At this point, it's not even possible to come up with "joke" versions of these things - it's like there's no light left between "actual movie pitch" and "Robot Chicken sketch pitch" anymore. But yeah, Adam Sandler will star in a feature film version of the "Candy Land" board game.
The "interesting" thing, relatively speaking, is that Sandler pal Robert Smigel - late of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and "TV Funhouse - is coming along to do the script. He's a real talent... but I can't really see his general sense of humor (or Sandler's, for that matter) matching well with what Hasbro clearly will want to be a kid-friendly franchise-starter.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
A Commercial For A Commercial For "The Avengers"
Monday, 30 January 2012
Is "The FP" The Next Great Movie About Video-Games?
From Devin at BAD I learn that said BAD's partner/overlord, Drafthouse Films, has picked up distribution rights to the SXSW-buzzed oddity "The FP;" which I'd previously heard spoken of as "the next 'Six String Samurai.'" The basic pitch is a send-up the "such-and-such-familiar-game-BUT-AS-A-GLADATORIAL-BLOODSPORT!!!" genre and the late-80s/early-90s punk-rock-post-nuke aesthetic that often accompanied it, the comic hook being that the rival clans of The FP settle their issues in winner-take-all deathmatches of... "Dance Dance Revolution" (Here called "Beat Beat Revolution.")
Yup. Drafthouse has announced a limited theatrical-release on March 16th of this year. This is real. Here's a (NSFW) trailer.
Yup. Drafthouse has announced a limited theatrical-release on March 16th of this year. This is real. Here's a (NSFW) trailer.
LIFE’S LIKE A MOVIE: MONSTERS INC.
Monsters Inc. isn’t the best Pixar movie, but it’s pretty far up the list. And I’ve always argued that the first ten minutes of this movie is a master class in how to introduce your characters and the world in which they live. That’s especially true of this scene in which the two main characters sit down to watch the new Monsters, Inc. commercial in which they’re both supposed to be featured. Not only does this quick scene provide in a funny and entertaining way the necessary exposition needed in order to understand how the scream factory works, but it also advances the characters of Mike and Scully while doing so. Just brilliant.
I couldn’t help but think of this scene the other day after my mother called up to scold me. I know, I know. I’m a middle-aged father of two who runs his own business and volunteers up at the church. But if anyone thinks those things exempt a person from getting scolded by his mother… well then, you just don’t know mothers. Anyway, what she was calling about was the fact that she had heard second hand from a friend who was browsing Facebook that I had posted a picture from the Walk For Life in Atlanta last week. This one in fact…
The reason she was upset is that I never told her I would be attending the march this year, which means she didn’t get to say a prayer for me and, more importantly, she didn’t get to tell all of her friends that her son was going to be there. Never, ever deny a mother her bragging rights. But more important than that, she was right. (Which being a Catholic and a Southerner, the fact that momma is always right should never be in question.) As she knows, and as I ranted about in my last post, now’s the time to make ourselves seen and heard standing up for what we believe in. “Participation is the voluntary and generous engagement of a person in social interchange.” the Catechism reminds us, “It is necessary that all participate, each according to his position and role, in promoting the common good. This obligation is inherent in the dignity of the human person. Participation is achieved first of all by taking charge of the areas for which one assumes personal responsibility: by the care taken for the education of his family, by conscientious work, and so forth, man participates in the good of others and of society. [But] As far as possible citizens should take an active part in public life.”
Well, if momma says to do it, and the Catechism says to do it, I ain’t about to be the one to argue. So, in the spirit of Mike Wazowski, and with a little help from the photographers at the Atlanta Journal Constitution…
LOOK, MA! HERE I AM! DID YOU SEE ME?
Somehow Innevitable
You will be unsurprised to learn that the emerging "modernized fairytale" trend has inspired someone to reboot the Linda Hamilton/Ron Perleman "Beauty & The Beast" series as what sounds an awful lot like "Castle-but-with-a-sorta-wolfman"; but Moviehole's report on the pilot script adds an "are you kidding me!?" detail: the "new" Beast is a guy who got transformed into (more or less) a half-animal version of Captain America... by 9-11.
Yeah, I know. Ten years, Bin Laden is dead, but still... yikes.
Yeah, I know. Ten years, Bin Laden is dead, but still... yikes.
Take Shelter
Not many American films grab me, hold me tight (almost suffocating) and do not release me until well after the movie is over, as a matter of fact can’t recall one that did that to me. But now if you ask me which was the last American movie that kept me captive from beginning to end and beyond, easily will tell you that was Jeff Nichols visually amazing Take Shelter. Yes movie is visually fantastic but is not only a feast to your eyes kind of film as performances by lead actors are so good that make the story told and film as a whole a true intense quite complete cinematic experience.As movie was in Cannes I knew that was a disaster movie but nothing more and strongly suggest you watch movie without learning much about story as I’m sure you will enjoy it more as Nichols is such an amazing storyteller that converted a very simple story into an intense human drama that many viewers and critics write so many different interpretations that I’ll give mine, so if you haven’t seen movie please skip the next paragraph or continue reading after watching film.
To me film tells a very simple story of a man downturn that takes him from being a very normal man living with a very normal family in a very normal community into the most confusing -for him, his family, his friends, his neighbors, and us his viewers- transformation. Story climax at the very end of movie is key to clarify all confusion, but instead of really clarifying makes confusion wider as opens doors to imagination, interpretation, objectiveness, subjective-ness, and many more qualitative adjectives that allows individuals to see whatever nightmarish vision of their own future fear the most. So read reviews and you will find many that believe story is a parable for what’s going on in USA and well, in many other countries in the world. In the end story could become very complex and layered or –as I saw it- so simple and direct that magnificently confuses. Sigh.
Was reading that Jeff Nichols is Terrence Malick student and surely can be seen in the magnificent visual narrative but none of Malick’s movies I have seen has a story like this one and more impressive, story is developed the way is done here. So if Malick is the teacher, then I’m afraid Nichols surpassed his teacher and with this film he’s starting the hard-to-transit road to become a world master filmmaker. Hope Nichols stays in that road and is not tempted to go back to more traditional American independent cinema.
Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain are the essence of this film and their performances are beyond impressive as not only each complements the other but one pulls the other to the front at the right moments. Most of their performances excellence comes from well delivered dialogues, but what impresses me the most is that they were allowed to act with expressions in deep silences and gee, they were really good. Chapeau Mr. Nichols.
Movie, director and actors have been collecting honors in this award season but none is as impressive as winning the top award at 2011 Cannes Semaine de la Ciritique; all honors are well-deserved but regret that Shannon is not Oscar nominated and most of all, that Jessica Chastain was not nominated for this movie where I know has a lead role, but then is common that lead roles are conveniently converted into supporting role to increase winning opportunities. Nevertheless Chastain should have been nominated for this movie more than any other she was in this year. Sigh.
Strongly recommend to watch this movie that I know could blow your mind but be aware that is NOT your typical American movie or your typical independent (indie) American movie, so you have to love great world-class cinema to enjoy a film that has slowish pace and runs for 2 hours.
Big Enjoy!!!
Watch trailer @MOC
BAD DREAMS
THE TAGLINE
“Cynthia's got a grave problem! 13 years ago, something terrifying almost killed her. Now it's coming back to finish the job.”
THE PLOT
Awaking from a coma, Cynthia is befuddled to find 13 years have passed since the faithful night she escaped dying in the fiery suicide pact made between the enigmatic Franklin Harris and the Unity Fields cult of which she was a member. Under the watchful eyes of Doctors Karmen and Berrisford, Cynthis is placed in a borderline personalities therapy group where she struggles to regain the memories of that event, the details of which are of great interest to the local authorities. Unfortunately, as the memories emerge, so apparently does the spirit of Harris, who has seemingly returned from the grave to make Cynthia fulfill her promise to remain with Unity forever. The catch is that Harris insists that Cynthia must voluntarily take her own life in order to fulfill the pact, and until she does so, Harris will kill off her fellow patients one by one. In very messy ways. Some of which require a mop afterwards. And just to make matters worse, only Cynthia seems to be nearby each time someone is murdered, something which is also of great interest to the local authorities. So is it really the ghost of Harris committing the murders, or is Cynthia carrying more around in her head than just some emotional baggage? And just what exactly is going on with those little pills Dr. Berrisford insists all the patients be given each day?
THE POINT
Okay, so what have we got here? Jennifer Rubin starring as a member of a group of psychiatric patients locked up in a hospital ward who begin to get picked off one at a time by a horribly burned man who appears to Jennifer in her dreams. You know, that sounds awfully familiar doesn’t it? Maybe that’s because it’s basically the same plot as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, a movie released just one year prior to Bad Dreams in which Ms. Rubin appeared as a member of a group of psychiatric patients locked up in a hospital ward who begin to get picked off one at a time by a horribly burned man who appears to Jennifer in her dreams. Based solely on that, Bad Dreams is just a lower budgeted rip-off of an already low budget sequel to an even lower budgeted film. It’s like some kind of exponential growth Andromeda Strain of low budget movie badness.
But don’t be so quick to pass on Bad Dreams (as most everyone else did back when it was first released) because by the end credits the movie does actually manage to rise above the lack of originality in its setup. Not that the movie is all that scary, it isn’t, but it’s still displays some redeeming qualities, especially if you’re an 80s horror buff. It’s got some really gooey make-up effects for those who like that kind of thing (which is sort of required to be an 80s horror buff, even Spielberg movies had Nazi face melting in them back then). It’s got stalwart bit players like Elizabeth Daily (Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) and Dean Cameron (Rockula) turning in reliably likable performances (hey, insane can be likeable every now and then, just take a look at my dating history). It’s got a great psychedelic soundtrack full of oddball 60s singles like The Electric Prunes’ I Had Too Much to Dream and The Chambers Brothers’ Time Has Come Today (with a welcome surprise visit from Sid Vicious singing My Way). It’s got the kind of ridiculous 80s dialog you just can’t help but love (“If you don’t like the way I drive, Doctor Addictive Buttface, then stay out of the parking lot!” is a particular favorite). But most of all, it’s got this guy…
That’s right, it’s Richard Lynch, the man who has played so many murderous S.O.B.s in movies over the past few decades that, no matter how much of a sweetheart he may be in real life, if you ran into him on the street you’d probably want to preemptively smash him in the face with a baseball bat just to be on the safe side. (If he gets up and turns the other cheek, apologize and be on your way. If he gets up with a crooked smile on his lips, quickly smash him again and run for your life.) And he’s in top psychotic form here as Harris, the leader of the Unity Fields religious cult who convinces his followers to burn themselves alive in order to transcend the constraints of their physical bodies and become one eternal family in death. You know, you’d think a guy who accidently lit himself on fire for real back in the 60s would stay away from a roll like this, but Lynch seems prepared to give it his all. That’s especially true in what is probably the most riveting scene in the movie, the one in which Harris cajoles and seduces the cult members (men, women & children) to submit to a baptism by gasoline, after which he lights a match and they all succumb in seeming ecstasy to the resulting inferno.
