Out of Focus

OH OSCAR, YOU'RE SO DAMN STUPID

Adding to my malaise today is those annoying nominations announced this morning. Look, I know the Academy Awards are nothing to get all riled up about, and I haven't even studied the whole list to really see what encourages me versus what pisses me off, but just looking at the Picture and Director categories make me seriously consider calling this the most absurd year for Oscar in I don't know how long. I'm shocked at the nominations for Crash, a movie which I actually liked more than many and which I believe had a fantastic collection of performances, but while it explored interesting themes and ideas was far from a flawless film and wasn't very well directed. Then there is Capote: its nominations don't surprise me as much as disappoint me. Capote is now officially the most overrated movie of 2005. I don't need to repeat myself as I've said this over-and-over again, but the entire success of that film is solely on the shoulders of the incredible Phillip Seymour Hoffman; "Best Director Bennett Miller" is absolutely laughable for this drab film.

And then there's Munich. No, its nominations certainly can't be considered a surprise either, other than the fact that conventional wisdom was probably counting it out by this point. I still haven't gotten around to writing about Munich -- and I fully intend to (sigh) -- and I also certainly didn't hate it as much as some people. Yes, it's the kind of sprawling epic political movie the Academy loves -- that doesn't make it great, but I guess if Oscar wants to celebrate the best of Hollywood rather than the best of cinema, Munich fills the bill.

The biggest surprise to me, actually, is that this year for the first time in recent memory all five Picture and Director nominees match up. Usually there is at least one film that doesn't receive a director nomination and (obviously) vice-versa.

So basically for me, this year's Oscar race is between Brokeback Mountain and Good Night, and Good Luck -- two movies which along with Jon Stewart hosting should have conservative America hating this year's Academy Awards more than ever. Huzzah.

As for the rest of the nominees and my various reactions, more to come ....

THE GOTHAMIST INTERVIEW: FINAL EDITION -- JOSH HOROWITZ

Today's a blah day, dontcha think? Want to brighten it up a wee bit? Check out the very last Gothamist Interview from yours truly. As I mentioned last week, I'm no longer writing for Gothamist, but I did have this one last interview to do, and luckily, it's a pretty good one. It's with Josh Horowitz who's new book "The Mind of the Modern Moviemaker: 20 Conversations With the Next Generation of Filmmakers" came out today. Josh also writes the blog Better Than Fudge, and while his opinion of today's Oscar noms certainly differ to some degree from mine (upset by the Walk the Line omissions but happy about Munich attention? Blech), it's still worth checking out every day. I mean for one thing, he actually adds content to it regularly (which is more than some of us seem to be able to do recently). For another, he's actually funny (which is more than some of us seem to be able to do, like, ever). And that book of his is actually a pretty good read too. Go figure. Although maybe most importantly, he says his favorite movie candy is Red Vines, and anyone who has an intelligent taste bud knows that Red Vines kick Twizzlers ass!

Meanwhile, I'm just trying to break out of this funk, and the gray rain doesn't seem to be helping. Oh well.

WHY DOES ALL THIS STUFF HAPPEN WHEN I'M AWAY?

Today has been a pretty earth-shaking day within the business realm of the entertainment world. First the announcement of the merger between UPN and The WB and then the official word that Disney has bought Pixar.

I think in the long run, both bits of news are actually big pluses for us little folk out here in the audience. But what ramifications do they hold for their respective companies, personnel and programming? Hmmmm ...?

GOODBYE GOTHAMIST (ALMOST: THE GOTHAMIST INTERVIEW WITH JOSH SELIG)

Can you imagine a world where you must live through dial-up? Holy crap does it suck. Sure, I'm only five years removed from that reality, but it seems like ages ago. Except for when I visit the family in the Bay Area and stay with my Mom. This is all you need to know: my Mom just bought her first DVD player a couple months ago. She says they told her she can't get DSL where she lives. Even if that is true, they have cable, so I'm sure some high-speed access is doable. But whatever. She doesn't use it.

So that's why I haven't been online much or posted at all. No, not headaches this time, although they've continued a bit. I managed to bring absolutely gorgeous whether to San Francisco since I arrived on Friday. See? This is from Ocean Beach on Sunday where I went with my friend and his dog Hirschy to frolick a bit.

