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Mr. Beaks Honors The Best Of Butt-Numb-A-Thon X!
I'm thinking of handing my four pages of Butt-Numb-a-Thon X notes over to a psychiatrist to see if he can determine the moments at which I a) accidentally got drunk, b) sobered up, c) intentionally got drunk again, d) sobered up, e) slipped into drunkenness a third time, f) lost the ability to feel romantic love, g) caught a cold, and h) slept through a great Sam Fuller movie. Alternatively, I'm thinking of burning my BNAT notes because they don't make any fucking sense.
I'm also thinking these scribbles signify awe. Despite the rumors of last-minute dropouts, BNAT X was a brilliantly programmed twenty-four hours. The official lineup:
VIVA VILLA! (1934)
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008)
SAHARA (1943)
VALKYRIE (2008)
METROPOLIS (1984, Moroder Version)
MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D (2009)
I LOVE YOU, MAN (2009)
WHITE DOG (1982)
CHE (2008)
Granted, these are just the features. Interspersed throughout the day were chunks of footage from upcoming studio releases like CORALINE, UP, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, PUSH, KNOWING, OBSERVE AND REPORT, WATCHMEN and TERMINATOR: SALVATION. And while this smorgasbord of tease only reinforced my abhorrence of the sneak peak format (plea for cessation coming later this week), these glorified highlight reels still complemented, and sometimes deepened, Harry's theme of revolution in a way that felt planned (particularly CORALINE and UP). It was a day of revolution and death, resistance and acceptance, Bad Nazis and Good Nazis, talking dogs and racist dogs.
And it all hinged on the vague promise of a furry Benicio Del Toro. As it would take several paragraphs to properly explain the joke, I'll just pass along my kudos to Tim League for ensuring that I will never be able to watch Steven Soderbergh's CHE without flashing on my pal Jeff Mahler hugging Teen Wolf. Your reward is in Diane Keaton's HEAVEN.
Cold medication is impairing my ability to reason at the moment, so rather than attempt a comprehensive film-by-film summary, I thought it would be fun (i.e. less mentally taxing) to hand out awards honoring the most exceptional movies, performances and moments of BNAT X. Beats printing out my notes in their addled, viciously inarticulate entirety.
Best Picture: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON.
Exhibit A for why I should never read reviews prior to watching a massively anticipated epic from a world-class director.
There's so much to hate about the year-end rush to top-ten judgment, but there's nothing worse than the lack of reflection it engenders (now that many of us are Twittering our initial thoughts on the way out of the theater, I fear there's an increasing tendency to get locked into those first impressions). Had I written my review of BENJAMIN BUTTON twenty-four hours after my first viewing, it would've been a tepidly positive review that praised the transcendent stretches (e.g. Pitt-Swinton's Noel Coward-inspired intelude, the anatomy of an accident, the U-Boat attack, etc.) and slammed the Hurricane Katrina framing device. After a second viewing, I'm confident Fincher has designed one of the all-time great accounts of a life lived in full. The broad strokes conceal a Kubrickian degree of character and thematic detail.
Potential caveat: this could be the Drafthouse-furnished caviar and vodka talking.
Best Actor: Wallace Beery, VIVA VILLA!
I truly admire Benicio Del Toro's work in CHE, but Beery's rampage of fucking and killing in the mildly insensitive VIVA VILLA! epitomizes the life of a revolutionary to me. It may be a false portrait, but questionable Hecht is always preferable to over-intellectualized Soderbergh. No one's solid on how much of VIVA VILLA! was directed by Howard Hawks; the rowdy male camaraderie would suggest "a lot".
Best Actress: Kristy McNichol, WHITE DOG
A childhood crush renewed. She was nineteen and fresh off of LITTLE DARLINGS when she got caught up in Samuel Fuller's unconscionably shelved gem about a dog trained to attack black people. Unlike Fuller, WHITE DOG didn't kill her career, but the '82 flop combo of it and THE PIRATE MOVIE did end her as a "rising star". In all seriousness, this award should go to METROPOLIS' Brigitte Helm, but she didn't enrich my youth in dazzlingly tumescent ways.
Best Supporting Actor: Tom Atkins, MY BLOODY VALENTINE
The man's first slasher film performance in twenty years. It's like watching Larry Bird lace 'em up again and go for forty against Kobe Bryant's Lakers.
Best Supporting Actress: Betsy Rue, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D
She's got maybe four minutes of screen time. None of them are clothed. All of them are memorable. I shall spoil no further.
Best Director: Bryan Singer, VALKYRIE
For making an occasionally gripping movie out of Christopher McQuarrie's less-than-sterling screenplay. It's an impressive, economical return to form for Singer after the bloat of SUPERMAN RETURNS.
