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EBERT: It's M$B Vs. Sideways http://www.worldofkj.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3326	Page 1 of 1

Author:	Box [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:36 pm ]
Post subject:	EBERT: It's M$B Vs. Sideways
I thought this was worth it's own thread, if for no other reason than the fact that Eastwood couldn't get WB to finance the film because they wanted to spend money on Alexander and TPE (and Catwoman). Infuriating, isn't it? I find Scott's move to call Sideways overrated surprising. What does that mean, for a film to be overrated? If it's very well received by all, does that not mean that it deserves the attention? For as long as the attention is on good films, where's the problem? Critics are fighting it out: It's 'Baby' vs. 'Sideways' In an era of multimillion-dollar Oscar campaigns, Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" may be heading for success with an old-fashioned formula: Keep a poker face until you reveal your winning hand. Although Alexander Payne's "Sideways," itself a wonderful picture, seemed on track to burst out of the indie ranks and lead the Oscar parade, now the momentum seems to be shifting to "Million Dollar Baby." Eastwood's strategy for the film was the opposite of Hollywood's conventional wisdom. There were no on-set interviews, no trailers, no advance ads, no hoopla. He made the movie quietly and efficiently, on a budget of about $25 million, which is peanuts these days. Then he held a handful of quiet screenings around the country; in Chicago, his editor Joel Cox flew in with a print that was shown to a few critics on Nov. 29. Those screenings generated astonished pre-release reviews. I walked out convinced I had seen a masterpiece, certainly the best film of the year, and said so on the "Ebert & Roeper" program that played Dec. 4. astwood opened "Baby" on Dec. 15 in just seven theaters, where it led the nation in its per-screen box-office averages. Although many critics' groups already had their awards in motion and gave top honors to "Sideways" (as the Broadcast Film Critics Association did at Monday night's Critics' Choice Awards), Eastwood began to pick up important trophies: Both A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis of the New York Times thought it was the best film of the year, as did the National Society of Film Critics. Most Academy voters live in Los Angeles and New York, where the early theatrical runs were supplemented by Academy screenings. Now the movie opens wide Jan. 21, perfectly timed to take advantage of the Oscar nominations, which will be announced Jan. 25. As Oscar voters get their ballots, the nation's moviegoers will have the power of "Million Dollar Baby" fresh in their minds. It's a well-known Oscar phenomenon that movies opening late in the year dominate the awards. One year all five best picture nominees opened in December. That may be because the emotional currents stirred up by a movie lose strength over time. "Sideways" opened Oct. 22, which means that its delights may not be as fresh in the minds of Academy voters. (To be sure, some will see it on those free videos we hear so much about.) Not only did A. O. Scott pick "Million Dollar Baby" as the best film of the year, he took the extraordinary step of writing a Times piece on Jan. 2, nine weeks after "Sideways" opened, calling it the "most overrated" film of the year. He concedes that the "funny-sad" movie is praiseworthy, but as he ponders the year-end compilations that add up all the awards and reviews, he arrives at an intriguing notion: " ... the near-unanimous praise of it reveals something about the psychology of critics, as distinct from our taste. Miles, the movie's hero, has been variously described as a drunk, a wine snob, a sad sack and a loser, but it has seldom been mentioned that he is also, by temperament if not by profession, a critic." I don't think that fact influenced my own review of the movie because I