My (I Don't Really Care About The) Grammy Awards Post

I didn't watch the Grammy Awards. I was however happy to hear about both Muse and (especially) Arcade Fire winning awards. They deserve all sorts of accolades, even when it's at a (generally) lame award show.

I was also, very curious about the Bob Dylan performance (featuring some other blokes too). Dylan kinda owns my life right now (no, we don't have to get into it) so obviously I had to go find a video of the performance as soon as the show ended. I found it and I loved it. So here it is, just in case you missed it too:




By the way, it's awesome. And not just because of Dylan. Mumford & Sons are an obvious win. Avett Brothers were a pleasant surprise.

Read More

Would You Do 99 Takes for David Fincher?

Crossposted on and commissioned by Film.com

One of the big talking points around The Social Network has been how director David Fincher had Jesse Eisenberg & Rooney Mara do 99 takes of the opening six minute scene over the course of two days. Which isn't new for Fincher - doing an inordinate number of takes is how he rolls. And in the case of The Social Network, with a script as wordy and deliberate as Sorkin's tend to be, I can hardly imagine the kind of experience this must have been for the actors. It begs the question - would you do 99 takes for David Fincher?

In a recent actor's round table organized by The Hollywood Reporter, Jesse Eisenberg got into discussing the process and Mark Ruffalo, also in attendance, offered his two cents as well, having worked with Fincher himself on Zodiac. Ruffalo posits that Fincher sees the whole, and the actors are only a bit of that whole, while Duvall scoffs at the idea of 50+ takes so much that he wonders if there was a subconscious reason he turned down a role in Seven. What compels one actor to jump at the chance to do 99 takes and turns others off so much that they be thrilled to miss an opportunity to work with such a director?

I have a BA in Drama from NYU Tisch and almost always hated the rehearsal process of theater out of fear of finding a moment and then never being able to retrieve it again, but was of course grateful for the process in the end. But theater is QUITE different from film. In theater, you have months of prep. You rehearse to find your blocking, to find your moments and hopefully keep them, to see if your analysis works, to get your actions or any potential externals you have to live with for the duration of the show in your body. But with film, you do bits at a time and often the technical aspects take priority over the acting - most directors expect you to come ready to film. And because it's so up close, because it's just one tiny part of the whole, spontaneity is key in capturing honesty. Clint Eastwood is one of those directors that thinks the best takes happen right away, most spontaneous, most in the moment, most unaware of what is to come. He casts actors he knows he can trust, who will come ready to go, and makes sure his actors know they can trust him, that they are in a safe environment, that they can feel free to do whatever they want - he is known for most often using the first take that was shot. My personal favorite experiences on sets have been when we got the scene in 1-3 takes, so on paper, working with Eastwood sounds like a dream.

And the idea of doing a six minute scene 99 times in a row makes my head want to explode.

But here's the thing. Eastwood movies I tend to not like. Fincher movies, I LOVE. I love every movie he has ever made, that I've seen (Sorry Panic Room & Alien 3, one day I'll meet you). It might be annoying for the actors, but his methods yield genius results. Also with that number of takes, I feel like it could almost give more of a chance to just mess around and do takes for yourself. Natalie Portman has praised Darren Aronosfky for always letting her have a take "for herself." There is something about doing that many takes that could end up being a similar kind of freeing. Especially if you know that's the way the director works. If your director does 2-3 takes normally, then needs to do 20 on you because you are missing all your moments or flubbing your lines, that's a bad sign. But if you know your director will be doing 40-99 takes, there isn't really much you can do to change that, so you might as well go balls out. And it shows.

