When an artist engages my interest, be it an actor, director, writer, or musician, my tendency is to watch every movie, read every book, and listen to the entire catalogue of their musical production. There was a serious Fassbinder and Alan Rudolph phase, as well as my Joan Didion, Southern writers, English women writers, Scandinavian and British crime writers phase, and my jazz and fado phase, among many others. Years ago, I was so taken with El Topo and the Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s early movies that I convinced the fellow who ran a seat-of-the-pants University District movie theater to show El Topo at his theater. After much effort and some expense, he finally obtained the movie, but it was a disaster. The first night, I brought a crowd of people with me, but the movie reel broke only a short time into the movie and couldn’t be spliced back together because the technician wasn’t there. We had to leave, to come back another time. Unfortunately, most people didn’t come back; fortunately, the movie had a very short run. I never interfered with movie theaters again, but continue on my, dare I say, obsessive quest to absorb the totality of an artist’s work.
As my movie-watching binge continues, I have watched and re-watched with varying degrees of enthusiasm some not so good, good, and spectacular movies. Even though many are imperfect, they all have moments of real interest, and they illustrate the distinct style of each director. Here are a few directors whose point of view and technique are uncompromising and succinct, although it is by no means a definitive list. For example, I wanted to include Chloe Zhao, director of Songs My Brother Taught Me and The Rider, but decided to wait until her latest, Nomadland with Frances McDormand, came out, but that will have to wait until another time.
SALLY POTTER (English b. 1949 – . Director, screenwriter, dancer, choreographer, singer and musician. Screenwriter and director for Orlando, The Man Who Cried, Rage, The Party, reviewed in the Cillian Murphy piece, and others.)
The Tango Lesson, 1997. Directed and written by Sally Potter. Cinematography by Robby Muller. (Available on Prime and on dvd at the Seattle Public Library.) This semi-autobiographical tour de force is remarkable in that Potter wrote the screenplay, directed and starred in the movie, wrote the original music with Fred Frith, and sang several of her own compositions. In this mostly black and white movie she plays a film director working on a new screenplay for her movie, Rage (which came out in 2009). She is in a white room, sitting at a round, white table, with a perfectly squared up pile of white paper in front of her. This is juxtaposed with scenes from Rage shot in luscious, bright color where models in long, elaborate ball gowns are running from a legless man on a trolley (the photographer) who is actually trying to shoot them with a gun. To get away from her apartment during a floor renovation, she goes to a performance in Paris starring the real life Argentinian tango dancer, the great Pablo Veron, and determines to learn the tango. She has one lesson with him, but knows she needs more training. (At this point, let me mention that Potter is a trained dancer and that she was 48 when this movie came out; she also actually studied with Veron.) In the movie, she goes to Argentina, studies with two different teachers, and returns to Veron as a much more accomplished dancer. She offers to put him in her movie if he gives her lessons. The rest of the movie is a series of exquisite dance performances between the two of them, and the pull and tug of a relationship which is tentative, emotional, and a power struggle. MUSIC NOTE: Potter, also formerly a singer and lyricist in several bands, sings several songs which she wrote; Yo Yo Ma accompanies her on “I Am Me, I Am You.” AWARDS NOTE: The movie was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award, and won three other awards in Best Film, choreography, and excellence in Filmmaking categories.
Ginger and Rosa, 2012. Directed and written by Sally Potter. Cinematography by Robbie Ryan. (Available on Prime.) The movie begins with the 1945 Hiroshima atomic bomb explosion, and then goes to a hospital ward where two women in adjacent beds are giving birth; then it jumps forward to 1962 to tell their daughters’ story. Elle Fanning is Ginger (Dakota’s younger sister and 13 at the time the movie was made), and Alice Englert is Rosa (Jane Campion’s daughter). They are 17 years old, serious girls but also typical teenagers — ironing their hair, shrinking their jeans in the bathtub, playing 45s, smoking cigarettes, smooching in dark alleys with stray boys, and hitchhiking with often sketchy men. Ginger is an aspiring poet and is seriously concerned about the state of the world, taking part in ban-the-bomb demonstrations; Rosa is moody, needy, and more rebellious. Christina Hendricks is Ginger’s mother, who, as a pregnant teenager, gave up her interest in painting to marry the older Alessandro Nivola (Roland), a CO during World War II, an unconventional intellectual and writer with a hint of the charlatan about him. Jodhi May is Rosa’s mother, Timothy Spall and Oliver Platt are Ginger’s gay godfathers (Mark 1 and Mark 2), and Annette Bening is their activist friend, Bella. The early ’60s Ban-the-Bomb era in Britain is perfectly described and cemented by the music — Charlie Byrd, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Django Reinhardt, Miles Davis, Sidney Bechet — the painterly photography, and literary references (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock). Roland’s bohemian lifestyle is well described, and his relationship with his wife, now so deteriorated and locked into unchangeable patterns of behavior, leads to the inevitable betrayal which shatters the girls’ relationship. Nivola’s character is not sympathetic, but his nuanced performance with his intriguingly elusive face and understated movements is realistic and believable. Fanning’s heartbreaking and spirited performance is impressive and vital. At the end, in the hospital waiting with her father, Ginger writes in her journal: “What really matters is to live, and if we do, there will be nothing to forgive. But I’ll forgive you anyway.” There is a lot to forgive in this story. AWARDS NOTE: Fanning won Best Actress and Englert won Best Supporting Actress in the British Independent Film Awards, and Fanning won Best Young Performer in the Critics’ Choice Movie Award. Ryan won Best Technical Achievement in the British Independent Film Award.
ROBERT TOWNE (American, b. 1934 – . Screenwriter, director, producer, and actor. Screenwriter for The Last Detail, Chinatown, Shampoo, and others, and director for Personal Best and Without Limits.)
