TRASH IN MY EYE Reviews

Sunday, March 9, 2014

"12 Years a Slave," "The Dirties" Lead Vancouver Critics Awards

2014 VFCC Award Nominations - Complete List

The Vancouver Film Critics Association or Vancouver Film Critics Circle (VFCC) was apparently founded to represent Vancouver’s print, on-line, and broadcast media. The group honors the best in Canadian and international filmmaking with the annual VFCC Awards.

In anticipation of the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards, here, is a look at the 2014 VFCC Award nominations. Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave led all films in the 2014 VFCC Awards with six nominations in the Vancouver Film Critics Circle’s International category.

The Dirties, the story of two film geeks planning a high school shooting, received five VFCC nominations in the Canadian category, including “Best Canadian Film” and “Best First Film by a Canadian Director.” Director-star Matt Johnson was also nominated for “Best Director of a Canadian Film” and “Best Actor in a Canadian Film.”

The Vancouver Film Critics Circle introduced a new award, “Best First Film by a Canadian Director.”

2014 VFCC Awards – International category (for the year in film 2013) – full list of nominees:

BEST FILM
12 Years a Slave
Gravity
Inside Llewyn Davis

BEST ACTOR
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
June Squibb, Nebraska

BEST DIRECTOR
Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave

BEST SCREENPLAY
Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis
Spike Jonze, Her
John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Blancanieves
Blue is the Warmest Colour
The Hunt

BEST DOCUMENTARY
The Act of Killing
Blackfish
West of Memphis

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2014 VFCC Awards – Canadian categories (for the year in film 2013) – full list of nominees:

BEST CANADIAN FILM
The Dirties
Gabrielle
Watermark

BEST ACTOR IN A CANADIAN FILM
Thomas Haden Church, Whitewash
Matt Johnson, The Dirties
Tom Scholte, The Dick Knost Show

BEST ACTRESS IN A CANADIAN FILM
Michelle Giroux, Blood Pressure
Tatiana Maslany, Picture Day
Sophie Desmarais, Sarah Prefers to Run

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A CANADIAN FILM
Marc Labreche, Whitewash
Alexandre Landry, Gabrielle
Owen Williams, The Dirties

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A CANADIAN FILM
Romane Bohringer, Vic + Flo Saw a Bear
Lise Roy, Tom at the Farm
Gabrielle Rose, The Dick Knost Show

BEST DIRECTOR OF A CANADIAN FILM
Louise Archambault, Gabrielle
Jeff Barnaby, Rhymes for Young Ghouls
Matt Johnson, The Dirties

BEST CANADIAN DOCUMENTARY
My Prairie Home
Oil Sands Karaoke
Watermark

BEST BRITISH COLUMBIA FILM
Down River
Oil Sands Karaoke
When I Walk

BEST FIRST FILM BY A CANADIAN DIRECTOR
The Dirties
Rhymes for Young Ghouls
Sarah Prefers to Run

The Vancouver Film Critics Circle also announced that Canadian animation pioneer Al Sens is the winner of the 2014 Ian Caddell Award for Achievement. Presented to a British Columbian who has made a significant contribution to the province’s film industry, this award is named in honour of the VFCC’s cofounder, Ian Caddel, who passed away in 2012.

A Vancouver native, the self-taught animator founded Al Sens Animation, the city’s first animation studio, in 1958. Since then, he has amassed an impressive body of inventive work (including 1965’s The See Hear Talk Think Dream and Act Film and 1978’s Canadian Vignettes: Logger), developed his trademark “spit technique,” and served as a mentor to generations of animators.

Sens, who had recently turned 80, was to presented with his award at the VFCC’s 14th annual awards ceremony on Tuesday, January 7, 2014.

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Saturday, March 8, 2014

Review: "Tsotsi" a Familiar Tale from Another Place

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 168 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Tsotsi (2005)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: South Africa and the U.K.; Languages: Zulu, Afrikaans, and others
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R for language and some violent content
DIRECTOR: Gavin Hood
WRITER: Gavin Hood (based upon the novel by Athol Fugard)
PRODUCER: Peter Fudakowski
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lance Gewer
EDITOR: Megan Gill
COMPOSERS: Paul Hepker and Mark Kilian
Academy Award winner

DRAMA

Starring: Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto, Kenneth Nkosi, Mothusi Magano, Zenzo Ngqobe, Zola, Rapulana Seiphemo, Nambitha Mpumlwana, Jerry Mofokeng, Ian Roberts, Percy Matsemela, and Thembi Nyandeni

The subject of this movie review is Tsotsi, a 2005 South African drama adapted for the screen and directed by Gavin Hood. The film is based on the 1980 novel, Tsotsi, from author Athol Fugard. “Tsotsi” is apparently a slang word in Johannesburg, South Africa that can be translated to mean “thug.” Tsotsi the film follows six days in the violent life of a young Johannesburg gang leader.

Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) is a ruthless hood living in an impoverished township in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he leads the trio of miscreants that make up his gang. One night he shoots a woman (Nambitha Mpumlwana) in a well-to-do suburban neighborhood and drives off in her car, but he discovers that he isn’t alone. The woman’s infant son is in the backseat, so he grudgingly takes the infant to his humble abode. Through his efforts to care for the baby, Tsotsi (his nickname is urban slang that loosely translates to “thug”) rediscovers compassion, self-respect, and the capacity to love, but he still struggles with his old ways.

