One of the great artists of the motion picture industry died on Wednesday. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist, who did some absolutely splendid work for Ingmar Bergman over the years before becoming a regular member of Team Woody Allen, was 83.

Bloggage via Technorati.

It’s been about eighteen years of waiting for a decent opportunity, but at long last I have made it this year to the Sydney Film Festival.

So far I have seen nine films, ranging from the earnestly good to the bloody brilliant, and I’m booked in for two more before the Festival closes next Sunday.

Here are some brief reviews of the first three films that I saw, with more to follow in future posts:

A Hero’s Welcome - Documentary about, and narrated by, Timor-Leste president Xanana Gusmao, shot before the current problems flared up. The film is something of a hagiography of Xanana, but by all reports he’s that kinda guy. Directed by Grace Phan, the former CNBC Asia presenter who answered questions following the screening (which was in fact the world premiere). The aerial photography of the Timorese countryside is quite beautiful.

An Inconvenient Truth - The best motion picture adaptation of a Powerpoint presentation I have ever seen (and hopefully the only one). Al Gore’s lecture on the impact of global warming is quite powerful and very persuasive - and if you live on the coast, any coast, start worrying now. Question though: which special effects unit was responsible for making Gore appear human? I’ve seen this film debunked on the basis of Gore’s politics and the wonky environmental track record of the Clinton administration. Don’t shoot the messenger. This is one film that should be seen by everyone. (And no, he gives no opinion on the future of nuclear power.)

Cinemas, Aspirin and Vultures - It’s a road movie. Yes, I find the genre boring too, but at least this was an offbeat story in an unusual location - rural Brazil during World War II. A German flees to Brazil to escape the War and becomes a travelling salesman spruiking the new wonder drug, aspirin, and showing commercials to people who get no other movie entertainment. He befriends a bloke who apparently is based on director Marcelo Gomes’ father, and they travel around together until Brazil declares its entry to WWII. At which point all German nationals are ordered to either return home or enter an internment camp in Sao Paolo… The Brazilian swing music of the 20s and 30s makes for an interesting soundtrack, including a young pre-Hollywood Carmen Miranda.

Passion, passion and more passion. Such was the story of Good Friday. Three of the more interesting and non-standard Passion performances that I experienced over Easter:

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004), which I watched on DVD, is actually a better movie than I had feared it would be. Intense, grim, bloody, but not gratuitously so in my opinion. The actor portraying Jesus seemed remarkably uncharismatic in the flashback scenes. I’m not in a position to discuss the theological merit of the film, although the English subtitles did seem faithful to the Gospels. Next time I watch it, however, I intend to switch the subtitles off and see how well I can follow the film having no understanding of Aramaic.

La Pasión según San Marcos - St Mark’s Passion - by Osvaldo Golijov (2000) is an absolute joy to listen to. Available as a 2CD, I bought it in MP3 format from emusic (which, of course, has the downside of no liner notes or libretto). An utterly dazzling blend of musical styles, primarily, but not only, South American.

Good Friday evening saw the Manchester Passion - a re-enactment of the last hours of Christ through the streets of Manchester at dusk, told through the music of Manchester-based musicians, and televised live by the BBC. The Guardian reviewed the performance in their Saturday edition.

I listened online to BBC Radio Manchester (and recorded it - all right officer I’ll come quietly). I was surprised how well some of the songs (for example, Love Will Tear Us Apart) were placed into context. It sounded fabulous to me and I do hope it turns up on the ABC some day. Being a live broadcast on local radio, however, did mean the occasional interruption for reports on that other great religion, Manchester United, from the Old Trafford Cathedral of St Matthew the Busby. That turned out to be another sombre occasion, United drew 0-0 with Sunderland. For Man U, that meant they could no longer catch Chelsea at the top of the Premiership. For Sunderland, it meant relegation.

It begs the question: would the Crucifixion have gone ahead on Friday if Jerusalem United had a home game against Corinthian Lions in the Imperial Premier League that evening?

From today’s edition of The Guardian:

“The list of the actors who have auditioned for the role of James Bond is almost as long as the complete credits of a 007 production. Now an extra name can be set alongside the likes of David Niven, James Mason and Cary Grant - that of Carry On star Sid James.”

Read on… and then check that calendar again.

Yes it’s that time of year again, the Why-it-looks-like-my-uncle-O***r (Not TM) Awards are being handed out in Los Angeles. And, for the first time in four years, not a hobbit in sight.

