The giddy sensation that comes with buying good movies cheap, like I mentioned in yesterday’s factoid (Random Factoid #118) isn’t limited to stores. iTunes often offers $5 movies, and I will confess that I simply cannot resist. I have bought “Hitch” and “Thank You for Smoking” through these promotions.
P.S. – These promotions also bring very frustrating feelings whenever the movie that I just bought gets marked down almost instantaneously.
I love looking through “bargain bin” movies. A few weeks ago, I discovered “The Wrestler” and “Revolutionary Road,” two of 2008’s finest, for $5 apiece in a grocery store. If it’s good and cheap, it proves to be an irresistible combination for me, a cocktail for disaster.
NOTE: This “Oscar Moment” is a tad different from any of the prior ones. Rather than focusing on a specific movie, this post focuses on a particular category – in this case, screenplays.
A part of the Oscar season that I particularly love is watching the studios promote their movies. Thankfully, my friends over at Awards Daily do a fantastic job of monitoring the “For Your Consideration” ads that are placed in Variety and other indudstry magazines. But as the Internet becomes bigger and more present in our lives, the studios have adjusted campaigns slightly over the past years. Now, they have set up “For Your Consideration” websites designed to promote their movies to the voters but also provide a place for average moviegoers to learn more about the movies simultaneously.
A recent feature that most studios have graciously included on these sites is access to the screenplay of that movie in its entirety. Personally, I find these a great way to learn about the different styles of moviemaking in the race. Some movies draw heavily from their screenplay, others use it as merely a guideline.
Therefore, I feel it to be my duty to impart the knowledge of this treasure trove of movie gold to any interest moviegoer reading this blog. Click on the links below and they will take you to the screenplay for that movie (I will update this page periodically with new screenplays when they become available). Enjoy, because the race is just beginning!
NOMINEES for Best Screenpalay:
Click here to read the screenplay for “Precious.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “An Education.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “The Hurt Locker.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “Inglourious Basterds.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “A Serious Man.”
Other Screenplays:
Click here to read the screenplay for “A Single Man.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “Nine.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “It’s Complicated.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “Where the Wild Things Are.”
Click here to read the screenplay for “The Informant!”
Much of “The Men Who Stare At Goats” follows dumb-struck reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan MacGregor) and straight-faced former psychic spy Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney) meandering through the Iraqi desert. Sadly, the movie follows suit, heading in several different directions at once, none of which with confidence. It is satirical but never makes the target inherently clear. It is farcical yet it continues to persist that what we are watching really happened. Thankfully, the movie manages to give the audience some good belly laughs while they scratch their heads trying to figure out the direction it is heading.
The main plot arc follows Wilton and Cassidy as they traverse through Iraq on a mission to find the remnants of the New Earth Army, a battalion using New Age tactics to gain such powers as invisibility, remote viewing, and walking through walls. Strangely, it is Wilton who tells us the history of the group informally known as the “Jedi Warriors.” It is curious that the filmmakers chose him to narrate the story through fragments in the principal narrative, seeing as Wilton would have no idea of what happened. These segments are the best and most uproarious parts of the movie, but they are thrown into the story so haphazardly that it becomes difficult to remember what is happening to Wilton and Cassidy. Both were story lines crucial to a full movie, but with a little discretion and some more mapping, a more cogent and enjoyable experience could have been easily possible.
“The Men Who Stare At Goats” really shines in its moments of pure absurdity, which could be exactly what the filmmakers didn’t want since they want us to believe that much of what is portrayed actually occurred. They aim for bizarrely plausible, but they wind up with laughably ridiculous. It is certainly enjoyable to see George Clooney in a role where he isn’t quite so staid and upright, and one can get a hearty chuckle out of seeing him with longer locks and putting on his boogie shoes. Ewan MacGregor, possibly cast just for added irony on all the Jedi jokes, performs almost a straight man-straight man routine with Clooney, yet somehow the combination yields a great deal of laughs. Jeff Bridges channels a bit of “The Dude” and Kevin Spacey brings an antagonistic smugness to his role, but neither seem entirely committed. In the end, “The Men Who Stare At Goats” provides you some of what you want but definitely not in the way that you want it. B / 
Last week, I proved to myself that I am less like Woody Allen or Larry David than I thought.
I was at an advanced movie screening, and the star was there to answer questions afterwards. I had managed to secure second-row seats, but the friend I was meeting was running late. With a few minutes before his seat would be sold, I started to worry frantically. I had to run up to give him the ticket as soon as he got there. But there was no one to guard the seats I had secured. So, I scribbled a note on a page ripped out of the notebook I brought. It read: “PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THESE SEATS. I GOT HERE FIRST. THANK YOU. <3, MARSHALLANDTHEMOVIES.”