Uhm, on to the title of this post. Friday morning my weekly weekend Gothamist post went up. It was late for the second time as the thing was supposed to go up on Thursday. My bad. Between finishing the indieWIRE story, the ongoing headaches and doctor appointments and prepping for my first trip back to see the family in a year-and-a-half, I didn't get it done on time. I won't say anything more about that.

What I do need to say is that this past weekend's "Weekend Movies" post is the last one I'll be writing for them. I may try to continue the weekend previews here (as I was doing before I took them to Gothamist) or if some other site is interested take them there. Gothamist will continue previewing movies in some manner I suppose, but it will be without me.

Additionally, I won't be conducting interviews for Gothamist either. Today, Lily and I posted an interview with Josh Selig, and actually I have one more interview that will be coming some time next week. But after that, I won't be writing for the site anymore.

I don't want to bad mouth anyone over there so I'm not going to say anything further about the details. We came to a mutual decision, and I wish their new film writer and any of their new interviewers the best of luck. We just had a disagreement about a few different things, and it seemed time to totally part ways. Hopefully this will also encourage me to write more here and I may be doing more for some other web sites in the future. I enjoyed doing the movie posts at Gothamist for the past five months or so, and I hope you all enjoyed them as well.

Meanwhile, I've got a ton of catching-up to do. January is certainly coming out as a wash, but I think I'm starting to feel a little better, and after I travel back to NYC tomorrow, I've got a lot to do in the coming weeks, plus all the stuff I've been promising you, my loyal reader, here. So let's move on ...

THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL FROM MY LIVING ROOM

No, once again I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I've just been preoccupied with this persistent and sometimes worsening problem with my head to which I've already alluded more than I would like. It's been a bad week, and tomorrow morning I'm off to the Bay Area for my youngest brother's Bar Mitzvah. I'm way behind this year with just about everything, and hopefully, by the time I return from five days with the family, I'll feel better.

Meanwhile, I've also been preoccupied for more than just the last week with my second story for indieWIRE. The story just went online this afternoon, and will appear in tomorrow morning's indieWIRE DAILY email newsletter. It's a preview of the short films showing at Sundance. Unfortunately (I think), I did not have the chance to see all 73 accepted short films, but indieWIRE offered any directors who wanted their films considered for inclusion in the article the chance to send in a copy. So over the past couple weeks I received and screened 34 of the films playing. The resulting story highlights 12 that I found, for one reason or another, particularly compelling.

Unfortunately, as with any piece of writing (except for my ramblings here), I was limited to a word count. As it is, they let me run a wee bit long, but I had to cut little bits about a few other films that I did enjoy. There were also a few films that I really didn't like, and one that I was flat-out shocked at its being accepted to Sundance. But whatever ... to each his/her own. The cool thing Sundance is again doing is making many of the shorts available online after they've premiered at the festival. (They did this for the first time last year). So if you're not already in or headed to Park City and you're interested in seeing the titles about which I wrote, you'll be able to do it for many of them via www.sundance.org. (A more direct link to the specific page to access the shorts -- but a longer and more complex address as well -- is right here.) As I said, the shorts become available after they premiere at the actual fest, and those dates are listed on that web page.

In the mean time, take a peak at the few which are already available, and feel free to leave comments here or on indieWIRE about whether you agree or disagree with my selections. Please note, though (again) that just because I didn't include a title, that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it or think it was a good film. I saw a couple animated films that technically and visually were very interesting and creative, but overall they just didn't grab and hold me. A Supermarket Love Song was a narrative short which I even wrote a paragraph about, but ultimately I had to cut it for length. The same is true for No Umbrella -- Election Day in the City, a political doc that looks at the disorganization and occasional chaos in Cleveland, Ohio at one particular polling location during the 2004 presidential election.

Anyway, these shorts are the closest I'm getting to Utah this year (even if it may seem a bit early to say such a thing in January, I'll stick to it). And I hope to be back very soon to the regular and interesting (HA!) posting I've been promising for weeks.

