The case for or against the indie dramedy

One notable trend I've found in the last decade is that 4 films made the Best Picture Oscar shortlist that could be classified as dramedies: Sideways, Lost in Translation, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. I would argue that two of these barely even had any humor in them at all. What unites them all is that they're dialogue and character centered and feel very personal. They get the comedy label by virtue of being classified as such by the Golden Globes race. My theory is that they get into the Oscar race because the Academy decides "we'll nominate some dark and gritty dramas and mix it up a little by nominating one from the comedy/musical column." They were also very strong films. Each of these made my top 10 of the year and I think all four are strong films (although Juno has faded a little bit in retrospect).

The problem is that for every Lost in Translation there's a Savages or a Rachel Getting Married which aren't as enjoyable to watch but are marketed as comedies. Check out the trailer for Rachel Getting Married. It looks like a comedy but it isn't.

Small indie films have to market themselves somehow and they generally have less of an overarching plot to offer so the only solution in a character piece like this would be to try to find some remotely comic moments and string them together. The film even uses creative editing to make it seem even funnier. At :044 for example, Rachel's mother asks "Is your sister behaving herself?", Rachel says "I'm not exactly sure what that means, followed by Rachel's sister (the main character played by Anne Hathaway) proclaiming among an awkward crowd, "I am Sheeva the destroyer and it's great to be here this evening."

It's classic comedy: The fish-out-of-the-water situation of a drunk girl having fun at the wedding. Having watched the film, though, I can tell you that that moment is taken out of context and that anything that looks funny in the trailer is anything but funny in the actual movie. These moments of awkwardness of Rachel or a wedding guest doing something inappropriate at the wedding are not played for laughs, but rather used as a window into the desperation that is being experienced by a daughter returning from a 12-step program and reconciling with her family.

Little Miss Sunshine is a movie in which you'll laugh, cry and jump for joy. Rachel Getting Married is essentially a movie where you'll just cry. You'll also gain insight into human nature and possibly admire the directing and acting performances, but the point is that one should beware the dramedy. Not every low-budget character-centered piece is meant to be funny. Fortunately, the Golden Globes noted this and categorized Rachel Getting Married as a drama.

http://www.videodetective.com/TitleDetails.aspx?publishedid=00059837

Academy pictures by genre

I was curious about the kinds of pictures that get selected by the academy, and started making this list. The top 5 of each year are picture noms, a * means a nom for the director, and a - means writing nom.

2006:
Departed-Crime Thriller
Little Miss Sunshine-Family Dramedy
Letters from Iwo Jima-War Film
The Queen-Docudrama/Political
Babel-Ensemble Piece
*United 93: Docudrama
-Borat-Mockumentary
-Children of Men-Sci-fi
-Little Children-Family melodrama
-Notes on a Scandal-Psychological Thriller
-Pan’s Labrynth-Foreign language/Experimental


2005:
Good Night and Good Luck-Period Docudrama
Crash-Ensemble Piece
Brokeback Mountain-Queer cinema
Munich-Political Thriller
Capote-Biopic
-Match Point-Dark romance
-Squid and the Whale-Family Melodrama
-Syrianna-Political Ensemble Piece
-History of Violence-Crime Thriller
-Constant Gardener-Political Thriller


2004:
Finding Neverland-Biopic
Ray-Musical Biopic
Aviator-Period Piece/Biopic
Sideways-Neorealist comedy
Million Dollar Baby-Sports
*Vera Drake-Biopic
-Incredibles-Animated
-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-Experimental comedy
-Hotel Rwanda-Docudrama/Biopic
-Motorcycle Diaries-Foreign
-Before Sunset-Romance

2003:
Master and Commander-Period epic
Seabiscuit-Sports/Period piece
Lost in Translation-Independent/Romance
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King-Fantasy epic
Mystic River-Tragedy
*City of God-Foreign crime thriller
-In America-Tearjerker/Family melodrama
-Dirty Pretty Things-Independent
-Barbarian Invasions-Dramedy
-Finding Nemo-Animated
-American Splendor-Comedy