Tequila Sunrise, 1988. Directed by Robert Towne. (Available on Prime.) This entertaining thriller and wry romance plays out in a tangled and shifting storyline which requires close attention. The three leads in the triangle are compelling: Mel Gibson is a retired drug dealer trying to go straight, Kurt Russell is his longtime high school friend and a cop, and Michelle Pfeiffer is the sophisticated, blue-eyed restaurant owner they both yearn for. Mel Gibson, only 32 in this movie (eight years after Mad Max), maintains his piercing blue-eyed stare throughout. Russell is tough, glib, and also blue-eyed, intent on capturing the Mexican drug lord, Escalante (Raul Julia). Julia has a wonderful role and plays it to the hilt — at one point he gets stoned and sings a rousing rendition of Santa Lucia. The snappy and clever dialogue, the solid soundtrack (hit single (“Surrender to Me”) by Ann Wilson of Heart and Robin Zander of Cheap Trick), and the complicated plot make for a memorable movie. AWARDS NOTE: Won Best Cinematography at the American Society of Cinematographers, was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards, and won other awards in music, best young actor, and cinematography.
Ask the Dust, 2006. Directed by Robert Towne. (Available on Prime.) I tried to get a copy of John Fante’s 1939 book, Ask the Dust, from the library for over a year, but was in a long line, so I watched the movie instead. Eventually, I bought the book but was unable to finish it — too much Catholic guilt and shame ladled out with hysterical prose (not that Catholics have cornered the guilt and shame market; Protestants and Jews hold their own in that category). Colin Farrell (Arturo Bandini), a struggling writer in 1920s Los Angeles, is a monster of self-absorption, a man obsessed with his virility and manhood. The movie closely follows the book as far as his character goes; he is vain, inexperienced, and ridiculously cruel to Salma Hayek (Camilla), a Mexican waitress. She retaliates and tries to inject some oomph into her role in this film noir-without-the-thriller part, but there isn’t much chemistry between the two of them. The overwrought hostility and cruelty in their relationship is too exaggerated and childish to be believable; they resemble squabbling 7th graders. The secondary characters are well played — Donald Sutherland is effective as the louche neighbor, Idina Menzel is commanding as a damaged, unbalanced woman in love with Farrell, and Eileen Atkins shines as the frosty and prejudiced owner of the apartment house. Caleb Deschanel, the cinematographer, does a fine job with atmospheric Los Angeles touches (although filmed in Capetown), and you get a real sense of the small town place it must have been in the ’20s. LITERATURE NOTE: After a little research, I learned that Charles Bukowski, the brutish, underground American writer, helped popularize Fante’s work after his death, and Robert Towne, the director, knew Fante from his time as a Hollywood screenwriter. Years ago, many of us of a certain age and inclination read everything by Charles Bukowski (also the Richard Brautigan era), so I was interested in the connection. AWARDS NOTE: The movie was nominated for Best Director at the Moscow International Film Festival.
LISA CHOLODENKO (American, b. 1964 – . Screenwriter and director. Directed High Art, The Kids Are All Right, the TV miniseries, Olive Kitteridge, and others.)
Laurel Canyon, 2003. Directed and written by Lisa Cholodenko. (Available on Prime.) I have seen this movie before, but took a great deal of pleasure in seeing Frances McDormand again as a tough, sexy, hedonistic record producer. Christian Bale, her son, a conventional, psychiatric resident, and his tense fiancé (Kate Beckinsale), a doctor studying fruit flies, come to stay in McDormand’s house on the assumption that she will be away for several weeks so they can attend a seminar and study quietly. Instead, they find her at the house with a British rock band trying to finish up an album in a ‘70s-like atmosphere of disarray. The 16 years younger lead singer, Alessandro Nivola, is McDormand’s newest lover, a charming and insinuating, slightly mysterious character. Bale is embarrassed and shocked by his mother’s behavior, although his lack of commonality and empathy are curious in a psychiatrist. His reaction is overplayed, and Beckinsale’s performance as a repressed and studious doctor is inanimate. Nivola, in a very alluring performance, suggests that Beckinsale perform a strip tease in a scene that is more hilarious than provocative, but which results in an upsetting and confounding situation. Bale, for his part, is tempted by Natascha McElhone, an attractive resident doctor in his program, who attempts to seduce him, but he manfully resists her. The best thing about the movie is McDormand’s superb performance, with Nivola a close second, both interesting psychological studies in self-indulgence, manipulation, and arrested development. AWARDS NOTE: McDormand won Best Actress at the Gijon International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Spirit Awards. Nivola was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Spirit Awards, and Cholodenko was nominated for Best Director at Cannes and Gijon; she won at the Director’s View Film Festival. https://youtu.be/sXQhxIC1sfo
TERRENCE MALICK (American, b. 1943 – . Director, screenwriter, producer. Directed Days of Heaven, reviewed in Part 1 of the Gere piece, The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life and others.)
The New World, 2005. Directed and written by Terrence Malick. Cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. (Available on Prime and on dvd at the Seattle Public Library.) This poetic and romantic version of the Pocahontas/Captain John Smith tale follows much of the myth, but has also adhered to some historical facts. The movie is about contrasts — the contrast between nature and people in the early 17th century, that of early, pre-settler Virginia and Shakespearean England. The Algonquin village, harmoniously set in the forest, contrasts sharply with the dirty, flimsy, cramped quarters of the fort built by the English. The wild land in Virginia is in sharp contrast to the manicured, symmetrical gardens in London. It is 1607, and the pristine, unspoiled land and river unspools before our eyes as three ships hove into view, the first ships to arrive in Chesapeake Bay. Colin Farrell is John Smith, Q’Orianka Kilcher is Pocahontas, Christopher Plummer is Captain Newport, and Christian Bale is John Rolfe, along with a large supporting cast. The initial overtures are friendly, but eventually Smith is captured by the Powhatans, has his life saved by Pocahantas, and spends several months in captivity. She begins to trust him, and they teach each other their respective languages. Smith is returned to the fort, and they slowly become romantically involved. Pocahontas and the tribe save the fort inhabitants from starvation by bringing food. Smith is commanded to set sail again to search for new lands, and he tells a friend to let Pocahontas know that he has died in a shipwreck. As the futile resistance of the Algonquin tribes to the English invaders becomes more desperate, Pocahontas is kidnapped and brought to live at the fort. She meets John Rolfe, is baptized as “Rebecca,” they marry and have a child. She successfully helps him with tobacco cultivation, and is rewarded by a trip to England to see the King and Queen. During her time in England, she meets John Smith again in a bittersweet rendezvous as she finally realizes that she truly loves Rolfe. On her way back to Virginia, she becomes ill and is buried at St. George’s Church at Gravesend. The myth and the actual story diverge at many points, but the movie is a beautiful re-capturing of historical personalities. Kilcher (14 at the time), is a child of nature, combining the youthful curiosity and playfulness of a young girl with the trusting, yet dignified exterior of a chief’s daughter. Farrell is striking and sensitive as the brave and daring explorer, smitten by the lovely girl who is so free and unrestrained. Bale is effective as the kind man who gains her trust and eventually her love. HISTORICAL NOTE: Pocahontas was not her real name, only her nickname. Her real name was Amonute and Mataoka. She was actually between ten to 12 when she met Smith (he was about 27). She did not save him and they were not romantically involved. There is some mention of her marriage to a tribal member. She was kidnapped by the English to live in the fort, but mentions of her rape and pregnancy are dubious. She did marry the planter John Rolfe, have a son, and go to England where she was feted by the people and the court. It was rumored that she was poisoned, but that is also a dubious supposition. AWARDS NOTE: Kilcher won Outstanding Actress in the ALMA Awards, and was nominated and won several other awards. Lubezki was nominated for an Oscar for cinematography, and and was nominated for several other awards. Malick and the movie received 34 nominations and won in six categories.