Such a scene might sound crazy and improbable, definitely belonging in a mostly forgotten low budget horror outing, but then one is reminded of such real world suicide cults like Heaven's Gate, The Order of the Solar Temple, and especially The Peoples Temple, where in 1978 over 900 people willingly lined up to drink cyanide laced Flavor Aid at the urgings of their leader Jim Jones. It’s then you realize that not only is truth stranger than fiction, it’s more horrifying as well. According to a 2008 article at CNN.com, “The key to understanding the tragedy that was Jonestown lies in the oratory skills of the Peoples Temple founder, Jim Jones. With the cadence and fervor of a Baptist preacher, the charm and folksiness of a country storyteller and the zeal and fury of a maniacal dictator, Jones exhorted his followers to a fever pitch… One follower who survived the ‘revolutionary suicide’ at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, said that Jones was the most dynamic speaker he had ever heard. Like all powerful speakers, Jones' greatest asset was his ability to determine what listeners wanted to hear and give it to them in simple language that appealed to them on an almost instinctual level. ‘He was very charismatic, very charismatic,’ said Leslie Wilson, who survived that fateful day in Jonestown by walking away from the settlement before the cyanide that killed more than 900 Peoples Temple members was distributed… ‘He could quote scripture and turn around and preach socialism. He appealed to anyone on any level at any time’… Spurred on by their leader's talk, Peoples Temple members were ready to follow Jones even into death. At his request, they even wrote personal notes to him expressing their willingness to die for their cause.This was the ultimate test of loyalty, and the absolute testimony to the power of his words. As history shows, Jim Jones the orator was chillingly effective.”
In his book Feet Of Clay, Psychiatrist Anthony Storr attempts to explore the qualities that made up cult leaders such as Jim Jones, people whom Storr dubs ‘gurus’, that have allowed them to gain such control over others throughout history. “Gurus differ widely from each other in a variety of ways” Storr purports, “but most claim the possession of special spiritual insight based on personal revelation… This revelation is sometimes believed to come direct from God or from his angels… It is frequently the case that the guru’s new insight follows a period of mental distress or physical illness, in which the guru has been fruitlessly searching for an answer to his own emotional problems… When the guru’s ‘dark night of the soul’ has been ended by his new vision of reality, he usually appears to become convinced that he has discovered ‘the truth.” Once endowed with this truth, the guru then begins to use his or her charisma and skills as an orator to convince others of it. Obviously, it doesn’t take much to see that Storr’s description of a guru points towards any number of religious leaders throughout the ages (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and St. Ignatius Loyola in particular are called out by name), but he also includes secularists like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung under his umbrella as well. In fact, during the book’s introduction, Storr almost seems timid in his approach to the major religions, going out of his way to note that Jesus, Mohammed, and The Buddha were gurus “whose holiness, lack of personal ambition, and integrity are beyond question” (though Mohammed gets a few points off for his views on legal punishment and treatment of women). A little bit later in his book, however, Storr confronts the question to which his line of reasoning inevitably leads, “What about the claims Jesus made of his divinity?”
For Storr, the answer appears simple. “If we conclude that he did really believe that he was God's deputy and that he would return to earth in the clouds of heaven and rule in glory, Jesus, in this respect, if in no other, is closely similar to other gurus whom we judge to be expressing delusions of grandeur.” Or in short, if Jesus said all of that, then he was just as much of a nutcase as Jim Jones. Just without the cyanide. Storr even points out the passage in Mark 3:21, the one in which Jesus’ relatives “set out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’ as evidence that some of Jesus’ contemporaries believed this very thing. What Storr is basically confronting is the same dilemma C. S. Lewis presented in Mere Christianity when he proclaimed, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."
Storr’s solution to this dilemma is the one chosen by so many modernists eager to hold onto Jesus’ moral teachings while rejecting his divinity, and that is to choose the third option not mentioned by Lewis. Storr makes the assumption that Jesus was a guru along the lines of Budhha whose clear and simple self-help teachings were later corrupted by an organized religion which tacked on all that Holy Trinity business for their own purposes. By taking that position, Storr gets to admire all of the Bible’s peace and love stuff, but reject all of the hell and damnation that comes along with it. Which would be fine, I guess... if there were even one iota of evidence supporting such a theory. Unfortunately for Storr’s arguments, the writings of the early Church fathers makes it pretty clear that all of the “clouds of heaven and rule in glory” stuff was there right from the get go. Which means if we reject Jesus’ claims to godhood, then we’re left with Storr’s original assertion that no matter how benign his message, Jesus was still just a whacko and all of us Christians throughout the ages have been little more than glorified cult members.
Putting aside the argument of Jesus’ divinity for another time, the funny thing is that Storr is actually correct about the Church being a cult, at least in the original sense of the word which used to refer to just about any type of systematic religious belief. But by the end of the 1970’s, after events like the Jonestown Massacre and the Manson Family murders, the word ‘cult’ has taken on a more specific usage. The American Heritage Dictionary now defines a cult primarily as “a religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.” And that new definition doesn’t really apply to Christianity, or the Catholic Church in particular. Or does it? (Dom Dom Dommmmm!) It doesn’t take long poking around the Internet (try ten seconds) to find out there are a number of folks who believe that it most certainly does apply. Over at Answer.com, which is a site edited by users much like Wikipedia (that font of all wisdom), the CORRECT answer given to the question “Why is the Catholic Church considered a cult?” is given as “The Catholic Church is considered a cult (traditionally, especially in ancient Rome) because it focuses belief around a central human (well physical) figure with a radical and new (for the time) teaching. Currently they give all power to a single leader (the pope) leading it to being similar to a cult of personality or even a normal cult. It also has extremist views in some areas, like homosexuality, abortion, and stem cell research.” Wow. Based on that, it sounds like all we Catholic cultists are missing is Richard Lynch and a can of gasoline.
It seems pretty clear that the respondent at Answer.com is someone disgruntled over the Church’s inability (not unwillingness, inability) to change her (EXTREME!) teachings on sexual issues. But be that as it may, it shows that the mindset to declare the Catholic Church a cult is still out there. And given that, it might be a fun and useful mental exercise to compare a few major points and see if we can’t figure out some things that make the Church different from a cult.
1. MEMBERSHIP
| CULTS | CATHOLICISM |
| “Hi, I’m in a mind-numbing freedom-stealing cult. Want to join?” Pretty bad approach, huh? Common sense tells us that no group is going to tell you up front they are a cult. New members are often deliberately deceived about the obligations of belonging to the group until after they’ve already joined. | A catechumen clearly knows what the organization is that he or she is joining. In fact, new members often have to wait for several months, or even a year, before joining while they take classes on Church teaching just to make sure that the obligations and expectations of being a Catholic are clearly understood. (In theory. Don’t get me started on religious ed.) |
2. LEADERSHIP
| CULTS | CATHOLICISM |
| As Anthony Storr points out, a cult leader is often self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, and not accountable to anyone. This person is always right and anyone who disagrees is wrong. Cult members who criticize the leader are often belittled, treated violently, or even expelled from the group. | The Pope, elected by a conference of Cardinals, is not the sole source of authority in the Catholic Church (sorry Answers.com). There is also the Bible, Church Law, and various writings by other Catholic authorities. And the right for Church members to offer criticism is protected by Church Law itself. While a number of actions can get a person excommunicated, the official recognition of such is rare. |
3. TEACHING
| CULTS | CATHOLICISM |
| Cults rarely teach anything but their own doctrines. In many cases members are isolated and come to know less and less about the outside world. In this way they soon develop a psychological dependence on the group. As far as quality of education, cults rarely train a person in anything that has any value to the greater society outside of the cult. | Catholics are free to choose their own friends, politics, and spouse. They retain access to the Internet, television, radio, reading material, telephone, and mail. In fact, all reading, education, and knowledge are encouraged by the Catholic Church. The Church founded most of the first western universities after all. |
4. MONEY
| CULTS | CATHOLICISM |
| Cults are often preoccupied with making money. In many cults, members are expected to turn over to the cult all money and worldly possessions. Although many cults start as altruistic, in the end a cult’s wealth most often does not benefit its members or society, but rather just those in charge. | While anyone who has sat through a fund raising drive may feel as if the Church is also preoccupied with money, the fact is that Church members get to keep their wealth and property. Giving is encouraged (and encouraged and encouraged) but is ultimately left to the member’s ability and conscience. The majority of the Church’s resources go towards helping others, even non-Christians. |
So, from all those charts (assuming you trudged through them), it shouldn't be that hard to recognize that cults and Catholicism clash most when it comes to areas involving free will. No matter how overbearing or dogmatic or EXTREME! the Church is accused of being, the truth is that you always have the choice to get up and walk out on its teachings whenever you want to. And it appears, at least in my home country of the United States, the time has come where that choice is being fostered on us by a government which has given religious institutions one year before they’ll be forced to comply with provisions in the new health care laws that demand they violate their teachings on contraception and abortion or else quit providing health insurance to their employees (for which they will, of course, be severely penalized).
Look, we don’t do politics that much here at The B-Movie Catechism. As the title of the blog suggests, around these parts, it’s all about bad movies and learning about God. But enough is enough. I sat in a pew this last Sunday while a visiting priest, a former Episcopalian and lifelong Democrat, sadly shook his head and said that sometimes you are faced with the choice of following your own preferences or of being a faithful Catholic. And this election year, he was going to be a Catholic. Amen. I’m not telling you who to vote for (or even to vote at this point, cripes), but in the name of God do something to help stem the anti-religious course this country is on. Pray (always pray), write letters, talk to people, whatever. The time has more than come to put a public face on our religious beliefs. So get out there and dare to be called a cultist, dare to be called EXTREME!, dare to be a Christian.