THE WEEKEND IN PREVIEW: YES, I CONTINUE TO BLAME IT ALL ON MY HEAD

I don't want to say I half-assed this week's movies post at Gothamist because I didn't. Or at least, not exactly. But I did get to it late, and I did have to relatively quickly piece it together, and most importantly, I'm sure I'm missing something interesting, especially among the smaller indie new releases which since I knew very little about, I basically (unfortunately) ignored. However, for the sake of everyone, I did shorten my Kevin Reynolds rant. Reynolds is a director I find even more useless than Michael Bay. At least Bay knows how to make pretty pictures. If you watch a Bay chase scene all by its self, it might provide you with 5-10 minutes of the most basic entertainment. I don't know what the hell Reynolds actually does, but so far, it doesn't involve directing watchable movies. Yet people keep hiring him. And good people too. No longer is he simply Kevin Costner's good friend who gets handed Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and then Waterworld before Costner essentially takes over helming and editing both of them. Now he's in charge of Ridley Scott's cast-offs -- Scott apparently at one time was planning on directing Tristan and Isolde, but eventually decided just to produce and give the film to Reynolds. Now the movie has a Jan. 13 release. It simply must be brilliant, no? I think Manohla's review today is mildly positive, but in a guilty-pleasure/don't-expect-much-and-you'll-be-happy sort of way, which to me doesn't exactly provide any reason for Reynolds to continue getting jobs.

Anyway, if I didn't still have to watch a bunch of Sundance shorts as well as a ton of features submitted to Tribeca, I would most certainly try to get to the Walter Reade for some of the selections at the New York Jewish Film Festival. I'm really interested in seeing Only Human and I'd also love to get to the double bill of silent films starring Sarah Bernhardt: Queen Elizabeth and Lady of the Camelias, which plays on Monday at 12:30.

But first, I apparently need to get to some yoga! (That one's for you, you know who!)

OK, SO HERE'S THE DEAL ...

I'm trying really hard to get back in the swing of things, but I decided I didn't want to post here every day about why I'm not posting, and I haven't had the patience to post anything interesting. I don't know how many (if any) of you out there have suffered from migraines or tension headaches or any other sort of chronic pain. I have generally been lucky and haven't had such problems myself, but as I've now mentioned more than once, I have been brutally attacked recently by tension headaches. When they come on (which has been once or twice a day for anywhere from 20 minutes to nearly two hours), they're completely debilitating. When I'm not having one, I'm trying to catch-up on all the movie-viewing I have to do, and I don't mean just to get my Top 10 list done (which will be as done as it's going to be by Monday, i.e., Golden Globe Awards day). I'm way ahead of my "resolution" this year, having watched 31 films during the first 10 days of January, but that's because I'm screening submissions for Tribeca, and as it is, I'm behind in doing that. I've seen about 30 films for Tribeca alone, and I believe I'm supposed to watch approximately another 70 in the next 4-5 weeks. Plus, I have a bunch of stuff to screen for another indieWIRE story, for which my deadline is a week from today. Throw in the fact that I continue to give myself more stress for not being as productive as I think I should be, and it's no wonder that my neck and shoulders feel like a jackhammer wouldn't loosen them up.

I've been back to my dentist, to my doctor to a pain specialist, and tomorrow a massage therapist. Hopefully this morning will be the last time I awaken in agony at 6:15 AM wanting to cry. (And no, no lie!) It's kind of freaky how it's all tied together. I can feel the headache in my jaw (damn TMJ!) as well as the top and back of my head and back of my neck and shoulder. It's all one long, big, tight muscle or something.

Anyway, I really am hoping to motivate soon (with or without pain) and unleash a tidal wave of content -- all the stuff I've been talking about -- so that the lot of you who are kind enough to regularly check my ramblings have plenty of new stuff to skip over when you visit. Until then, might I suggest you buy stock in Excedrin Tension Headache?

THE WEEKEND IN PREVIEW: HOPING MY HEAD LETS ME GET SOMETHING DONE

So I've managed to already break all my New Year's resolutions, but it's not really my fault. For example, one resolution was that I was going to make sure to post *something* here every day (well, weekday) without fail. Yet where have I been since Monday Jan. 2, you ask? Simply put, in agony. About four years ago I started having these awful headaches -- I thought (as did my doctor) they might be migraines. Being the occasional Jewish hypochondriac that I am, I started freaking out that I had a brain tumor or something, so my doctor (in order to ease my mind) sent me to a neurologist.