Having seen barely any 2004 releases yet, here are my predictions for the major WILLMUOs:

Best Film: Million Dollar Baby
Best Actor: Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles
Best Actress: Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake)
Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby)
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, for The Aviator’s only major Willmuo
Best Director: Clint Eastwood ahead of Martin Scoresese
Best Foreign Film: The Sea Inside (Spanish)
Best Documentary: Supersize Me (and what a dork Michael Moore was for putting Fahrenheit 9/11 in the wrong category!)
Best Screenplays: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (original) and The Motorcycle Diaries (adapted). By sheer coincidence, these are the only two 2004 releases that I have seen to date…
Best musical score: Anyone But John Williams (Harry Potter 3, which has been sitting on the DVD shelf waiting to be seen since Di got the trilogy for Christmas)

Hitting the Technorati tag trail today: oscar, oscars, academy awards.

Live comms at SMH online, and The Daily Probe.

And then there is the slideshow on Yahoo news, which is up to 340 photos already.

Unlike last year, the Golden Globe Awards are not being televised live in Australia today. Channel 10 is replaying them at 8.30 tonight, while E! (on Foxtel Digital, which I do not have) is doing hours of pre-game and post-game shows. Ugh. The awards show starts at midday Sydney time on NBC in the States.

The official web site of the Globes is www.hfpa.org, as in Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Having seen very few new movies over the past year, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is the only nominated film on which I can comment, and having seen it on DVD just last night I am still making up my mind about it. It’s typically Charlie Kaufman, but even more so. (Does that make sense? It’s not supposed to.)

www.thegoldenglobes.com is an unofficial website which carries what appears to be a complete database of nominees over the years. Wikipedia has an incomplete list of winners and it will be interesting to see if they have updates during today’s awards show.

Blog coverage? Try this Technorati search during the show.

Tiny Doll is dead. The sister of Grace Doll, Daisy Doll and Harry Doll, Tiny (born Elly Ann Schneider) was a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz (1939).

Tiny was the last of the Doll brethren, and there are now only eight surviving Munchkins from Oz. I can’t be bothered doing the research, if anyone can tell me who they are I’d be most grateful.

Miss Doll died on September 6. There is an extensive obituary in today’s Daily Telegraph. Her IMDb record appears to be incomplete.

If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all - at least I laughed at “Scary Movie” a bit.

A spoof on “Scream”, “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and other teen horror flicks of the late nineties. It comes across more often like a satirical review of the hit movies of 1998-99, eg “The Sixth Sense”, “The Matrix”, Shakespeare In Love” (I did like the trailer for “Amistad II” though). What it is really derivative of is, of course, 1980’s “Airplane” (”Flying High” to us Australians) and every other film in the genre spoof line since.

There’s not much else I want to dwell on here. It’s not the sort of movie I would have ever paid money to go see, so I can’t comment on its impact inside a cinema. The fact that Dianne and I laughed quite a lot is enough to give “Scary Movie” a rating as high as I have given it.

My IMdb rating (out of 10): 6. I saw “Scary Movie” on Movie One (Optus Television) on Monday, December 23, 2002.

This is the film where Louis Armstrong sings “Jeepers Creepers” to a racehorse of the same name. Ah, great moments in movie history…

“Going Places” is a silly, lightweight, nonsensical comedy-musical from Warner Brothers. Certainly not to be seen for its profundity, or for its insights into the racing industry. Dick Powell as the salesman who poses as a jockey and finds he has to actually ride a horse in a race. Ronald Reagan has fourth billing in this film, and proves yet again that his acting improved after he was elected to the White House.

Louis Armstrong’s love song to a horse was bizarre enough (though undoubtedly classier than Michael Jackson with Ben the mouse), but the comic highlight of the film is the scene where the song “What A Horse Was Charley” comes together. It reminded me a lot of the Ritz Brothers, who were of course big at around the same time. The question: Dick Powell is Jimmy, Harry or Al? Same question for Allen Jenkins et al…

It would be remiss, however, not to mention that the prevailing racial stereotypes of the era are there. Even Louis Armstrong plays a stablehand in this film.

“Going Places” was, apparently, the fourth screen adaptation of a play by Victor Mapes and William Collier called “The Hottentot”. The fourth. Makes you wonder about the other three.

My rating on IMDb (out of 10): 6. I saw this film on “Turner Classic Movies” on December 12, 2002.

I found “Shrek” to be a quite charmless movie - in many ways the antithesis of everything a good animated fairy tale should be.

The whole film had a smugness and self-consciousness that made me feel rather uneasy. Eddie Murphy as the voice of the ass was, well, just an ass. The choices of contemporary music didn’t gel, as far as I was concerned. The animation was OK, although I am from the Old School and like seeing black borders on all my cartoon characters…

I’m not going to waste time being too nice here. At least it was short. After the movie was finished I felt like watching “The Princess Bride” as an antidote.

My IMDb rating (out of 10): 6. I saw “Shrek” on Movie One on Optus Television on November 17, 2002.