Recently, Vulture printed an in depth interview with Fincher, in which I was thrilled to find he touches on exactly that notion,

"I’m not, like, trying to psychologically remake people, but look, it’s an incredibly neurotic thing to want to do with one’s life. It’s incredibly hard to stand in front of a camera and be the focus of that attention and not be self-conscious. It makes you self-conscious, and to get beyond that self-consciousness, I absolutely want people to have their idea of what the scene is about, to have an idea of what their moment is. And then I want to take them through that process to a point where they’ve literally forgotten their own names. I want to take them past the point where they go, "But I had it all worked out." If it’s still there but you’re doing it a little bit later or doing it a little bit flustered. You know, it’s an interesting thing: It happens very rarely, but invariably, when an actor’s in the middle of a take and they go, "Uh, hang on a sec, sorry, my fault, can we start again?" always it’s the best take. Always the best take before they cry uncle, before they go, "Wait a minute, I’ve lost my train of thought." And I can show them on the monitor: "Look at you here, that is you at your most present, when you’re falling-down ill, like Dudley Moore in Arthur, ass-over-teakettle trying to remember where you were in the thing, that’s when you are stunning and real and amazing." Little things happen. There’s this moment at the beginning of the movie where Rooney [Mara, who plays Zuckerberg’s girlfriend] interrupts him and says “Mark!" And Jesse did this thing where he leaned forward in a very prodding way and said "Erica!" Oddly condescending. She gets really pissed off — and he’d never done it before. It was kind of great. I went up to him and he said, "Do you want me to do it again?" And I said, "No, but I bet you it’s going in the movie." That’s the kind of stuff you want to find."

Adding to the freedom? In the opening scene of The Social Network, Fincher put a camera on Mara *and* a camera on Eisenberg so they could nail the rhythms and overlaps of Sorkin's language. Thus, everything those actors did was captured. No moment lost. He also instructed the extras to speak at full volume to create a sense of realism for the actors. They weren't on a silent set, feeling the pressure, feeling the focus all directed on them. They were in it.

Another director notorious for doing numerous takes was Stanley Kubrick. People often view his methods as perhaps less kind or more crazy than Fincher's, Duvall going so far as to call him the "actor's enemy" in the aforementioned actor's round table, but according to some, Kubrick was going after a similar result, as Nicole Kidman can testify,

"He believed that what it does to you, as an actor, was that you would lose control of your sense of self, of the part of you that was internally watching your own performance. Eventually, he felt, you would stop censoring yourself."

So it seems as though directors like Fincher & Kubrick are in fact going after the exact same thing directors like Eastwood desire - spontaneity, honesty, living in the moment.

The difference?

You can't half ass 99 takes. You need to know your lines, you need to have energy, you need to have worked on your voice & speech skills so you don't lose your voice or trip over your words. You need your body to be warm and open so you don't slip up, so you don't get tired. It's scary. And truly something only the most dedicated actors can pull off. Which is why, Justin Timberlake, I just got a whole lot more impressed with you.

But you know what? 99 takes? That's a challenge I'd be willing to take. Yes I hate doing more than 3 takes of anything, but for the chance to work with David Fincher, I'd do just about anything. Well. That's overstating it a bit. But you know what I mean. Can you imagine waking up every morning knowing you are going to go work with incredibly talented people who, rather than worrying about time or perfection, are most concerned with letting you be open and free. Screw an actor's nightmare, this just turned into actor's dream, you guys. Sign me up.

For more on the behind the scenes process, check out the behind the scenes doc, How Did They Ever Make a Movie About Facebook, included on The Social Network blu-ray.

Read More

Objectifying Men: Genuine Ken

Kids don't need to be sold on Barbie, but if you want to expand Barbie's market demographics it's sensible to look towards those who once loved her rather than trying to sell boys on the pink plastic dream house.

Read more at The Mystery of Girls Media

Read More

You knew this was coming

The Strokes have released their new single "Under Cover of Darkness" as a free download, available on their website for another 20 or so hours. Go here. And enjoy.

Read More

Muse's Eight Most Upsetting Snubs of Oscars 2011

Crossposted on & commissioned by Film.com

Last Tuesday, I was hoping for a pleasant morning. For an Oscars 2010 kind of morning, where you wake up and find out that District 9 got nominated for Best Picture. Instead it was an Oscars 2009 kind of morning. A The Dark Knight got snubbed for Best Picture kind of morning. Translation: A really bad morning.

