Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Somewhere (2010) - S. Coppola's phenomenal existential character study

9/13/2016

Somewhere (2010) - S. Coppola's phenomenal existential character study

♥♥♥♥♥♥

3 Film Excess wins:

Best Actor: Stephen Dorff
Best Director: Sofia Coppola
Best Editing

7 Film Excess nominations:

Best Film (lost to The King's Speech)
Best Actor: Stephen Dorff (won)
Best Supporting Actress: Elle Fanning (lost to Dianne Wiest for Rabbit Hole)
Best Director: Sofia Coppola (won)
Best Cinematography: Harris Savides (lost to Wally Phister for Inception)
Best Editing (won)
Best Music: Phoenix (lost to Treme S1)

+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year

+ Best American Movie of the Year

+ Best Character Study of the Year

With Hollywood's Chateau Marmont hotel looming in the back, the poster for Sofia Coppola's Somewhere

We follow action star Johnny Marco, who lives a distanced, floating life in a fancy Los Angeles hotel. For a while he lives with his teenage daughter Cleo.

Stephen Dorff (The Iceman (2012)) and Elle Fanning (The Neon Demon (2016)) are indescribably good in New Yorker master writer-director Sofia Coppola's (The Virgin Suicides (1999)) masterpiece of realizing you have gotten stuck in life and setting a new course. Dorff inhabits his character physically as well as psychologically. Somewhere also has a beautiful score by French indie-pop band Phoenix, (whose front singer Thomas Mars is Coppola's husband), and bold, simple and very elegant photography by the great Harris Savides (Milk (2008)).

This is an awesomely fine film, in which the lack of formal events and action lead our focus to its existential core meditations: Can one change? And, even more to the point; can one really act in one's own life? SPOILER The sophisticated ending seems to respond a tentative yes. (And if you don't get it, watch the film again, understand its journey and look at its title.) Somewhere is beautiful.

Sofia Coppola: 2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The Bling Ring (2013) - Coppola misfire, boooooooring

Coppola is interviewed about the film here

Cost: 7 mil. $

Box office: 13.9 mil. $

= Flop

[Somewhere premiered September 11 (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 98 minutes. Coppola drew inspiration from countless movies, acquaintances and her own upbringing as cinema royalty (as the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola.) Filming took place in Italy and LA, including the real Chateau Marmont, and Las Vegas from June - July 2009. The film opened #26 with a 119k $ first weekend in 7 theaters in North America, where it peaked in 83 theaters and grossed 1.7 mil. $ (12.2 % of the total gross). Before North America, the film's biggest 2 market were France with 3.3 mil. $ (23.7 %) and Italy with 2.7 mil. $ (19.4 %). The film won the Golden Lion in Venice. It received mixed reviews, but Roger Ebert, agreeing with me, gave it 4/4 stars. Somewhere is certified fresh at 71 % with a 6.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Somewhere?

No comments:

Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)