Best Footage: UP
Pete Docter's such a great storyteller, even his storyboards make me weep.
The UP presentation was undoubtedly the most significant of Butt-Numb-a-Thon: until now, all we knew was that it was the story of Carl Fredricksen (voice of Ed Asner), an old man who attempts to erase a lifetime of regret by traveling via house to a remote South American jungle. Now we have the backstory: the old man's love for adventure was stoked by his go-getter wife. The couple's childhood meet-cute in an abandoned house is followed by a heartbreaking montage which takes us through their entire life together (as piercingly bittersweet as anything in BENJAMIN BUTTON). It's weighty stuff (and it informs a surprising burst of violence early in the first act), but it's leavened by the antics of the plucky wilderness scout who inadvertently accompanies Carl to South America and the curious creatures they meet in the jungle. The dogs with leashes that give voice to their every flighty thought shame BOLT (fyi, "Squirrel!" is the new "Mine!").
Best Trailer: SECRET OF MAGIC ISLAND
An all-animal cast is forced to "act just like they were people". Takes its place alongside THE UNCANNY as an exemplary cinematic mistreatment of house pets. Words are insufficient.
Most Prescient Comment on the Modern Day Plight of Film Critics: Jonny Sykes (played by Stuart Erwin), VIVA VILLA!
"I'm a journalist: all brains, no dough!"
Best Act of Audience Cruelty: Starting the Heavily-Subtitled CHE at 8 AM.
Best Act of Jeff Mahler Cruelty: The TEEN WOLF Incident
I.E., Dragging the diminutive filmmaker onstage to get a basketball autographed by his hirsute hero before "accidentally" melting a print of his favorite film for the third year in a row.
Best Killing of a Nazi: Sgt. Major Tambul (played by Rex Ingram), SAHARA
The Sudanese Tambul finishes off an escaping German prisoner by drowning him in sand.
Best Future Fanboy Crush: Megan Boone, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D
The white trash mistress of Kerr Smith's Axel Palmer was even more impressive during the post-film Q&A, where she cited GREMLINS and Joe Pesci in GOODFELLAS as things that scared her as a child. The line starts forming behind Messrs. Mahler and Knowles.
Best Thing to Say About I LOVE YOU, MAN: It's Very Funny, But Could Stand To Lose Ten Or Fifteen Minutes
Best Filmmaking Movement Off-Handedly Invented By McG: "The Belgian Third Wave"
I should also note that TERMINATOR: SALVATION continues to look like a very big, potentially entertaining film. I'm looking forward to it. But that "We shot our movie in Albuquerque to get that David Lean scope" comment... oh, hell. Keep on yakkin', McG!
And with that, I must travel.
As always, it was wonderful to hang with the Austin crew and meet a few readers. Though my body is none-too-pleased with me at the moment, I honestly can't wait to do this again next year.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
There's so much to hate about the year-end rush to top-ten judgment, but there's nothing worse than the lack of reflection it engenders (now that many of us are Twittering our initial thoughts on the way out of the theater, I fear there's an increasing tendency to get locked into those first impressions). Had I written my review of BENJAMIN BUTTON twenty-four hours after my first viewing, it would've been a tepidly positive review that praised the transcendent stretches (e.g. Pitt-Swinton's Noel Coward-inspired intelude, the anatomy of an accident, the U-Boat attack, etc.) and slammed the Hurricane Katrina framing device. After a second viewing, I'm confident Fincher has designed one of the all-time great accounts of a life lived in full. The broad strokes conceal a Kubrickian degree of character and thematic detail.
Potential caveat: this could be the Drafthouse-furnished caviar and vodka talking.
The UP presentation was undoubtedly the most significant of Butt-Numb-a-Thon: until now, all we knew was that it was the story of Carl Fredricksen (voice of Ed Asner), an old man who attempts to erase a lifetime of regret by traveling via house to a remote South American jungle. Now we have the backstory: the old man's love for adventure was stoked by his go-getter wife. The couple's childhood meet-cute in an abandoned house is followed by a heartbreaking montage which takes us through their entire life together (as piercingly bittersweet as anything in BENJAMIN BUTTON). It's weighty stuff (and it informs a surprising burst of violence early in the first act), but it's leavened by the antics of the plucky wilderness scout who inadvertently accompanies Carl to South America and the curious creatures they meet in the jungle. The dogs with leashes that give voice to their every flighty thought shame BOLT (fyi, "Squirrel!" is the new "Mine!").