The neurologist ran an EEG on me and said everything looked normal. He then put his hand on my left shoulder and said, "You're really very tense." Yeah ... shocker! Well, he prescribed me some pain medication (that I think included caffeine ... nothing very intense) and told me to see my dentist and get a nightguard to sleep with because chances were I carried a ton of tension in my shoulders and it was my TMJ becoming sore. I did that. They went away.

Until last week when suddenly I started experiencing that same, awful, burning pain, right around my left eye socket and down the side of my face. It was brief one day. A little more the next. I had still been wearing my nightguard when I slept relatively consistently, but now I was waking up to intense pain each morning, culminating in the last three days -- Tuesday and Wednesday it was nearly constant and I basically couldn't do anything all day long. I basically stayed home and watched movies -- mostly Tribeca submissions, which I needed to do anyway because I'm a wee bit behind.

In fact, it was difficult concentrating long enough to even write today's "Weekend Movies" post at Gothamist. (See, my headline actually was meaningful!) I'm kind of annoyed that I hadn't looked further into the future schedules of places like The Museum of the Moving Image where 2046 will be screening this weekend. I just watched it two days ago on DVD on my crappy little TV. I may have to go see it again just so I get a bigger screen and projected experience.

Anyway, hopefully these headaches will calm down. I'm going to the doctor and dentist next Monday, and in the mean time, here's hoping Excedrin Tension Headache kicks in with some force and lets me get back on track. Probably the most important of my New Year's resolutions was not to give up on them even once I've broken them ... repeatedly. So ... that Top TV of 2005 list I mentioned on Monday? Yeah ... it's coming ... hopefully tomorrow.

THE LAST OF THE BEST? (WHAT SHOULD REALLY HAPPEN TO ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT)

Tomorrow I plan to discuss what I considered the best TV series of 2005, but anybody reading this blog for any length of time will already know that my undisputed number one is Arrested Development. Hands-down, it's the most interesting, creative, well-written show in a long time. Oh yeah ... and it's also funny as hell.

Tonight at 8 PM Fox will air what is the first of the last three or four (I believe) original episodes to be produced of the series. At least for airing on Fox. While they haven't "officially" cancelled it yet, it's basically common knowledge that the Emmy Award winning comedy's days on the Fox network have been numbered since its full-season order was chopped back in November. Speculation about how to save the show or the series continuing on another network has been feverish -- Showtime and ABC have both been rumored to be considering picking-up the series -- particularly from the Arrested's hardcore and devoted fans. The audience may be small, but those who love it still watch it religiously.

Tonight's episode is one we've been hearing about for some time in which George Sr. (the great Jeffrey Tambor) forces the family to host a fundraiser to raise awareness about their family's money problems within the community. Of course, the show couldn't get more meta than airing an episode like this, and you can be sure that the producers will have plenty of not-veiled jokes at the expense of Fox.

As wrote back in November, I don't think Fox can be criticized too harshly for cancelling the show, although there's plenty of blame to still lay at their feet. The network renewed the series twice even though it has consistently received numbers that would have forced cancellation on other series within weeks of their premiere. On the other hand, the Fox programming execs have always been too eager to find that magic time slot which would suddenly double the ratings, and it has eluded them. Thinking that Monday night would have been the holy grail was a huge (and easily forseeable) mistake. When this network has other series like The War at Home (one of the worst series in recent memory, other than the other Fox embarrassment, Life on a Stick, which thankfully has already been cancelled) living on Sundays in one slot longer than Arrested was ever allowed, it still shocks me that Fox couldn't be more patient and put the show in its natural space of Sundays at 8:30 right between The Simpsons and Family Guy, and really give it time to grow. I know they had it at 8:30 Sundays last year and determined it didn't work, but it also didn't air with Family Guy as its lead-out, I don't believe. In fact, I think they moved it to 9:30 later in the season so that it led-out of Family Guy while also competing with HBO shows. Pure genius ... dumbasses!

