NYT. "Awards Season."

By David Hudson on 01/04/2009

New York Times film critics AO Scott, Manohla Dargis and Stephen Holden present their own nominations for Oscar's major categories in a weekend "Awards Season" package that opens with AO Scott revisiting "Milk" (he wrote the paper's review back in November): "The gay political awakening of the 1970s, as depicted in this historically canny, resolutely present-minded film, rejected secrecy and shame in favor of openness and visibility.... Though he may have seemed like a radical at the time, 'Milk' places its hero squarely in the American grain. He is an optimist, an idealist, a true believer in the possibilities of American democracy. And it is therefore entirely fitting that 'Milk' should cleave to the aesthetics of popular filmmaking."

In an accompanying audio slide show, Gus Van Sant talks about getting the look of 70s-era San Francisco just right.

"'Synecdoche, New York' might be the story of a life condensed into a single minute," writes Manohla Dargis, "but then, it might not. The film doesn't answer its riddles in one sitting, which makes sense given it's about one of the greatest mysteries: a human life. Its dense texture, thicket of literary references, medical terms, mordant jokes, eccentric images and myriad preoccupations are not there simply to drive you crazy (though they might) or show you how smart [Charlie] Kaufman is, or make you feel clever for catching its allusions. Rather, the film is a representation of Caden's inner world or, I'm guessing, Mr Kaufman's, which of course would make it a synecdoche."

And in this audio slide show, Charlie Kaufman talks about Caden Cotard's set - and all those warehouses within warehouses.

"Her gaze wide-eyed with panic, her attitude cheerfully sardonic, Anne Hathaway, playing Kym Buchman, the central character in 'Rachel Getting Married,' gives a brave performance that doesn't ask to be liked; only to be believed." Stephen Holden takes a close look at the dinner speech. From that page, you can listen to Jonathan Demme talking about Jenny Lumet's screenplay, the film's style and using friends and musicians as extras.

Then, David Carr: "When an actor has made a very visible appearance at a young age, there is a temptation to say that the audience has watched her grow up in front of their very eyes. In the instance of Anne Hathaway it's not a totally misguided impulse. As she made her way through both 'Princess' movies, 'Nicholas Nickleby,' 'Ella Enchanted,' 'Brokeback Mountain,' 'The Devil Wears Prada,' 'Becoming Jane' and 'Get Smart,' you could see her improving as an actor. But 'Rachel Getting Married' is not the next incremental step on her acting journey; it's something else completely."

"It is only fitting that the extraordinary political year would give way to the season of the political biopic." Dennis Lim talks with the screenwriters behind three of them, Dustin Lance Black ("Milk"), Stanley Weiser ("W.") and Peter Buchman ("Che"), and finds that "each went through a similar gantlet of intensive research but often arrived at different solutions when it came to the conundrums of biography: how to get at the private truth beneath the public person and how to reconcile the conflicting roles of fact checker and myth maker." Click on the film titles for excerpts from the screenplays.

Charles McGrath talks with Frank Langella about "Frost/Nixon": "By the end of the movie Mr Langella seems even more like Nixon than Nixon did.... 'A lot of people have said that: that as the movie goes on, I look more and more him,' Mr. Langella said recently in New York. 'I take it as a compliment, but it's just an illusion, because I didn't do anything differently, and some of the later scenes were actually shot earlier. What it means, really, is that gradually you've accepted me in the part.'"

"If the Oscars aren't a reliable guide to artistic accomplishment, they provide an infallible index to how the leaders of the motion picture industry want their business to be seen in any given year." Noting that "even when good movies win, the other nominees are usually of equal or even greater interest," Dave Kehr briskly walks us through a brief history.

Michael Cieply talks with Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, producers of the 2009 Academy Awards broadcast.

"The Benjamin Button character, [David] Fincher said, represents the combined efforts of more than 150 visual artists in service of the performance of a single actor." Dave Itzkoff introduces a slide show featuring Fincher and Digital Domain executive vice president Ed Ulbrich discussing "how Benjamin Button was built."

[Photos: "Milk," Focus Features, 2008; "Rachel Getting Married," Sony Pictures Classics, 2008; "Frost/Nixon," Universal, 2008]

Tags: documentary, Does Your Soul Have A cold