Best Trailer: SECRET OF MAGIC ISLAND
An all-animal cast is forced to "act just like they were people". Takes its place alongside THE UNCANNY as an exemplary cinematic mistreatment of house pets. Words are insufficient.
Most Prescient Comment on the Modern Day Plight of Film Critics: Jonny Sykes (played by Stuart Erwin), VIVA VILLA!
"I'm a journalist: all brains, no dough!"
Best Act of Audience Cruelty: Starting the Heavily-Subtitled CHE at 8 AM.
Best Act of Jeff Mahler Cruelty: The TEEN WOLF Incident
I.E., Dragging the diminutive filmmaker onstage to get a basketball autographed by his hirsute hero before "accidentally" melting a print of his favorite film for the third year in a row.
Best Killing of a Nazi: Sgt. Major Tambul (played by Rex Ingram), SAHARA
The Sudanese Tambul finishes off an escaping German prisoner by drowning him in sand.
Best Future Fanboy Crush: Megan Boone, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D
The white trash mistress of Kerr Smith's Axel Palmer was even more impressive during the post-film Q&A, where she cited GREMLINS and Joe Pesci in GOODFELLAS as things that scared her as a child. The line starts forming behind Messrs. Mahler and Knowles.
Best Thing to Say About I LOVE YOU, MAN: It's Very Funny, But Could Stand To Lose Ten Or Fifteen Minutes
Best Filmmaking Movement Off-Handedly Invented By McG: "The Belgian Third Wave"
I should also note that TERMINATOR: SALVATION continues to look like a very big, potentially entertaining film. I'm looking forward to it. But that "We shot our movie in Albuquerque to get that David Lean scope" comment... oh, hell. Keep on yakkin', McG!
And with that, I must travel.
As always, it was wonderful to hang with the Austin crew and meet a few readers. Though my body is none-too-pleased with me at the moment, I honestly can't wait to do this again next year.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
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...I hate how people don't follow their followers back, so I stopped following people on Twitter a while ago. (To be fair: I got no idea if you are one of these asses who wants everybody to read what they write, but give a shit about other people's twitter stuff.)
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is this the new "jump the shark" or "nuke the fridge"?as in, "Heroes was great in Season 1, but after Bryan Fuller left they really mentioned Twitter on AICN, you know?"
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That lineup is pants. But maybe I'm spoiled from just having been to the 24 hour movie marathons in New Zealand...now THEY kick ass.
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is the actual name of the trailer. Here's a YouTube clip of it!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFZ2X6hrk6oThanks for the review, Beaks... BNAT X was a ton of fun.
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is the actual name of the trailer. Here's a YouTube clip of it!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFZ2X6hrk6oThanks for the review, Beaks... BNAT X was a ton of fun.
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Tho Twitter is for the massively self-indulgent and the egotistical. And that includes Robogeek, who should have had more class.
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I feel the same way about BUTTON. Loved it to bits.
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I've read all 3 of these "reports/recaps" on BNAT and I still know little-to-nothing about the film. I'm seeing it on Christmas day, so a little review would be nice. How's the action? The sets? The suspense?
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I think that's the most stark disagreement I've had with you, Beaks. We are usually fairly in line. You do admit you could have been drunk on vodka and fat on caviar to the point of delusion, though.
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I'm under the impression that Moriarty left AICN.. If this is true can someone give me the link to his blog or new site or whatever he has going?
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Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Seriously, if Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett had that much chemistry I would've liked Benjamin Button a heck of a lot more. I just never really got why they were together in the first place. And no, calling it "fate" doesn't quite do it for me.
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Especially your thoughts on what Fincher was able to do with BenjholyfuckingcrapTOMATKINS!!!!isinMyBloodyValentine!!!! Why was no national holiday declared?
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I saw her first.
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An excellent film which collapses in its final act.
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Tom Atkins is in the new My Bloody Valentine??? Why the fuck isn't his name plastered all over the poster and trailers? Oh how I hope he curses and kills bad guys and beds every female on screen... at the same time. Just like the old days. Yes. I have a man crush on Tom Atkins. Halloween III for life, bitches.
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Cool for them, but sort of sucks for others hoping to get in.
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I bet Michael Bay doesn't.
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..AVATAR you lucky bastards.
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Hmm.
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Thank you.
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So I'll have prejudices going into Terminator: Salvation.
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Because Pixar is like totally the greatest studio ever...Zzzzzzzz.
I've yet to see Walllll-eeeeee which seems like such a load of twee bollocks as to raise my suspicions that this is all an alien plot to take over our minds.
Shame Beaks couldn't, just this once, resist a 300-400 word intro (it felt like that) and instead got
on with commenting on arguably the biggest film of next year. -
where the hell are the last 2 weeks of the DVD column? BNAT my arse!