Meanwhile, looking forward, as I also wrote in that November post, some other network should pick-up Arrested, but it shouldn't be ABC. In her "Surfergirl" column on Slate a few weeks ago, Dana Stevens wrote that maybe it was time to let Arrested go and that way we'll never risk it losing its greatness. I understand the thought, but considering that the show just keeps getting better -- I think this season has been brilliant -- I have confidence that this creative team has plenty more up its sleeves.

ABC is under the same pressures as Fox; in fact, greater ones. Even as the network has had a resurgence in the last year so as to no longer be considered the joke of broadcast television -- NBC has decided to grab that mantle for a bit -- they still need large numbers, larger ones even than Fox which, although not at the smaller level of UPN or The WB, still only broadcasts 16 hoursof primetime per week as opposed to the 23 of ABC, NBC and CBS. Fox also still finds itself lower on the dial and in slightly fewer markets than the big three and can withstand slightly smaller audience numbers. A move to ABC isn't going to dramatically increase Arrested's numbers, so unless they want it just for the prestige, I don't really see them having the long-term patience.

Meanwhile, as I wrote before, Showtime is the network that should want Arrested the most. Its continuous inferiority complex to HBO won't be solved with shows like Dead Like Me, Huff or even Weeds. Showtime's subscriber base still lags far behind HBO's, and while all three of those shows definitely raised the quality of what the pay web has been airing, none of them would rank higher than The Sopranos, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Sex and the City or even this second season of Entourage. Yet there might be a chink in HBO's armor. Rome was good, but not spectacular, and this season of Curb proved mostly disappointing to me, with the exception of a few episodes. Six Feet Under is gone, and although The Sopranos returns in March (finally), who knows how much more steam it carries.

Meanwhile, both Huff and Weeds progressively got better as their seasons went along. A pick-up of Arrested Development would give Showtime the best series on television -- better than anything on HBO. They definitely should want it, and as a home of last resort, I would take it and even subscribe to the pay web to make sure I could see it. But for the health of the show, Showtime wouldn't be the best home. Why? Because no matter how dedicated Arrested's fan base is, it's likely not going to shell out the monthly fee for the pay channel just for 13 half-hours a year. Why should they when within six months they can buy the DVD of the entire season for probably less than two months subscription cost. A move to Showtime also wouldn't help get new viewers in any way as people wouldn't be able to just find the show. And finally, the series doesn't need the greater leniancy of pay cable to succeed. In fact, Arrested (kind of like South Park) is a series that becomes funnier because of the bleeps and blurs blocking out adult material.

I'm going to repeat myself one last time, and I really wish somebody would listen: the network that should pick-up Arrested Development is one which already has an indirect ownership stake in it. FX! It's just so damn obvious. FX has been the most successful non-premium cable channel in terms of original programming. With Nip/Tuck, The Shield and Rescue Me, it is the current standard bearer to which all the other basic cable networks aspire. It is the HBO of basic cable. Yet their attempts so far at comedy have stunk. Starved was interesting briefly before getting repetitive, tedious and occasionally downright offensive and stupid. And It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia simply wanted to be Friends but edgy with an indie film feel so bad that it was just a messy smorgasbord of boring.

Nip/Tuck's recent third season finale attracted 5.7 million viewers -- the most watched episode of an FX original series in the net's history. 5.7 million viewers. And that was for the finale. Most FX series average in the 3-4 million range, I believe. Meanwhile, the average viewership of Arrested Development this season in its crap Monday timeslot has been just over 5 million per episode. So basically, if FX put on Arrested and its devoted viewership followed to a cable network which the vast majority already receive without having to pay any extra, chances are it would instantly become one of the net's most watched shows. Plus, it would give the net a cornerstone on which to create the rest of its comedy lineup and attract an even larger audience to its other programming.

The show is already a co-production of Imagine Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television. Why don't the benefits of this seem obvious to the people already in the middle of it? Hey FX President John Landgraf -- what the hell is wrong with you? Give me a call and I'll prove further why the only bonehead move is for you to not go after this show.

(And just to add to the lovely sibling rivalry: Gail Berman -- new President of Production of Paramount Studios -- is responsible for keeping Arrested Development alive at Fox. She was replaced as Fox head by Peter Liguori, who bears most of the praise in overseeing FX's emerging dominance as he used to be Pres/CEO of the cable net. He also now is the person responsible for renewing Arrested, giving it its last (and possibly worst) time slot, and eventually cancelling it. So it would just make sense for Landgraf to show-up Liguori just a little bit by giving Arrested a new life, and a successful one at that. Just my 73 cents.)