Knight of Cups, 2016. Written and directed by Terrence Malick. Cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. (Available on Prime.) I did not understand half of this movie, and still can’t decide if it is a cri de coeur on the part of the director or just too much navel gazing. It certainly is arty, and reminds me of a postcard I bought many years ago called “The Tropic of Torpor,” with three people in a room with one palm tree, reclining in chairs and on the floor in a stupefied trance. I also know nothing about Tarot cards, but the movie follows some sort of path provided by the cards (The Moon, The Hanged Man, Judgment). That said, let me endeavor to explain my impressions. Christian Bale is a screenwriter entwined with multiple women — girlfriends, a wife, a stripper, and casual acquaintances — but is so inert and without energy it is hard to imagine him as a Lothario. Where did he get the strength to engage in all those relationships? He is the living incarnation of “torpor” as he moves around LA, Venice Beach, Death Valley, and Las Vegas. There are constantly shifting scenes of interiors, parties, swimming pools, beach, ocean, aquarium, sculptural staircases, and escalators as the photography evokes a gorgeous stream of consciousness kaleidoscope. Bale is always wandering in and out of camera range as he looks for “mercy, love, joy.” His accomplices — Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Freida Pinto, Teresa Palmer, and Imogen Poot — are also searching. “We’re not leading the lives we were meant for,” Poot says, an understatement many in this world can attest to. The large cast includes Brian Dennehy as Bale’s father, Antonio Banderas, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Ben Kingsley narrating The Hymn of the Pearl, and many others. Throw in a reading of Paul Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress at the beginning and end of the movie, an eclectic soundtrack, and pronouncements like “I couldn’t remember the man I wanted to be” and “there’s so much love inside us that never gets out,” and I was reluctantly hooked. It is quite a mournful contemplation of life’s regrets. LANGUAGE NOTE: I was curious about the origin of the word “Lothario” — it comes from a story in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. AWARDS NOTE: The movie was nominated in 9 categories, and won in 3.
Song to Song, 2017. Directed by Terrence Malick. (Available on Prime.) This movie, similar in style to Knight of Cups, but more fragmented episodically and impressionistic, is irritatingly vague and lethargic. Set in Austin, Texas, Ryan Gosling is a musician on the edge of fame. Rooney Mara is his lover and also a musician playing in a band headed up by Patti Smith who plays herself very well. Michael Fassbinder is a frenetic, high-flying promoter who was Rooney’s lover but then marries Natalie Portman. At some point Gosling becomes Portman’s lover, and Rooney goes back briefly to Fassbinder. These charmless characters are uninteresting, ill defined, and elusive, with little dialogue and short, blurry, and jerky scenes, shot against a lot of background water. Imagine watching mimes perform for hours, or being stuck in an airless elevator on the 50th floor, and you will get a sense of my panicked reaction. Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Val Kilmer, and others round out the ensemble, but it is hard to get a handle on the acting since there is no real story and no emotion exhibited. On the other hand, the soundtrack is eclectic and long with 86 songs, and well worth listening to. AWARDS NOTE: It was nominated in eight categories.
ROBERT ALTMAN (American, b.1925 – 2006. Director, screenwriter, producer. Directed McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Player, and others.)
The Long Goodbye, 1973. Directed by Robert Altman. Cinematography by Vilmos Zigismond. (Available on Prime and on dvd at the Seattle Public Library.) Taken from the Raymond Chandler novel, Philip Marlowe is played by Elliott Gould, never my favorite actor, as a relic from the ’50s who has stumbled upon a much more enlivened ‘70s era story. Marlowe is an anomaly, a sad sack private eye with principles. He smokes constantly, and always wears a dreary black suit, white shirt, and skinny black tie, even at the beach. In fact, Gould is a refreshing and surprising anthesis to all other Marlowe cinematic versions. He is unsophisticated, honest, sartorially challenged, and has a cat. The other characters are like vivid butterflies operating in a hazy, enhanced reality. Nina Van Pallandt is Eileen, a beach temptress married to the alcoholic writer, Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden); Jim Bouton is Terry Lennox, the wealthy playboy who has just supposedly killed his wife; Mark Rydell is the vicious, loan shark gangster who is involved with all of them; and Jim Bouton is a phony doctor operating an institution for alcoholics. The characters are all zany enough to keep you interested. AWARDS NOTE: The movie won Best Cinematography at the National Society of Film Critics Awards, and was nominated for Best Film at the San Sebastian International Film Festival.