Dare to be Catholic.
THE STINGER
Sorry for the tirade, everybody. I know it’s not my style, but this couldn’t go unaddressed. And it sure is nice to see the USCCB take this head on. The letter written by Archbishop Gregory which was read at all masses in my archdiocese this last Sunday can be found here.
18th Screen Actors Guild Awards Winners
Last night the largest guild in the American movie industry had their awards ceremony and the big winner was The Help. Maybe was a surprise for some but I still consider the movie to be a serious contender against The Artist and The Descendants. Televised show was not really entertaining so was no surprise that soon enough I fall asleep but I was awake when the top three awards were announced, lol. What sort-of surprised me is George Clooney not winning and obviously now Jean Dujardin has become the top contender to Oscar, but still Clooney has possibilities when considering the vote of non-actor Academy members. Still believe that Viola Davis, Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams have good chances of winning Oscar; out of the three, Williams is perhaps the one with less chances but she's young and surely will continue doing films where her amazing acting abilities will impress viewers/industry/critics until she gets the honor she deserves.
Winners are in *BLUE. To check winners in all categories including TV go here.
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12/12/2011
This is the first industry group that announces their nominations and gives us our first idea of how close or far away are critics from core industry. These are the nominees that were announced a few minutes ago.
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
The Artist (Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, and Penelope Ann Miller)
Bridesmaids (Rose Byrne, Jill Clayburgh, Ellie Kemper, Matt Lucas, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi Mclendon-Covey, Chris O’Dowd, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig)
The Descendants (Beau Bridges, George Clooney, Robert Forster, Judy Greer, Matthew Lillard, and Shailene Woodley)
*The Help (Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Chris Lowell, Ahna O’Reilly, Sissy Spacek, Octavia Spencer, Mary Steenburgen, Emma Stone, Cicely Tyson, and Mike Vogel)
Midnight in Paris (Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Marion Cotillard, Rachel McAdams, Michael Sheen, and Owen Wilson).
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs
*Viola Davis in The Help
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin
Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Bérénice Bejo in The Artist
Jessica Chastain in The Help
Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs
*Octavia Spencer in The Help
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in A Better Life
George Clooney in The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar
*Jean Dujardin in The Artist
Brad Pitt in Moneyball
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in My Week With Marilyn
Armie Hammer in J. Edgar
Jonah Hill in Moneyball
Nick Nolte in Warrior
*Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Life Achievement Award: Mary Tyler Moore
To read the official press release and the nominees in Primetime Television please go here.
Very pleased with these nominations! Yes. Best Actress looks to me like what Oscar nods may (or should) look like and the same goes to the supporting role. Can’t deny that I’m surprised with Bichir nomination but what upsets me is no nomination for Michael Fassbender, the others are predictable by now; male supporting role is all right nothing special according to me.
But what really blew my mind is Midnight in Paris cast ensemble nomination and is well deserved as with most –if not all- Woody Allen’s movies actors’ performance makes the film good or not good and this film is good plus very enjoyable. Not so surprised with Bridesmaids as movie had too much buzz. These leaves 3 predictable spots that I’m sure will get an Oscar nod and knowing that the Actors Guild is one of the largest maybe the other two could make the list of seven or eight or whatever amount of films there will be in the Best Film Oscar category.
My favorite TV show has many honors (yay!) and so glad Kate Winslet is nominated for her excellent performance in Mildred Pierce but she is in a category that is not easy to predict a winner as also nominated is Maggie Smith with her outstanding (and sometimes hilarious) performance as Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham in excellent Downton Abbey.
Can’t say that critics and actors guild members are strictly different as what you assume could happen is happening with both groups; still up-to-this-moment is not easy to be sure how the Oscar nominations will look, which makes this award season more interesting to follow.
Awards ceremony will be on January 29 at 8pm ET with live simulcast on TNT and TBS; red carpet broadcast precedes the ceremony since 6pm and there the stunt categories winners will be announced.
The following 18 minutes video is the recording of this morning announcement.
64th Annual Directors Guild of America Award Winner
Last Saturday night Michel Hazanavicius won top award at the Directors Guild of America; to check winners in all categories go here. Winner is in *BLUE.Not always the director that wins the DGA wins the Oscar, but the win-win ratio is still very high and there are strong possibilities that Scorsese will not win (yay!) and definitively Hazanavicius has increased its chances to win.
--//--
1/9/2012
A few minutes ago the guild announced the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2011.
Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris
David Fincher for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
*Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Alexander Payne for The Descendants
Martin Scorsese for Hugo
To check the official announcement go here. On January 12 the guild will announce the documentary nominees and will modify post to include documentaries. Award ceremony will be on Saturday, January 28.
As we know the DGA winner has traditionally been one of the industry’s most accurate barometers for who will win the Best Director Academy Award; only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1948 has the DGA winner not gone on to win the corresponding Academy Award. I'm not yet sure but I think the winner will be Martin Scorsese and probably Oscar nods will be the same except for one that will be substituted for Terrence Malick.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Not The Movie We Want; But The Movie We Need
Hat-tip BAD
Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait has only directed a handful of films, but they're all pretty damn great - pitch-black yet somehow not "gratuitous" stuff that cuts straight to the bone in ways few other comedies would dare. Example: "Sleeping Dogs Lie" starts out as a movie (partially) about bestiality and winds up as possibly the most honest romantic-comedy ever concieved (it's moral: Want a healthy relationship? LIE.)
The word on his newest feature, "God Bless America," has been that it's dark stuff "even for Bobcat;" a bastard lovechild of "Super" and "Idiocracy" by way of "Falling Down" for the Fox News era. The premise? A suicidal everyman has an epiphany: Why kill himself when it's everyone else - particularly reality TV stars, cell-phone addicts, religious nuts and "American Idol" - who're the problem? What follows is either a trailer for the most incendiary movie anyone has attempted in years... or a direct-feed from the inside of MY mind at any given moment:
Holy. Shit.
Yeah. CANNOT WAIT for this one.
Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait has only directed a handful of films, but they're all pretty damn great - pitch-black yet somehow not "gratuitous" stuff that cuts straight to the bone in ways few other comedies would dare. Example: "Sleeping Dogs Lie" starts out as a movie (partially) about bestiality and winds up as possibly the most honest romantic-comedy ever concieved (it's moral: Want a healthy relationship? LIE.)
The word on his newest feature, "God Bless America," has been that it's dark stuff "even for Bobcat;" a bastard lovechild of "Super" and "Idiocracy" by way of "Falling Down" for the Fox News era. The premise? A suicidal everyman has an epiphany: Why kill himself when it's everyone else - particularly reality TV stars, cell-phone addicts, religious nuts and "American Idol" - who're the problem? What follows is either a trailer for the most incendiary movie anyone has attempted in years... or a direct-feed from the inside of MY mind at any given moment:
Holy. Shit.
Yeah. CANNOT WAIT for this one.
Friday, 27 January 2012
COMING ATTRACTIONS: BAD DREAMS
Nobody requested this next review (why would they) but I’m doing it anyway. This actually started as a small Movie Of The Week post, but after I found myself still typing on it a week and a half later, I realized it was gonna have to be another long winded one (I don’t talk much, but once you get me started…). So, coming up next, it’s…
Enter video caption here
Ferris Returns?
Yes, what is apparently just a Super Bowl commercial is considered important enough to warrant a teaser trailer. Unless, of course, they really ARE making a sequel (probably not.)
I have what you'd call a "complicated" relationship with "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." On the one hand, it's hard to ignore that it's a movie that essentially treats a narcissistic semi-sociopath - who "get's over" on anyone trying to keep him from doing whatever he wants even though he's a priviliged upper-middle-class white suburban kid who could easily do all the things he's conning his way into WITHOUT the conning part - as a kind of aspirational role-model. On the other hand... maybe it's because I TOO was a mostly-comfortable middle-class suburban smartass when I saw it and really did identify with him. Either way, it's still a fun movie.
Also, something just occured to me: If you took the original film and did some digital-trickery to all of Ferris' fourth-wall-breaking moments so that it looked like he was talking into his webcam/smartphone... it would essentially play out like an ULTRA up-to-date movie about teenagers in the youtube/facebook oversharing age. That's how cool Ferris was - he was VLOGGING HIS LIFE two whole decades before "Vlogging" was invented.
I have what you'd call a "complicated" relationship with "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." On the one hand, it's hard to ignore that it's a movie that essentially treats a narcissistic semi-sociopath - who "get's over" on anyone trying to keep him from doing whatever he wants even though he's a priviliged upper-middle-class white suburban kid who could easily do all the things he's conning his way into WITHOUT the conning part - as a kind of aspirational role-model. On the other hand... maybe it's because I TOO was a mostly-comfortable middle-class suburban smartass when I saw it and really did identify with him. Either way, it's still a fun movie.
Also, something just occured to me: If you took the original film and did some digital-trickery to all of Ferris' fourth-wall-breaking moments so that it looked like he was talking into his webcam/smartphone... it would essentially play out like an ULTRA up-to-date movie about teenagers in the youtube/facebook oversharing age. That's how cool Ferris was - he was VLOGGING HIS LIFE two whole decades before "Vlogging" was invented.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Post-Movie Podcast (Again)
This is going up a little late, but worth a listen none the less. I sat in for John Black on The Post-Movie Podcast with Steve Head, the subject being year-end top-ten lists. This is part 1 of 2. ENJOY!
Click HERE to download (free!) from iTunes.
Click HERE to download (free!) from iTunes.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Steven Spielberg to Part Red Sea For Warner Bros?
For the past two decades, Steven Spielberg has - quite openly - been structuring a lot of his directing schedule around the "one for me, one for them" model: frequently Interspeding his high-end "prestige" projects with projects more likely to be tentpole blockbusters (though it's not always a one-to-one ration.)
The next "for them" project (next year's Abe Lincoln biopic being the "for me") is supposed to be "Robopocalypse" - a machine-uprising-against-humanity movie based on Daniel H. Wilson's book - slated for the July 4th weekend of 2013. Now, Deadline reports that he may already be circling another major prestige-entry after that for Warner Bros: "Gods and Kings;" A big-budget biopic of Moses. Yes, that Moses. Basket in the reeds, Egypt, burning bush, ten plauges, "let my people go!," parting-seas, Ten Commandments, golden calf, the whole nine yards.