Tsotsi won the 2006 Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” as a representative of South Africa. The film is sturdy and earnest, and maybe a little too melodramatic in its too obvious determination to spend a yarn of moral redemption. Still, the film is powerful and the emotions run deep and are raw, primarily because of the lead character’s hardened criminal life. It’s kind of hard to be sympathetic towards Tsotsi because his decisions lead to the murder of an innocent man and the wounding of several others.

What makes Tsotsi rise above preachy, well-meaning social drama is that this is basically a familiar tale, but set in an unfamiliar place with strange and exotic characters. In that way, Tsotsi engages the viewer to discover a new way of looking at a familiar premise. The performances are good, though not great. Presley Chweneyagae, however, is a solid actor and carries the film like a veteran movie star.

7 of 10
B+

NOTES:
2006 Academy Awards, USA: 1 win: “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” (South Africa)

2006 BAFTA Awards: 2 nominations: “Best Film not in the English Language” (Gavin Hood and Peter Fudakowski) and the “Carl Foreman Award for Most Promising Newcomer” (Peter Fudakowski-producer)

2006 Golden Globes: 1 nomination for “Best Foreign Language Film” (South Africa)

2007 Image Awards: 1 nomination: “Outstanding Independent or Foreign Film”

Monday, August 07, 2006

Updated: Thursday, March 06, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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Friday, March 7, 2014

Happy Birthday, Anna

M.A.D.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Review: Asa Butterfield the Best Player in "Ender's Game"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 10 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Ender’s Game (2013)
Running time: 114 minutes (1 hour, 54 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for some violence, sci-fi action and thematic material
DIRECTOR: Gavin Hood
WRITER: Gavin Hood (based on the novel by Orson Scott Card)
PRODUCERS: Orson Scott Card, Robert Chartoff, Lynn Hendee, Alex Kurtzman, Linda McDonough, Roberto Orci, Gigi Pritzker, and Ed Ulbrich
CINEMATOGRAHER: Donald A. McAlpine
EDITORS: Lee Smith and Zach Staenberg
COMPOSER: Steve Jablonsky

SCI-FI/DRAMA

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, Aramis Knight, Suraj Partha, Moises Arias, Khylin Rhambo, Jimmy “Jax” Pinchak, Nonso Anozie, and Conor Carroll

Ender’s Game is a 2013 science fiction and drama film from director Gavin Hood. It is based on the 1985 award-winning novel, Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card. Ender’s Game the film focuses on a boy who is recruited to lead the new fight against an alien race that nearly annihilated the human race in a previous invasion.

Ender’s Game opens in the year 2086. An alien species called the Formics (or “Buggers”) have invaded Earth and only a legendary commander, Mazer Rackham, manages to stop the invasion, by great sacrifice. The story jumps ahead 50 years. Young cadet, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), has attracted the attention of Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis) from International Fleet, the organization that leads the fight against the Formics.

Graff and Anderson offer Ender a spot in Battle School, the place where he would be trained to lead the battle against the Formics. Graff has the highest hopes for the boy. However, the very things that makes him attractive: his intelligence, ruthlessness, and empathy, may also cause him to fail.

Although I have been planning to do so for a long time, I have yet to read Ender’s Game the novel. I think I even once had a two-volume edition of the novel and its sequel (Speaker for the Dead) that I bought from the Science Fiction Book Club. From what I’ve read, much about the novel is left out of Gavin Hood’s film adaptation.

That may explain why Ender’s Game the film seems shallow and superficial. It is an entertaining movie. It even raises some issues that have real-world relevance: child soldiers, war-mongering military institutions, lying governments, etc. When it comes to military training and science fiction, the narrative simply offers the familiar. It is as if the filmmakers did not want to offer the audience anything new for fear of making them avoid Ender’s Game. As I watched this movie, I often thought, “There’s something missing here that I want to see.”

Another problem is that the film never really delves into the characters beyond Ender Wiggin. The female characters fare the worst. Ender’s female academy mate, Petra Arkanian (Hailee Steinfeld), and Ender’s sister, Valentine (Abigail Breslin), are wasted. Because of her immense talent and skill, Viola Davis makes every moment that she is on screen as Major Anderson powerful. The latter half of the movie sorely misses what Davis brings to the film. By the way, Harrison Ford is not good here, or, to be put it nicely, is perhaps miscast as Graff.

Asa Butterfield is the champion here, creating Ender’s Game’s most powerful moments by making the rest of the cast rise to the level of his game. I found that he glued my attention to this story. There are several scenes in which he gives this movie an emotional charge when it really needs it. There is depth and layers to his performance as Ender Wiggin. Butterfield is the reason to see Ender’s Game. He makes me want to see a sequel to this movie and to also follow his career.

6 of 10
B

Thursday, March 06, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction "The Rules Have Changed" Poster

The rules have changed.

Official Transformers YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TransformersMovie

In theaters 06.27.14

Official site: TransformersMovie.com

Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/transformersmovie

Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/transformers

Mark Wahlberg as "Cade" in New Transformers: Age of Extinction Poster

Mark Wahlberg as "Cade."

Official Transformers YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TransformersMovie

In theaters 06.27.14

Official site: TransformersMovie.com

Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/transformersmovie

Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/transformers