3 Women, 1977. Directed by Robert Altman. (Available on Prime or on dvd at the Seattle Public Library.) This confounding, allegorical, dream-like movie probably needs to be seen a few times to catch all of the details. The opening scene in a swimming pool with scores of young women in gray bathing suits gliding back and forth with geriatric patients is a sight to behold. Shelley Duvall is superb in her portrayal as a needy, oblivious, alienating, self-delusional young woman, and Sissy Spacek as a mysterious, unsophisticated tomboy is equally fascinating. Janice Rule is a silent, pregnant, and angry painter, saddled with a strange and violent husband (Robert Fortier). The women shift roles and personalities after Spacek’s suicide attempt and ultimately collaborate to become part of a role-reversed family. This interesting psychological treatment of seemingly ordinary but disturbed women is thought provoking and unsettling. AWARDS NOTE: The movie won the 1977 Cannes Palme d’Or and Duvall won Best Actress at the Academy Awards.
Short Cuts, 1993. Directed by Robert Altman. Based on short stories by Raymond Carver. (Available on Prime.) The movie opens ominously with a squad of helicopters flying over LA as they spray for medflies. Ten minutes into the movie, and I needed a flow chart. Inspired by characters in Raymond Carver’s short stories, the 22 actors in this amazing and complex panorama are really astonishing. Tim Robbins and Madeleine Stowe are a married couple — he is a strutting, unfaithful, faintly sinister cop, and she finds him frequently ridiculous and unbelievable, but enjoys sex with him when she has time away from the kids. Lily Tomlin is a tired, lonely waitress at a diner, and Tom Waits, her drunken, wheedling husband, are a mutually dependent couple. Bruce Davison and Andie McDowell are another mismatched pair — he is a shallow, successful newscaster, and she is a sweet, well intentioned but naive mother. Matthew Modine, a doctor, and Julianne Moore, painter of nude-women-on-large-canvasses, are in a pull-and-tug war of infidelity and suspicion. Lyle Lovett is a mad (as in crazy) baker. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Chris Penn have a deeply unhappy relationship: she is a phone-sex worker who performs her duties as she takes care of the kids, and he is a jealous pool cleaner with a temper. Fred Ward, Buck Henry, and Huey Lewis (of The News) are pals who discover a dead, nude female corpse floating in the water where they have gone fishing, and face a dilemma about what to do with her. Anne Archer, a clown with a conscience who performs at children’s birthday events, is Fred Ward’s wife. Peter Gallagher is a helicopter pilot whose ex-wife, Frances McDormand, is having an affair with the aforementioned Tim Robbins (who keeps a toothpick in his mouth when he kisses her). Jack Lemmon has a poignant role as the long-absent father of Bruce Davison who shows up unexpectedly at the hospital where Davidson’s son is in a coma, and recounts a long, self absorbed story about why he and his wife divorced. Annie Ross (of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, and who just died in July 2020) is a disillusioned, uncaring jazz singer with a deeply disturbed, cello playing daughter, Lori Singer. The last couple are Robert Downey Jr. as a sleazy, makeup artist and pal of Chris Penn, and Lili Taylor. Whew! The multiple storylines are challenging, but this articulate movie weaves the various stories together and captures the quintessential elements of a drab and gritty Los Angeles at the same time. There is a waiting-for-the-apocalypse feel to it with an earthquake, hot tubs, death, drunkenness, and despair, but the ordinary, mostly working class characters struggle to survive in their own unique way, by simply forging ahead. AWARDS NOTE: The movie had 19 nominations and 17 wins with several Best Director and Best Screenplay awards, including the Academy Award for Best Directing, Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, Independent Award for Best Supporting Actress (Julianne Moore), and many others.
MARSHALL HERSKOVITZ (American b. 1952 – . Director, writer, producer. Directed Jack the Bear and produced Traffic, Blood Diamond, and others.)
Dangerous Beauty, 1998. Directed by Marshall Herskovitz. (Available on Prime.) Loosely based on Loretta Chase’s novel, Catherine McCormack plays the 16th century Venetian poet and courtesan, Veronica Franco, in this sumptuous, light-infused recreation of a decadent but beautiful Renaissance age. Franco was a witty, educated, beautiful woman who seduced any man she wanted, including Henry III of France, and handsome, virile Marco Venier, played with devastating charm by Rufus Sewell. Jacqueline Bisset, her mother and a former courtesan, teaches her the skills necessary to enchant and attract the wealthy men she must hold in thrall in order to support the family. McCormack is lovely and convincing, and Sewell shows his intelligent, sensitive side as well as a dashing exterior. Oliver Platt, Naomi Watts, Jeroen Krabbe, and Fred Ward are excellent in supporting roles. The pageantry of Venice is brought to life with the costumes, pace and wit of the story, and the painterly scenes. War ensues, followed by the plague and the Inquisition, where Franco is accused of witchcraft. Although I am sure the ending is contrived and historically incorrect, it is satisfying, and the screenwriter brings a feminist touch to the movie. If you like historical fiction, you will find this a feast for the eyes. PLAGUE NOTE: From 1576 to 1577 a third of Venice’s population, 50,000 people, were killed. AWARDS NOTE: The movie received two nominations.
ALEJANDRO GONZÁLES IÑÁRRITU (Mexican, b. 1963 – . Director, screenwriter, producer. Directed Amores Perros, Babel, Biutiful, Birdman, and others.)