2002:
Chicago-Musical
The Hours-Period piece/Family melodrama
Pianist-Biopic
LOTR-Fantasy Epic
Gangs of New York-Period piece
*Talk to Her-Foreign language
-Adaptation-Comedy
-Far From Heaven-Family melodrama
-My Big Fat Greek Wedding-Comedy
-About a Boy-Comedy
-Y tu Mama Tambien-Foreign language/Coming-of-age

2001:
Moulan Rouge-Musical
Godsford Park-Ensemble piece
Beautiful Mind-Biopic
In the Bedroom-Family melodrama
LOTR-Fantasy Epic
*Mullholland Drive-Experimental
*Black Hawk Down-War film
-Amelie-Foreign language/romance
-Royal Tannenbaums-Family Dramedy
-Ghost World-Coming-of-age
-Momento-Experimental
-Monster’s Ball-Tragedy
-Shrek-Animated


2000:
Gladiator-Period epic
Traffic-Ensemble docudrama
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-Foreign epic
Chocolat-Period piece
Erin Brockovitch-Biopic
*Billy Elliot-Biopic
-Wonderboys-Dramedy
-Almost Famous-Coming-of-age
-You Can Count on Me-Dramedy
-Oh Brother Where Art Thou-Epic
-Cast Away-Survival
-Contender-Political



1999:
Sixth Sense-Horror/Thriller
Insider-Docudrama
American Beauty-Family melodrama
Green Mile-Tearjerker
Cider House Rules-Coming-of-age
*Talented Mr Ripley-Psychological Thriller
-Being John Malkovitch-Experimental
-Magnolia-Ensemble Piece
-Topsy Turvy-Musical biopic
-Election-Satire


1998:
Elizabeth-Period piece
Shakespeare in Love-Comedy
A Thin Red Line-War film
Life is Beautiful-Foreign comedy
Saving Private Ryan-War film
*Truman Show-Experimental
-Out of Sight-Thriller
-Simple Plan-Dark Comedy
-Primary Colors-Satire
-Bullworth-Satire
-Gods and Monsters-Biopic

A rundown of my film school education

In case anyone was curious to know about what films I was exposed to in my film school education, here's a list of all the films that I watched as part of the curriculums of my 6 courses that I needed to complete the film school minor. I also sat in on part of a films in society course and a film noir seminar, but the main gist is covered here. The 6 courses I took were movies as art, films in society, film adaptations, movie history to 1960, film genres, and film comedy. Asteriks indicate that part of the film was shown:
Birth of a Nation (1915) (films in society)
*Intolerance (1919) (film history)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) (film history)
Safety Last (1923) (film comedy)
Battleship Potempkin (1925) (films in society, film history)
The General (1927) (film comedy)
Blue Angel (1930) (film history)
City Lights (1931) (film history)
Strangers in Paradise (1932) (film history)
42nd Street (1933) (genres)
Duck Soup (1933) (comedy)
Merry Widow (1934) (genres)
It Happened One Night (1935) (history)
Top Hat (1935) (genres)
Modern Times (1936) (comedy)
*Swing Time (1936) (genres)
Grand Illusion (1937) (history)
*Bringing Up Baby (1938) (history. comedy)
Gone with the Wind (1939) (society)
Wizard of Oz (1939) (society)
Ninochta (1939) (comedy)
The Bank Dick (1940) (comedy)
Citizen Kane (1941) (history)
The Lady Eve (1941) (comedy)
Double Indemnity (1944) (genres)
*Scarlett Street (1945) (genres)
Big Sleep (1946) (genres)
*Lady in the Lake (1947) (art)
Bicycle Thief (1948) (history)
Third Man (1949) (art)
Sunset Boulevard (1950) (genres)
Strangers on a Train (1951) (history)
High Noon (1952) (genres)
Singing in the Rain (1952) (genres)
Shane (1953) (genres)
Brigadoon (1954) (society)
The Searchers (1956) (genres)
Wild Strawberries (1957) (history)
Touch of Evil (1958) (genres)
Some Like it Hot (1959) (comedy)
Breathless (1960) (history)
8 ½ (1963) (history)
Dr. Strangelove (1964) (comedy)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) (art)
Wild Bunch (1969) (genres)
McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971) (autuer)
Cabaret (1972) (genres)
Chinatown (1974) (genres)
Day for Night (1973) (art)
Young Frankenstein (1974) (comedy)
Days of Heaven (1978) (art)
The Red Shoes (1986) (art)
Age of Innocence (1993) (adaptation)
Sankofa (1993) (society)
Rising Sun (1993) (society)
*Much Ado About Nothing (1993) (adaptation)
Pulp Fiction (1994) (society)
Persuasion (1995) (art)
Romeo and Juliet (1996) (society)
Waiting for Guffman (1997) (comedy)
Big Lebowski (1998) (comedy)
Pleasantville (1998) (society)
End of the Affair (1999) (adaptation)
Ghost Dog (1999) (society)
*Matrix (1999) (art)
Bamboozled (2000) (society)
*Oh Brother Where Art Thou (2000) (comedy)
Gladiator (2000) (society)
Wonderboys (2000) (adaptation)
Momento (2001) (adaptation)
Girl with a Pearl Earing (2003) (art)
*Intolerable Cruelty (2003) (comedy)
*A Mighty Wind (2003) (comedy)
Lost in Translation (2003) (history)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) (art)
Sideways (2004) (comedy)
Merchant of Venice (2004) (adaptation)
Sin City (2005) (art)