The buzzword on this one is "Braveheart-like," which means it's aiming to be a big, straight-faced, action-oriented version of the story; though there's no indication if it'll be a "realistic/historical version" or feature the explicitly-supernatural driving forces as in the original scripture. Either way, I really, REALLY hope he does this...
Obviously, the most famous version of this story in movie terms in the DeMille movie from 1956. It's fashionable to snark at this movie, and not without reason - it's garish, overblown and corny as hell - but those are precisely the reasons why it's one of my favorite "classic" movies: DeMille, for all his myriad issues, was the perfect guy to make what was essentially trying to be a "living" version of the way Exodus was depicted in Rennaissance religious-art. It's the swords-n-sandals "high fantasy" (and I mean no disrespect in either direction by "fantasy") version of The Old Testament; rippling muscles, heaving bosoms, stern declarations of honor and rage, wailing high-pitched emotional breakdowns, thundering orchestral score and God's Wrath visualized through what were then cutting-edge FX.
DeMille's movie - especially the showpiece FX scenes - are SO iconic it would probably be a fool's errand for any present-day filmmaker to try and top them (I would bet on this being a mostly-historical with "subtle" mystical elements for the most part) but if anyone can pull it off it's Spielberg. The real question is: Who plays Moses - or, rather, who wants to stand up to the innevitable comparisons to Charlton Heston giving one of the most culturally-entrenched performances of his (or anyone else's) career?
Oh, and please allow me to weigh in on the obvious Movie Geek question: YES, I absolutely think that when they build the Ark of The Covenant it should totally end up looking just like the version from "Raiders" (bonus points for "Map Room"/"Miracle of The Ark" getting repurposed as "God's Theme") thus making this an Indian Jones prequel. That would be awesome.
The next "for them" project (next year's Abe Lincoln biopic being the "for me") is supposed to be "Robopocalypse" - a machine-uprising-against-humanity movie based on Daniel H. Wilson's book - slated for the July 4th weekend of 2013. Now, Deadline reports that he may already be circling another major prestige-entry after that for Warner Bros: "Gods and Kings;" A big-budget biopic of Moses. Yes, that Moses. Basket in the reeds, Egypt, burning bush, ten plauges, "let my people go!," parting-seas, Ten Commandments, golden calf, the whole nine yards.
The buzzword on this one is "Braveheart-like," which means it's aiming to be a big, straight-faced, action-oriented version of the story; though there's no indication if it'll be a "realistic/historical version" or feature the explicitly-supernatural driving forces as in the original scripture. Either way, I really, REALLY hope he does this...
Obviously, the most famous version of this story in movie terms in the DeMille movie from 1956. It's fashionable to snark at this movie, and not without reason - it's garish, overblown and corny as hell - but those are precisely the reasons why it's one of my favorite "classic" movies: DeMille, for all his myriad issues, was the perfect guy to make what was essentially trying to be a "living" version of the way Exodus was depicted in Rennaissance religious-art. It's the swords-n-sandals "high fantasy" (and I mean no disrespect in either direction by "fantasy") version of The Old Testament; rippling muscles, heaving bosoms, stern declarations of honor and rage, wailing high-pitched emotional breakdowns, thundering orchestral score and God's Wrath visualized through what were then cutting-edge FX.
DeMille's movie - especially the showpiece FX scenes - are SO iconic it would probably be a fool's errand for any present-day filmmaker to try and top them (I would bet on this being a mostly-historical with "subtle" mystical elements for the most part) but if anyone can pull it off it's Spielberg. The real question is: Who plays Moses - or, rather, who wants to stand up to the innevitable comparisons to Charlton Heston giving one of the most culturally-entrenched performances of his (or anyone else's) career?
Oh, and please allow me to weigh in on the obvious Movie Geek question: YES, I absolutely think that when they build the Ark of The Covenant it should totally end up looking just like the version from "Raiders" (bonus points for "Map Room"/"Miracle of The Ark" getting repurposed as "God's Theme") thus making this an Indian Jones prequel. That would be awesome.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
2012 Oscar Nominations Play it Safe, Boring.
Eh. You were expecting something else?
If it wasn't partially my JOB to cover this sort of thing, I'd prefer to declare that the entire shindig this year is rendered irrelevant by the failure to nominate Albert Brooks in "Drive" for Best Supporting Actor. The most "interesting" thing about this year is that there are NINE Best Picture nominees - they changed the rules again so that the list could be "between 5 and 10" based on total number of votes per individual film, meaning that there's some poor unfortunate movie out there that would have been the tenth nominee under last year's rules.
"The Help" simply does not belong on a Best Picture list in any year, but certainly not in a year that also included the shut-out "Drive." "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" is kind of a mess, but it was a given that the first big-star "let's all have a cry about 9/11 memories" movie was going to be nominated. "The Artist" is probably going to win, and will quickly join "A Beautiful Mind," "English Patient" and "Dances With Wolves" on the future "REALLY!?" lists - though I suppose they deserve big propers for acknowledging "Tree of Life."
Full list (and comments) after the jump:
Best Picture
War Horse
The Artist
Moneyball
The Descendants
Tree of Life
Midnight in Paris
The Help
Hugo
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
BOB COMMENT: Obviously, I'd prefer to see "Tree of Life" win, but y'know what would be an even better spoiler in some ways? "Midnight in Paris" - 'Classic Woody' making a big comeback is a big deal.
Best Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
Best Actor
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
BOB COMMENT: This should be Oldman's to lose, but the role is likely too restrained for Oscar. Dujardin probably takes this, will be the most popular "funny foriegn guy" in American movies for about six months and then promptly be banished back home a'la Roberto Benigni.
Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
BOB COMMENT: Respect where it's due, Melissa McCarthy is a delightful surprise here. "The Help" is obviously the more 'popular' movie, but I really doubt Chastain would've been noticed in this if she didn't have "Tree of Life" the same year.
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
BOB COMMENT: No Albert Brooks, no sale.
Best Director
Michele Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
BOB COMMENT: Y'know what? I like Hazanavicius. The "OSS" movies are hilarious, and he seems like a cool cat. But the "one of these things is NOT like the others" on this roster is staggering, and the idea that he'd be a frontrunner for something as inconsequential as "The Artist" on a list where the great Alexander Payne is the LEAST accomplished filmmaker otherwise is completely ridiculous.
Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Annie Mumolo Kristin Wiig, Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Asghar Farhadi, A Separation
BOB COMMENT: Will probably be Woody, and he deserves it, but it'd be great to see Wiig win.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants
John Logan, Hugo
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, Ides of March
Steven Zallian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin, Moneyball
Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Best Foreign Film
Bullhead
Footnote
In Darkness
Monseiur Lazar
A Separation
BOB COMMENT: I'm assuming "The Artist" isn't on this list because it's technically "Foriegn LANGUAGE Film" and the only spoken dialogue in the film is in English.
Best Animated Feature
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango
BOB COMMENT: My overseas readers are probably wondering how "Tintin" didn't make this list. Likely answer? A lot of "Tintin" was accomplished via motion-capture, and there's a vocal and powerful contingent of the American animation industry that sees mocap either as a threat to their livelihoods or a "low" form of the medium; and they've circled the wagons.
Best Animated Short
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life
Best Live Action Short
Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic
Best Art Direction
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
War Horse
Best Cinematography
The Artist
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Best Costumes
Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E.
BOB COMMENT: The lack of ANY 'genre' films outside of "Harry Potter" in the tech/art categories is baffling, until you remember that the prospects would include Captain America, Thor, XMen, etc. Bias against scifi/fantasy? Lessening. Bias against supehero-subgenre? Alive and kicking.
Best Documentary Feature
Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Libration Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated
Best Documentary Short
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
God is the Bigger Elvis
Incident in New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
Best Film Editing
The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball
Best Makeup
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
The Iron Lady
BOB COMMENT: Really? Red Skull get's nothing?
Best Original Score
The Adventures of TinTin
The Artist
Hugo
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
War Horse
BOB COMMENT: WHAT!? Okay, not to channel poor Kim Novak here or anything... but "The Artist" get's Best ORIGINAL Score?? Forget that the original part of it's score is deeply generic even as "tribute" scores go, big chunks of it are sampled from other scores. Two years ago, "The Will Be Blood" got shafted on a score nod because the composer sampled ONE riff from his OWN catalogue - how does this get a pass? Even the fucking Weinstein's shouldn't be this powerful...
Best Original Song
"Man or Muppet", The Muppets
"Real in Rio", Rio
Best Sound Editing
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse
Best Visual Effects
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
BOB COMMENT: Oh, look, some non-Potter genre movies finally make the cut in the usual place. This should go to "Apes," as consolation prize for the rank cowardice in not giving Andy Serkis an acting nod.
If it wasn't partially my JOB to cover this sort of thing, I'd prefer to declare that the entire shindig this year is rendered irrelevant by the failure to nominate Albert Brooks in "Drive" for Best Supporting Actor. The most "interesting" thing about this year is that there are NINE Best Picture nominees - they changed the rules again so that the list could be "between 5 and 10" based on total number of votes per individual film, meaning that there's some poor unfortunate movie out there that would have been the tenth nominee under last year's rules.
"The Help" simply does not belong on a Best Picture list in any year, but certainly not in a year that also included the shut-out "Drive." "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" is kind of a mess, but it was a given that the first big-star "let's all have a cry about 9/11 memories" movie was going to be nominated. "The Artist" is probably going to win, and will quickly join "A Beautiful Mind," "English Patient" and "Dances With Wolves" on the future "REALLY!?" lists - though I suppose they deserve big propers for acknowledging "Tree of Life."
Full list (and comments) after the jump:
Best Picture
War Horse
The Artist
Moneyball
The Descendants
Tree of Life
Midnight in Paris
The Help
Hugo
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
BOB COMMENT: Obviously, I'd prefer to see "Tree of Life" win, but y'know what would be an even better spoiler in some ways? "Midnight in Paris" - 'Classic Woody' making a big comeback is a big deal.
Best Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn
Best Actor
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
BOB COMMENT: This should be Oldman's to lose, but the role is likely too restrained for Oscar. Dujardin probably takes this, will be the most popular "funny foriegn guy" in American movies for about six months and then promptly be banished back home a'la Roberto Benigni.
Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
BOB COMMENT: Respect where it's due, Melissa McCarthy is a delightful surprise here. "The Help" is obviously the more 'popular' movie, but I really doubt Chastain would've been noticed in this if she didn't have "Tree of Life" the same year.
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh, My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
BOB COMMENT: No Albert Brooks, no sale.
Best Director
Michele Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
BOB COMMENT: Y'know what? I like Hazanavicius. The "OSS" movies are hilarious, and he seems like a cool cat. But the "one of these things is NOT like the others" on this roster is staggering, and the idea that he'd be a frontrunner for something as inconsequential as "The Artist" on a list where the great Alexander Payne is the LEAST accomplished filmmaker otherwise is completely ridiculous.
Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Annie Mumolo Kristin Wiig, Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Asghar Farhadi, A Separation
BOB COMMENT: Will probably be Woody, and he deserves it, but it'd be great to see Wiig win.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash, The Descendants
John Logan, Hugo
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, Ides of March
Steven Zallian, Aaron Sorkin, Stan Chervin, Moneyball
Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Best Foreign Film
Bullhead
Footnote
In Darkness
Monseiur Lazar
A Separation
BOB COMMENT: I'm assuming "The Artist" isn't on this list because it's technically "Foriegn LANGUAGE Film" and the only spoken dialogue in the film is in English.
Best Animated Feature
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango
BOB COMMENT: My overseas readers are probably wondering how "Tintin" didn't make this list. Likely answer? A lot of "Tintin" was accomplished via motion-capture, and there's a vocal and powerful contingent of the American animation industry that sees mocap either as a threat to their livelihoods or a "low" form of the medium; and they've circled the wagons.
Best Animated Short
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life
Best Live Action Short
Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic
Best Art Direction
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
War Horse
Best Cinematography
The Artist
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Best Costumes
Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E.
BOB COMMENT: The lack of ANY 'genre' films outside of "Harry Potter" in the tech/art categories is baffling, until you remember that the prospects would include Captain America, Thor, XMen, etc. Bias against scifi/fantasy? Lessening. Bias against supehero-subgenre? Alive and kicking.
Best Documentary Feature
Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Libration Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated
Best Documentary Short
The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
God is the Bigger Elvis
Incident in New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom
Best Film Editing
The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball
Best Makeup
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
The Iron Lady
BOB COMMENT: Really? Red Skull get's nothing?
Best Original Score
The Adventures of TinTin
The Artist
Hugo
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
War Horse
BOB COMMENT: WHAT!? Okay, not to channel poor Kim Novak here or anything... but "The Artist" get's Best ORIGINAL Score?? Forget that the original part of it's score is deeply generic even as "tribute" scores go, big chunks of it are sampled from other scores. Two years ago, "The Will Be Blood" got shafted on a score nod because the composer sampled ONE riff from his OWN catalogue - how does this get a pass? Even the fucking Weinstein's shouldn't be this powerful...
Best Original Song
"Man or Muppet", The Muppets
"Real in Rio", Rio
Best Sound Editing
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse
Best Visual Effects
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
BOB COMMENT: Oh, look, some non-Potter genre movies finally make the cut in the usual place. This should go to "Apes," as consolation prize for the rank cowardice in not giving Andy Serkis an acting nod.
Big Picture: "Monster's Movie"
Kim Jong-Il - the late dictator of North Korea - once kidnapped a famous South Korean filmmaker, held him and his wife prisoner for nearly a decade and forced him to make a Communist knock-off of "Godzilla." Really. Here's a show about it.
FINAL 2012 OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS
T-minus 2 hours, so I'd better get these on the record quick!
BEST PICTURE
The Artist
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
BEST DIRECTOR
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
BEST ACTRESS
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Albert Brooks, Drive
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
50/50
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Midnight in Paris
A Separation
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Ugh, I hate all of these and want to just start from scratch but I'm exhausted, so I'm posting them without much thought. Fingers crossed tomorrow!
BEST PICTURE
The Artist
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
BEST DIRECTOR
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
BEST ACTRESS
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Albert Brooks, Drive
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
50/50
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Midnight in Paris
A Separation
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Ugh, I hate all of these and want to just start from scratch but I'm exhausted, so I'm posting them without much thought. Fingers crossed tomorrow!
Monday, 23 January 2012
How America's Hatred of Intelligence is KILLING It, Explained in Under 4 Minutes
Hat-tip io9
I often strain for sober-sounding methods to explain my disgust with the villifying of "intellectuals" or "elites" in American culture; or why I get as furious as I do with Climate Change deniers, Creationists, Intelligent Design proponents and all other manner of superstitious wastes of skin (see, there I go again...) rather than just ignoring them.
Fortunately, Neil deGrasse Tyson (who's supposedly going to step into Carl Sagan's shoes for Seth McFarlane's "Cosmos" revival - yes, really) helpfully explains it by means of a simple infographic that shows the United State's standing as a scientific-innovator dwindle to near-nothingness within a mere decade:
This is why I DON'T get mad when people in Asia, Europe, Japan etc. gloat about how stupid my country is now percieved to be, because it's increasingly TRUE and it has very simple, tangible sources: America, as a whole, does far too much "believing" (religiously and otherwise) and not nearly enough THINKING. We prize moral-righteousness over intellectual prowess, we hold "common sense" superior to educated analysis, we slash funding for research to meet short-term budgetary goals and expect "the market" to pick up the slack (it won't, "the market" LIKES a stupid population) and we treat people walking around in the 21st century denying cold hard proven facts like evolution, climate-change etc as having "beliefs" or "a different opinion" instead of obvious mental failings not worthy of ether discussion OR respect in a modern world.
We're having an election soon. Not ONE Republican can hope to be nominated if he doesn't swear to his constituents that he believes the proven fact of evolution to be false, and no one of EITHER party can hope to win period without reassuring a significant number of people that they believe - sincerely and without a hint of doubt or questioning - that there is an invisible man living in the sky calling the shots via a ten-item "don't" list. These are the signs of a society that is not only failing, but that deserves to be failing.
So while the fundamentalists, hardcore believers, absolutist pro-lifers, "traditionalists," creationists, homophobes, climate-deniers and all the rest MAY in fact include some otherwise perfectly nice individuals among their ranks, collectively the ignorance they espouse and the anti-progress, anti-reason political leaders, candidates and movements they support are murdering my future; and I feel wholly disinclined to continue being "tolerant" of them. Differences should be tolerated, but ignorance should be corrected - and if it cannot/will-not BE corrected it deserves only to be shunned.
I often strain for sober-sounding methods to explain my disgust with the villifying of "intellectuals" or "elites" in American culture; or why I get as furious as I do with Climate Change deniers, Creationists, Intelligent Design proponents and all other manner of superstitious wastes of skin (see, there I go again...) rather than just ignoring them.
Fortunately, Neil deGrasse Tyson (who's supposedly going to step into Carl Sagan's shoes for Seth McFarlane's "Cosmos" revival - yes, really) helpfully explains it by means of a simple infographic that shows the United State's standing as a scientific-innovator dwindle to near-nothingness within a mere decade:
This is why I DON'T get mad when people in Asia, Europe, Japan etc. gloat about how stupid my country is now percieved to be, because it's increasingly TRUE and it has very simple, tangible sources: America, as a whole, does far too much "believing" (religiously and otherwise) and not nearly enough THINKING. We prize moral-righteousness over intellectual prowess, we hold "common sense" superior to educated analysis, we slash funding for research to meet short-term budgetary goals and expect "the market" to pick up the slack (it won't, "the market" LIKES a stupid population) and we treat people walking around in the 21st century denying cold hard proven facts like evolution, climate-change etc as having "beliefs" or "a different opinion" instead of obvious mental failings not worthy of ether discussion OR respect in a modern world.
We're having an election soon. Not ONE Republican can hope to be nominated if he doesn't swear to his constituents that he believes the proven fact of evolution to be false, and no one of EITHER party can hope to win period without reassuring a significant number of people that they believe - sincerely and without a hint of doubt or questioning - that there is an invisible man living in the sky calling the shots via a ten-item "don't" list. These are the signs of a society that is not only failing, but that deserves to be failing.
So while the fundamentalists, hardcore believers, absolutist pro-lifers, "traditionalists," creationists, homophobes, climate-deniers and all the rest MAY in fact include some otherwise perfectly nice individuals among their ranks, collectively the ignorance they espouse and the anti-progress, anti-reason political leaders, candidates and movements they support are murdering my future; and I feel wholly disinclined to continue being "tolerant" of them. Differences should be tolerated, but ignorance should be corrected - and if it cannot/will-not BE corrected it deserves only to be shunned.
2011 Guldbagge Awards Winners
Watching Awards ceremony live and it's quite entertaining, especially when my Swedish is very basic (lol!) but it takes no genius to understand category and winner. Winners in all categories will be at the official site here. Winners are in *BLUE.--//--
1/5/2012
Yesterday the Swedish Film Institute announced the nominees for this prestigious award and here they are for the main categories. Simon och ekarna leads with 13 nominations followed by Play with 7 and The Crown Jewels with 5.
Best Film
*Apflickorna (She Monkeys), Lisa Aschan
Play, Ruben Östlund
Simon och ekarna (Simon and the Oaks), Lisa Ohlin
Best Director
Lisa Aschan for Apflickorna (She Monkeys),
*Ruben Östlund for Play
Lisa Ohlin for Simon och ekarna (Simon and the Oaks)
Best Actress in a Leading Role
*Ann Petrén in Happy End
Magdalena Poplawska in Between 2 Fires
Helen Sjöholm in Simon och ekarna (Simon and the Oaks)
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Mikael Persbrandt in Stockholm Östra (Stockholm East)
*Sven-Bertil Taube in En enkel till Antibes (A One-way to Antibes)
Kevin Vaz in Play
To check nominees in all categories go here. Awards ceremony will be on January 23, 2012 at Cirkus, Stockholm and Swedish TV (STV) will broadcast the event live.
Only in Sweden could happen that two out of the three films nominated for Best Film and Best Director are by female directors; know it has to be a milestone and should be celebrated as great achievement. Then somehow I really miss Noomi Rapace in these awards as unfortunately she’s doing very strange films (for her profile and career) so I hope she goes back soon to make outstanding Swedish productions –sigh.
Very Late –almost last minute- 2012 Oscar Nominations Predictions
Been so busy doing nothing that almost forgot to publish my predictions, as nominations announcement is tomorrow around 8:30am EST. The future can be unpredictable, but Oscar is more predictable at least in the basic categories so let’s grab my crystal ball and start guessing.Best Film
1. The Artist
2. The Descendants
3. The Help
4. Bridesmaids
5. Midnight in Paris
6. Hugo
7. Moneyball
8. Drive
9. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
10. The Tree of Life
Movies are in order, so if there are 5, 6, 7, 8 or more up to 10 (maximum possible) ranking becomes my prediction.
Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Alexander Payne for Descendants
Martin Scorsese for Hugo
Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris
Nicolas Winding Refn for Drive
Have possibilities: David Fincher and Terrence Malick
Best Actress
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady
Viola Davis in The Help
Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn
Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin
Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs
Last position could be Glenn Close, Charlize Theron or Elizabeth Olsen. Berenice Bejo is another possibility but for some strange reason is considered more to be in a supporting role, which after watching movie I absolutely said she has a lead role.
Best Supporting Actress
Octavia Spencer in The Help
Jessica Chastain in (which movie?... hmm) The Help
Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids
Shailene Woodley in The Descendants
Janet McTeer in Albert Nobbs
IF the Academy members consider Berenice Bejo as having a supporting role (which she does not) then she is going to be nominated in this category and probably one of the last two actresses will be replaced by her.
Best Actor
George Clooney in The Descendants
Brad Pitt in Moneyball
Jean Dujardin in The Artist
Michael Fassbender in Shame
Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar
Have possibilities Ryan Goslin, Gary Oldman and Michael Shannon; I really wish Fassbender is nominated, but his role is so outrageous that wonder if Academy members will nominate him and know he could easily be replaced by any of those with possibilities.
Best Supporting Actor
Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Albert Brooks in Drive
Jonah Hill in Moneyball
Kenneth Branagh in My Week with Marilyn
Nick Nolte in Warrior
Have possibilities Arnie Hammer and Patton Oswalt
Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris
Diablo Cody for Young Adult
Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig for Bridesmaids
IF Asghar Farhadi is nominated in Original Screenplay, I’ll be VERY HAPPY!!! as honor is well-deserved plus this is his year for great honors after making (directing, writing, and more) several outstanding films.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Aaron Sorkin amd Steven Zaillian for Moneyball
Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne and Jim Rash for The Descendants
Tate Taylor for The Help
George Clooney and Grant Heslov for The Ides of March
Hossein Amini for Drive
Let’s stop here with the main categories. In less than 24 hours we will learn the nominees and I’m still hoping for some unexpectedness even when award season started to be too predictable; let’s be positive and let see if I improved my previous years record or not, after all this year have seen almost all movies that most likely will have two or more Oscar nominations.
OOPS! Very absent minded, forgot one important category: foreign language film!
Iran, "A Separation," Asghar Farhadi, director
Germany, "Pina," Wim Wenders, director
Poland, "In Darkness," Agnieszka Holland, director
Canada, "Monsieur Lazhar," Philippe Falardeau, director
Belgium, "Bullhead," Michael R. Roskam, director
Cheers!!!
REVIEW: "Underworld: Awakening"
I actually really like the "Underworld" movies, overall. The whole series has a mountain of problems following it from sequel to sequel, but the whole production is so unblinkingly, unironically wrapped-up in itself that it almost feels like conventional aesthetic criticism doesn't "matter" - like the golden age Bond movies or the "Rocky" series, it more-or-less demands to be met on it's own terms.
Helpfully, other than the first film sucking for almost a FULL HOUR before it suddenly gets interesting and engaging, the terms are pretty reasonable - for a franchise comprised chiefly of complicated-for-complication's-sake revisionist vampire fan-fiction and director/producer Len Wiseman's (largely successful) attempt to enshrine wife Kate Beckinsale as an iconic genre-film sex-goddess; the whole affair has been pretty damn watchable.
For those not up to speed on the "Underworld" lore: Vampires and Werewolves are real - except Werewolves are called "Lycans" - and the two teams don't get along (Lycans = blue-collar, Vamps = aristocrats) on account of the Lycans having once been Vampire slaves until some star-crossed-lovers stuff went down between a wolf-guy and a vamp-princess back in medieval times; and they've been fighting the equivalent of an unseen-by-humanity mob war (hence the title) for centuries. Oh, and they share a common ancestor in some guy who made himself immortal trying to cure a plague and passed the gene on to his twin sons who were bitten by a wolf and bat, respectively.
Beckinsale is Selene, a vampiress with a blackbelt in wolf-exterminating who winds up on the outskirts of the fight after she falls for Scott Speedman as a guy who's been mutated into a vampire/lycan Hybrid and learns that the monster-war backstory is actually MORE complicated than she thought - bad guys who aren't so bad, good guys who're secretly evil, the usual. To it's credit, the franchise keeps track of this information in what was initially a novel way: When "Underworld" vampires drink blood, they also absorb the bleeder's memories.
"Underworld 3" was actually a prequel, with Michael Sheen (really!) and Rhona Mitra as the lycan/vamp Romeo & Juliet analogues. "Awakening" brings back Selene and takes the story to the next logical step: At some point between Part 2 and now, human beings finally found out about vampires and werewolves being real and tried to wipe them out. After a prologue explaining this, Selene wakes up sans-Michael in science lab where we learn she's been locked up for eleven years. The movie makes a big deal out of this "lost decade" business, but it doesn't really have much resonance - part of the "conceit" of the previous films was a near-total lack of reference to where or when ANY of this was actually taking place beyond "medieval times" and "modern big-city."
So, despite the whole "it's the future now" setup, everything is pretty familiar: Selene running about in her black pleather skin-suit and duster beating up enemies, some of whom can morph into big bipedal wolf-monsters. I will say that I like that the series maintains it's creatures-eye-view conception of it's world despite the new wrinkle of actively-involved humanity - it's a trip that our ostensible heroine casually murders human canon-fodder en-route to her various goals since, hey, to her these are basically just free-range cattle, after all.
Granted, it's at last become impossible to ignore that the series really isn't "about" anything other than it's own worldbuilding (it really does have NOTHING to "say" after four films than "here's the next addition to the 'Underworld' mythos!") so at this point it's all about the novelties - this time around, the "new stuff" includes a giant-size mega-Lycan, Stephen Rea(!) as a scientist and a pair of fairly surprising plot twists.
I don't really know that I "needed" a fourth one of these, and I'm not exactly demanding a fifth one... but I can't say it's not worth a shot.
Helpfully, other than the first film sucking for almost a FULL HOUR before it suddenly gets interesting and engaging, the terms are pretty reasonable - for a franchise comprised chiefly of complicated-for-complication's-sake revisionist vampire fan-fiction and director/producer Len Wiseman's (largely successful) attempt to enshrine wife Kate Beckinsale as an iconic genre-film sex-goddess; the whole affair has been pretty damn watchable.
For those not up to speed on the "Underworld" lore: Vampires and Werewolves are real - except Werewolves are called "Lycans" - and the two teams don't get along (Lycans = blue-collar, Vamps = aristocrats) on account of the Lycans having once been Vampire slaves until some star-crossed-lovers stuff went down between a wolf-guy and a vamp-princess back in medieval times; and they've been fighting the equivalent of an unseen-by-humanity mob war (hence the title) for centuries. Oh, and they share a common ancestor in some guy who made himself immortal trying to cure a plague and passed the gene on to his twin sons who were bitten by a wolf and bat, respectively.
Beckinsale is Selene, a vampiress with a blackbelt in wolf-exterminating who winds up on the outskirts of the fight after she falls for Scott Speedman as a guy who's been mutated into a vampire/lycan Hybrid and learns that the monster-war backstory is actually MORE complicated than she thought - bad guys who aren't so bad, good guys who're secretly evil, the usual. To it's credit, the franchise keeps track of this information in what was initially a novel way: When "Underworld" vampires drink blood, they also absorb the bleeder's memories.
"Underworld 3" was actually a prequel, with Michael Sheen (really!) and Rhona Mitra as the lycan/vamp Romeo & Juliet analogues. "Awakening" brings back Selene and takes the story to the next logical step: At some point between Part 2 and now, human beings finally found out about vampires and werewolves being real and tried to wipe them out. After a prologue explaining this, Selene wakes up sans-Michael in science lab where we learn she's been locked up for eleven years. The movie makes a big deal out of this "lost decade" business, but it doesn't really have much resonance - part of the "conceit" of the previous films was a near-total lack of reference to where or when ANY of this was actually taking place beyond "medieval times" and "modern big-city."
So, despite the whole "it's the future now" setup, everything is pretty familiar: Selene running about in her black pleather skin-suit and duster beating up enemies, some of whom can morph into big bipedal wolf-monsters. I will say that I like that the series maintains it's creatures-eye-view conception of it's world despite the new wrinkle of actively-involved humanity - it's a trip that our ostensible heroine casually murders human canon-fodder en-route to her various goals since, hey, to her these are basically just free-range cattle, after all.
Granted, it's at last become impossible to ignore that the series really isn't "about" anything other than it's own worldbuilding (it really does have NOTHING to "say" after four films than "here's the next addition to the 'Underworld' mythos!") so at this point it's all about the novelties - this time around, the "new stuff" includes a giant-size mega-Lycan, Stephen Rea(!) as a scientist and a pair of fairly surprising plot twists.
I don't really know that I "needed" a fourth one of these, and I'm not exactly demanding a fifth one... but I can't say it's not worth a shot.
Sunday, 22 January 2012
THE WORST 10 MOVIES OF 2011
Sitting through these movies was akin to torture. We've got one critically acclaimed arthouse film, three DOA Sundance movies, three big-budget bombs, 2 VOD premieres and a studio "comedy." Each one is to be avoided at all costs.
10. MELANCHOLIA – A pretty yet pretentious, not to mention pointless exercise in sheer boredom from agent provocateur Lars von Trier. I have more respect for The Tree of Life! At least that was about something... I think.
9. THE DETAILS – I loved Jacob Aaron Estes’ Mean Creek, but The Details was just a complete mess. Horrible voiceover, hammy acting & a terrible script. It features Laura Linney giving Tobey Maguire a blowjob, which is probably why it has been sitting on a shelf for a year. Seriously, who wants to pay to see that?
8. I MELT WITH YOU – This movie made me wish I’d signed a suicide pact with my own high school friends. Pellington's gotta take this shit back to film school and work out his issues.
7. THE SON OF NO ONE – Didn’t see the re-edited version that was cobbled together after its disastrous Sundance screening, but can't imagined it improved much. Just a goofy, self-serious story featuring some solid actors giving embarrassing performances. C'mon, Pacino! You're better than this!
6. GREEN LANTERN – What the fuck happened here? The first 30 minutes were a total joke. Second straight year a Ryan Reynolds movie has made my Worst 10 list. Amateur VFX, a ridiculous plot, a silly villain and a bland love interest hobble this superhero pic. Thank God auds steered clear of this turd and spared us all a sequel... for now.
5. COWBOYS & ALIENS – Popcorn garbage for the masses. How much more boring can Daniel Craig get outside of the Bond franchise. Harrison Ford can’t possibly chew more scenery. The story was insulting. Something about aliens needing gold. Who comes up with this shit? A big-budget slog to sit through. Speaking of those...
4. BATTLE: LOS ANGELES – Was so excited to see this movie due to a great trailer, but it was just loud, action nonsense that I’ve seen a million times before. It took no risks and did nothing to differentiate itself. Director Jonathan Liebesman let me down here, as did the one-note Aaron Eckhart, who is so much better than this B-movie material.
3. TRESPASS – Joel Schumacher has made a lot of great movies, and it's sad to see what has become of his once-promising career. How do you waste not one, but TWO Oscar winners in Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman? This was a generic, by-the-numbers thriller that debuted on VOD for a reason: it sucked.
2. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II: FULL SEQUENCE – Talk about a dude out of ideas. While I liked the premise in theory, Tom Six just kept throwing more shit (literally) at the screen to see what would stick, and ultimately, none of it did. This is lowest common denominator filmmaking and fairly offensive, which is not a word I throw around lightly. Just utter garbage.
1. YOUR HIGHNESS – A crass, stupid, schlocky, laugh-free movie. Shocking how so many funny people can work together to create something so lame and out of touch. This was staggeringly awful, but I KNEW it would be going into it, so I have only myself (and Universal) to blame. What has happened to the David Gordon Green we all knew and loved? He needs to leave comedies behind him and focus on making Brad Land's hazing memoir Goat... or anything that's worth his time.
10. MELANCHOLIA – A pretty yet pretentious, not to mention pointless exercise in sheer boredom from agent provocateur Lars von Trier. I have more respect for The Tree of Life! At least that was about something... I think.
9. THE DETAILS – I loved Jacob Aaron Estes’ Mean Creek, but The Details was just a complete mess. Horrible voiceover, hammy acting & a terrible script. It features Laura Linney giving Tobey Maguire a blowjob, which is probably why it has been sitting on a shelf for a year. Seriously, who wants to pay to see that?
8. I MELT WITH YOU – This movie made me wish I’d signed a suicide pact with my own high school friends. Pellington's gotta take this shit back to film school and work out his issues.
7. THE SON OF NO ONE – Didn’t see the re-edited version that was cobbled together after its disastrous Sundance screening, but can't imagined it improved much. Just a goofy, self-serious story featuring some solid actors giving embarrassing performances. C'mon, Pacino! You're better than this!
6. GREEN LANTERN – What the fuck happened here? The first 30 minutes were a total joke. Second straight year a Ryan Reynolds movie has made my Worst 10 list. Amateur VFX, a ridiculous plot, a silly villain and a bland love interest hobble this superhero pic. Thank God auds steered clear of this turd and spared us all a sequel... for now.
5. COWBOYS & ALIENS – Popcorn garbage for the masses. How much more boring can Daniel Craig get outside of the Bond franchise. Harrison Ford can’t possibly chew more scenery. The story was insulting. Something about aliens needing gold. Who comes up with this shit? A big-budget slog to sit through. Speaking of those...
4. BATTLE: LOS ANGELES – Was so excited to see this movie due to a great trailer, but it was just loud, action nonsense that I’ve seen a million times before. It took no risks and did nothing to differentiate itself. Director Jonathan Liebesman let me down here, as did the one-note Aaron Eckhart, who is so much better than this B-movie material.
3. TRESPASS – Joel Schumacher has made a lot of great movies, and it's sad to see what has become of his once-promising career. How do you waste not one, but TWO Oscar winners in Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman? This was a generic, by-the-numbers thriller that debuted on VOD for a reason: it sucked.
2. THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE II: FULL SEQUENCE – Talk about a dude out of ideas. While I liked the premise in theory, Tom Six just kept throwing more shit (literally) at the screen to see what would stick, and ultimately, none of it did. This is lowest common denominator filmmaking and fairly offensive, which is not a word I throw around lightly. Just utter garbage.
1. YOUR HIGHNESS – A crass, stupid, schlocky, laugh-free movie. Shocking how so many funny people can work together to create something so lame and out of touch. This was staggeringly awful, but I KNEW it would be going into it, so I have only myself (and Universal) to blame. What has happened to the David Gordon Green we all knew and loved? He needs to leave comedies behind him and focus on making Brad Land's hazing memoir Goat... or anything that's worth his time.
IF I HAD AN OSCAR BALLOT...
... It would look an awful lot like this. And keep in mind, while I LOVED movies like Bellflower & Hesher, I'm not sure I'd put them on an OSCAR ballot. They're perfect for my personal Top 10, but these are movies that realistically might have a chance, however small, of getting serious awards recognition.
BEST PICTURE
50/50
Beginners
The Descendants
Drive
The Help
The Ides of March
Moneyball
Super 8
Warrior
Win Win
BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Steve McQueen, Shame
Bennett Miller, Moneyball
Gavin O’Connor, Warrior
Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
BEST ACTOR
Demian Bichir, A Better Life
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
BEST ACTRESS
Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur
Viola Davis, The Help
Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Albert Brooks, Drive
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
Corey Stoll, Midnight in Paris
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Elle Fanning, Super 8
Bryce Dallas Howard, The Help
Carey Mulligan, Shame
Octavia Spencer, The Help
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
50/50
A Better Life
Midnight in Paris
Win Win
Young Adult
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants
Drive
The Ides of March
Moneyball
The Skin I Live In
BEST PICTURE
50/50
Beginners
The Descendants
Drive
The Help
The Ides of March
Moneyball
Super 8
Warrior
Win Win
BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Steve McQueen, Shame
Bennett Miller, Moneyball
Gavin O’Connor, Warrior
Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive
BEST ACTOR
Demian Bichir, A Better Life
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
BEST ACTRESS
Olivia Colman, Tyrannosaur
Viola Davis, The Help
Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Albert Brooks, Drive
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
Corey Stoll, Midnight in Paris
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Elle Fanning, Super 8
Bryce Dallas Howard, The Help
Carey Mulligan, Shame
Octavia Spencer, The Help
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
50/50
A Better Life
Midnight in Paris
Win Win
Young Adult
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants
Drive
The Ides of March
Moneyball
The Skin I Live In
2011 MOVIE LIST ... 137 & COUNTING!
It's back again and better than ever!
THE STANDOUTS (18) - This should go without saying, but these are all must-sees.
Win Win ***1/2
Warrior ***1/2
I Saw the Devil ***1/2
Drive ***1/2
50/50 ***1/2
Hesher ***
Bellflower ***
Moneyball ***
Young Adult ***
The Ides of March ***
Super 8 ***
The Debt ***
A Better Life ***
Rango ***
Kidnapped ***
Rise of the Planet of the Apes ***
War Horse ***
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold ***
THE GOOD (36) - These represent quality filmmaking all-around.
Attack the Block ***
Red State ***
Bridesmaids ***
Contagion ***
Shame ***
Take Shelter ***
Midnight in Paris ***
The Help ***
The Descendants ***
Martha Marcy May Marlene ***
Beginners ***
The Skin I Live In ***
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol ***
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within ***
Tyrannosaur ***
Sound of My Voice ***
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close ***
We Need To Talk About Kevin ***
The Trip ***
Hanna ***
Page One ***
Friends With Benefits ***
The Change Up ***
Cedar Rapids ***
Ceremony ***
Submarine ***
Exporting Raymond ***
Jeff, Who Lives at Home ***
The Robber ***
Water For Elephants ***
Another Happy Day ***
Hall Pass ***
Source Code ***
The Lincoln Lawyer ***
Bernie ***
Still Screaming **1/2
THE GOOD... BUT SHOULD'VE BEEN BETTERS (21) - Why weren't these good movies better? I don't really know. But they should be. Hence, the name of this section.
The Artist ***
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ***
Crazy Stupid Love ***
The Hangover Part II ***
X-Men: First Class **1/2
J. Edgar **1/2
Kill List **1/2
The Devil's Double **1/2
Paranormal Activity 3 **1/2
Miss Bala **1/2
My Week With Marilyn **1/2
Dirty Girl **1/2
The Guard **1/2
The Beaver **1/2
Margin Call **1/2
Bad Teacher **1/2
Super **1/2
Grave Encounters **1/2
Immortals **1/2
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark **1/2
American: The Bill Hicks Story **1/2
THE GUILTY PLEASURES (16) - These are movies that I shouldn't like but I do, for one reason or another. I only feel ashamed because the Internet tells me I'm supposed to.
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas ***
Hobo With a Shotgun ***
Fast Five ***
Final Destination 5 ***
Just Go With It ***
Fright Night ***
Transformers: Dark of the Moon **1/2
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows **1/2
Take Me Home Tonight **1/2
The Green Hornet **1/2
Thor **1/2
The Double **1/2
The Mechanic **1/2
The Woman **1/2
Unknown **
Zookeeper **
THE UNDERWHELMING DISAPPOINTMENTS (37) - Chalk it up to expectations but these movies just didn't cut it for me.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy **1/2
Straw Dogs **1/2
Snowtown ** 1/2
Texas Killing Fields **1/2
Our Idiot Brother **1/2
Captain America **1/2
Paul **1/2
Horrible Bosses **1/2
Tower Heist **1/2
The Adventures of Tintin **
Hugo **
30 Minutes or Less **
Machine Gun Preacher **
Something Borrowed **
Rampart **
Page Eight **
The Adjustment Bureau **
The Tree of Life **
Scream 4 **
Limitless **
Insidious **
Knuckle **
Cold Weather **
The Dilemma **
The Sitter **
Fireflies in the Garden **
Real Steel **
Rubber **
The Catechism Cataclysm **
Peep World *1/2
The Rum Diary *1/2
Everything Must Go *1/2
A Dangerous Method *1/2
Coriolanus *1/2
Carnage * 1/2
The Thing *1/2
The Details *1/2
THE BAD (9) - For better or worse, I just don't know what these movies were thinking.
Melancholia *1/2
I Melt With You *1/2
The Son of No One *1/2
Green Lantern *1/2
Cowboys & Aliens *1/2
Battle: Los Angeles *
The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence *
Trespass 1/2*
Your Highness 1/2 *
OOPS, I MISSED (54): Abduction, Albert Nobbs, Anonymous, Arthur Christmas, Beautiful Boy, The Big Year, Buck, Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star, Colombiana, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, The Conspirator, Cars 2, Cracks, The Darkest Hour, The Eagle, The Flowers of War, The Future, Good Neighbors, Happy Feet 2, Happythankyoumoreplease, Henry's Crime, In a Better World, Incendies, In Time, The Iron Lady, Jack and Jill, Jane Eyre, Killer Elite, Kill the Irishman, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Lady, The Ledge, The Lie, London Boulevard, Meek's Cutoff, Miral, NEDS, Project Nim, Puncture, Puss In Boots, Red Riding Hood, Retreat, Salvation Boulevard, Senna, Septien, Sympathy For Delicious, Tabloid, Terri, The Three Musketeers, Trust, Vanishing on 7th St., We Are What We Are, What's Your Number?, Wrecked
COMING SOON (14): Another Earth, Brawler, Extraterrestrial, In the Land of Blood and Honey, The Last Circus, Like Crazy, Margaret, The Muppets, Pariah, Point Blank, A Separation, Sleeping Beauty, We Bought a Zoo, Weekend
THE STANDOUTS (18) - This should go without saying, but these are all must-sees.
Win Win ***1/2
Warrior ***1/2
I Saw the Devil ***1/2
Drive ***1/2
50/50 ***1/2
Hesher ***
Bellflower ***
Moneyball ***
Young Adult ***
The Ides of March ***
Super 8 ***
The Debt ***
A Better Life ***
Rango ***
Kidnapped ***
Rise of the Planet of the Apes ***
War Horse ***
POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold ***
THE GOOD (36) - These represent quality filmmaking all-around.
Attack the Block ***
Red State ***
Bridesmaids ***
Contagion ***
Shame ***
Take Shelter ***
Midnight in Paris ***
The Help ***
The Descendants ***
Martha Marcy May Marlene ***
Beginners ***
The Skin I Live In ***
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol ***
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within ***
Tyrannosaur ***
Sound of My Voice ***
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close ***
We Need To Talk About Kevin ***
The Trip ***
Hanna ***
Page One ***
Friends With Benefits ***
The Change Up ***
Cedar Rapids ***
Ceremony ***
Submarine ***
Exporting Raymond ***
Jeff, Who Lives at Home ***
The Robber ***
Water For Elephants ***
Another Happy Day ***
Hall Pass ***
Source Code ***
The Lincoln Lawyer ***
Bernie ***
Still Screaming **1/2
THE GOOD... BUT SHOULD'VE BEEN BETTERS (21) - Why weren't these good movies better? I don't really know. But they should be. Hence, the name of this section.
The Artist ***
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ***
Crazy Stupid Love ***
The Hangover Part II ***
X-Men: First Class **1/2
J. Edgar **1/2
Kill List **1/2
The Devil's Double **1/2
Paranormal Activity 3 **1/2
Miss Bala **1/2
My Week With Marilyn **1/2
Dirty Girl **1/2
The Guard **1/2
The Beaver **1/2
Margin Call **1/2
Bad Teacher **1/2
Super **1/2
Grave Encounters **1/2
Immortals **1/2
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark **1/2
American: The Bill Hicks Story **1/2
THE GUILTY PLEASURES (16) - These are movies that I shouldn't like but I do, for one reason or another. I only feel ashamed because the Internet tells me I'm supposed to.
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas ***
Hobo With a Shotgun ***
Fast Five ***
Final Destination 5 ***
Just Go With It ***
Fright Night ***
Transformers: Dark of the Moon **1/2
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows **1/2
Take Me Home Tonight **1/2
The Green Hornet **1/2
Thor **1/2
The Double **1/2
The Mechanic **1/2
The Woman **1/2
Unknown **
Zookeeper **
THE UNDERWHELMING DISAPPOINTMENTS (37) - Chalk it up to expectations but these movies just didn't cut it for me.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy **1/2
Straw Dogs **1/2
Snowtown ** 1/2
Texas Killing Fields **1/2
Our Idiot Brother **1/2
Captain America **1/2
Paul **1/2
Horrible Bosses **1/2
Tower Heist **1/2
The Adventures of Tintin **
Hugo **
30 Minutes or Less **
Machine Gun Preacher **
Something Borrowed **
Rampart **
Page Eight **
The Adjustment Bureau **
The Tree of Life **
Scream 4 **
Limitless **
Insidious **
Knuckle **
Cold Weather **
The Dilemma **
The Sitter **
Fireflies in the Garden **
Real Steel **
Rubber **
The Catechism Cataclysm **
Peep World *1/2
The Rum Diary *1/2
Everything Must Go *1/2
A Dangerous Method *1/2
Coriolanus *1/2
Carnage * 1/2
The Thing *1/2
The Details *1/2
THE BAD (9) - For better or worse, I just don't know what these movies were thinking.
Melancholia *1/2
I Melt With You *1/2
The Son of No One *1/2
Green Lantern *1/2
Cowboys & Aliens *1/2
Battle: Los Angeles *
The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence *
Trespass 1/2*
Your Highness 1/2 *
OOPS, I MISSED (54): Abduction, Albert Nobbs, Anonymous, Arthur Christmas, Beautiful Boy, The Big Year, Buck, Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star, Colombiana, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop, The Conspirator, Cars 2, Cracks, The Darkest Hour, The Eagle, The Flowers of War, The Future, Good Neighbors, Happy Feet 2, Happythankyoumoreplease, Henry's Crime, In a Better World, Incendies, In Time, The Iron Lady, Jack and Jill, Jane Eyre, Killer Elite, Kill the Irishman, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Lady, The Ledge, The Lie, London Boulevard, Meek's Cutoff, Miral, NEDS, Project Nim, Puncture, Puss In Boots, Red Riding Hood, Retreat, Salvation Boulevard, Senna, Septien, Sympathy For Delicious, Tabloid, Terri, The Three Musketeers, Trust, Vanishing on 7th St., We Are What We Are, What's Your Number?, Wrecked
COMING SOON (14): Another Earth, Brawler, Extraterrestrial, In the Land of Blood and Honey, The Last Circus, Like Crazy, Margaret, The Muppets, Pariah, Point Blank, A Separation, Sleeping Beauty, We Bought a Zoo, Weekend
Les Bien-aimés (Beloved)
The 2011 Cannes out-of-competition closing film absolutely is a very-very French film by Christophe Honoré that plays again with older French film styles but also integrates more contemporary Honoré style making end result quite interesting, at least for me as been reading around and seems that film is not for all audiences, which made me think that Honoré is an acquired taste for audiences that not particularly care for or like good French Cinema.But if you like Christophe Honoré then this film will be one of the most enjoyable for the old movies indirect references, an outstanding cast with superb performances and great singing of “paroles chantées”, plus a story about women and the men they love. Actually story is about two women, Madeleine and Véra, mother and daughter, with the one man each loved their whole life; so, story spans from 1964 to 2007.
Young Madeleine (Ludivine Sagnier) escapes from becoming a thief by incidentally discovering street prostitution, only to fall-in-love with Jaromil Passer, a Czech doctor doing a specialization in Paris and her client. Madeleine gets pregnant, marries Passer and goes with him back to Czechoslovakia, but his infidelities plus the Russian invasion, makes her return to Paris with her daughter Véra where he divorces Passer, marries a policeman and lives happily ever after until Passer comes back to Paris and reignites a flame that was never over. I know told a lot about movie, but it’s not much as Madeleine gets older (now performed by Catherine Deneuve), Véra is older (now performed by Chiara Mastroianni), Passer gets older (now performed by outstanding Milos Forman) and story continues with the love between Madeleine and Passer, plus Véra falling in love with Henderson (Paul Schneider) while being with Clément (Louis Garrel), but Henderson is gay; story evolves with relevant vignettes in the life all characters around Madeleine and Véra. All right is not a simple story, yes is complex but will grab you, take you all over the place, squeeze you, touch you, etc. until releases you at the very end.
Film has very high production values and a caring directorial hand that was able to squeeze 40 years in a bit more than 2 hours and extract from very impressive cast extraordinary performances with special mention to great Czech director Milos Forman –he should do more acting-, Ludivine Sagnier in role that feels and looks like a perfectly fit glove to a magnificent hand, and Chiara Mastrioianni performing like I have never seen her before -with many scenes where she looked so much as her real-life father- and somehow stealing scenes when she was on screen. Then Deneuve and Garrel are superb as always.
An extraordinary movie that of course I do recommend to those that love (classical) French cinema (at least as much as I do) and enjoy Honoré’s particular style that recalls Jacques Demy films (especially Les Parapluies de Cherbourg with Deneuve) but also here evolves with older Véra story into his own particular style.
Last, but not least, Christophe Honoré dedicated film to great Marie-France Pisier, RIP.
Enjoy!!!
Watch trailer @MOC
23rd Annual Producers Guild Awards Winners
Last night the first guild had their award ceremony and top award went to The Artist; also this is the first group of Academy voters, so we can say that The Artist has increased its chances to win big in this award season. To check all winners including TV (fabulous Downton Abbey won!) go here. Winners are in *BLUE. --//--
01/05
A few days back the Producers Guild of America announced the complete list of nominees for this year awards and here are the nominations for feature films.
The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures
*The Artist
Bridesmaids
The Descendants
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
The Ides of March
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
War Horse
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
*The Adventures of Tin Tin
Cars 2
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango
The Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures
*Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribel Called Quest
Bill Cunningham New York
Project Nim
Senna
The Union
To check nominees in all categories including TV go here. Awards ceremony will be on January 21, 2012. With this guild nominations we get our first idea of what maybe Oscar Best Film category could look like and you probably noticed that the SAG five nominated movies for Cast are included In the first list, so I dare to say that The Artist, Bridesmaids, The Descendants, The Help and Midnight in Paris are starting to have good possibilities to get an Oscar nod, as if we add SAG and PGA members they do represent a good portion of Academy voters. Yet I have to wait until the Directors Guild announcement to start to guess the 7 films that could get an Oscar nod.
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