The only happy surprise of the main 8 categories? Michelle Williams getting a nod. But there was no Ryan Gosling. There was no Julianne Moore, though no one really thought she'd make it in. And most upsettingly, there was no Andrew Garfield, the heart and soul of The Social Network. His snub alone began to unravel my previously stable belief that The Social Network has Best Picture locked up (now almost completely shattered by The King's Speech winning at the SAG Awards). If the actors branch, the largest branch of the academy, didn't appreciate his performance enough to get him a nod, does that mean they don't appreciate the movie enough?

But then something even worse was announced. The nominees for Best Director. Don't get me wrong. I love David Fincher. I love Darren Aronofsky. I love the Coen Brothers. I even love notoriously crazy David O Russell. But the fact that Christopher Nolan, a director committed to using the language of cinema to not only tell a story, but make you think and make you feel in ways you don't even understand or realize you're feeling until it's over - the fact that one of the most innovative, creative, most aspiring to cinematic greatness directors working today did not get a nomination for Best Director is disappointing at best. But, and not to beat a dead horse, Tom Hooper, who impressed me directorally only in his casting of the three leads, did. And then won the DGA award later that week. Because the universe hates me.


So when the director nominations were announced, I got worried. I immediately went online, found the complete list of Oscar nominations...and I didn't like what I saw. There were more snubs than the obvious - more than Gosling, Garfield, Mila Kunis & Nolan, Waiting for Superman in Doc, The Town in Picture. So here is my list of the top eight most upsetting snubs.

8.Lisa Cholodenko - Director - The Kids Are All Right

No one seemed to prognosticate that Lisa ever had a chance, but since I believed that the top five would have been The Social Network, The King's Speech, Black Swan, True Grit or Inception & The Kids Are All Right (if following the genre standards set by the aughts), I was still hoping that maybe the directors would reflect this. Unfortunately it seems as though The Fighter would have potentially taken that last slot, leaving The Kids Are All Right out in the cold and Cholodenko with it. But her direction was actually quite remarkable. The way the scenes were framed & lit that seemed to inform the relationships, the comfort levels in each location, the lingering shots, the attention to detail, the warmth - plus it really feels like open, honest acting from everyone in the cast. There is no schmacting, there is no indicating, Cholodenko knew exactly how to capture what she wanted. I was so sincerely hoping there would be a slot for this movie in direction and not just because Lisa is a woman, though that would have been a cool plus side coming off of last year's historic win for Kathryn Bigelow. Le sigh.

7. Daft Punk- Score - Tron: Legacy

This movie would be a big fat nothing without two things: The visuals & the score. Daft Punk MADE this movie work for me. Looking at Tron: Legacy as one long Daft Punk music video suddenly made it not suck. Aside from the fact that it is absurdly necessary for the movie to even work on any level, the score is *awesome* to listen to. It's atmospheric when it needs to be, triumphant when it needs to be, popping when it needs to be, forlorn when it needs to be - each track is distinct, yet clearly Daft Punk and clearly from Tron: Legacy. I've listened to it on multiple occasions for multiple reasons and was really hoping to be able to say "Oscar nominees Daft Punk." Not everyone can be Three Six Mafia, I suppose.

6. & 5. Visual FX: Tron: Legacy and Scott Pilgrim

The other aspect that made Tron for me was obviously the VFX. The ways in which Tron utilized 3D and the IMAX screen to actually help tell the story (as stupid as the story was) I thought deserved some praise. This movie looked so utterly cool, it's the first time I have *ever* excused a terrible story and terrible dialogue because I loved the effects so much. I was so taken with this universe, I felt like I was actually inside it and I loved every moment. No one can deny the feat that was accomplished with the visuals and those very visuals have been a subject for discussion since we first got a glimpse of what would be at Comic-Con three years ago.

Then you have Scott Pilgrim, which played with vfx in a very different way, but still a style I've never seen before. They play into the environment and help specify that this world isn't exactly our world, but rather a much more badass one. Or, to be slightly more accurate, a much more EPIC one.