thought of Miles as a drunk, yes, but not a critic -- not that the two groups don't sometimes overlap. "He's an oenophile," I wrote, "which means he can continue to pronounce French wines long after most people would be unconscious." I have no doubt Eastwood set his sights on the Oscar from the moment he read the screenplay by Paul Haggis, based on stories by F. X. Toole. It is, I think, a nearly perfect screenplay, in that it contains everything necessary to accomplish what it sets out to do, and not one thing more. Eastwood must have felt the same way. The movie's star, Hilary Swank, told me this was the only movie she's ever made with "no colored pages." As screenplays go through drafts and rewrites, the changed pages are reproduced on paper of different colors, to distinguish them; Eastwood therefore was filming the first draft without a single change. Famed in Hollywood as a quick, efficient director who films under budget and ahead of schedule, Eastwood assembled a team of longtime collaborators. Cox has edited 23 of Eastwood's films and won an Oscar for "Unforgiven"; production designer Henry Bumstead, who is 90 and won the first of his three Oscars for Hitchcock's "Vertigo" in 1959, has designed Eastwood's most recent nine films. ("They built a room for Henry on the sound stage," Swank told me, "and he had all his models and sketches in there.") Although Eastwood has a long association with Warner Bros., the studio was not thrilled about the project. Eastwood had to raise half the money from Chicago-based producer Tom Rosenberg before Warners kicked in the rest. "With all the big $150 [million] and $200 million films out there, they thought this film was at a different importance level," Eastwood told me. "I had about $25 million to make it with. They had their 'Alexanders' and 'Polar Expresses' they were working on, and I figured my movie was going to have to live or die on its own terms." I think that suited him just fine. Suspecting his film had the potential for greatness, Eastwood wanted to go off in a quiet corner and make it unobserved. "We went and made it, they didn't know anything about it, and after we showed it to them," Eastwood told me in a December interview, "they said, 'Jesus, it's not too bad.' Some people in the organization started getting enthusiastic." Considering its Oscar chances, a studio executive discussed "mounting a campaign." Eastwood says he replied: "No mounting a campaign, no mounting anything. Just see where it goes." It was his idea to open it in a handful of showcase theaters and depend on word-of-mouth -- a strategy that last worked for an Oscar winner with "Chariots of Fire" (1981). These days important movies open on thousands of screens on the same day, partly to take advantage of national media buys, partly because, well, the word-of-mouth may not be all that good (consider the case of "Alexander"). Writing in the Sunday Independent of London, the paper's California-based film critic David Thomson flatly states Eastwood's film "is going to win best picture," and adds that his tears at the end "were not just for its story but for the movies. Because at long last someone has said, 'Look, this is how you do it.' " Thomson is the author of the long-respected Biographical Dictionary of Film. That adds weight to his observation: "At the age of 60 or so, [Eastwood] began to improve, no matter that he was rich and successful enough to do whatever he wanted. This is a very rare phenomenon in today's world of film where people of Eastwood's age [75 in May] either turn impossibly childish or senile, or stop. Instead, Eastwood has begun to search for better and better material and in the process has enlarged himself as an actor and an artist." All true, but I am still running into people who say, "I hear it's good, but I don't like boxing movies." To which all I can say is, "It's not a boxing movie. It's a movie about a boxer. Trust me on this." http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... /501120301

