Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

The initial happiness of District 9 and Inglourious Basterds making the cut of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards Best Picture nominees almost makes it easy to overlook the fact that the mediocre-at-best film The Blind Side also ranked among the other nine films. Accompanying the aforementioned films include An Education, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, A Serious Man, Up and Up in the Air. Of course, James Cameron's widely praised and crazy popular Avatar also took home a nom, and from the reviews and buzz I've read, what I project as the winner of the major category, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker grabbed the tenth spot. Most of the nominees were to be expected, but I feel the big story is how many great films were passed up for The Blind Side. 2009 saw such great flicks as Coraline, Moon, Observe and Report, Star Trek, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Brothers Bloom, The Hangover, Watchmen, Ponyo, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Zombieland, Where the Wild Things Are, Invictus, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, (500) Days of Summer, Paranormal Activity, Bronson, Crazy Heart, The Road and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Given, the Academy wouldn't even consider half of the films I just listed, but all are way more deserving than the ode to forgettable Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Michael Oher, not to mention the alleged racism of John Lee Hancock's drama. There was many other overlooked performances in this past year of film, some of which are covered in a decent article by Cinematical's Erik Childress.

I would list my predictions of who I think should win, but I am still playing catch up with a few films I have yet to see, including the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air and a few more. However, reading so much over this past award season, I will relinquish who I think doesn't necessarily deserve the award, but will take it home.

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

Best Actress: Gabourey Sidibe for Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (I know I am going out on a limb here, as most sites will pick either Sandra Bullock or Meryl Streep, but I stand by the choice as a lock.)

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress: Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air (this may be the most difficult category to predict, as all five has their supporters, and have won awards thus far into the season.)

Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

Best Adapted Screenplay: Nick Hornby for An Education

Best Animated Feature: Up

Best Art Direction: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Best Cinematography: The Hurt Locker

Best Costume Design: The Young Victoria

Best Documentary: The Cove

Best Editing: The Hurt Locker

Best Foreign Film: The White Ribbon

Best Makeup: Star Trek

Best Original Score: James Horner for Avatar

Best Original Song: "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" for Crazy Heart

Best Sound: Avatar

Best Sound Effects Editing: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Visual Effects: Avatar

Finally, if you do crave something other than this entire Oscar business, Kevin Smith gave a great interview on Bizarre Magazine's web site on the topics of golden showers, his first sex with his wife, and providing the tidbit that the much-talked about Hit Somebody, Smith's newest project that he hopes to start next year, is actually based on a Warren Zevon song.

Monday, November 30th, 2009

The accompanying image for today's blog comes from Racked New York and is pictures of Bergdorf Goodman Men's Store's holiday window in New York City. A nice tie-in to Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Kind of sad to realize that a claymation fox is more exquisitely dressed than I ever will be.

The Satellite Awards nominees were announced today, with Rob Marshall's upcoming musical Nine picking up the most nominations. You can check out the entire nominee list at the International Press' official statement here.

The Satellite Awards are, for all purposes, just a preliminary match for the Golden Globe Awards, itself just a stepping stone to the Academy Awards. The nominee list led me to the Oscar prediction site, In Contention. The big category to look for is Best Picture, as it will contain ten nominees this year. The top nine contenders the site lists includes Nine, the Coens' latest A Serious Man, Pixar's Up and James Cameron's highly anticipated Avatar. Then, if that wasn't good enough for most film nerds, the dark horses and rest of the field mentioned for contention include J.J. Abrams' chapter in the Star Trek franchise, Neill Blomkamp's District 9 and Quentin Tarantino's brilliant Inglourious Basterds. I do have to admit that I'm a bit upset that Watchmen didn't even make the cut for consideration, but all the same, I can't be all that upset about the picks the site has thus far. Also worth a mention is the incredibly low key success Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, which shockingly is also boasting Best Supporting Actress nod at the Satellite Awards, as well as being top contender for the Oscar in comedienne Mo'Nique. We also have Clint Eastwood's sports biopic that will probably be the most overrated flick this award season, Invictus.

Monday, October 19th, 2009

One of the most unfortunate things about living in the part of the country that I do, is that spectacular looking films, such as Robert D. Siegel's Big Fan, didn't come within a hundred miles. Still, the Patton Oswalt starring dark comedy has been championed in this blog for sometime as I wait with bated breath for the DVD release. While I wait, via Cinematical, the independent sports flick has nabbed three nominations (Best Feature and nods for Siegel and Oswalt's work respectively) at the Gotham Awards, honoring the best in independent cinema. Two other films that are high priority on my list to catch-up on when they finally hit store shelves is Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker and the Coen Brothers' latest, A Serious Man.

Speaking of A Serious Man, the flick took a decent leap in the box office this week, taking an 84% rise, still only netting it in the top 15. Also, Paranormal Activity still continues to climb its way to the top, landing at number three this weekend, taking sales up 148%, after a 1000+% increase last weekend. Still, the top story is that Spike Jonze's incredible Where the Wild Things Are took the top spot easily with approximately $33 million. Law Abiding Citizen and The Stepfather also debuted within the top five, which if not for Wild Things getting such a great release, would be cause to shoot ourselves in the head in honor of intriguing cinema, such as the 35th spot, Black Dynamite, which essentially will go unnoticed.