It seems endlessly strange to me that the opening sequence of a movie, Hereafter, featuring a type of effect that has been done many times before, tsunami, (see: Deep Impact, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, etc etc etc) deserved a nomination more than two films that really created something unique and essential to the storytelling of the film. Using fx as a flavor of ice cream itself instead of the cherry on top, if you will?

4.& 3. Sound Editing & Mixing - Scott Pilgrim & Black Swan

I don't know much about sound. Which is precisely why I think Scott Pilgrim & Black Swan deserved some recognition. Sound played essential roles in both of these films and not in the obvious action movie sense.

In Scott Pilgrim, there is almost *always* a specific sound cue designed to help tell the story - whether it's by referencing something else, setting the location, keeping the pace, directing the audience's attention - sound plays a HUGE role in the movie. The choices in sound were actually on the same level as the choices in music and special effects, to the point where all three departments were working together to create the most immersive result possible. It mystifies me that that much detail doesn't deserve some recognition. I don't see how "train sounds" is more innovative or creative than what Julian Slater and his team did for Scott Pilgrim. I'm sure Unstoppable's sound was edited perfectly, but to what imaginative end? With Pilgrim, Every punch with a different person sounded different. There was a specific sound scape running through every scene, playing a vital role in letting us know what to think & how to feel. It's a travesty Pilgrim was snubbed here, nothing less. For more, head here.

Then you have Black Swan, in which the sounds affect environment as much as the cinematography and production design do. They are integral in creating atmosphere, in getting inside Nina's head, in suggesting emotion. The cracking, the whispering, the breathing, the sound was almost a living entity. It is an artistic use of sound, both in editing and mixing that has sadly gone unnoticed by the academy. Fore more on Black Swan and sound, head here.


2. Lesley Manville - Actress - Another Year

Now THAT is a performance. Yes, the other actresses were fantastic and I begrudge none of them, but it would have been wonderful to see Manville sneak in there. Her performance is almost beyond description. Her character is so thoroughly authentic that you have trouble believing she's real. It's difficult to play unstable that accurately. Watching her, I was uncomfortable, but couldn't pull my eyes away. Every choice was fascinating. I'm honestly not sure any other actress nominated could have pulled off that character. I was positively in awe and absolutely believe the reason she didn't make it is that simply not enough actors saw Another Year to get her quite enough votes.

1. Lee Smith - Editing - Inception

The one you've probably heard the most bitching about on Twitter and rightly so. A crucial element in Inception was tricking the audience into thinking we are following a much more straightforward story than we actually are. To edit so seamlessly that we don't realize anything is truly strange until the end of the movie. Like a dream itself. Part of what makes Nolan so masterful is his ability to make a movie like Memento and really make us feel like we don't have a short term memory, to make a movie like Insomnia and make us feel like we have insomnia, and with Inception, to make us feel like we've been dreaming, or to go even further, than we've been incepted. (Sidenote: I LOVE Inception theories.) But this would not be possible without top notch editing. The only reasonable explanation for this is that Smith ended up as #6 and by a remarkably small margin.

If any of these snubs affected you the way they affected me, check out the nominations for the second annual Fangirl Awards...Scott Pilgrim got 14 nominations. Take that, The King's Speech with 12 Academy Award nominations! ... I'm not going to be happy on Oscar night, am I?

Read More

My The King's Speech Rant Of The Day

Think I can keep this up for 25 days?

Today's rant was inspired by three words in Lisa Schwartzbaum's article about the absurdity of Tom Hooper winning the DGA award.

"privileged fellow’s triumph" in reference to what The King's Speech is actually about.

And this got me thinking.

Lots of people complain that The Social Network is just a movie about some bratty nerds making a website that people will forget about next week and The King's Speech is about World War II and will last forever.

