Here Are The Independent Spirt Nominations!

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The nomination for the Independent Spirit Awards were announced earlier today.

Making a very good showing were Tar, Women Talking, and Everything Everywhere All At Once. Not showing up at all was Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, which failed to even pick up a lead performance nomination for Brendan Fraser. Seeing as how Fraser has been viewed as being the Oscar front runner for a few months now, his lack of a nomination definitely took observers by surprise.

Anyway, here are all the nominees!

FILM CATEGORIES

Best Feature
“Bones and All” (MGM/United Artists Releasing)
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)
“Our Father, the Devil” (Resolve Media)
“Tár” (Focus Features)
“Women Talking” (MGM/United Artists Releasing)

Best Director
Todd Field – “Tár” (Focus Features)
Kogonada – “After Yang” (A24)
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert – “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)
Sarah Polley – “Women Talking” (MGM/United Artists Releasing)
Halina Reijn – “Bodies Bodies Bodies” (A24)

Best Lead Performance

Cate Blanchett – “Tár” (Focus Features)
Dale Dickey – “A Love Song” (Bleecker Street)
Mia Goth – “Pearl” (A24)
Regina Hall – “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.” (Focus Features)
Paul Mescal – “Aftersun” (A24)
Aubrey Plaza – “Emily the Criminal” (Roadside Attractions)
Jeremy Pope – “The Inspection” (A24)
Taylor Russell – “Bones and All” (MGM/United Artists Releasing)
Andrea Riseborough – “To Leslie” (Momentum Pictures)
Michelle Yeoh – “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)

Best Supporting Performance

Jamie Lee Curtis – “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)
Brian Tyree Henry – “Causeway” (A24/Apple Original Films)
Nina Hoss – “Tár” (Focus Features)
Brian D’Arcy James – “The Cathedral” (Mubi)
Ke Huy Quan – “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)
Trevante Rhodes – “Bruiser” (Onyx Collective)
Theo Rossi – “Emily the Criminal” (Roadside Attractions)
Mark Rylance – “Bones and All” (MGM/United Artists Releasing)
Jonathan Tucker – “Palm Trees and Power Lines” (Momentum Pictures)
Gabrielle Union – “The Inspection” (A24)

Best Breakthrough Performance
Frankie Corio – “Aftersun” (A24)
Garcija Filipovic – “Murina” (Kino Lorber)
Stephanie Hsu – “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)
Lily McInerny – “Palm Trees and Power Lines” (Momentum Pictures)
Daniel Zolghardi – “Funny Pages” (A24)

Best Screenplay
“After Yang” (A24) – Kogonada
“Catherine Called Birdy” (Amazon Studios) – Lena Dunham
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24) – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
“Tár” (Focus Features) – Todd Field
“Women Talking” (MGM/United Artists Releasing) – Sarah Polley

Best First Screenplay
“Bodies Bodies Bodies” (A24) – Sarah DeLappe, Kristen Roupenian
“Emergency” (Amazon Studios) – K.D. Dávila
“Emily the Criminal” (Roadside Attractions) – John Patton Ford
“Fire Island” (Searchlight Pictures) – Joel Kim Booster
“Palm Trees and Power Lines” (Momentum Pictures) – Jamie Dack, Audrey Findlay

Best First Feature
“Aftersun” (A24) – Charlotte Wells (director), Mark Ceryak, Amy Jackson, Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski (producers)
“Emily the Criminal” (Roadside Attractions) – John Patton Ford (director), Tyler Davidson, Aubrey Plaza, Drew Sykes (producers)
“The Inspection” (A24) – Elegance Bratton (director), Effie T. Brown, Chester Algernal Gordon (producers)
“Murina” (Kino Lorber) – Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (director), Danijel Pek, Rodrigo Teixeira (producers)
“Palm Trees and Power Lines” (Momentum Pictures) – Jamie Dack (director), Leah Chen Baker (producer)

John Cassavetes Award (Given to the best feature made for under $1,000,000)
“The African Desperate” (Mubi) – Martine Syms (writer, director, producer), Rocket Caleshu (writer, producer), Vic Brooks (producer)
“A Love Song” (Bleecker Street) – Max Walker-Silverman (writer, director, producer), Jesse Hope, Dan Janvey (producers)
“The Cathedral” (Mubi) – Ricky D’Ambrose (writer, director), Graham Swon (producer)
“Holy Emy” (Utopie Films) – Araceli Lemos (writer, director), Giulia Caruso (writer, producer), Mathieu Bompoint, Ki Jin Kim, Konstantinos Vassilaros (producers)
“Something in the Dirt” (XYZ Films) – Justin Benson (writer, director, producer), Aaron Moorhead (director, producer), David Lawson Jr. (producer)

