Silver is a Hollywood producer as is Jerry Bruckheimer, Steven Spielberg and Brian Grazer. Art Linson used to have a production deal with Fox but I'm not sure of his status now. Julia Phillips and Don Simpson used to be hired studio guns as well during their lifetime.

An independent film is produced by a company that has no ties to one of the big studios. The production company, often owned or co-owned by the filmmakers themselves, makes the movie and then tries to sell it to distributors  (sometimes if you're good you can have all the foreign rights sold before the film is even completed. Atom Egoyan's Chloe had made it's entire budget back before even opening in North America). This is why you often get so many logos and so many credits at the beginnings of movies these days (one for the production company, the sales company, the distributor, etc). In the olden days, when everyone was under contract, the studios did everything from hire their writers, their actors, their directors and release the movies into their theaters. Today, with the increasing cost of getting a film made, it's safer business to include more people into the pot. Mirimax (back before Disney took them off the independent market) used to produce their own product until they realized that it made better business sense to simply acquire already completed films.

Kevin Smith's View Askew is a good example of an independent production company. Smith writes and directs and co-produces with Scott Mosier under the View Askew name (although, and maybe I'm wrong on this, they change the company name on every film for insurance purposes so that, if anything happened on one film, they don't bankrupt the whole company). After the film is finished they (or a sales agent, I don't know how it works for them) sells the film to a distribution company (in this case we'll continue with Mirimax who made Smith a household name) who will get the movie into theaters, advertise it, etc.

That's why festivals (except for maybe Toronto which, despite being one of the world's biggest film festivals, stills holds onto it's image as a public festival and not a major North American market) are so important: it is a place where filmmakers try to get their product acquired and where sales companies go to get their product distributed (be it to theater, video, TV, airlines, etc). Before I leave this topic, I don't want to have made things too simplistic. There are many independent distribution companies that have production departments and so on and so forth. Again, nothing is as simple as black and white.

There's also one more option for a sales company which is to shop the film to an agent (a very last resort), who will try to sell it to their specific client base. It's essentially adding another middle man into the mix and is only to be considered after there has been no interest generated in a title from our own efforts. The advantage to this is that they assuredly know their own territory's market better than we do and their connections may be able to reach farther than our means had allowed us to on our own.

So, while X was away, I got a nibble on a zombie movie, but it was a 50/50 deal (I think this one was around 35/35/30 or something), but mostly people weren't interested in our poor little movies that could. I don't blame them. The movies, on a whole, weren't very good. That's not to say there isn't an audience for them, there probably is, and we weren't there to like the movies, we were there to sell them.

Part of the job was in trying to come up with unique sales angels and so some of those three weeks at home were spent making notes on certain companies in certain territories and coming up with angels. If we wanted to sell Y title in the U.K. I would search for TV, Video and Theatrical companies in that territory and make notes on what kind of titles they dealt with or any like titles they had recently acquired: Hey, I see you just picked up Paper Heart with Michael Cera, I bet you'd like Youth in Revolt with him too, want to have a look at a screener? We had a zombie movie that, once we had exhausted the possibilities on the horror market, started selling it in the gay market as two of the characters were homosexual and started making even more sales that way. One of the producers for one of the films had come up with the idea to announce that the sequel had been greenlit. Hey, if you like this one, get the rights to the sequel before it's even out. Between you and me, the sequel very well could have been greenlit, but there is currently no intention of it ever being made. Two sales for the price of one. The F**k business.

At the end of those three weeks I was feeling pretty good and ready to get back into the meat an potatoes of things once X returned. I had made some minor mistakes along the way but I was still in the learning process and each of those mistakes was a learning experience. It was time to really get into the swing of the sales thing and also time to prepare for TIFF. I couldn't wait.

To Be Continued...

Mike's Christmas Haul: DVD Edition

Let me preface this. First of all my birthday is on January 3 so some of this is a birthday haul as well. Some of this is also from boxing day shopping. Rogers Video (Canada's Blockbuster) had a sale on used DVDs where if you bought one you got 2 free. Beat Goes On, the place where I buy a lot of my hard-to-find movies used, had a boxing day sale where everything was 40% off. Barnes & Nobel also had a half off sale on Criterion Collection DVDs so some of these came from that as well.

One of my favourite sitcoms. Every season was on sale at Best Buy for $9.99.

This one came from Rogers Video. I haven't seen it.

This is one of the movies I wanted to see before making my best of list. It also came from Rogers.

Review here.

A beautiful farewell.

This movie was always kicking around and so I never got it and then it went out of print so I figured, I found a copy, may as well get it now. Thus concludes my quest to own all Chaplin features.

The only Dario Argento movie that I've seen that I've liked is Susperia, but this one is supposed to be one of his masterpieces as well. I guess we'll see.

My least favourite Daron Aronofsky movie, I always felt that a brilliant version of this movie is sitting on a cutting room floor somewhere, but with all the Black Swan love, I figured I'd give it another try.