A. Incorrect

B. Let me provide you with a different perspective.

The King's Speech is about a rich royal who feels like he isn't good enough because he has a stutter. Did I mention he is rich as balls and the King and never has to want for anything and also that he never mentioned maybe his nazi sympathizer brother shouldn't be King, oh, because he's a nazi sympathizer, not just cause he fell for a divorced woman? Oh yeah, marrying someone who was married once before is SO much worse than being a nazi-lover. Yup. So: privileged entitled King to be gets over his stutter with the help of a failed actor who isn't as rich cause he isn't PART OF THE ROYAL FAMILY and they become friends, despite the fact that again, one of them isn't part of the royal family, OMG. ...

As opposed to a film about someone who could be called privileged if being a genius is a privilege. Someone who was flawed and fucked up emotionally but managed to use his smarts to LITERALLY CHANGE THE WORLD. THE WHOLE WORLD. ACTUALLY. It's about young people yes, young people who eventually have a shit load of money, some young people who have money already, like Eduardo - but they all *worked* for it, they all used their minds to get into school, to make money, to eventually revolutionize the way people communicate.

If we're talking purely subject matter, all people are from now on forbidden from positing that The King's Speech, because it's all warm & fuzzy, is somehow more important. Excuse me for being more interested in seeing how someone my age, born into nothing particularly special, except a mind and the determination to use it, changes the world and loses the only people he cares about in the process, versus a movie about someone born into royalty who has one fault and it's his stutter, but through friendship, he fixes it zzzzzzzzzzzz. Give me a break. And give The Social Network its damn Oscar.

Muse out.

Updated with response (in comments) -

It's only my vitriol, unfortunately...

Definitely see them. Both. Then read my 2000 word article on why The Social Network should win, haha.

The King's Speech is a perfectly lovely film. I saw it before all the hype, before it was a front runner, before all of this. It didn't move me. It didn't impress me. I thought Colin Firth was a GENIUS, but that's it. Then all of a sudden, it's winning everything and Harvey Weinstein is hiring lawyers to defend its historical accuracy (Check this out - http://www.slate.com/id/2282194/) and wanting to recut the movie without the "fucks" so middle america will see it and making all sorts of phone calls and claims about how TKS is *actually* the timely, yet timeless one. So my "Oh, I liked it!" has turned into "FUCK THAT GOD DAMN MOVIE, EFFING GOD DAMNIT"

And while it's true that these kids were from middle to upper middle class families, they didn't *have* to go to Harvard, they didn't *have* to revolutionize communication as we know it. They could have been asshole idiots. But they were smart and knew how to use their smarts they made that shit happen.

The truth is though, subject matter is the least of my arguments for TSN and against TKS. I'm sick of people all of a sudden saying TKS will last forever cause World War II blah and TSN will be forgotten about cause it's about nerds, which makes me want to laugh and/or choke on my own vomit.

The King's Speech is totally delightful. Would sweep at the Emmys. But it's the most conventional, safe, boringly shot, uncreatively made, least cinematic movie of what has been generally an *incredible* Oscar season.

And it didn't even move me, for all it's supposed fuzziness. Another Year moved me. Toy Story 3 at least manipulated me so perversely that I couldn't feel my face afterwards from all the tears. Black Swan and Inception made me cry out of sheer goosebumpy awe. Yet TKS, supposedly the best and most moving of the bunch? Not a tear. And keep in mind, when I saw it, I WANTED to love it. Was before any of this.

So that's that. Definitely see those two, see True Grit, keep an open mind. I just hate that Harvey Weinstein has shoved a perfectly fine movie with one incredible performance down everyone's throats so much that now it's gonna win Best Picture. In 2011. In a year with The Social Network, Black Swan, Inception, True Grit, The Kids Are All Right, I just...ugh..

Read More

The Fangirling: Slings & Arrows Edition

 A few things before we get to the carnage of my dignity that will hopefully frame the events that so recently took place:

1: I am a Shakespeare nerd, and attend a free Shakespeare workshop, called The Shakespeare Forum, every Tuesday at 8 pm.