After five minutes waiting up top, I knew I had to return to my seat or I might not have one. I came back to the row to discover two non-adjacent seats open on the row. A very well-dressed women had taken a seat where I had left my note. I asked, “Are those two seats taken?”
She replied, “No, I believe not.”
A little bit of anger was working up inside of me. “They wouldn’t happen to be occupied by the person that left that note?”
She giggled, “Oh, I don’t know what happened to them.”
A part of me wanted to reprimand her for blatantly disregarding my note. If I had not secured front-row seats, I probably would have. But nonetheless, it was a victory for my self-control.
Director Roland Emmerich gets a lot of grief for making so many disaster-oriented movies. I must say I’m glad that he doesn’t listen to these critics because he is the best there is at making these kinds of films. “2012,” his latest project, is incredibly stimulating to the part of you that loves watching your favorite landmarks get wiped off the face of the planet. Many claim that it doesn’t offer much that you haven’t seen in Emmerich’s previous movies in the same vain, “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” However, I thought “2012” was much more audacious, willing to destroy some venerated structures such as St. Peter’s Basilica, Christ the Redeemer, and the White House. By doing this, Emmerich introduces some apprehension into the moviegoing experience and makes you wonder what the apocalypse would really look like.
The highlight of “2012” is its phenomenal special effects, but Emmerich had the good sense not to let them drive the movie. He gets two angles on the catastrophe that the Mayans predicted, one from a normal citizens experiencing the disaster and the other from the politicians and scientists trying to save humanity. The normal citizen is Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a sci-fi writer thrown into the situation after consistently being in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the aid of an eccentric who sees the writing on the walls (Woody Harrelson), he finds a path to save his family from the imminent destruction. The scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and politician (Oliver Platt) add a moral depth to the the plot as they agonize over who can and should be saved.
What distinguishes “2012” from a movie like “Transformers” is a clear understanding that its audience doesn’t take the movie too seriously. Thankfully, Emmerich is aware of the regard that people hold his movies in, so he has no qualms with using a formulaic plot and being a tad silly. He also knows from experience not to try to move the plot significantly while he indulges us with sweeping, gratuitous shots of the Earth getting annihilated by tsunamis and earthquakes. Emmerich recognizes that it is undeniably fun to watch Pasadena split in two, and he lets us marvel at the work of some dedicated visual effects artists. “2012” is no masterpiece, but Roland Emmerich gives us an enjoyable cataclysmic romp that excites the lover of destruction that lurks inside all of us. B /
After 16 factoids, we are taking a temporary sojourn away from the world of my obsession with movie ads. I’ll be happy to address any complaints you might have in the comments section.
I have discovered at least twice that I have had ear infections while watching a movie theater. If the booming sounds in the theater seem muffled, then it is a wake-up call that something is wrong with my ears. I distinctly remember realizing the infections in 2002 watching “The Wild Thornberrys Movie” and in 2003 while seeing “Finding Nemo” for the third time.
If you wonder why Marion Cotillard has risen to fame so meteorically, going from a no-name to marquis name in two short years, look no further than the “F.I.L.M. of the Week,” “La Vie en Rose.” Cotillard envelops herself in the persona of Edith Piaf, France’s greatest popular singer, and the Academy wisely took notice and bestowed the Best Actress statue on her in 2007. Even if the movie isn’t your cup of tea, the performance will absolutely floor you. She engrosses herself in Piaf from head to toe; every movement radiates her complete confidence and comfort in the role.
The film chronicles the life of Piaf from her deplorable days on the streets of France up to her last breaths and all the breathtaking highs and tragic lows that occur between. It presents the events as a broken narrative, mainly presenting the events as memories from an older Piaf. However, there are three distinct timelines running through “La Vie En Rose.” The first follows Piaf from her days being fostered by a caring prostitute at a brothel near the end of the Great War to her final performance, the second from the beginnings of her morphine addiction to the collapse of her health, the third from her days feebly eking out the energy to live to her death. The timelines often overlapped, resulting in some sequential confusion, but Cotillard wows with such finesse that the missteps can be easily overlooked.