One step closer to owning all Disney animated features. Just Lion King remains.

This was 2/$15 at Wal-Mart and I was getting one so I figured I'd pick this up as well as it seemed to work for a lot of people even though I'm only a so-so Polanski fan.

It's about time I picked this one up.

Another from Rogers.

2/$15 at Wal-Mart. Not one of Scorsese's best but still worth having because I have almost everything else from the master. Review Here. And more Here

Out of print Mike Figgis movie from his experimental digital period that also gave birth to Timecode and Hotel. This one is the best, and hardest to find, of the three.

God bless you Criterion.

Worth it for Ordet alone.

I've never seen this show but always wanted to, so when it came on sale at Best Buy I figured I'd pick it up.

Spike Lee's little seen musical masterpiece. I completely forgot about this movie and didn't even realize it had been released on DVD. I'm glad I stumbled upon it by accident when making my Christmas list.

All of the seasons where on sale at Best Buy for $9.99. Unfortunately this is the only one they had in stock by the time I got there.

The last Woody Allen movie I wanted to be in my collection.

I'll by anything Bergman so I was happy when Criterion announced they would be releasing this hard-to-get Bergman film.

After the 40% off I only paid around $25 for this 3 Disc edition of the Kurosawa masterpiece.

I had this recommended to me by one of my Film Studies teachers who I still keep in periodic contact with. I hope she's write about how great it is.

Minor Jim Jarmusch is still better than no Jim Jarmusch at all.

I've been waiting to get my hands on Last Year at Marienbad since seeing it for the first time many years ago so I'm so happy that Criterion finally released it. One day I'm going to write a great piece on this masterpiece.

Many consider this Godard's best recent movie. I guess we'll see.

Love Patrice Lacount.

Another recommendation from that Film Studies teacher when it comes to Godard. I think I now have just about every Godard movie I need until someone (wink, wink Criterion) releases Weekend.

I now own most of Louis Malle's major works (except Elevator to the Gallows) so I think I'll try to see some of the more obscure works before delving any deeper into his filmography. Any recommendations?

I have a love-hate relationship with Antoninoni in so much as that his movies are not pleasant to watch usually (especially for a Fellini lover) but some of them, like this one, his first in colour, are absolutely fascinating.

My love for Melville continues.

David Mamet's underrated crime film was finally released by Criterion so it was only a matter of time before I snagged it up. I now own all major Mamet films.

Review Here

Review Here

2 Kurosawa masterpieces at 40% off.

I love Tati and this is one of my favourites of his. So funny and lovely as Tati was famous for.

Mike's Christmas Haul: Book Edition

Half of creating great criticism is being a great writer (the other half of course is knowing what you're talking about) and the key to being a great writer is to always be reading books of all different shapes and forms. Since I live in the North and work in Downtown Toronto my commute is around an hour which leaves plenty of time for reading (if I can manage a seat on the bus and/or subway). When I'm reading I tend to switch between fiction and non-fiction every other book. Here's the rundown of the books I got this Christmas:

In a way Chef Ramsay is my hero: the kind of guy who has a vision and will not let anyone get in the way of him becoming the best. I admire people like that. People who set a standard for themselves and will not accept anyone not meeting it.

Hubert Selby Jr. is a very interesting and challenging writer. He is really only known for Requiem for a Dream and Last Exit to Brooklyn so it will be interesting to see how his other works stack up against his 2 most popular works.

Cormac McCarthy is the closest there is to a classic American writer writing classic American novels in the vein of Faulkner or Hemmingway.

Elmore Leonard is my favourite popular novelist and even into his 70s America's greatest crime writer is still writing new books faster than I can get them read.

Ever since seeing A River Runs Through It earlier in the year and falling in love with it I knew I had to read the book especially since one of the best things about the movie was Robert Redford's voice over as he read passages from it.

Robert Rodriguez's diary about the making of El Mariachi. Should be interesting.

More Elmore Leonard. This one is short stories.

I believe that there is no excuse for any critic to not be informed of every aspect of the filmmaking process, even if it's just a broad overview. A lot of critics, both professional and non, make a lot of stupid and ill-informed statements because they don't understand how the film business actually works (from directing, producing, marketing, box office, post-production, etc.). I am therefore always on a quest to expand my knowledge, not only of the world's theories and philosophies (because that is an essential part of criticism as well) but also how the film business works. Say what you will about Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Films but his Make Your Own Damn Movie was a funny, annoying and a very informative overview of how to get a low budget movie made. These two books expand on what was in that previous book.

See above. How the movie business works as told by the people who are in it. This book covers just about every aspect.

Henry Miller is one of my favourite authors. Not sure where these works stand within his overall body of work but two books for the price of one is always nice.

If you want to be a better critic you might as well learn from the best.

I haven't read any books by Peter Bart and Peter Guber (as most of them are out of print) but I find them both interesting and enjoy their insider perspective on the film business. I guess this one will be a test to see if the other ones are worth hunting down.