21 Grams, 2003. Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. Co-written by González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga. (Available on Prime.) Some movies you have to see two or three times to fully appreciate them. This is one of those movies — the second movie in the Trilogy of Death — where the three storylines are told with constant flashbacks and juxtapositions. You can decide for yourself if you think the non-linear approach is effective or just confusing, but I think it is a brilliant effort. Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Naomi Watts are connected to each other through a horrific accident, as each struggle with their failures and addictions. Penn is on the verge of dying and waiting for a heart donor; he receives a heart and is seemingly recovered, but is determined to find the donor so that he can thank the family. His recently reconciled wife, Charlotte Gainsbourg, desperately wants a child and is hounding him to use artificial insemination. Del Toro is a born-again, former alcoholic ex-con who is trying to forge a new life with his wife, Melissa Leo, and two children, although events constantly conspire against him. Watts is a coke and pill-addicted wife with children who is being pursued by Penn since she is connected to the heart donor. Penn, with his feral and pugnacious face and his compact body, is a suitable conduit for the aggressive channeling of his character, but it is Del Toro as the doomed ex-con and Watts as a woman unable to deal with the tragedy in her life who really shine. The explosive scenes are shot from different perspectives with a staccato-like persistence; the acting is heartbreaking and raw. You could say the movie is about the high cost of living well despite one’s failures, or you could say, like Thoreau, it is about people living lives of quiet desperation. Or you could say that it is about life moving on in an inexorable, interconnected fashion, and you could wonder what is lost and what is gained at the moment of death? MOVIE NOTE: Amores Perros is the first movie in the trilogy, and Babel is the third. TITLE NOTE: According to Wikipedia: “The title refers to an experiment in 1907 which attempted to show scientific proof of the existence of the soul by recording a loss of body weight (said to represent the departure of the soul) immediately following death. Referred to as the 21 grams experiment as one subject lost ‘three-fourths of an ounce’ (21.3 grams), the experiment is regarded by the scientific community as flawed and unreliable, though it has been credited with popularizing the concept that the soul weighs 21 grams.” MUSIC NOTE: The soundtrack is excellent with a couple of songs by the great LA band, Ozomatli, and Dave Matthews’ wonderfully mournful and reflective “Some Devil.” AWARDS NOTE: The movie had 79 nominations and 30 wins, among them Best Actress (Naomi Watts) and Best Supporting Actor (Benicio del Toro) at the Academy Awards.
ATOM EGOYAN (Armenian-Canadian b. 1960 – . Director, screenwriter, producer. Directed The Sweet Hereafter, Chloe, and others.)
Exotica, 1995. Written and directed by Atom Egoyan. (Available on Prime.) This movie uses a similar technique as the previous movie with the story moving back and forth from past to present. The story is melancholy with a muted and sinister feel to it. The Rousseau-like jungle setting in a refined Toronto strip club is the striking background for the opening credits and sets the stage. Arsinee Kharjian (Egoyan’s wife) is the Exotica club owner; Elias Koteas is the club DJ; Bruce Greenwood is a tax inspector; Don McKellar is a pet store owner, egg smuggler, and devotee of ballet and concert attendance as a formula for picking up men; Mia Kirshner is a club dancer; Victor Garber is Greenwood’s brother; and Sarah Polley is Greenwood’s babysitter and Garber’s daughter. They are a formidably exotic collection of characters, and the acting is superb. You must pay close attention to the switchbacks and step-by-step unraveling of this story about love, loss, relationships, and guilt. The movie is not exploitative in the usual sense, but the components are there. When everything is revealed at the end, you are left to piece together the unsettling implications. The music is eclectic, the photography is impressive, and nothing is as it seems. AWARDS NOTE: The movie was nominated for the Palme d’Or and won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, won Best Canadian Film at Cinefest Sudbury and the Toronto Film Festival, won Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography and more at the Genie Awards, and was nominated and won many other awards in other categories.
Where the Truth Lies, 2005. Directed and co-written by Atom Egoyan. (Available on Prime.) Based on Rupert Holmes’s novel which was modeled after the comedy duo, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Kevin Bacon, plays Lanny Morris, and Colin Firth plays Vince Collins, two famous ’50s comedians. Their lives alternate between debauched scenarios where they seduce women and pop pills to stay awake and then to sleep, and benefit shows where they perform for charitable causes — two thoroughly awful men. Part of Egoyan’s appeal is that he chooses unorthodox, out-of-the-mainstream, unsympathetic characters in order to reveal their motivation and explore their behavior. The movie fast forwards 15 years to Alison Lohman (Karen O’Connor), a journalist who is interviewing Vince Collins for a news article. He will be paid a million dollars for this article, money he needs. She is trying to get information on a young woman’s murder, Rachel Blanchard as Maureen O’Flaherty, who was found dead in a bathtub in the comedians’ suite. Although the two men were involved in a seemingly accidental way, it caused a split between the two, and they stopped performing together. The ferreting out of the information with flashbacks to 1957 and then back to 1972 keeps this film noir, filled with dread and anticipation, moving along on track. It is an effective commentary on men’s power in show business specifically, and the need, naivete, and greed that prompts some women to participate or be coerced. MUSIC NOTE: There is a chilling scene where a young woman in an Alice in Wonderland costume sings Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit” in a performance for young children. AWARDS NOTE: The movie won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Genie Awards, Outstanding Production Design at the Directors Guild of Canada, was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and in eight other categories.
STEVE MCQUEEN (English, b. 1969 – . Director and video artist. Directed 12 Years A Slave, Hunger, Shame, and others.)
Widows, 2018. Directed by Steve McQueen. Script co-written by Gillian Flynn and McQueen. (Available on Prime.) The movie is a somber heist thriller with many startling twists and turns, and the cast is remarkable: Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Jacki Weaver, Robert Duvall, and Liam Neeson. Davis works for the Chicago Teachers Union, and her husband, Liam Neeson, is a crook who was recently killed in a robbery. She is saddled with his debt, the theft of a large sum of money from his last job, and must repay the gangster. She enlists the help of several other widows of men also killed in the robbery to pull off a heist to repay the debt and leave them with an incentivizing bonus. Davis is an elegant actor, and dominates the screen as the sorrowful but powerful head of this group. The movie progresses to the shocking end at a measured pace, not at all like the usual, fast moving heist movies. AWARDS NOTE: Although the movie had 95 nominations and 19 wins in many different categories, it escaped notice at the Academy Awards. Davis was nominated for Best Actress in the BAFTA Awards. (It won Best Ensemble Cast at the Seattle Film Critics Award.)
SCOTT MCGEHEE AND DAVID SIEGEL (Americans, b. 1962 – and b. ?, Directors, screenwriters, producers. Directed Suture, Bee Season, reviewed in Part 2 of the Richard Gere piece, What Maisie Knew, and others.)
The Deep End, 2001. Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel; also co-screenwriters. (Available on Prime.) Adapted from the 1947 novel, The Blank Wall, by Elizabeth Sanxay and the 1949 movie adaptation by Max Ophul’s The Reckless Moment, Tilda Swinton, in another memorable movie role as a lonely, extremely over-scheduled but caring mother, tries to protect her child from murder, blackmail, and a sexual predator. Her husband is in the Navy and away at sea, and she must also care for her ill father-in-law as well. Jonathan Tucker is her 15 year old son who is involved with the menacing Josh Lucas, and Goran Visnjic (Croatian and dishy) is the blackmailer demanding an enormous sum of money to prevent the revelation of a secret. This dark, intelligent, and complicated thriller is based on false assumptions, and revolves around Swinton’s character as she juggles her role as a mother under the threat of murder and blackmail. AWARDS NOTE: Swinton won Best Actress at the Boston Society of Film Critics Award and the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards, and was nominated at the Golden Globes, in addition to other nominations. It won Best Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, and had other nominations in different categories.
LASSE HALLSTROM (Swedish, b. 1946 – . Director. Directed My Life As A Dog, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and others.)
Casanova, 2005. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom. (Available on Prime.) A thoroughly entertaining farce, fast moving and comedic, Heath Ledger is a bewigged Casanova who falls in love with Sienna Miller (Francesca Bruni, a feminist writer and skilled duelist). Jeremy Irons is an Inquisition villain determined to convict Casanova for his numerous misdeeds, and Helen McCrory, Oliver Platt, and Lena Olin are sterling members of this perfumed ensemble. Another smart costume drama for the aficionado! MOVIE NOTE: Hallstrom first became known as the director for ABBA’s music videos. He also directed The Hoax and Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, both reviewed in the Richard Gere piece. AWARDS NOTE: Ledger won Best Actor at the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, and Platt won Best Supporting Actor at the New York Film Critics, Online, as well as other nominations.
TODD HANES (American, b. 1961 – . Director and screenwriter. Directed Poison, Safe, I’m Not There, reviewed in Part 3 of the Richard Gere piece, Carol, Mildred Pierce, the HBO tv series, and others.)
Far From Heaven, 2002. Written and directed by Todd Haynes. This is a startling recreation of a Hartford, Ct., white, upper middle class family in 1957 with no embellishing or diverting contemporary social references. Julianne Moore is a kind, painfully perfect housewife with a husband, children, and social responsibilities. Dennis Quaid is her desperate husband — a closet homosexual, drinker, and successful businessman. Dennis Haysbert is the black, educated, and perceptive gardener who becomes her friend, and they develop a platonic, wishful relationship. The narrow minded and cruel friends and townspeople who torment Moore and Haysbert for their friendship are well represented, and Quaid’s insensitive treatment of Moore cuts to the core. Intense, saturated colors dominate the screen with Moore’s extravagant, color coordinated outfits: blue gloves, blue purse, blue shoes, blue hat — and the fall landscape is a riot of red, orange and green. The straightforward presentation of the difficulty of mixed-race and homosexual relationships in the ’50’s is matter-of-fact and poignant. AWARDS NOTE: Moore won Best Actress at the Awards Circuit Community Awards, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globes Award, among others. The movie won awards and nominations for Haysbert, screenplay, Quaid, cinematography, original score, and Haynes.
MARTIN MCDONAGH (Irish-British, b. 1970. Playwright, screenwriter, producer, director. Directed Six Shooter, Seven Psychopaths, 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.)
In Bruges, 2008. Written and directed by Martin McDonagh. (Available on Prime.) In addition to being a very dark comedy, the movie is also a beautiful depiction of Bruges, an old medieval city in Belgium. Colin Farrell, in an unusually subtle role, and Brendan Gleeson, ever sensitive and tender, are two Dublin hit men ordered by their boss, Ralph Fiennes, to shelter in Bruges after a London murder goes awry. Ray (Farrell) has inadvertently murdered a small child in addition to the target, a priest in a confessional. He is sulky and childish at having to be in Bruges, apparently too provincial compared to Dublin, but begins to have pangs of conscience about the child’s death. Ken (Gleeson), his older partner, loves Bruges and becomes the ultimate tourist, going on canal rides, and visiting churches and art museums. The plot is ingenious, and the snaking storyline includes a movie set with an American dwarf (Jordan Prentice), a lovely drug dealer (Clemence Poesy), and miscellaneous prostitutes. The movie straddles a delicate balance between tragedy and comedy, anguish and farce, guilt and drama. Gleeson’s performance is superb — a murderer with a soft spot; Farrell’s extravagant eyebrows compete with his tormented soul; Fiennes as a psychopath with standards is darkly humorous. THEATER NOTE: McDonagh is one of the most praised living Irish playwrights. AWARDS NOTE: The movie was nominated for 55 awards and won 24: nominations for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards, winner for Best Actor in a Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical for Farrell at the Golden Globes, the same nomination for Gleeson at the Golden Globes, winner for Best Screenplay at the BAFTA Awards, and others.
EDWARD DMYTRYK (Canadian-American, 1908-1999). Director. Directed The Caine Mutiny, Raintree County, The Young Lions, and others.)
Walk on the Wild Side, 1962. Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Screenplay by John Fante (see movie review above, Ask the Dust.) (Available on dvd at the Seattle Public Library.) Based on a Nelson Algren book, this black and white movie feels dated, although the opening and closing credits which play behind a stalking black cat with shining eyes, ending in a cat fight with a white cat, are memorable. The cast brings back some old memories: Laurence Harvey, Capucine, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter, and Barbara Stanwyck. Harvey is searching for his lost love, Capucine, and meets up with sexpot Fonda (they used to call them “hellions” in them thar days) while riding the rails in Texas in the early ’30s. He refuses her advances, but they nonetheless continue on their way to New Orleans together. They are fed and housed by the saintly Anne Baxter who has a Mexican cafe. Capucine is working at a brothel where she is in a carefully hinted at homosexual relationship with the madam, Stanwyck. Things happen, someone dies, and the bad guys lose. AWARDS NOTE: The song, “Walk on the Wild Side” by Mack David and Elmer Bernstein and sung by Brook Benton was nominated for an Academy Award, and is not to be confused with Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.”