A decision I found interesting in the film was the omission of subtitles during Piaf’s songs. But if you don’t realize it before the thrilling climax, Cotillard’s acting tells you everything you need to know. Her eyes, her face, her hands, and her body get the feeling across perfectly. And in the film’s final scene, when she sings “Non, je ne regrette rien” in a decrepit state, you feel every emotion in those two minutes that you have felt throughout the whole movie. All the happiness, fame, sadness, and tragedy of Piaf’s life pours out poignantly because Cotillard makes them palpable. I later learned that the title literally means, “No, I Have No Regrets,” and the lyrics express overcoming the grief and sorrow and turning it into strength. The song is a compelling and prodigiously moving way to cap off a ravishing performance by Cotillard. This is easily the best female performance of this decade, and it will undeniably remembered for decades to come as a mammoth achievement of acting.
Today’s factoid will again be building off the revelation of my former days of cutting the movie ads out of the newspaper and plastering them across my wall.
At one point, I became so obsessed with movie ads that I began taping them in places that I couldn’t even see. I put them on the interior of closets, on dressers, and on my bedside table. I think I attempted to place them outside my room and in the surrounding hallway, but that was met with a resounding “no.”
Today’s factoid will again be building off the revelation of my former days of cutting the movie ads out of the newspaper and plastering them across my wall.
If a studio indulged me with several full-page color ads, I often devoted an entire door to a certain movie. I remember having “Shrek 2” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” doors in the summer of 2004. The “Shrek” door was even complete with a themed 12-month calendar that was thrown in the Houston Chronicle on New Year’s Day.
Can December just get here already so I can see “Nine?”
The tease continues. The Weinsteins recently released three songs from the movie. The first two are original songs written for the movie. “Cinema Italiano” is Kate Hudson’s sizzling number; “Take It All” is the number originally written for Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, and Marion Cotillard, but the decision was eventually made to have Cotillard sing the number alone. And the final track is the one that we have heard snippets of in the trailer – “Be Italian” by Fergie.
The soundtrack will be released December 22 according to Amazon.com, 4 days after the movie hits theaters in New York and Los Angeles (and possibly Houston!!!). So add another date to your “Nine” calendar to look forward to.
P.S. – The countdown would have been 6 days to release had it not been moved.
Today’s factoid will again be building off the revelation of my former days of cutting the movie ads out of the newspaper and plastering them across my wall.
My favorite day of the year, in regards to movie ads, was the day of the Holiday Preview Edition. On this day, the studios run page after page after page of full-page, color ads for their best movies of the holiday season. I knew the general time frame of this edition, but I never knew for sure. When I slipped the New York Times out of its blue bag on the right Sunday morning, it was like hitting the jackpot.
“Precious” joins a very selective group of movies that is able to sear its impact into your memory with a flaming hot brand, leaving a mark that will burn for a while and stay forever. It will undoubtedly reign as this year’s most emotionally charged movie, packed with some of the most profoundly affecting scenes ever committed to celluloid. The movie portrays the devastating heartbreak of Precious’ life with unflinching reality, but what I found equally remarkable in Lee Daniels’ movie is how glimmers of hope manage to shine through in even the darkest of situations.
Claireece “Precious” Jones (newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) leads the life that we imagine when we think, “Well, at least I don’t have it as bad as this person.” She lives in poverty. She is illiterate. She is obese. She is pregnant for the second time by way of her biological father. She has an careless, lazy, and abusive mother (Mo’Nique in a performance that will make your jaw drop). Worst of all, she thinks no one cares for her. But despite her situation, she still dreams of a life where she can dance on BET and have a light-skinned boyfriend. In these moments of reverie, Precious’ face lights up like a Christmas tree, and it is so heartbreaking for the audience to watch because we know that she will soon have to wake up and face the world which she can greet only with a sullen frown. Despite all the bleakness of her situation, she manages to stay somewhat optimistic, seeing the person who she wants to see when she looks in the mirror. With some help from a compassionate teacher (Paula Patton) at her new alternative school and a social worker willing to go the extra mile (a very de-glammed Mariah Carey), Precious soon gains the courage not only to face her fears but to find a way to triumph over them.
Today’s factoid will again be building off the revelation of my former days of cutting the movie ads out of the newspaper and plastering them across my wall.
At one point, I got so into the movie ads that I started writing my own slogans, even going so far as to send them to one of my uncle’s friends, in charge of running movie ads in his local newspaper. I was completely convinced that my slogans would get run. As you can imagine, they didn’t.
Random tangent: this is random factoid #1-1-1. Pretty cool, at least I think. Possibly even epic.
Today’s factoid will again be building off the revelation of my former days of cutting the movie ads out of the newspaper and plastering them across my wall.
The first ad I remember cutting out was in the summer of 1997 for “Batman & Robin.” I thought it looked so cool … sad that it didn’t live up to my expectations.
Marshall and the Movies 
Recent Comments