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After the way you talk about Button as a film, and its "world class director", then you give the best director award so someone who made an "occasionally" gripping film? huh? As much as I think the Oscars are a joke anyway, but okay if they're gonna do it, I always think it's ridiculous when the Picture and Director awards don't match up. It's ludicrous.
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Harry, I know why you are so overweight: you are soooo full of shit! How about you stop treating us like shit and do your job? We want the dvd section every week and on time, get it!? Enough of your bullshit!
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Don't see Wall-E. Your fears are justified.
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I don't usually read the talkbacks, let alone respond, but I'm still so jazzed from this past weekend that I decided to visit. This was my third BNAT (6, 7, 10) and they keep getting better. It's not just the movies, but the whole experience that makes BNAT so special to me. My buddy and I take the Friday off from teaching high school kids and get to fly from L.A. to Austin for a freakin’ 24-hour film experience. We meandered through one of the coolest towns on the planet, checking out live bands and playing some billiards. This time we also toured the Capitol building, hung out at Scholz Garten, and saw a 10 p.m. showing of Milk at the Ritz – all on Friday night!
Was the experience perfect? No. I forgot my sweater on the plane and I disembarked in Austin; My hotel room was right next to the elevator of the Radisson parking garage; We were scared nearly to death by something that resembled a cross between an armadillo and a cat without a tail while walking back to the hotel at about 12:30 a.m.; And the first half hour of Che nearly conquered me. But before I can complain, Southwest found my sweater in Dallas and it was waiting for me at the Austin airport on Sunday; the sound of the elevator was drowned out by the snoring of my roommate (ok, so that wasn’t the best example); at least we didn’t get attacked by a “white dog”; and without BNAT I would never have seen Che.
When we didn’t get accepted for BNATs 8 and 9 I was pretty bummed out. What was difficult for me to understand was why so many people complained about the line-up. At least they were there. I would like to see any of these haters try to put on their own movie fest of similar magnitude. Whatever inspires some of you to rip on Harry and his crew for perceived deficiencies in the BNAT, please put it all into perspective. Free speech is what makes this country great, but seriously, if you have nothing to say of consequence, do the world a favor and either keep it to yourself, buy a plane ticket to Cannes, or both. If not, be grateful for the BNAT experience.
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I kind of get the appeal of excess, but maybe I'm just too old to conceive of sitting through a marathon like that.
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Well said. I hope one day I'm lucky enough to attend.
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I'm the opposite. I find it confusing that Best Picture and Best Director don't diverge more often. I like to think of the Director award as being more geared toward artistic merit and technical proficiency of the film as a whole. Then I would allow some room for the Picture award to account for not only those elements but also more populist factors that transcend the screen such as societal influence and relevance. That's just a matter of personal preference, I guess, and if something was staggeringly groundbreaking artistically, I'd probably be rooting for it for Picture too, but if there's really no difference in the awards, then why bother to parse them? Additionally, I know that "Producer" can be a rather amorphous label, but the best producers are extremely instrumental in making a film great, and thus I think they deserve a forum for recognition.
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I can only assume you were talking about me...I'm mainly meaning that I'd rather watch movies like DESPERATE LIVING, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3, THE LAST DRAGON, KING DINOSAUR and THE ROAD WARRIOR in a 24 hour movie marathon (which I did, amongst other films, all on 35mm, in a cinema full of geeks this past weekend)...keep it entertaining, keep it pacey. Hell, even seeing Andy Milligan's TORTURE DUNGEON was an experience and a half. As for the experience of BNAT...I'd still give my left nut to EXPERIENCE it, it's just the films have tended to be not my thing in the past few years. The one lineup that caused me to go "whoa! Awesome!" was guest-programmed, or so I've heard.
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And it's one of the many reasons why the Oscars is a pointless affair. I'm almost hoping Ledger doesn't get nominated this year as it'll feel so perfunctory and graceless.
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I wasn't referring to you at all. I actually had to go back to your post to find what you had written. It was a response to those posts in both this and the other BNAT talkbacks that simply bitched and complained about different aspects of the marathon. You can never please everyone, and since we (the BNAT audience) are everyone we need to accept it for what it is. I sense this strange feeling of entitlement in many of the responses that mystifies me. There are no promises when it comes to the line-ups. Am I going to write about my experience with a 20th hour "Che" in my diary? No. Do I feel fortunate to have seen it in all its four-hour glory. Hell yes. I love movies, and BNAT is a kickass movie experience.
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fucking twitter.....anyone who finds this appealing, good god, there is nothing to say about that.
And all of the positive stuff about Valkyrie has me very suspicious.
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