Top 10 Sci-Fi films and more

This is in response to an Entertainment Weekly article which identified the top 25 sci-fi TV and movie phenomenoms over the last 25 years.

I have a very detailed version of this I intend to expand upon as I improve on this, but here's what I would say are the ten most definitive sci-fi films of all time and when I get the time, I will expand upon this more. So consider this incomplete without explanations:
1. Star Wars, George Lucas, 1977
2. Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick, 1968
4. A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick, 1971
5. Close Encounters of a Third Kind, Stephen Spielberg, 1977
6. Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, 1982
7. Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1986
8. Matrix, Wolchowski Bros., 1999
9. Alien, Ridley Scott, 1979
10. Back to the Future, Rob Zemeckis, 1985

10 other films of note: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, War of the Worlds (original), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, Aliens, Minority Report, X-Men, E.T.

10 great Sci-Fi TV Shows I recommend: Lost in Space, Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Seaquest DSV, Futurama, Sliders, Quantum Leap, Firefly, Andromeda, Heroes

10 sci-fi books: Dune; I, Robot, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Ender's Game, The Time Machine, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Farenheight 411, and hmmm, can't think of any other ones.

The final verdict on the Oscars: Genre Pictures and Oscars

Looking back, I personally think Babel should've won because The Departed was simply near-perfect execution of a good Cops and Robbers movie, while Babel was an innovative picture that made a sweeping statement.

I think in general, genre pictures that are honored by the academy (My Fair Lady, Broadway Melody of 1929, Great Zigfield for musicals, Cimarron for Westerns, and French Connection for cops movies) can get dated pretty quickly. Whereas epics and films with sweeping statements or films that touch on relevant themes. There are obviously exceptions to this rule (i.e. The Godfather was the hallmark of gangster films and American in Paris, West Side Story and Sound of Music are among the best remembered musicals) but generally films that revolutionize and bend the genre like High Noon, McCabe and Mrs Miller, and The Searchers for Westerns or Singing in the Rain for musicals or Little Cesar or pretty much the entirety of film noir don't get recognized in their day and only get appreciated later in retrospect.

So in essence what I'm saying is that the genre pictures that really revolutionize the genre and find an innovative method of redefining it, generally don't get honored right then and there because it takes time to realize the brilliance of it. You need films to follow the particular trend that a revolutionary picture like High Noon is starting before you see how significant of a film it is. This is not neccessarily true: sometimes films that are innovative like West Side Story or the Godfather get honored, but these examples are rare and if a genre film wins, the academy usually will honor a film that executes the existing conventions well. The Departed is in no way revolutionary, but it is an excellent execution of a gangster film. It is also a personal triumph within the Martin Scorsesee canon, in that he was able to return to form. He was able to leave the grandiose ambitions with which he brought to the Aviator and Gangs of New York behind and buckle down to make a solid gangster film. However, the best picture award he received reflected more of a decision to avoid a director/picture split than it did a convincing vote for a best picture. While I concede it was a close race, I personally think that Babel was that epic thematically relevant film which was well-made and spoke to the problems facing the present.

