Who should win the Special Oscar in 2011?

I've predicted the choices for the past few years: Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, Ennio Morricone, Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall, Jerry Lewis and Gordon Willis. I'm starting to wonder if someone in the Academy reads my blog! If so, and even if not, I offer my ideal choices for Special Oscars this coming awards year:


(1) Frederick Wiseman, director/producer of masterful documentaries Titicut Follies, High School, Basic Training, Primate, Welfare, Meat, Racetrack, Central Park, Near Death, Blind, Zoo, High School II, Public Housing (ABOVE), Domestic Violence (1 and 2), and State Legislature, among many others


(2) James Ivory, director of A Room With A View, Shakespeare Wallah, The Remains of the Day (ABOVE), Maurice, Roseland, The Bostonians, A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, The White Countess, Howards' End, The Europeans, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, and Bombay Talkie.


(3) Max Von Sydow, star of The Seventh Seal, Hour of the Wolf (ABOVE), The Greatest Story Ever Told (as Jesus), The Exorcist (in the title role) The Virgin Spring, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Emigrants, The New Land, Through a Glass Darkly, Flash Gordon (as Ming the Merciless), Hawaii, Winter Light, Awakenings, Hamsun, Pelle The Conqueror, What Dreams May Come, Robin Hood and Shutter Island.


(4) Liv Ullmann, star of Persona, Shame, Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna, The Emigrants, The New Land, Face to Face (ABOVE), Autumn Sonata, The Magic Flute, A Bridge Too Far, Mindwalk, Saraband, Zandy's Bride and Scenes From a Marriage. Director of Faithless.


(5) Albert Maysles, co-director of Showman, Salesman (ABOVE), Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens, Running Fence, Christo's Valley Curtain, Cristo in Paris, What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A., as well as a cinematographer on the above, plus Monterey Pop, When We Were Kings, and Primary.


(6) Albert Finney, star of Tom Jones, Two For The Road, Murder on the Orient Express, Gumshoe, Shoot The Moon, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Under the Volcano, The Dresser, Erin Brockovich, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Wolfen, Annie, The Browning Version, and Miller's Crossing (ABOVE).

(and now we get into personal territory):


(7) David Lynch (a perenial, since he'll never get a real Oscar)


(8) Kyle Cooper, for revitalizing the title credits design industry with works from Se7en, Road Trip, The New World, and hundreds more titles.


(9) Burt Reynolds, star of Deliverance (ABOVE), White Lightning, Gator, Boogie Nights, Smokey and the Bandit, Starting Over, Sharkey's Machine, The End, The Longest Yard, Hooper, Semi-Tough, Best Friends, WW and the Dixie Dancekings and Citizen Ruth.


(10) Jean Luc Godard (just to see if he'd show up)

And I add Doris Day on as an afterthought; she's not my fave, but Burt's not everyone's cuppa tea, neither. For Thalberg (the producer's award) I'd pick Lawrence Bender, John Lasseter, David Puttnam or The Weinbergs. For Hersholt: Angelina Jolie? I dunno...is there much humanitarianism in Hollywood these days?

My 20 Greatest Moviegoing Experiences

I often wonder if we forget who we were and where we were and who we were with when we see movies. This is something that might remind you how to make a list of the moviegoing experiences that most affected you--and with the above criteria.


2001: A Space Odyssey (a formative film for me; saw it at Atlanta's sorely missed Rhodes Theater in 1979 with the woman I credit with teaching me how to read; she denies it, but she taught me how to read movies as well. Thank you, Jane Garvey.)

Funny Games (the original, for infuriating and fascinating me like no movie ever had or has: saw it on video, by myself, on a sunny afternoon, and afterwards, had to blow off steam to everyone I met about it)

The New World (its beauty made me weep wholly unlike any other movie had ever done; and the ticket guy warned me AGAINST seeing it; took my friend Jane Garvey one night, and my friend Brian Matson the next night, and both were equally overcome by it)

Napoleon (my first big screen silent, with Carmine Coppola conducting his score; saw it at the Fantastic Fox Theater in Atlanta in the early 80s and it left me struck dumb)

A Little Romance (at age 12, saw it alone at Atlanta's Toco Hills Theater, and on cable numerous times, and it left me a changed person, because it transmitted important lessons about love and attraction that have never left me)

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (the first epic I remember seeing with my parents Buddy and Lynn, at the Atlanta's long gone Northeast Expressway Drive-In!)