Best Cinematography
“Aftersun” (A24) – Gregory Oke
“Murina” (Kino Lorber) – Hélène Louvart
“Neptune Frost” (Kino Lorber) – Anisia Uzeyman
“Pearl” (A24) – Eliot Rockett
“Tár” (Focus Features) – Florian Hoffmeister

Best Documentary
“A House Made of Splinters” (Madman Entertainment) – Simon Lereng Wilmont (director), Monica Hellström (producer)
“All that Breathes” (HBO) – Shaunak Sen (director, producer), Teddy Leifer, Aman Mann (producers)
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” (Neon) – Laura Poitras (director, producer), Howard Gertler, Nan Goldin, Yoni Golijov, John Lyons (producers)
“Midwives” (POV) – Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing (director, producer), Mila Aung-Thwin, Ulla Lehmann, Bob Moore (producers)
“Riotsville, U.S.A.” (IFC Films) – Sierra Pettengill (director), Sara Archambault, Jamila Wignot (producer)

Best Editing
“Aftersun” (A24) – Blair McClendon
“The Cathedral” (Mubi) – Ricky D’Ambrose
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24) – Paul Rogers
“Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (A24) – Dean Fleischer Camp, Nick Paley
“Tár” (Focus Features) – Monika Willi

Robert Altman Award (Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast)

“Women Talking” (MGM/United Artists Releasing) – Sarah Polley (director), John Buchan, Jason Knight (casting directors), Shayla Brown, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Kira Guloien, Kate Hallett, Judith Ivey, Rooney Mara, Sheila McCarthy, Frances McDormand, Michelle McLeod, Liv McNeil, Ben Whishaw, August Winter (ensemble cast)

Best International Film
“Corsage” (Austria/Luxembourg/France/Belgium/Italy/England) – dir. Marie Kreutzer
“Joyland” (Pakistan/USA) – dir. Saim Sadiq
“Leonor Will Never Die” (Philippines) – dir. Martika Ramirez Escobar
“Return to Seoul” (South Korea/France/Belgium/Romania) – dir. Davy Chou
“Saint Omer” (France) – dir. Alice Diop

Producers Award (presented by Bulleit Frontier Whiskey  – The Producers Award, now in its 26th year, honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality independent films.)
Liz Cardenas
Tory Lenosky
David Grove Churchill Viste

Someone to Watch Award (The Someone to Watch Award, now in its 29th year, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition)
Adamma Ebo – “Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul”
Nikyatu Jusu – “Nanny”
Araceli Lemos – “Holy Emy”

“The Truer Than Fiction Award” (The Truer Than Fiction Award, now in its 28th year, is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition)
Isabel Castro – “Mija”
Reid Davenport – “I Didn’t See You There”
Rebeca Huntt – “Beba”

Retro Television Reviews: Fantasy Island 1.11 “Reunion/Anniversary”

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing the original Fantasy Island, which ran on ABC from 1977 to 1986. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, Fantasy Island is all about confronting the mistakes of the past.

Episode 1.11 “Reunion/Anniversary”

(Dir by Allen Baron and John Newland, originally aired on April 29th, 1978)

Before I talk about the two fantasies in this episode, here’s a bit of trivia. This episode was originally intended to be the first episode of the series. That perhaps explains why it has a tone that is more similar to the original TV movie than to the more light-hearted episodes that followed. Just as in the made-for-TV movie, Mr. Roarke is a bit of an enigma in this episode, one who has little trouble manipulating his guests in order to get the results that he wants. This episode even ends with Tattoo saying, “Thank God,” and Mr. Roarke replying with a mysterious half-smile. Roarke isn’t quite as sinister as he was in the TV movie but he’s also not quite the cheery host that he would become in later episodes. Roarke, at one point, also mentions that he has people who research everyone’s fantasy before choosing whether to grant it. That’s certainly different from later episodes, in which the fantasies are apparently available to anyone who can pay or who has been lucky enough to win Roarke’s sympathy.

