THE 2008 MOUTON D'OR NOMINATIONS

Black Sheep’s Best of 2007

This time last year I was trudging through garbage in search of a half-eaten cheese sandwich I could dust off and pass off as one of the better films of the year. 2006 was certainly no country for an old man like myself. I’m happy to say though that this year, I was able to keep my hands clean as 2007 was the year even the rats were allowed in the kitchen to make themselves a real snack before settling in for a flick. 2007, you can rest easy for you have sufficiently atoned for the sins of 2006. I assure you there will be no blood shed here, just some love and recognition in the form of an award or two. No, Canada, this ain’t the Juno’s – it’s the 2007 BLACK SHEEP REVIEWS’ MOUTON D’OR AWARDS!

But seriously folks, 2007 has been a great year both on the screen and off for this here film critic. I have had the opportunity to see over 80 first run films and write over 50 reviews. I even manage to get myself invited to press screenings now. That might seem like nothing to some but as it doesn’t happen often for me, waking up to a movie, a coffee and a croissant with a handful of film enthusiasts is a little like heaven to me. I was published for the first time in March, discussing THE ASTRONAUT FARMER in The National Post’s Popcorn Panel and went on to find my way there another seven times. I was voted Critic of the Week twice on Zip.ca – once because I got all my friends to vote for me and once was a complete surprise. I ended my run as a regular DVD reviewer for Ioncinema.com and began covering film festivals for them instead, like the Montreal World Film Festival and the Nouveau Cinema Festival. This allowed me the chance to meet and speak with directors as diverse as Michael Davis (SHOOT EM UP), Bruce McDonald (THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS) and Jeremy Podeswa (FUGITIVE PIECES). In the online world, my work found a new forum on Montreal Film Journal and continued to be read by hundreds on Smart-Popcorn. The official Black Sheep Reviews Facebook group has reached over 450 members. The Globe and Mail and The Edmonton Sun both interviewed me as an up and coming voice in the field of freelance film criticism. My actual voice found its way to the airwaves on 940 Montreal, where I debated on an almost weekly basis what people should spend their money on at the theatres and finished the year by announcing my Top 10 on New Year’s Eve. I may have had to pay my own way but I finally found myself at the Toronto International Film Festival. I was suddenly surrounded by Ang Lee, Catherine Keener, Jake Gyllenhaal, Eddie Vedder, Reese Witherspoon, Emile Hirsch and Peter Saarsgard to name a few. Sure they had no idea I was there but who cares? A separate trip to the New York Film Festival gave me the chance to catch the advance screening of MARGOT AT THE WEDDING, with both Jennifer Jason Leigh and Noah Baumbach on hand to discuss the experience. And last, but naturally not least, Black Sheep Reviews found its face in a beautifully animated sheep named Sheldon, designed by my humble and talented friend, Trevor Adams. Sheldon makes for an amazing flyer and there are times when I’m handing them out and people tell me they’ve already been to the site or visit regularly. There are times when I’m sitting at my day job worried that all of this is for nothing and that no one is reading my words but thanks to all of my amazing supporters, that is simply not true. If it weren’t for you, Black Sheep Reviews would never have been voted the 4th Best Blog in Montreal (Montreal Mirror) or be visited by thousands monthly.

Right, so enough about me, let’s get to the movies. Before December and the onslaught of critic’s list announcements, 2007’s award race was wide open. It was exhilarating to know that any number of films could become the front-runner for the Best Picture crown. All too often, the hype machine has already solidified certain titles as sure bets but this year, all the bets were off. While this made the wide variety of possibility exciting in my MOUTON D’OR nominations, whittling the selections down to five in each category was almost exhausting … even after I added new categories to honour as many films as possible. Joining the regular categories from last year are three more technical categories – Cinematography, Editing and Original Music. Also, another year means another change for an award title that I just can’t get right … It is meant to embody the spirit of independent film but the idea of what is independent is so blurred that the best I could come up with as an award title is Best Little Movie That Could: An award for genuine intention, artistry and heart. Let’s not waste another moment … Here are the nominations for Black Sheep Reviews’ 2007 Mouton d’Or Awards:


BEST POPCORN FLICK

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
THE DARJEELING LIMITED
DEATH PROOF
I AM LEGEND
RATATOUILLE


BEST LITTLE MOVIE THAT COULD:
An award for genuine intention, artistry and heart

I’M NOT THERE
JUNO
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
ONCE
WAITRESS


THE WORST MOVIE I SAW ALL YEAR

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
ALPHA DOG
BLACK SNAKE MOAN
L’AGE DES TENEBRES (DAYS OF DARKNESS)
TRANSFORMERS


THE TREVOR ADAMS ANIMATED FEATURE AWARD

PERSEPOLIS
RATATOUILLE
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE


BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (Roger Deakins, cinematographer)
ATONEMENT (Seamus McGarvey)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Roger Deakins)
LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON (Janusz Kaminski)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Roger Elswit)


BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC

ATONEMENT (Dario Marianelli, composer)
INTO THE WILD (Eddie Vedder)
ONCE (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova)
RATATOUILLE (Michael Giacchino)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Jonny Greenwood)


BEST EDITING

ATONEMENT (Paul Tothill, film editor)
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, Christopher Rouse)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Roderick Jaynes)
LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON (Juliette Welfling)
ZODIAC (Angus Wall)