Beware of the film snob

Often, you will come across a critic's top ten film list of the year or some other compilation of one's favorite films and you'll have no idea what many of the films are and this will make you feel like you have the cultural IQ of a baboon for not even having heard of these movies, let alone having seen any of them. This would be especially stinging if you consider yourself to be a film expert. I have a pet theory, in fact, that film critics try to one-up each other with their top ten lists by finding increasingly more obscure movies, and making their colleagues feel like dopes. Take a look at this list, I saw on a messageboard I was recently browsing. This is one person's opinions of how he would arrange the oscars if he could pick the categories:

Best Picture

Amazing Grace
Children Of Men
Half Nelson
Journey From The Fall
The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Lead Actor

Al Pacino - 88 Minutes [what a fantastic performance for such a horrible film]
Alan Rickman - Snow Cake
Cillian Murphy - The Wind That Shakes The Barley
Ioan Gruffudd - Amazing Grace
Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson

Lead Actress

Emma Thompson - Stranger Than Fiction
Helen Mirren - The Queeen
Julie Christie - Away From Her
Laura Linney - Jindabyne
Sigourney Weaver - Snow Cake

Supporting Actor

Albert Finney - Amazing Grace
Brian Blessed - As You Like It
Forest Whitaker - The Last King Of Scotland
Jackie Earle Haley - Little Children
Paul Giametti - Lady In The Water

Supporting Actress

Bryce Dallas Howard - As You Like It
Cate Blanchett - The Good German
Julia Ormond - Inland Empire
Rinko Kikuchi - Babel
Sarah Polley - Away From Her

Director

Alfonso Cuarón - Children Of Men
Han Tran - Journey From The Fall
Ken Loach - The Wind That Shakes The Barley
Michael Apted - Amazing Grace
Ryan Fleck - Half Nelson

Written For Film

Angela Pell - Snow Cake
Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck - Half Nelson
Han Tran - Journey From The Fall
Paul Laverty - The Wind That Shakes The Barley
Steven Knight - Amazing Grace

Previously Released Writing Adapted For Film

P.D. James - Children Of Men
Patrick Süskind - Perfume [Sorry Will!]
Steven Millhauser - The Illusionist
Tom Perrotta - Little Children
William Shakespeare - As You Like It

Cinematography and Art Direction

Children Of Men
Journey From The Fall
Lucky Number Slevin
Perfume [both Oscars]
The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Costume

Amazing Grace
As You Like It
Perfume
The Magic Flute
The Queen

Score

Children Of Men
Half Nelson
Perfume
The Illusionist
The Painted Veil

Make-Up

Pan's Labyrinth
Perfume
Pirates Of The Caribbean
The Magic Flute

Foreign Film

Grbavica
Kekexili: Mountain Patrol
Khadak
The Lives Of Others [Das Leben Der Anderen]
Water

Documentary

A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash
An Inconvenient Truth
Buddha's Lost Children
G-d Grew Tired of Us: The Story Of Lost Boys Of Sudan
When The Road Bends

OK, go through this list and while there are some you might recognize like Stranger than Fiction, Lucky Number Sliven and The Queen, even someone who prides himself on being well-versed on movies will wonder "huh?" what the heck are "Wind that Shakes the Barley" "Snow Cake" "As You Like It" "Away from Her" "88 Minutes" and "Journey from the Fall"? If Al Pacino was in 88 Minutes, I'm sure I'd have heard of it or something. If Bryce Dallas Howard was in a film other than Lady in the Water this year, wouldn't the press that did articles on her for Lady in the Water have made a mention of that movie?