WELCOME 2006: A QUICK LOOK BACK AT 2005 (PART I)

In a post yesterday on his Esoteric Rabbit Blog, Matthew Clayfield described himself as an "Addict" having "watched 529 films in 2005 (that's features and shorts, including repeat viewings, but not student films), 156 episodes of television (113 of them Buffy episodes)." 529 films?!? That blows me out of the water, although my count doesn't include shorts (which would easily add 100 titles) and I couldn't even begin to keep track of how much TV I've watched. 156 episodes? I probably do that in less than two months.

On last Jan. 4, I wrote this post stating that my resolution (or, as I preferred to call it, my "unattainable goal") for 2005 was to average watching one movie per day. 365 movies in a year -- in the theater, on cable, via DVD; it didn't matter. The only qualification was that I had to be watching the film in its entire, unaltered form. No commercials; no editing for time, etc. That means TCM is fine, but AMC is not. My only exception to "unaltered" is that I suppose I will watch something that is "pan & scan," even if I prefer not to. I'm not sure why HBO now shoots its original series in a letterbox form to make them more filmlike, yet they have no problem showing movies in full-screen. Anyway, point being, HBO and Showtime and Cinemax -- unedited and no commercials -- yes; broadcast networks, TBS, Bravo? Nope. I also only count a movie title once, unless seeing it the second time was a drastically different experience or format -- for example Batman Begins which I saw in a regular theater and then saw again in IMAX.

Well, last night, I had the New Year's I wanted (about which I'll remain somewhat cryptic). I spent some of the night alone, reflecting on not just 2005 but on the last few years of my life, what I've done, where I've been -- or in some cases what I haven't done and where I haven't been. I made a bunch of resolutions last night, all fools errands? Maybe. But one of them was to not get to down about not fulfilling them, and another was to not give up on them just because I might fall off the wagon. Maybe the most important resolution I made, however, was to not look back anymore. I've spent too much time (especially in this past year filled with upheaval and difficulty) looking back, second-guessing and often, unfortunately, regretting. I determined to try to use my mistakes as lessons, to move forward from them rather than dwell on them.

I'm not going to list all my resolutions here, but I did decide to put a concerted effort into making my "unattainable goal" of last year an actual one. That means 365 films by the end of the year. It means cutting back on some of the TV (which would be healthy anyway) and it means balancing and utilizing my time (because there are plenty of other things I want to do as well) more wisely. (It should actually be much easier to accomplish this year, anyway, because I'm going to have to watch well over 100 films over the next two months alone for work/Tribeca-related reasons.) I resolve to not keep Netflix movies for an entire year, and to devote more time to reading books rather than just all my magazine subscriptions. (In case you were wondering, that left sidebar did not stay the same simply out of laziness -- I just hadn't finished watching/reading any of the items). And although I don't plan to look back and dwell on last year, and most of it I want to just leave behind me, over the next few days (maybe even couple of weeks) I will be reflecting a little bit on the year in film and TV, since that has always been the main focus of this blog.

So with that in mind, and maybe even more for my own purposes than your enjoyment, after the jump is a list of every film I watched in 2005. I ended the year a little before midnight watching Funny Ha Ha. I thought if I wanted to start of the new year correctly, it would make sense to make one of my favorite films of 2005 the first movie I watched in 2006, and as I just finally received the DVD of Batman Begins in the mail, I started 2006 off right. As I wrote in my post last January, in 2004, I watched 189 films. This year, I counted 243. As I said, this number doesn't include short films, but it does contain features I watched that were submissions to Tribeca and may never see any other light of day.

There are 8,760 hours in a year. If one averages eight hours of a sleep a night (and yeah, that might be optimistic), you'd spend 2,920 of those hours in dreamland and 5,840 hours awake. My 243 titles probably took-up somewhere between 500-600 hours; that's 10% of my waking year. Doesn't seem like so much, but if you're curious how I specifically spent 2005 and the movies, then jump: