Nick Lazo adds Never Back Down to his top ten list

James Baradinelli of Reel Press says of Never Back Down: "This movie isn't bad just because it follows a formula slavishly but because it does so without verve or passion."

On the other hand,

Armond White of New York Press says of Never Back Down: "Maybe it’s just a genre picture, but scene after scene in Never Back Down displays vitality and wit. This is the year’s first good-looking and fully enjoyable American movie."

So who to believe? How about Nick Lazo, resident film industry insider, who recently submitted a top 10 list. Nick Lazo was the assistant to the director (which is nowhere near as prestigious as assistant director, mind you) for the film "Never Backs Down.":

NICK LAZO NEVER BACKS DOWN

After submitting my “Top 10 Movies of 2008” piece (which was, yes, three films light), I realized that I left an 8th film off the list: The 2008 MTV Movie Award winner for Best Fight, Never Back Down. Orrin has suggested that I recount a few of my experiences with you here, and in an effort to redeem myself for leaving my very first Hollywood job off my top 10 list, I shall comply.
In the summer of 2007, just after I finished my four-year stint at James Madison University, I had the privilege of working in the camera department of the film Get Some (NBD’s original, working title) in Orlando, Florida. It was hot, it was tiring, and it was AWESOME.
I was in charge of “digital video,” which meant researching consumer video cameras, hiring high school look-a-like videographers, and shooting the fights from strategic places in the crowd. (Some of that footage ended up in the final cut—see if you can spot it!) I acted as a liaison between the Property, Editorial and Camera departments, making sure that all the cameras actors were holding/operating were setup correctly and functioned property, getting tape stock to the camera assistants and the processing facility in Miami, and that the editors were receiving all of the DV footage along with their film dailies. It was quite the challenge, and needless to say, I learned a lot.

At the end of principle photography I was offered a job assisting the director of the film, Jeff Wadlow, in LA. Fast forward one week and I’m living in Los Angeles, working through post-production of a major motion picture. To say I was lucky would be an incredible understatement.

The post-production team quickly became my family, and for 10-14 hours a day my small (though private) office was my home. Those eight months are some of the fondest in my memory, and the number of stories, inside jokes, $400 lunches and last minute preview fiascos are too numerous to recount here. What I will say is that Never Back Down was the experience of a lifetime. Watching the movie, after nearly 20 screenings, still makes for a fun evening with friends, and I’d suggest it to anyone looking for an entertaining way to spend the night.

Never Back Down has kick ass fights, hot ladies, and one hell of a supporting actor in Djimon Hounsou. What more can a movie lover ask for?
Never Back Down

Review of The Island

Island, dir. by Michael Bay (2005), Starring Scarlett Johannson, Ewan MaGregor, Sean Bean, Djimon Hotsou, Ethan Phillips, Michael Clarke Duncan, Steve Buscemi

Michael Bay usually achieves high grosses on films that are rejected by critics and most moviegoers of good taste. Richard Roeper called Bad Boys II the worst picture of the decade. Therefore, it was kind of odd that this 2005 film turned out to be a little bit the opposite: It completely bombed at the box office, making for Bay's lowest film to date, yet it might have been his most interesting film.

"The Island" is a sci-fi film along the lines of GATTACA or I, Robot, set in some dystopian future, where the protagonist comes to the rescue of everything by transcending the limits of what the more rigidly stratified society places on him. It's also incredibly close to the plot of the truly awful Arnold Schwarzenegger film Sixth Day, but that film was so hauntingly abysmal that I don't even want to devote an entire sentence to plot synopsis for fear of the awful memories it will bring up. Nevertheless, the story revolves around a futuristic factory that promises to prolong the lives of its clients through cloning the clinets and using the clones' organs for transplants. The clones live in this isolated world with implanted memories and the idea that there is no life outside of this world. They're made to perform tasks that lead to the operation of the factory, so that saves labor costs. The only salvation for the clones is the belief that they will be taken to a paradise called the island if they're selected in a lottery, but in reality when a clone wins the lottery, that means the client needs an organ and the clone is killed. Ewan MaGregor and Scarlett Johannson play two clones who somehow find out about this outside world and are on the lam from the people who run the factory who view this as a doomsday scenario. So, being a Michael Bay film, this is also an action film, and a great one at that.

As I said earlier, it's by far Michael Bay's most interesting film but the plot leaves a lot to be desired. While I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi film, there seems to a complete ignorance of the fact that we've made a lot of progress in terms of harvesting replacement organs already that doesn't require building entire clones. I also feel like the premise attempts too hard to position the story of two runaway clones as the defining tale of this futuristic society to be a little bit of a stretch. Sean Bean is not playing God and can't make people immortal, because there's a point with many diseases beyond where a single organ replacement can save a life anyway, despite what he claims.

Also, considering the quality of the cast, the acting is a little subpar. Ewan MaGregor has the challenge of playing two people and I applaud him for that, but with the exception of Sean Bean, I don't really feel like anyone gave a remotely memorable performance. Visually, there were a lot of interesting things to look at, but it didn't look like anyone bothered to dress up the exterior shots to look equally as futuristic as the clone factory.

Breakout Supporting Roles and Best Picture Winners

I just noticed this pattern as i was strolling through some best picture winners. They usually feature either great supporting roles, breakout actors in supporting roles, or actors in supporting roles before they broke-out:

Titanic:
pre-Fantastic Four Ioan Gufford (if i spelt his name wrong, i don't care)
pre-Alias Viktor Garber
Kathy Bates

Shakespeare in Love:
pre-Love Actually Colin Firth
pre-Vera Drake Imadela Staunton
pre-In the Bedroom Tom Wilkinson

American Beauty:
pre-Star Trek: Enterprise Scott Bakula
pre-Seabiscuit Chris Cooper
pre-Ghost World Thora Birch
pre-West Wing Allison Janey
pre-O.C. Peter Gallagher

Gladiator:
pre-In America Djimon Hotsou
pre-Walk the Line Joaquin Pheonix in a breakout role

A Beautiful Mind:
pre-Rent Anthony Rapp
pre-Sweet Home Alabama Josh Lukas
perrenial character actor Adam Goldberg
Judd Hirsch
Ed Harris
pre-Wimbledon Paul Bettany in a Breakout Role

Chicago:
pre-Talladega Nights John C Riley in a Breakout Role
Lucy Lui
Christine Barinski
Queen Latifah

Lord of the Rings:
pre-Pirates Orlando Bloom (sort of)
pre-Hidalgo Virgo Mortgensen in a breakout role
Sean Astin
Christopher Lee
Cate Blanchett
Mirando Otto
Ian McKellan

Million Dollar Baby:
bucks the trend

Crash:
Ryan Phillipe
Thandie Newton
pre-Hustle and Flow (by 3 months) Terrence Howard
Jennifer Esposito
Sandra Bullock
Matt Dillon
Don Cheadle
Chris "Ludacris" Bridges in a breakout role

Departed:
Anthony Anderson, Vera Farminga, Ray Winstone and Mark Wahlberg will break out onto a new level of stardom, I predict
In addition, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin inhabit great small roles in this movie

Million Dollar Baby is the only one which bucks the trend, which is odd because Golden Globe winner of that year Aviator fits that trend better with a supporting cast that include:
Wilhem DeFoe, Jude Law, Gwen Stefani, Kate Beckinsdale, Cate Blanchett, John C. Riley, Ian Holm, Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda

Oscar Blog I: Best supporting actor

OK, I sadly did not get to writing around my predictions last night before the actual ceremony, but I was frantically trying to research and write (and it did require research to back up those opinions) my edgy article below that I was trying to submit to oscarwatch to no avail. I have seen the light of blog publicity and it's name is Oscarwatch, so it's very advantageous to my to appear on that site.

I did actually make a carefully well-thought out set of predictions that I sent to Oscarwatch Central for their critical compilation, but I didn't actually write those predictions down. Oscarwatch Central Predictions are currently trying to retrieve the file that I sent them because #1 I can't remember myself, exactly what I predicted and #2 They were some kick-ass predictions and who knows, I might have won. I predicted William Moynahan*, Departed for editing, and I predicted Alan Arkin for Supporting Actor. The reason that I am writing this oscar blog now (and I do consider this a blog because I'm filtering and recopying my notes from last night) was that I spent last night at a local movie theater (Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse) which had a fun program put up by two film critics. It was a good time and I won a ton of free DVDs for knowing a couple trivia questions**

Even though I picked him myself, I thought Arkin had no chance in Hell of winning and I was thrilled that he did so. Out of boredom at the lock status and the repitition of awards for the same director and actors, it was just an effort to mix it up a little. I personally just wanted to vote for anyone other than Eddie Murphy and felt that Arkin had the best chance. Personally, I thought that Djimon Hotsou and Mark Wahlberg* were the strongest (even though Wahlberg had little screentime) and I confess to not having seen Dreamgirls so I couldn't even tell you if Alan Arkin was REALLY better than Eddie Murphy. The truth was that Alan Arkin was very good but in all honesty, he didn't stick out in Little Miss Sunshine, but that's really a tribute to the strength of the SAG-winning ensemble, and I'm not sure if being the best member in your cast is neccessarily a requirement to being the only actor from your movie to win the oscar.

What really was motivating me was I was just hoping it would be anyone but Eddie Murphy because he really is not fit to be an oscar-winner. The prestigeous label of Oscar-winner gets tarnished if that oscar winner goes on to make bad movies. Everytime, you see "Oscar-winner F. Murray Abraham" on the back of a film like "Muppets in Space" at the video store or Oscar-winner Louise Fletcher in "High School High" or Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding Jr. in "Rat Race" and "Snow Dogs," it brings the reputation of the academy down that much more. I'm not saying it's not tarnished already, but Eddie Murphy didn't even have the decency to wait before he actually won his oscar to tarnish it by becoming the next Cuba Gooding Jr., wich Norbit. And you know what? Maybe it wasn't a coincidence that Cuba Gooding Jr. was actually in the movie itself. Maybe Murphy was making a bold statement defending the right of oscar winners like Cuba to go on making bad movies. Well, no thanks said the academy, and I fully second that notion. It works just like that in anything else. The NBA probably regretted voting Ron Artest as an all-Star after he went into the stands and started beating up players. Baseball wouldn't let Pete Rose into the hall of fame because he has a disease. And Eddie Murphy has a disease too: he can't stop making bad movies, and he needs to go into a therapy group with Adam Sandler, Pauly Shore and Martin Lawrence. A vote for Alan Arkin was a vote for consistency, who has consistently made good movies. It was a resounding statement that just because you did some great things in your day like singlehandedly resurrect Saturday Night Live, does not mean we will crown you with a title bestowing you as a "great actor" when your latest movie work ranges from mediocre to abysmal.


Now, I have a couple grad school classes to attend, but rest assured, i will continue oscar blogging while people are still google searching for oscar blogs so I can rack up some hits.

*This is the most nitpicky thing you'll ever hear in your life, but why does Scrosesee call him Bill, I'm pretty sure most everyone else calls him William or Will. I know Bill is short for William Moynahan, but if Will Moynahan wanted to go by Bill, he might have submitted his name as such. I am curious to know how many people other than Scorsesee call him Bill. Scorsesee also refers to Robert De Niro as Bobby and I don't think anyone else does that either. Who does Scorsesee think he is?

** Question I didn't know the answer was the last child actor or actress to win. Thanks to the lucky coincidence of having read eddieonfilm.blogspot.com's oscar predictions, I won a DVD of the Prestige, screening passes to 300 and a CD for the soundtrack of Flushed Away for knowing "What was the Artistic Oscar given alongside Wings?" I vaguely remembered the answer was a film called Sunrise.
I also won a DVD of the Guardian for knowing that Bob Fossee beat Ford Copolla for best director the first time he was up for a Godfather film, and not wanting to hog all the gifts I helped someone else in the audience name on of the three actors who Martin Scorsesee has lost to (my initial answer was Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford and Roman Polanski who had a history as a child actor, but they didn't take that as an answer. They were looking for Kevin Costner)

Some other notes on the best supporting actor race:
-I'm not sure whether Mark Wahlberg had a good or bad night. For one thing, he lost and Ellen bothered him right after losing en route to handing Martin Scorsesee her script. I think Ellen was just being friendly but maybe she could've picked a better time. Also Scorsesee was like "I want to thank Jack who's such an honor to work with and gives so much" and "Leo, let's work another 12 or 15 years" and then he was like "and Mark" and that was it. Mark Wahlberg stole the show from Jack Nicholson, Leo, Matt Damon and everyone else, in every scene he was in. Without Wahlberg, the movie's tension wouldn't have been leveled with comic relief, and he handled the dialogue so well. Wahlberg's clip was also pretty short which pissed me off as well. On the bright side, when Jack Black and Will Ferrell beat up the oscar nominees after the movie, they said they'd spare him, so that's good news

-Djimon Hotsou and Eddie Murphy both looked really anxious waiting for the name to be announced. Hotsou looked like he was about to get a flu shot and was waiting for the needle to go in his arm.