Of course, when it came time to air the first season of Fantasy Island, this episode got pushed back and it aired as the eleventh episode. As a result, it presents a bit of a change-of-pace from the episodes that aired the weeks before. One can only imagine how someone who decided to start watching the show because of the fantasy where Don Knotts played a private eye reacted to this episode, in which four guests were stalked by a murderer who wore giallo-style black gloves.

The guests being stalked by the murderer are Agnes (Pamela Franklin), Hannah (Hilarie Thompson), Carol (Michele Lee), and Jill (Sue Loyon). They are all members of the Honeybees, a group of former high school cheerleaders who are having a ten-year reunion. Their fantasy is to spend the weekend at a recreation of the Beehive, a cabin where they used to hang out while in high school. Of course, every one of them has a dark secret and, after one of the Honeybees is apparently blown up in a nearby barn, the three remaining Honeybees have to solve the mystery. It all gets fairly dark and sordid but, fear not! Mr. Roarke shows up and even takes part in some hand-to-hand combat before revealing the truth about what is going on at the Beehive.

(Again, this is not something that we would normally expect from Mr. Roarke.)

Meanwhile, troubled couple Toni (Lucie Arnaz) and Tom Elgin (Ronny Cox, looking slightly embarrassed) come to the island for their anniversary! Toni wants to relive the weekend that they got married, when they were still happy and before Tom became a drunk. All of their old friends are invited to the island and soon, Tom is flirting with another woman while Toni is flirting with another man. Mr. Roarke even invites Rev. Allen (Stuart Nisbet), the man who performed the original wedding ceremony. The reverend explains that, due to a mix-up at the licensing office, he wasn’t actually legally allowed to perform marriages when Toni and Tom get married so it turns out that Tom and Toni have been living in sin all this time! Now, Tom and Toni have to decide whether to get married for real or to go their separate ways.

I vote for separate ways, just because they really do seem to be miserable together. However, it turns out that Mr. Roarke has a plan to keep this awful couple together.

The decision to move this episode from the start of the season to the latter half was definitely a good one. It was probably a bit too dark and dramatic to really work as the premiere episode but, as the 11th episode, it provides a nice change-of-pace. After several comedic and somewhat shallow episodes, this episode emphasizes the dramatic side of Fantasy Island. In this episode, the ultimate lesson appears to be that fantasies are fun but that it’s far more important to deal with the real world. In other words, Fantasy Island is a nice place to visit but only Mr. Roarke and Tattoo should live there.

Artwork of the Day: Front Page Detective (by Albert Fisher)

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Dazzling Erin

by Albert Fisher

This is from 1941.

Music Video of the Day: Mysterious Times by Sash!, feat. Tina Cousins (2000, dir by Sven Harding)

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Start your day off by dancing and considering mysterious times.

Enjoy!

Comedians (1979, directed by Richard Eyre)

Posted on November 21, 2022 by Jedadiah Leland

“Laugh, you buggers, laugh!”

Set in Manchester, Comedians is about a group of working class men who are enrolled in an evening class for aspiring comedians. Sammy Samuels (Linal Haft) and Mick Connor (David Burke) both tell jokes about being a member of a minority in England. (Sammy is Jewish while Mick is Irish.) George McBrain (Derrick O’Connor) works on a loading dock and tells stereotypically racist and sexist jokes. Phil and Ged Murray (James Warrior and Edward Peel) are brothers and a tense comedy team. Phil is desperate to become a star and escape Manchester while Ged is more laid back. Finally, Gethin Price (Jonathan Pryce) is an aggressive comedian who is willing to take risks on stage. Teaching the class is Eddie Water (Bill Fraser), a veteran comic who was a star during World War II but who has since faded into obscurity. Gethin says that he’s lost his edge.

Bert Challenor (Ralph Nossek), a retired stand-up and an old colleague of Eddie’s, is in town. Challenor is now the President of the Comedy Federation and he is scouting new talent. Eddie’s class will be performing, between games, at a bingo hall. Before the performance, Eddie admonishes all of them to stay true to themselves and to not pander to the audience with cheap, racist, or sexist jokes. However, when Challenor drops by the class, he gives the comedians the opposite advice. He tells them that getting laughs is the most important thing and the only way to do that is to make the audience like you. Stick to the acceptable targets, move quickly from one joke to the next, and don’t make any of your humor too personal.

The bingo hall performance is the highpoint of Comedians. Each student performs and each one has to make their own decision whether to follow Challenor’s advice or to stay true to what Eddie told them. Some sell out and some don’t. One act implodes on stage. The bravest performance of the night is greeted by stony silence from the audience. Each performance allows a look into the mind of the man telling the jokes, even the ones who are trying to hide behind Challenor’s advice. After the performance, the students return to the classroom and consider what they’ve done and they’ve become. Challenor comes to the class to offer some of the comedians a contract while dismissing the others as not being ready or worthy of his time.

Comedians started life as a play by Trevor Griffiths. It opened in London in 1975, where it was directed by Richard Eyre. Just as he would in the eventual film, Jonathan Pryce played the role of Gethin Price. When the play moved to Broadway in 1976, Mike Nichols took over as director and Pryce was the only actor to make the transition from New York to London. Pryce would go on to win his first Tony for his performance in Comedians. In 1979, when Comedians was filmed for the BBC’s Play For Today, Richard Eyre returned to direct and Pryce, again, played the role of Gethin Price.

As a debate about what makes comedy “good,” Comedians feels especially relevant today. The debate about how comedians should view their audience and the role that comedy should play in an unstable world is still going on today. As opposed to the current argument that comedy should always “punch up,” Challenor encourages all of the students to punch down and to get laughs by appealing to the prejudices of the audience. As Challenor suggests when giving his notes to the students, it’s more important to get laughs than to actually be funny. As unsympathetic a character as Challenor is, Comedians does acknowledge that the students who got those easy laughs are also the same ones who going to escape the drudgery of working dead end jobs in Manchester. Comedians like Gethin Price may stay true to themselves but they’ll also probably never become a star.

Very much a filmed version of a theatrical production, Comedians is undeniably stagey. But the dialogue and the themes remains sharp and Pryce’s performance is still electrifying. Unfortunately, several of the BBC’s Play For Today productions have been lost or destroyed but Comedians survived and can be viewed on YouTube.

Retro Television Reviews: Hang Time 2.9 “Style Before Substance” and 2.10 “Son-On-Law”

Posted on November 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Mondays, I will be reviewing Hang Time, which ran on NBC from 1995 to 2000. The entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

I’ll always remember …. me and my friends at Hang Time!

Episode 2.9 “Style Before Substance”

(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on November 2nd, 1996)

This episode opens with Julie and the basketball team at the diner and getting angry because the football team is in their booth.

“That’s our booth!” Julie says, “We’re the champions!”

Strangely, Josh agrees with her. Remember how Josh almost walked off the team because he thought they were too obsessed with winning? Remember how Josh was all about sportsmanship and humility? I guess that all got tossed out the window once he started dating Julie. And another thing — when did Julie become so stuck up? During the first season, Julie was confident but she wasn’t full of herself. This season, the writers aren’t doing her character any favors.

Needless to say, this all leads to a series of increasingly stupid competitions to decide which team gets to …. sit in the booth, I guess. I’m not really sure what they were fighting about but then again, I’ve never played team sports. Occasionally, I play tennis with my sister. I’ve never won a game but I look good in a tennis skirt so it all works out.

While this is going on, Amy is volunteering for the mayoral campaign of Robert Kent. Robert Kent is an obviously sleazy politician who says that he cares about the environment. (To be honest, he reminded me of Beto O’Rourke). Amy has a crush on Robert and is devastated to discover that he’s lying about being an environmentalist. It turns out that he supports industrial development.

“Some of the money can be used to clean up the environment,” says Kent.

“But we wouldn’t need to clean it if you didn’t mess it up in the first place!” Amy whines while the audience goes crazy over the most shallow argument possible.

The good thing about this episode is that it portrayed politicians as being sleazy. That said, I had to laugh at the sight of all the adults listening as Danny and Amy told them how to vote for. In the end, Danny and Amy’s efforts proved to be futile as Kent won and probably proceeded to personally bulldoze their favorite park.

Episode 2.10 “Son-In-Law”

(Directed by Patrick Maloney, originally aired on November 9th, 1996)

The team is freaking out because they have to win a game against an undefeated team if they have any hopes of making it to the playoffs. Coach Fuller invites a real basketball player to stiffly deliver some words of encouragement to the team. Hang Time was big on getting actual basketball players to make cameo appearances and I imagine that was good for the show’s ratings. But, for the most part, none of the basketball players could actually act so the scene featuring them are often incredibly dull.