Author:	neo_wolf [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:52 pm ]
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There's also an article on that at oscarwatch,im not at suprised A.O Scott,he's one of the worst film critics in the buisness. Here is the article: http://www.oscarwatch.com/Ed_Sez/

Author:	Levy [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:00 pm ]
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It's funny that after all these years in the business, Ebert still hasn't figured out, that the Oscar's not awarded by critics...

Author:	Dr. Lecter [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:01 pm ]
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Even IF it was up to critics, I think it is obvious that the critics favor Sideways by far and away

Author:	Box [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:01 pm ]
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Levy wrote: It's funny that after all these years in the business, Ebert still hasn't figured out, that the Oscar's not awarded by critics... Well, The Aviator will prolly get it But the article's concern was with those two films specifically, and how the critics are responding to them. What an odd story.

Author:	Levy [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:13 pm ]
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BTW: They should stop the whining. The far more outrageous thing, which no one dares to talk about, is that William Goldman after ripping GONY completely apart again shot against Scorsese. He argued that Aviator doesn't deserve the award although he HASN'T EVEN SEEN THE MOVIE! I mean we are talking about the guy who wrote this bullshit called Dreamcatcher and he fights a private war against Scorsese. That is a far bigger scandal

Author:	Libs [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:47 pm ]
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box_2005 wrote: Levy wrote: It's funny that after all these years in the business, Ebert still hasn't figured out, that the Oscar's not awarded by critics... Well, The Aviator will prolly get it But the article's concern was with those two films specifically, and how the critics are responding to them. What an odd story. I don't want to go on some sort of a spree against The Aviator, but I really don't think it will win. I'm getting this colossal feeling that everyone thinks it will and it just won't.

Author:	Box [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:11 pm ]
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Libs wrote: box_2005 wrote: Levy wrote: It's funny that after all these years in the business, Ebert still hasn't figured out, that the Oscar's not awarded by critics... Well, The Aviator will prolly get it But the article's concern was with those two films specifically, and how the critics are responding to them. What an odd story. I don't want to go on some sort of a spree against The Aviator, but I really don't think it will win. I'm getting this colossal feeling that everyone thinks it will and it just won't. Libs, don;t forget the following that statement; in all honesty, I have no clue who will win. This year is nothing like 2003 or 2002, where the winners were blatantly obvious beforehand. Anything is possible, I guess. For as long as the winner is a good film, what does it really matter?

Author:	Raffiki [ Fri Jan 14, 2005 10:52 pm ]
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I think this year is shaping up to be one of the best Oscar years in recent years and defintely the best one I have invested in. I disagree with aLL of those who said it wasn't an interesting year cuz Sideways was sweeping everything or the same actors were winning.... I totally disagree and in a season when everyone was scramvbling and complaining that there was no front-runner, am I allowed to call some hypocritic? I think we have 3 substantial movies that could win Best Picture and I seriously think it's a dead draw right now and no one can be certain. When have we had 3 movies duking it out? Aviator could win on the regular Academy basis: Oscar-bait and all that jass. Now it does help that it is actually an excellent film, better than most expected and helmed by none other than Scorceses. Million Dollar Baby really came out of nowhere and starting gaining enormous buzz for it not only has strong acting, but a sharp script and great direction. It is sort of the underdog now and alot people root and vote for the underdog. Also, Eastwood's snub last year for the movie overall (not director oscar) will play in the race. Sideways... let me say that if it didn't win all those critics awards, it would be in the race now. Remember when it was late November and it was the BEST reviewed movie of the year, almost nobody had it on their predictions,. only when it started winning did people notice it. So all those wins were JUST enough to put it in this neck-tight race, or else it would have been Baby against Aviator (because I do believe buzz and unanimous reception, especially on such a large scale as Sideways does affect voters who otherwise maybe wouldn't have voted). This could be the first indie to win and what an indie at that.... it does have enormous support (and i can't believe 1 single and lonely article is actually generating so much negative buzz). Anything could seriously happen... They could follow their old routine and award Aviator and Scorcese They could give in to all the critics for once and award the first indie ever They could go real risky and award a good, classic-looking film Aviator and Baby might split the votes, making Sideways the winner; I think that's the only way that Sideways will win. With each day I think more and more that Aviator is not going to win, but who is? I am rooting for Million Dollar Baby If Sideways wins, I won't be disappointed but a little disheartened that a movie a little better than it lost If Aviator wins, I won't be wholly mad (cuz it is in my top 10) but a bit disappointed that the Academy is not opening up to great new films and other avenues. Excerpt from my top: 5. Million Dollar Baby 6. Sideways 7. Aviator So you can see, I really won't be mad either way around, but I am pulling for Baby, while I know Scorcese will win Director Foxx will win Actor Morgan Freeman will win Supp. actor Now Best Actress is TOTALLY up for grabs Best Actress is boiling down to Madsen and Blanchet. Blanchet is the obvious choice, but Madsen, is surprisingly gaining in huge strides. I think the screenplays are gonna go to the two great indies of the year: Sunshine and Sideways It won't be a total suprise of a night, but the tension is gonna be building for that last envelope for the first time in quite some time.

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