ISSUE #48
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
[EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Hello and welcome back to an all-new installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH brought to you by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
THIS SUNDAY (3/17), our friends at the CHIAROSCURO INTERNATIONAL FILM SERIES will be sharing their final screening of the 2024 season with THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT’S A RESURRECTION. As always, this FREE screening will be followed by a panel discussion and reception. Congratulations to the Chiaroscuro crew on another incredible season.
And NEXT WEDNESDAY, OPEN PROJECTOR NIGHT returns! Check out the poster and trailer for the event below to get a sneak peek at the shorts that will be featured in this latest program.
This past Sunday saw the 96th Academy Awards take place. Our own Kyle Macciomei has been extensively covering the Hollywood awards season for the past month. Check out his thoughts on this year’s ceremony...
AFTER THE OSCARS 2024
PINK CURTAINS CLOSE
[BY: KYLE MACCIOMEI]
This article is the fifth in a series of Beam from the Booth articles covering the 96th Academy Awards. For full context, we suggest reading the ‘Road to The Oscars 2024’ columns from these previous issues first.
[PART 1 from ISSUE #42] [PART 2 from ISSUE #43] [PART 3 from ISSUE #44] [PART 4 from ISSUE #47]
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It’s so great that we have the Oscars.
If you’ve been reading any of my work from the recent issues where I’ve been reporting, you’ll know that I’m hyper critical of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the overly-insulated voting body representing them. Whether it be their disproportionate demographics, biased sensibilities, or the self-indulgent egos they serve, we could devote an entire issue to many deserving critiques.
But I’m not going to do that today because the 96th Academy Awards were an excellent time for anyone who loves cinema.
Cinema is a profitable entertainment, a challenging art form, and an industry of passionate laborers all rolled into one. There are so many different (and sometimes opposing) reasons for why we all go to the movies, but under the dim glow of a silver screen we share the cinematic experience together as a community. And the Academy serves to highlight some of the best of those experiences — granting recognition for the work that was done to cultivate it. Whether that be a tear-jerking performance, a comprehensive soundscape, or a dynamically crafted kaiju whose sheer scale leaves your jaw on the floor, it’s reassuring to know that there exists a wide range of fairly legitimate institutions rewarding the hard work, talent, and craft going into filmmaking.
Now is it disappointing that these rewards are highly-campaigned, studio-funded pseudo-popularity contests? I mean, sure. But you best believe that as Cillian Murphy won Best Actor I cheered harder than a Lions fan at Ford Field when Jared Goff took a knee against the Rams. It’s exhilarating to see talented craftspeople be awarded for their sacrifice and dedication to the form, something that they’ve worked their entire lives to refine and perfect. If you’re a member of the Grand Rapids Film Society community, then you might be making those same sacrifices yourself.
We here at GRFS love to watch movies, discuss filmmaking, and share in a passion for cinema that binds us all together. The Oscars — in their own way — are all of these things, and their power is to bundle an entire year’s worth of film and celebrate it with the world. I think that is something that should be admired and recognized by our community. So, in the spirit of remembrance, let’s briefly run through some of the major stories from last night’s ceremony. The full list of nominees and winners can be found here.
For one, Oppenheimer dominated (as expected) by winning 7 awards for Editing, Score, Cinematography, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Director, and Best Picture. It was a runaway favorite back in July when it first premiered on that famous ‘Barbenheimer’ weekend, and it stayed top dog all the way to the end. The Academy clearly wanted to award Christopher Nolan for what is the magnum opus of his career, and they did so by delivering him his first two Oscars.
What I love most about this year, though, is the fact that almost every film had a chance to be represented by winning in a separate category. American Fiction won Cord Jefferson an Oscar for Adapted Screenplay for his very first feature film, Zone of Interest beat out Oppy for Best Sound, The Holdovers received an Acting award for Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and Barbie won Best Song with the Billie Eilish ballad “What Was I Made For?” (not to mention the fact that Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” was the clear showstopper of the entire 3.5 hour broadcast).
Anatomy of a Fall joined Parasite on a very short list of foreign language films to win Best Original Screenplay, and Poor Things swept some visual categories by grabbing both Production Design and Costumes on top of a win for Emma Stone in Best Actress. The race between Emma Stone in Poor Things and Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon was the closest of anything else that happened this year, and it’s honestly just a shame we couldn’t have awarded both. Similarly, Poor Things beat out Kazu Hiro and Maestro for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. In both of these matchups, the two films joined Past Lives as Best Picture nominees who went home without a single Oscar.
In other brighter news, though, let’s not forget that we were just able to honor two of the greatest living filmmakers, Wes Anderson and Hayao Miyazaki, for their work in Live Action Short and Animated Feature, respectively. This is Miyazaki’s second Oscar after 2001’s Spirited Away, and an Oscar for short film is a good apology from the Academy for giving zero acknowledgements to Anderson’s Asteroid City. Oh yeah: and Godzilla finally won an Oscar after just 38 feature films!
Finally, the Academy was able to give time and space for documentarian Mstyslav Chernov, the filmmaker behind 20 Days in Mariupol, an up-close and harrowing retelling of Chernov’s experiences on the ground during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This moment went hand-in-hand with an In Memoriam section that opened with a documentary excerpt of the now-deceased Russian activist Alexei Navalany, showing that this Academy is capable of piercing the cultural veil and bringing a community together for important causes which these films reflect and reinforce.
It’s rare that the Academy is able to put this strong of a broadcast together, and the only reason it was possible was because 2023 was an incredible year for film. For the first two years of the pandemic there were shuttered theaters, locked-down production, and aggressively-expanding streaming services — all of which were successful in disrupting the moviegoing landscape. But here we are looking back at one of the best film years of the 21st century with so much potential and growth on the horizon (recent strikes notwithstanding). I’m just so glad that the Oscars were here to acknowledge it, and I’m glad this community was here to experience it with me. See you next year!
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Special thanks to Kirsten Fedorowicz for editing assistance.
GRTV SURVEY: WIN A FREE CLASS!
In the hopes of better accommodating our community, the fine folks at GRTV are asking those interested to check out this survey regarding their services.
From GRTV:
In a push towards tailoring its resources to better suit the needs and dreams of the local filmmaking community, GRTV is thrilled to extend an invitation to creators far and wide to engage in a pivotal survey aimed at refining its offerings. By visiting grtv.org/survey and contributing your insights, you're not just influencing the future selection of equipment, software, and educational workshops at GRTV, but you're also entering a chance to win a free class—offering a unique opportunity to enhance your filmmaking process.
The feedback gathered through this survey is set to profoundly inform GRTV's strategic planning, ensuring the community's needs are met with precision and care. Let your voice be heard and enrich your creative toolkit, all while playing a key role in elevating the local filmmaking landscape. Don’t miss this chance to shape GRTV's future offerings and perhaps even your own filmmaking journey. Visit grtv.org/survey today and take a step towards a more resourceful tomorrow for all local filmmakers.
If you want to help out a great organization, we highly encourage you take the time to full out the survey linked above.
DUNE IN DOLBY
[BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
And so I sat there last Monday...another unusually warm evening for late winter after another unusually long work day for myself...maybe I’ll go see a movie.
I just so happened to be in my hometown in the metro Detroit area. Utica, MI is home to the AMC Forum 30 (one of the biggest multiplexes in the country as far as screen count goes, by the way). Back in 2018, the somewhat deteriorating theater installed a brand-new DOLBY CINEMA auditorium. This is different than a run-of-the-mill auditorium equipped with a Dolby Atmos sound system (like some of our Celebration Cinemas or the fresh-faced Phoenix Theaters); the Dolby Cinema auditorium is a premium format akin to the IMAX theaters we all know and love. Whereas IMAX is focused on the sheer size of the image, Dolby Cinema is concerned with the magnitude of the sound, naturally, along with what they call Dolby Vision, touted as a clearer and more contrast-heavy projection — to which I can attest: it’s the best digital projection I think I’ve ever come across. Fitted with bright blue LEDs, these Dolby Cinema auditoriums are absolutely littered with massive speakers, all seemingly set to maximum volume.
Sound is an intrusive sense. We need not be looking at something in order to hear it, which can be the bane of some theater experiences. There’s nothing worse than trying to watch a movie while also being able to hear the conversations happening around the auditorium, the echoes of snacks being opened, phones ringing, or (for the truly unfortunate) children crying. These issues all seem to disappear amidst the absolute barrage of sound that Dolby Cinema has to offer.
All this to say: I have had some incredibly exciting experiences in this particular theater, and my screening of Dune: Part Two in there may have just been the most exciting yet. I had the privilege of sitting dead center in a nearly empty auditorium, free to be absolutely engrossed in the film...and, oh boy, was I. The word I keep using to describe the experience is “overwhelming.”
Despite being somewhat lukewarm on Part One of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi saga, I still consider it a tremendous technical feat. I mean, my god, that film looks and sounds incredible. And with Part Two, Villeneuve and his incredible cast and crew top themselves. The film’s 2 hour and 46 minute runtime is packed full of memorable moments and visuals, the first of which arriving mere minutes after the lights go down. It’s hard to imagine a world where at least a couple of the set pieces in this film don’t go down as some of the best of all time. In a genre as plundered as science fiction, it’s hard to maintain a level of visual creativity, but Villeneuve pulls it off. That is not to say there aren’t visuals in this film that can have their lineage traced back to other popular sci-fi works, but the overall presentation of them somehow feels fresh, sleek, and — occasionally — downright iconic. As a specific highlight, I love the way that the design teams have filled these essentially nature-less worlds with manmade creations that resemble elements from nature; helicopter-type ships that look like dragonflies, massive tanks that resemble spiders, and so on.
The same can be said about the soundscape. Even the extremely simple, bass-filled ‘THOOM’ of the device used to call the large sand worms of Arrakis feels like some specific frequency that you’d be able to pick out of a lineup of sci-fi sound effects. Hans Zimmer once again proves himself as one of our best with another score that is filled with tribal-inspired choral arrangements and, of course, synths. Again, Zimmer is using a tried-and-true sci-fi sound and retooling it in such a way that perfectly matches the ways in which Villeneuve reimagines some of the narrative/visual elements of the film. And when played on the speakers of the Dolby Cinema, it sends ripples through the screen and rattles your very bones. The word “awesome” has been used far too much to warrant much weight, but — in the truest sense of the term — the sound in this film is awesome.
As a brief aside, I want to take a moment to say that Christopher Nolan and Zimmer being forced to split may have been the best thing to happen to either of them. While Zimmer filled Nolan’s films with excellent scores over the years, it felt like they both kept each other firmly planted in the spaces you would expect them to be, which may just be the case after a decade of working with each other. Nolan’s newfound collaboration with Ludwig Göransson has produced startling effects, elevating Nolan’s signature style of storytelling with a newfound sense of kineticisim in both Tenet and Oppenheimer. Zimmer’s work on Dune with Villeneuve has given way to some of the most interesting pieces of music he’s ever composed. There are a slew of motifs across the Dune score that simply cannot escape my mind.
The cast of Part Two is firing on all cylinders, somehow filled with even more star power than the first part. Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya do more than carry their weight, and the choice (or studio mandate, rather) to not shoot the two parts back-to-back allowed these two performers to mature and come into their craft even further, giving their war-weary characters that much more strength. Austin Butler also arrives on the scene here in Part Two as a truly vicious adversary who is a thrill to watch. But the real shoutout I think has to go to Rebecca Ferguson, who plays Lady Jessica with a growing sense of allusiveness and menace across the runtime and continually had me asking to know more about her motives...while also being terrified of her.
Dune: Part Two stands as one of the most thrilling theatregoing experiences I’ve ever had, serving up a healthy dose of that certain flavor of genre spectacle that only seems to rear its head every 10 years or so. Leaving the theater left me in a sort of shell-shock...did I just see the best action movie of the decade? Is this the Mad Max: Fury Road of the 2020s? And then I realized we ARE getting a follow-up to Fury Road in just under two months with George Miller’s Furiousa...
What a time to be alive.
UPCOMING EVENTS
THIS IS NOT A BURIAL, IT’S A RESURRECTION (presented by CHIAROSCURO INTERNATIONAL FILM SERIES)
WHAT: An 80-year-old widow stands up to a group of local officials who want to build a dam and resettle her village. (FREE screening followed by discussion and reception)
WHEN: Sunday, March 17th, 2:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
WHAT: Join us for another FREE GRFS social event and chat about filmmaking, screenwriting, and cinephilia with other like-minded members of the GR film community.
WHEN: Thursday, March 21st, 7:00pm
WHERE: The Front Studio Annex — right next to the Wealthy Theatre!
JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES
WHAT: Jeanne Dielman days are divided between humdrum domestic chores, and her job as an occasional prostitute. She seems perfectly resigned to her situation until a series of slight interruptions in her routine leads to unexpected and dramatic changes.
WHEN: Sunday, March 24th, 4:00 pm.
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every MONDAY, and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS.
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Look for ISSUE #49 in your inbox on NEXT MONDAY, 03/18!
Until then, friends...