Punishment Park (PICTURED ABOVE, for shocking me to my bones; saw it on video in the thick of the George W. Bush days, while alone and scared outta my gourd)

Halloween (At the Toco Hills Theater, Atlanta, 1978; the audience was losing their minds, I'm tellin' ya))

The Gods of Times Square (Richard Sandler's landmark documentary--shown in a longer director's cut now on DVD--was my crowning achievement as programmer of the Dahlonega International Film Festival, north Georgia, 2003)

Grindhouse (for thrilling me and my best friend Patrick Flynn the last time we went to the movies together at Landmark, Atlanta)

Fanny and Alexander (for introducing me to Bergman while being with my first girlfriend Elizabeth Thompson, who also adored it)

Pretty in Pink (my first big-time movie premiere in spring 1986 L.A. At the after party, I shook Griffin Dunne's hand, watched George Michael fall down and go WHAM, and saw the Rave Ups and the Psychedelic Furs; interviewed Molly Ringwald, John Hughes and Jon Cryer (among others) the next day)

Lawrence of Arabia (Saw it with soon-to-be screenwriting star Gary Sherwood at NYC's Ziegfeld in 1989, on a stormy night, with a hilariously irritating, chatty woman behind us)

Moulin Rouge! (for amazing me and my mother outright at Atlanta's Phipps Plaza; even though I was dead-ass sleepy before it started, I was soon awakened)

The Matrix (saw it at midnight on opening day, happily and horrifyingly under the influence with my cousin Greg; perhaps the best story I have to impart about going to the movies)

Robert Schneider's Kegel exercises in 16mm 3-D (No one's gonna be seeing these anytime soon, but what a night it was--The Pagan Festival of the Dead--with hundreds of friends in attendance, and with The Subsonics playing live, all in secret underground mode, at the Plaza Theater, Ponce De Leon, Atlanta GA, 1994!!!)

HONORABLE MENTION: How to Find Your Wallet in Downtown Atlanta by Greg and Dean Treadway. My favorite of our Super 8mm movies, shown in film class at GSU. Nothing like seeing your own film played for others! Especially your first one!

REVIEW: OUT OF SYNC (Gelderblom, 2010)

Peet Gelderblom is the immensely talented writer/artist behind the movie-loving comic Directorama, in which cinema's greatest dead film directors still call the shots in Heaven. And now, very much alive, of course, Gelderblom is himself venturing into filmmaking. His debut effort is a short called Out of Sync, and here's my review.

It’s the shapes, the rigid color palette, the horizontal lines battling with the verticals, the close-ups wrestling with the long views (with birds sizzling precisely along a flowered horizon at one point), and it’s the disconnect between the sound and image in the first half of Peet Gelderblom’s too-short Out of Sync--these are the facets that rivet us most. Then there’s the wide cloudy eyes of an upset wife, staring boldly at us upon the piece’s outset, as the husband absent-mindedly goes about his normal day--they upset us too (upon which we have Franz Schubert overcome by jerky dance muzik, following a heard argument that‘s woefully never detailed).


The haziness of a weekday morning is palpable, and the gentle tans of the woman’s cosmos clash with the gunky greys of the man’s. A shave and no goodbye and the story marches on. A startling peer at an arriving stud, beautifully captured in hilarious slo-mo: he’s popping buttons and spitting out his gum in sexual confidence. And then…then…then we get it. And, as the camera whizzes brilliantly…then, eventually, the movie is deflated a bit by some surprising sentiment that isn't sufficiently worked up to. A promising exercise for a promising new director, yes. But I wish Out of Sync were longer, more complicated and nuanced, and unconcerned with audience satisfaction. However, I sympathize with the situation that Gelderblom and his characters are in. And, for its brief running time, the film’s quite lovely, with more-than-notable art direction and cinematography. I want to see more, though. And it’s a fine feeling.



You can see Out of Sync HERE on Peet Gelderblom's official site!