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

CASEY AFFLECK
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
JAVIER BARDEM
No Country for Old Men
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Charlie Wilson’s War
HAL HOLBROOK
Into the Wild
TOM WILKINSON
Michael Clayton


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

CATE BLANCHETT
I’m Not There
JENNIFER JASON LEIGH
Margot at the Wedding
SAOIRSE RONAN
Atonement
AMY RYAN
Gone Baby Gone
TILDA SWINTON
Michael Clayton


BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

JOSH BROLIN
No Country for Old Men
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS
There Will Be Blood
RYAN GOSLING
Lars and the Real Girl
TOMMY LEE JONES
In the Valley of Elah
VIGGO MORTENSEN
Eastern Promises

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

JULIE CHRISTIE
Away From Her
MARION COTILLARD
La Vie en Rose
ANGELINA JOLIE
A Mighty Heart
NICOLE KIDMAN
Margot at the Wedding
ELLEN PAGE
Juno


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

EASTERN PROMISES (Steven Knight, screenwriter)
JUNO (Diablo Cody)
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (Nancy Oliver)
RATATOUILLE (Brad Bird)
THE SAVAGES (Tamara Jenkins)


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

ATONEMENT (Christopher Hampton, screenwriter)
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (Joel and Ethan Coen)
LE SCAPHANDRE ET LE PAPILLON (Ronald Harwood)
THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson)
ZODIAC (James Vanderbilt)


BEST DIRECTOR

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON
There Will Be Blood
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN
No Country for Old Men
TODD HAYNES
I’m Not There
JULIAN SCHNABEL
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
JOE WRIGHT
Atonement


BEST PICTURE








Winners will be announced Oscar weekend (February 23) and be sure to check back this weekend for the first wave of the Black Sheep Reviews 2008 contest Top 5 lists.

Happy 2008!

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Written by Ronald Harwood
Directed by Julian Schnabel


Jean-Dominique Bauby: Mon premier mot est “je.” Je commence par moi.

People often find themselves feeling trapped. They feel trapped at work or trapped in a bad relationship. When we find ourselves in these sorts of situations, we are sometimes fortunate enough to have choices. We can change our surroundings; we can look to new possibilities and put the scenarios that are suffocating us behind us. And if we can’t make that change happen immediately, we can find ways to escape for a while. We can go for walks; we can talk to friends; we can go to the movies. Now, thanks to director, Julian Schnabel, we can feel just as trapped at the movies as we already may feel in our regular waking lives. THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY is a French film about one man’s true account of what it feels like to experience the medical condition called locked-in syndrome. Someone in this condition can see and think, even remember everything but his body is paralyzed from top to bottom and he cannot move his mouth to speak. As depressing as this all sounds, it is nowhere near as intense as how it feels to see the film from the perspective of the patient, which is exactly where Schnabel places his viewer. Whatever you were escaping won’t seem so important after having experienced this cinematic paralysis.


The film is even more devastating because this horror is a true story. Former Elle magazine editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby (played in the film by Mathieu Almarich) suffered a stroke that left him in a coma in 1995. The film tells his story from the moment he awakes from that coma twenty days later. He must battle his way through his confusion to deal with the crushing news that the life he knew is now over. This is a man who worked in fashion. His life was glitz, glamour, always moving and now he is sitting in a cramped hospital room and unable to get out of bed or even sit up. While Bauby wakes up to hell, we wake up to cinematic heaven. Award-winning cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, developed a style of shooting that shows the viewer what Bauby is seeing. Doctors and orderlies are constantly in his face; images are blurred or skewed depending on how alert Bauby is; and when he closes his eyes, we see nothing but the back of his eyelid. We get out of that claustrophobic space the same way Bauby does by following his imagination, which takes him back to many memories or to all-together new places for experiences he’s never had. The dreamy technique is humbling, inspiring and, rather ironically, cinematically alive. Kaminski has taken a paralyzed perspective and made it dance.


Ronald Harwood’s script lights a fire of frustration in the viewer while it exposes the stupidity of humanity. While no one around him can hear his thoughts, we are privy to all of them being trapped in the mind where they are formed. The manner in which the senior doctors speak to him and the liberties they take knowing he cannot speak back or push their fingers away while they poke at him exposes the inequities of the medical profession. Hope is casually dropped into the conversation whenever there is nothing more to say. Even in this so obviously dire situation, people cannot directly address pain and suffering. Harwood is also careful not to inundate us with imagery of Bauby’s former existence. The memories we do see alert us to significant relationships and moments but make no linear trajectory of everything that led up to this. Nor are we subjected to clichés of everything exciting that Bauby will never know again. Instead, we are just shown glimpses of the man we are meant to identify with. This story would be tragic no matter what the background and Harwood’s sparse humanization allows us to see that clearly. More importantly, the dialogue in Bauby’s head and the little that manages to get to those around him allows us to see who he is right now. After all, he is still alive.


As harrowing as this all sounds, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY is still uplifting. Bauby manages to maintain some of the relationships he had prior to his attack and their new context is a reminder that something deeper than mindless chatter holds them together. And for every bumbling doctor that doesn’t know what to do with him, there are just as many others determined to help him, even some that develop all new relationships with him. While his whirlwind life may seem to have come to a deadening halt, he learns a lesson that we all need to remind ourselves of regularly. There is no sense in sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves while we are still alive and capable of progress. If you need an example to see that, you should know that by blinking his way through the alphabet one letter at a time, Bauby wrote the book on which this film is based.