2: Like any Shakespeare nerd worth their salt, I have a deep love (and the complete box set of) Slings&Arrows, the three-season Canadian television show starring Paul Gross, Martha Burns and Mark McKinney and featuring such talents as Sarah Polley and Rachel MacAdams, which follows the misadventures of a Shakespeare Festival helmed by a former actor who has suffered a mental breakdown and sees the ghost of his former mentor while he tries to wrangle cats make a theater company work.

3: I spent last Sunday at home in pajamas convelescing and watching the entire series start to finish.

Which brings us to Monday.

Monday, after a very long day at the office, I bundled up and prepared to trudge out into the cold. I double checked all the email accounts, turned off all the lights, and then loitered for no particular reason in our foyer, tidying things and tying my hair back before I left. I waited for the world's slowest elevator, got on, and exited onto the street.

Directly in front of me were two women of rather small stature, bundled up and chatting. I did not see either of their faces nor could I hear a single word of their conversation, but somehow my radar went off. Trying not to look lik the world's most epic creeper, with my scarf bundled around my face and my black trenchcoat wrapped up tight, I attempted to get a peek of the woman on the left's face. Possibly sensing she was being peered at, she glanced over her shoulder at me-

And I had an immediate and severe internal freak out. It was Martha Burns, who plays the indomitable and insufferable and brilliant actress Ellen Fanshaw in the above mentioned show.

I was then faced with a conundrum that my severely S&A addled brain could not successfully tackle. I could quietly spazz and follow them until I had to peel off for the subway, or I could Be That Person and say something.

But what were the odds? Really? What were the odds of my watching a show that is a real touchstone for me, a reminder of why I want to do what I do, and what I want to do, at the tail end of possibly the most discouraging and hellaciously stressful month of my life and the very next day finding myself all but face to face with one of its greatest components.

So I said, to their backs, "Excuse me, I know this is atrociously rude and invasive, I'm so sorry, but- Are you Martha Burns?"

At which point Ms. Burns turned, somewhat surprised, and said "Yes."

I immediately began the process of making an ass out of myself.

I told her it was uncanny, because I just the day before showed my friend the show for the first time, at which point her companion turned and it was Susan Coyne.

Series creator and writer and co-star, Susan Coyne. I yelped aloud and clapped my hands over my mouth while they watched with polite bemusement as I said things like "Oh my God, I love you both! You're such wonderful actors! I'm sorry, I'm so flustered, I never do this, but- I love you!"

They then opened up the line they were standing so I could WALK BETWEEN THEM as they CONTINUED DOWN THE STREET. I was so frazzled I could scarcely put two words together, and yet I managed to babble incoherently at them for quite some distance. I asked them if they were in town for a show, and they told me no, they were attending a Shakespeare workshop at the Michael Howard studio, which is directly next to my place of work. They asked me if I was in the theater, and I asked them if it was that obvious. They were amused.

At the end of the block, I could have followed them down the way they were going. I should have done so and tried to recover, to tell them about the forum I attend and invite them to please email me if THEY were ever hosting seminars or workshops, for acting or writing or anything at all, in the city. But I was so mortified by my flailing and gushing that I merely bid them congratulations on having created such a wonderful and enduring show and wished them a good night.

Then I called @erinlaurel8 and absolutely lost my shit in the middle of Madison Square Park.

It was a strange incident- the unlikelihood of running into those two actresses together outside my place of work, at that particular point in the evening, on the last day of the terrible month of January- and I have had no choice but to take it as a sign. Here are two tremendous, marvelous actresses, actively working on their craft, walking around like normal people. It was such a moment of geek joy, I had to- after calling, texting, IMing and tweeting at everyone I know- write it up on the blog, because.... Fangirling. Fangirling all over the place. In public.

I'm still happy about it. Even though I didn't even introduce myself UGH RUDE I WAS SO FLUSTERED blast it all.

If you haven't, pick up Slings&Arrows. Or a Complete Works. And if you see them wandering around, please tell them to call me, I have a group of young Shakespearean actors who are dying to buy them a drink.

Read More