Meanwhile, Mary Beth is angry at her father for ignoring her so she dates Vince just to annoy him. But then she suddenly decide that she actually does like Vince which …. NO! NO! NO! Mary Beth is a thousand times too cool to go out with someone as boring as Vince! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, HANG TIME!?

The Eric Roberts Collection: Top Gunner (dir by Daniel Lusko)

Posted on November 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this 2020 film from The Asylum, Eric Roberts stars as Col. Herring.

Herring is in charge of an Air Force training base that sits off the coast of Baja California. He’s tough and he’s no-nonsense but he also truly loves the pilots that are training under his guidance. Sparrow (Carol Anne Watts), Cowboy (Ignacyo Matynia), and Spielman (Julian Cavett) might just be recent graduates from the Academy who have never actually served in combat but Herring is convinced that they can be amongst the best of the best. As he puts it, they can be …. Top Gunner!

They get a chance to prove themselves when an advanced airplane carrying a U.S. black ops group makes an emergency landing at the base. As Lassen (Reavis Dorsey) explains it, he and his people have just stolen a chemical weapon from the Russians and now, the Russians are desperate to get it back. The weapon is continually referred to as being the CRISPR. The word “CRISPR” is used about a hundred times over the course of this movie. “We have to get the CRISPR!” various characters say. The problem is that CRISPR sounds more like a name for a hamburger grill than a dangerous chemical weapon. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to use the CRISPR to prepare dinner? The CRISPR grills up the best burgers!

With the Russians heading towards the base, it falls on the untested pilots to take to the air and fight them off. At first, no one has much confidence in the pilots. Even the pilots themselves aren’t sure that they can defeat the Russians. But you know who never loses faith? Colonel Herring. The Colonel may be a stern taskmaster but he believes in his pilots!

As you’ve probably already guessed, Top Gunner was meant to be a mockbuster of Top Gun: Maverick. However, because the release of Top Gun: Maverick was continually delayed by the COVID lockdowns, Top Gunner was actually released on video a full two years before Maverick made it into theaters. That makes it all the more interesting that Top Gunner is all about preventing an enemy nation from using a chemical weapon that, we’re told, could cause a pandemic if released upon humanity. In a world where COVID didn’t (allegedly) escape from that lab and cause the world to come to a halt, Top Gunner‘s story would probably be described as being implausible. However, in our current pandemic culture, it’s tempting to look at the pilots in a film like Top Gunner and say, “Where were you when we needed you?”

As you’ve probably already guessed, the budget of Top Gunner was nowhere close to the budget for Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick. As opposed to those two films, one never gets the feeling that the pilots in Top Gunner are actually flying their planes or risking their lives to get the shot. The film’s plot also never makes a whole lot of sense. But the action moves quickly and, as always, Eric Roberts is fun to watch. His hair is perhaps a bit too long for an Air Force colonel and there are a few times when he seems to be struggling to hide his amusement at some of his dialogue. But, for the most part, Roberts delivers his lines with the proper amount of authority. At last count, Eric Roberts has over 700 credits to his name. Top Gunner is certainly not the best film that Roberts has ever appeared in but it’s not the worst either. Mostly, it’s a film just makes you happy that, no matter what else happens, Eric Roberts endures.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Monday Live Tweet Alert: Join Us For Highlander and Rush Hour!

Posted on November 21, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in hosting a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #MondayActionMovie, the film will be 1986’s Highlander! Selected and hosted by @Titus88Titus, Highlander is about immortal people who keep chopping off each other’s heads. It’s on YouTube.

Following #MondayActionMovie, Brad and Sierra will be hosting the #MondayMuggers live tweet. Tonight’s movie, starting at 10 pm et, will be 1998’s Rush Hour, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.

It should make for a night of intense viewing and I invite all of you to join in. If you want to join the live tweets, just hop onto twitter, start Highlander at 8 pm et, and use the #MondayActionMovie hashtag! Then, at 10 pm et, switch over to Netflix, start Rush Hour, and use the #MondayMuggers hashtag! The live tweet community is a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy. And reviews of these films will probably end up on this site at some point over the next few weeks.