DANNY BOYLE (English, b. 1956 – . Film, television, and theater director and producer. Directed Trainspotting, Sunshine, 28 Days Later, both reviewed in the Cillian Murphy piece, Slumdog Millionaire, and others.)
Trainspotting, 1996. Directed by Danny Boyle. Screenplay by John Hodge. (Available on Prime.) This is one of those comedies set against a harrowing background (similar to The Hunting Party reviewed in Part 2 of the Gere piece), in this case heroin addiction. A viewing of this movie requires a particular sense of humor, one I apparently don’t have, but it had its moments. Ewan McGregor and a group of bizarre laddies, all addicts except for one psychopath, bumble through their addled lives in a relentless and squalid depiction of heroin abuse. The gross-out factor is pretty high, especially in the toilet dream scene. Taking place in what is billed as the worst toilet in Edinburgh, it is disgusting, shocking, enveloping, and disturbingly entertaining. DIRECTOR’S QUOTE: “Whether he was saving me from the priesthood or the priesthood from me, I don’t know. But quite soon after, I started doing drama. And there’s a real connection, I think. All these directors — Martin Scorsese, John Woo, M. Night Shyamalan — they were all meant to be priests. There’s something very theatrical about it. It’s basically the same job — poncing around, telling people what to think.” AWARDS NOTE: The movie was nominated for 35 awards and won 23. It was nominated for Best Screenplay Based on Previously Produced or Published Material at the Academy Awards, won Best Screenplay at the BAFTA Awards, nominated for Best British Film, and others.
DARREN ARONOFSKY (American, b. 1969 – . Director, screenwriter, producer. Directed The Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah, and others.)
Requiem for a Dream, 2000. Directed by Darren Aronofsky who co-adapted the script with Hubert Selby from Selby’s book of the same title. (Available on Netflix.) Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans are all addicted to either heroin or speed. To emphasize their mood when they are on drugs, split screen and speeded up camera techniques are used. Connelly, in a commanding role, goes to a creepy therapist (who eats like a piggish hamster) and has sex with him for money so she can buy drugs. Burstyn’s performance is unforgettable and poignant as she swerves into madness. Excruiating electroshock therapy sessions, prison sadists, a festering, amputated arm, and a sex party are all a part of this interesting but depressing movie. If you feel like you need to get a handle on drug addiction, this is something you should see. MUSIC NOTE: Clint Mansell wrote the music score which is performed by the Kronos Quartet. AUTHOR NOTE: Hubert Selby also wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn, which many of us read at some point in the ’60s. A famous Seattle coffeehouse in the University District was named Last Exit on Brooklyn as it actually was the last exit on that street, Brooklyn Ave NE. Unfortunately, it has gone the way of all interesting and character-filled institutions in Seattle, and is no more. AWARDS NOTE: The movie had 70 nominations and 35 wins; Burstyn was nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, and there were many other nominations and wins in other categories.
derivative work: César, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
ALFONSO CUARÓN (Mexican, b. 1961 – . Director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, and editor. Directed Children of Men, Gravity, Roma, and others.)
Y Tu Mamá También, (And Your Mother Too), 2001. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Screenplay co-written by Cuarón and his brother, Carlos Cuarón. (Available on Prime.) This “coming of age, road trip” movie accurately describes both categories. Two well-off and horny teenage boys, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, whose girlfriends have taken off on a trip to Italy without them, team up with Maribel Verdú, a young woman separated from her husband, in search of a fabled beach. Their trip takes them through a country riven by corruption and poverty, contrasting with their affluent lives and juvenile assumptions. Verdu has the task of becoming their instructor as well as standing in for the good-looking “older woman.” Their conversations are full of sexual innuendo, and the drunken dinners and immature discussion are a prelude to the inevitable act which dissolves their friendship. MUSIC NOTE: There is a very good soundtrack, capped off by Frank Zappa’s “Watermelon in Easter Hay,” one of the more fabulous guitar solos. AWARDS NOTE: The movie had 48 nominations and 39 wins, and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards and the BAFTA Awards, Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, and other nominations in different categories.
LUCHINO VISCONTI (Italian, b. 1906 – 1976. Theater, opera, and film director, and screenwriter. Directed Rocco and His Brothers, The Damned, Death in Venice, and others.)
The Leopard, 1963. Directed by Luchino Visconti. (Available on Prime and on dvd at the Seattle Public Library.) Once you get over the shock of seeing Burt Lancaster play an Italian prince in 1860 Sicily, everything else falls into place. This time I watched the English language version with Lancaster speaking his own lines; it’s a tradeoff because you then have to listen to an English speaking actor deliver Alain Delon’s lines. If you decide to watch the movie, go for the Italian (with subtitles), 185 minute version. Adapted from the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the movie describes the time when Garibaldi shook up the government leading to the eventual unification of Italy. Lancaster, the Prince of Salina, is an intelligent man, torn between the status quo and his recognition that times are changing. His large family and retinue still live the indolent and privileged lives of the nobility, unaware of the fragility of their status. Delon is Tancredi, the Prince’s ambitious nephew who falls in love with the luscious Angelica (Claudia Cardinale), daughter of the venal and wealthy mayor of Donnafugata. The 45 minute long ball scene at the end is remarkable as aristocrats weave in and out between dancing, eating, flirting, and, in the Prince’s case, coming to terms with his limitations and mortality. AWARDS NOTE: The movie won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, was nominated for Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards, and won seven other awards in different categories; Delon was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the Golden Globes.
BRIAN DE PALMA (American, b. 1940 – . Director and screenwriter. Directed Carrie, Scarface, Body Double, and others.)