I don't blame the guy who posted this and I don't feel like he's a big jerk for posting this. Calling him a "film snob" in the title of my post is really as far as I will go in terms of giving him a bad name, and i don't neccessarily mean that in a duragatory way. He surely didn't have bad intentions and wasn't trying to make us feel dumb. Usually when you ask one of these people, "wtf?" they'll usually say that they should make these movies more advertised and release them on a national scale so that they'll be well-known and more people can revel in their joy. I wrote this guy, and I'm guessing that's what his response will be.

But, nevertheless, I think that most of us would will feel like idiots when we read this.


But don't fret. I did some research to look up these movies if they actually existed and were circulating on a scale of national distribution, and here's what I found.
As You Like It-A picture with Bryce Dallas Howard has that name that was originally released in 1999 that grossed $300,000 total in 2 countries: Italy and Greece and doesn't even list a domestic box office

Snow Cake-Was released in 12 theaters nationwide and made $73,000 domestically and $430,000 internationally.

Away From Her's release date is May 4th, 2007, so the person must've seen that in advance?

Amazing Grace's release date is February 23rd, 2007, this coming weekend. Did this person have a time machine or something?

Perfume made 2 million domestically, $119 million internationally. That might be the most commercially widely seen film of any on the list of questionables, but 2 million opening weekend, let alone total, is considered a failure for any film unless it's an independent film like the ones that come from Sundance.

88 Cakes is listed as 2007, so doesn't count by 2006 standards.

Laura Linney's Jindabayne and Journey from the Fall are not even listed on box office mojo, so they must be incredibly obscure


So in summary:


This guy must be from a country outside the United States or you must be from a very small handful of people who are screening these films inside the US. He also must have a time machine on him.

In short, he's not the average filmgoer and while more power to him for seeing all these films, the number of people he can have an intelligent discussion with about them who aren't full-time professional film critics in the United States is probably somewhere around 100. Don't feel stupid for not knowing as much as he does.

Ball of Fire as a screwball comedy

This was a short essay from a collection of short essays I did for a film class on Ball of Fire which I felt was a really underrated screwball comedy:

Ball of Fire was directed and written by three of the best at their genre. Howard Hawks was a notable director of screwball comedies and the team of Wilder and Brackett wrote a number of comedies including Ernst Lubitsch's funniest film Ninotchka (1939). Wilder would also later become once of cinematic history's greatest comedic and dramatic directors with The Apartment and Some Like it Hot.

In Hollywood Genres, Howard Schatz writes, "The Screwball comedy dominated Depression-era screen comedy and provided that period's most significant and engaging social commentary" (151). Schatz suggests that screwball comedies were not just escapist fare for Depression-era audiences but they remedied their shattered dreams that their poverty and discrepancies in wealth couldn't be overcome. One important element for this remedy to work was that there had to be a love story that crossed class boundaries, usually with the woman as poor but more socially apt and the man as the opposite.

In Ball of Fire, Gary Cooper isn't so much rich as he is distinguished in the world of academia. He is a lexicologist in charge of an encyclopedia project with eight other professors, each in charge of a different field of knowledge. The fact that the other professors are twice his age highlights just how smart he is in his field. Barbara Stanwyck, an excellent comic foil, is a nightclub singer whose boyfriend is a gangster on the run from the police. She comes into contact with Cooper through his work. He is doing a section for his encyclopedia on slang and enlists her to help him and needing to hide from the cops, she accepts. This set-up is very interesting because while Gary Cooper is not rich, he's an expert on the language of the rich in a sense. In turn, Stanwyck's character, Sugarpuss O'Shea, is lower-class only through his standards. In terms of actual material wealth, O'Shea is richer than Cooper because her boyfriend has stolen large amounts of money while he has worked nine years into his uncompleted encyclopedia. Also, Sugarpuss O'Shea has absolutely no academic credentials, but suddenly becomes of use to him as an expert on slang through her lower-class background. Many twists on the traditional form of the screwball comedy are thrown into the story adding enough complexity to the relationship that it becomes unclear who really has the upper-hand. Moreso, the language theme presents wealth as an illusion which validates the main message of screwball comedies as well.