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Newsletter: Indie Focus: Zooming in on awards season, Hollywood Values and ‘Live by Night’

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Hello! I’m Mark Olsen, and welcome to your weekly field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Are we still saying Happy New Year, because I don’t know about you, but 2017 already has me exhausted. So. Much. Is. Happening.

The Golden Globes last weekend, alongside the recent nominations from the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild, mean that the awards season is coming into final focus ahead of the upcoming Academy Award nominations

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And before the official end of the pre-nominations period, when the number of movies we are allowed to discuss as part of awards talk is greatly diminished, there are two final roundtables in which some of the year’s most exciting performers discuss their on-screen work and off-screen lives. It’s always fascinating to see the dynamics of these groups shape up over the course of the few hours they are together for the photos and roundtable, falling into a life-raft camaraderie of being in it together. (Or not.)

Our lead actress conversation included Amy Adams for “Arrival” and “Nocturnal Animals,” Annette Bening for “20th Century Women,” Ruth Negga for “Loving,” Natalie Portman for “Jackie” and Emma Stone for “La La Land.” Our supporting actor talk featured Mahershala Ali for “Moonlight,” Jeff Bridges for “Hell or High Water,” Aaron Eckhart for “Sully” and “Bleed for This,” David Oyelowo for “Queen of Katwe,” Dev Patel for “Lion” and Michael Shannon for “Nocturnal Animals.”

Team LAT has been doing our annual altitude training in preparation for the upcoming Sundance Film Festival. We are going with a big squad this year, so keep an eye out for at least one special edition of this newsletter packed with all that’s happening in Park City, Utah.

And keep an eye out for more events soon here: events.latimes.com.

Meryl Streep accepts the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 74th Golden Globe Awards ceremony on Jan. 8.
Meryl Streep accepts the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 74th Golden Globe Awards ceremony on Jan. 8.
(HFPA / EPA )

Are Hollywood’s values America’s values?

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In a rather astonishing piece of timing, Meryl Streep made headlines at the Globes with her speech that pleaded for empathy and attacked President-elect Trump without ever saying his name. That very day, The Times published a package of essays on the notion of Hollywood values, what they are and whether they are in sync with those of the America that voted for such a person to be leader of this country.

Kenneth Turan explored how movies like “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Network” and “Sausage Party” all set the stage for the current moment, positing that “I don’t think it’s too much to say that the movies were key in creating the cultural forces that made voting for Donald Trump seem like a fine idea.”

Mary McNamara looked at Hollywood’s long-running anxiety over class, putting forward that “there is no notion more thoroughly absurd than that of Hollywood’s liberal agenda.” She added, “That is the real elitism of film and television — we mostly like to watch people who seem richer than they should be.

Justin Chang used a number of recent films — “Toni Erdmann,” “Hidden Figures,” “Elle” “Miss Sloane,” “Arrival,” “Christine” and more — to talk about the treatment of women in movies and TV. Rather than simplistic tales of empowerment and aspiration, these movies acknowledge “the ambivalence that even advanced societies can feel toward the women in power, largely resist the temptation to turn their characters into easy figures of sympathy or identification.

Jeffrey Fleischman looked at movies such as “Manchester by the Sea,” “Hell or High Water” and “Paterson” to get a sense of how Hollywood portrays the working class.

Lorraine Ali looked at portrayals of Muslims in film and TV with a historical view, a strong sense of the here-and-now and an eye toward what is likely to come in the future.

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Tre’vell Anderson looked at portrayals of the LGBT community and how creators are attempting to see themselves reflected more fully on screen.

There’s lots more to the package of stories — Marc Bernardin on “This Is Us” and Randall Roberts on “Run the Jewels,” for example — so it’s worth digging into.

‘Live by Night’

The latest film from Ben Affleck, as star, director, producer and screenwriter, came out in limited release last month and is now opening around the country. “Live by Night” is not entirely unworthy. It is a handsomely mounted period gangster tale full of good-looking people wearing good-looking clothes, and it has terrific moments, but it, nevertheless, feels like less than it could be. As I said in my review, the film finds Affleck “pulled in so many conflicting directions that what he ends up with is neither elegantly concise nor an epic sprawl but, rather, something just awkwardly misshapen.”

At the Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips called the film “a stubborn mixture of cheap thrills and pretension… As adapted by Affleck, it’s more sedating than seductive.”

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For MTV News, Amy Nicholson celebrated the fun side of the movie, noting, “I enjoyed the Bananas Moments when the film finds its weird flourishes.”

The Times’ Josh Rottenberg interviewed Affleck for a thoughtful, provocative profile that captures the sense of unease that Affleck has with being a conventional star in films like “Batman v Superman” and “The Accountant” and wanting to make his own movies for himself.

“The language of movies has changed since the ’30s and ’40s,” Affleck said. “Obviously things are different now, and they’re even different from other films that I drew inspiration from, like ‘Reds’ or ‘Doctor Zhivago.’ That was what a crowd-pleasing Hollywood movie was then. Now it really means wearing a cape. Obviously I have nothing against capes, but I wanted to see if I could make this work. We’ll see.”

For The Envelope, Margy Rochlin spoke to actor Chris Messina, who has a nice turn in the movie as the main lieutenant to Affleck’s gangster boss. Of his numerous scenes driving genuine vintage cars while talking to Affleck, he said that “they added to the volcanic anxiety: You’d be driving and all these cars would be coming toward you, the director-star is sitting next to you, it’s really hot out, you have a big monologue, and if you can find the right gear, you’re very lucky.”

“Live by Night” has a terrific cast that also includes Elle Fanning, Siena Miller, Zoe Saldana, Brendan Gleeson and Chris Cooper. At Vulture, Kevin Lincoln posits that Affleck has become a fine director of other actors — three have landed Oscar nominations — if not necessarily himself. As he writes, “ ‘Live by Night,’ solidifies a theme that’s been developing throughout Affleck’s filmography to date: As a director, he’s an excellent facilitator of the loaded ensemble casts he employs — a wingman, if you will, for the supporting actors of the world.”

Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter @IndieFocus.

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