The Black Dahlia, 2006. Directed by Brian de Palma. (Available on Prime.) This gothic noir thriller is set in late 1940s Los Angeles, and is adapted from James Ellroy’s book which is itself based on the true murder of Elizabeth Short. Josh Hartnett is a beautiful former boxer turned policeman, and Aaron Eckhart, also a former boxer, is now a politically inclined cop as well. Scarlett Johannsen is Eckhart’s voluptuous, fuzzy-sweater-wearing girlfriend, and the three become a friendly trio, although Hartnett secretly and chastely lusts after her. Enter Hilary Swank, the angular but exotic, wayward daughter of a real estate tycoon who goes after Hartnett as the plot starts to unravel. The discovery of a woman’s dismembered body, and her path to this end form the basis for the rest of the story. Swank’s Borgia-like family, one of the worst in recent film memory, provide several high camp, over-the-top moments, particularly Fiona Shaw’s depiction as the drunken mother. You can only sit there with your mouth open as she emotes. Vilmos Sigismund, the cinematographer, captures the sleazy but photogenic aspects of Los Angeles with appropriately atmospheric shots. AWARDS NOTE: The movie was nominated for Best Achievement in Cinematography at the Academy Awards and Hollywood Film Awards, and won and was nominated in other categories. It also has the dubious distinction of being nominated in four different categories in The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, and winner of the Hall of Shame for the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.
PHIL MORRISON (American, b. 1968 – . Director and producer. Directed All is Bright.)
Junebug, 2005. Directed by Phil Morrison. Screenplay by Angus MacLachlan. (Available on Prime.) This well crafted and authentic movie illustrates the cultural and social distinctions between big city, sophisticated folks and southern, religious, small town families in a careful, detailed, and respectful manner. Both sides are presented with care, and the tone of the dialogue is perfect. Amy Adams, an endlessly cheerful, pregnant, and sweet daughter-in-law lives with her husband, the angry, resentful Ben McKenzie, and her in-laws, the harsh, critical Celia Weston and her quiet, insightful husband, Scott Wilson in a small town in North Carolina. Embeth Davidtz, the owner of an outsider art gallery in Chicago meets the attractive, self-assured Alessandro Nivola, a southerner from North Carolina, and they marry after a week’s acquaintance. Davidtz is in pursuit of an autistic artist for her gallery, Frank Hoyt Taylor, near Nivola’s hometown, and they decide to visit his family and the artist at the same time. The normal clashes and confrontation are handled with subtlety and insight, the script is perceptive and to the point, and the acting is excellent. Adams’s indelible, remarkable performance is an acting landmark. AWARDS NOTE: The movie had 28 nominations and 21 wins. Adams was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for the Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Austin Film Critics Association, and won in the Awards Circuit Community Awards and Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, Sundance, and many others. The movie was nominated and won in other categories including Best Screenplay and Best Film.
DAVID O. RUSSELL (American, b. 1958 – . Director, screenwriter, producer. Directed Three Kings, The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and others.)
American Hustle, 2013. Directed by David O. Russell. (Available on Prime.) This stylish and uniquely American comedy is based on the actual FBI Abscam sting operation of the late ’70s and early ’80s which netted one Senator and six Congressmen in its web. On the most superficial level, this is a movie about gravity-defying hair — from Christian Bale’s elaborate and complicated coiffure where he glues false hair into place and wraps long strands around bald spots, then sprays into a formidable helmet à la Trump, to Bradley Cooper’s permed ringlets which he sets with curlers, to Amy Adams’s and Jennifer Lawrence’s teased big hair — but it is also a clever, fast moving, sting operation where the cons are conning the people they’re supposed to be cooperating with. (Bale gained 40 pounds for this role, and the opening scene where he arranges his hair, exposing his undulating chest, chest hair, and belly in the process, is a sight to behold.) Christian Bale is Irv Rosenfeld, a master grifter who meets Amy Adams (Sydney Prosser and then Lady Edith); they fall in love, and commence their business and personal relationship. Bale unbends in this role, and captures the essential charisma of his grifter character. Adams is excellent as the inventive, intelligent partner to their various conspiracies. Jennifer Lawrence is Bale’s wife (Rosalyn), a bored and manipulative woman determined to have her way. Bradley Cooper (Richie DiMaso) is a manic, ambitious FBI agent determined to catch Bale. Louis CK, Jeremy Renner, and Alessandro Nivola are secondary characters with Robert DeNiro in a neat little cameo as a crime boss. I don’t remember businesswomen wearing such breast-exposing necklines to business meetings in that era, but it’s a minor quibble. AWARDS NOTE: The movie had 226 nominations and 70 wins. Adams, Cooper, Lawrence, Russell and others were nominated in their categories at the Academy Awards. Adams and Lawrence won for Best Performance by an Actress and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role at the Golden Globes; Bale, Cooper, Russell, and others were nominated at the Golden Globes; Lawrence and Russell won the BAFTA Awards, and the list goes on.
JOANNA HOGG, (English, b. 1960 – . Director and screenwriter. Directed Unrelated, Archipelago, and Exhibition, among others.)
The Souvenir, 2019. Directed by Joanna Hogg. (Available on Prime and on dvd at the Seattle Public Library.) This is a clear eyed look back at a specific time in the life of a young woman, portrayed by Honor Swinton Byrne, and her affair with an older man, Tom Burke. It is a detailed remembrance of a passionate but unhealthy relationship that changes the woman forever. She is a film student in early ’80s London, naive and generous, from a wealthy family; he is a secretive, manipulative, and seductive employee of the British Government. The photography enlivens and enhances the characters — the scene in a fancy tea room where they have their first date, the small museum which houses The Wallace Collection, Burke in his floor length military coat, his slippers and pin striped suits, she in her conventional and unadorned clothes. Tilda Swinton is her mother — a woman unable to help her daughter yet able to offer sympathy and understanding. You learn about Byrne and Burke through their conversations with each other, their friends, and their parents. As the relationship deteriorates, Byrne finally realizes she must end it, but her dilemma is unexpectedly resolved at the end. TITLE NOTE: The name of the movie comes from the Fragonard painting of a young woman, The Souvenir, hanging in The Wallace Collection. AWARDS NOTE: The movie had 30 nominations, and five wins. It won Best British/Irish Film of the Year and Young British/Irish Performer of the Year at the London Critics Circle Film Awards for Byrne, as well as nominations for Burke and Swinton. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for Hogg, as well as other wins and nominations.
My reliance on Wikipedia and IMDB for awards and other statistical information was significant. Thank you, Google.