On the topic of Where the Wild Things Are, I was left with affirmation that Jonze is, in fact, one of the greatest geniuses in modern movies. The director of Being John Malkovich has really done no wrong thus far in his career, and prior to film, he has helmed such wonderful music videos as the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage", Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" and Wax's "California". So, it was definitely a shock to see an article on Cinematical highlighting a short film Jonze had done with douchebag extraordinaire, Kanye West, entitled We Were Once a Fairytale. It is hard for me to believe that, despite the high level of talent behind the camera, West could do anything remotely entertaining... on purpose. This thought continued as the embedded YouTube video provided by the link was taken down due to noncompliance in the form of a copyright claim from West himself.

Variety ran a story today about the possibility of reviving the failed attempt of a Broadway adaptation of Brian De Palma's classic horror flick Carrie. I don't really see why this wouldn't work. Actually, this makes me wonder why, when speaking of great Halloween staples in the same vein of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, why Carrie doesn't get some costumed midnight showings around this time of the year. Given, the Stephen King adaptation isn't nowhere near the same amount of fun as Rocky Horror, but the kitschy horror, and what would surely be a plethora of prom dress clad moviegoers doused in pig blood in the audience, definitely makes for at least one hell of an opening act. The Variety article also gives me reason to put up the prom scene clip from the movie, which has been on my mind recently, stemming from a rather comical incident during classes the other day. Enjoy.

Monday, October 5th, 2009

'Tis a slow week for blogging due to it being finals week. Despite missing the last three days, there has not been a lot of cinematic news pumping through the blogsphere. This may be due to the fact that instead of blogging or digging up some kind of casting news to bitch about, cinephiles actually have a few decent options in theaters this weekend. Taking the top of the box office was Zombieland, which was shockingly great. I expected it to be comical, but from the wonderful opening credit sequence set to Metallica's "For Whom the Bells Toll", I was hooked. Also, I don't think it is a huge spoiler to say that Bill Murray cameos in the film, as whenever I searched Zombieland on Google search, all that came back was Murray's name. Anyhow, the short amount of time may be one of Murray's best comedic performances since Groundhog Day, try to digest how awesome that compliment was.

Other than Zombieland, there was five other very watchable releases that is definitely on my must-see list. First, the Coen Brothers' most recent dark comedy A Serious Man, which showed up disappointingly outside of the top 25 on the box office charts, but still looks incredible. Pixar re-released Toy Story and Toy Story 2 as a 3-D double feature for a two-week engagement, kicking off one of the best autumn movie seasons for family films since the 80's. In addition, Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It!, which is garnering what some feel surprising critical praise in a coming-of-age comedy set in the world of roller derby girls, and starring Ellen Page. Michael Moore's most recent documentary, a commentary on the current state of our country's economic woes, Capitalism: A Love Story opened up as well. Finally, the least of the big releases of the weekend, Ricky Gervais' fantasy/comedy that has been getting some undeserved criticism for being "atheist propaganda", The Invention of Lying, landed in the top five of the box office.

Not only has the blog sites not had time to bitch about casting news, or worry more on the fate of Marvel comic to film adaptation this week for raving over the decent batch of quality flicks, but another independent horror movie, Paranormal Activity, has been taking off with some good old fashioned word of mouth advertising. Apparently, Twitter has been a big help to the film, and if you visit the official site of Oren Peli's debut feature, that was originally made in 2007, you can demand that it be shown in your area. I thought, due to the mockumentary style, that it looked somewhat interesting, but with such an early fan following, who wouldn't want to see this?

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Most of what I do on this blog is complain or rejoice orgasmically over casting rumors. Most of the time, it is the big name stars that draw us in to watch a film, case in point being last year's Coen Brothers film Burn After Reading. The film's amazing cast included George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt and Tilda Swinton, and they all delivered as to be expected in a dark comedy that was brilliantly written and beautifully directed. As refreshing as such a success is, a more fulfilling viewing experience is when a film with virtually no star power, other than the aforementioned directorial talents of the Coens, gives off the same vibe of excellence. The Coens' new film, A Serious Man, debuted its trailer today, with the only "star" that I noticed was Richard Kind of Spin City fame. The main star is Michael Stuhlbarg, an owner of a rather abysmal IMDb filmography page. The film doesn't appear that it will suffer from the lack of Clooneys or Pitts however, as after watching this trailer, it has shot to the top of a short list of must-sees for late 2009. Also, the best trailer I've seen this year. Even if the film disappoints in every aspect, I was thoroughly entertained for the two minutes afforded to me. Enjoy the trailer.


Yahoo! Movies released another high profile trailer today for the upcoming re-release of the two original Toy Story films in 3-D.

Universal Pictures, via Variety, has announced that the Joe Johnston horror flick The Wolfman has been pushed back to 2010, to be released on Valentine's Day weekend.

Ilene Chaiken, creator of the Showtime series The L Word, has mentioned, via AfterEllen, that there may be a feature film to carry over the series' cliffhanger storyline in the works. Now, I have to admit that The L Word was a guilty pleasure of mine for a bit after a friend forced me to watch it a while back. Maybe it was due to a childhood crush on Jennifer Beals after watching Flashdance. Who knows? But a feature? Am I the only one thinking this is bordering on unnecessary?

It was a great day for trailers. I'll end tonight with a continuation from yesterday's post when I featured a new photo gallery from the official site of Wes Anderson's upcoming stop motion animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Today, the trailer debuted, and as great as the stills have been, and as, excuse me for saying, fantastic, that this looks like on paper with the likes of Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, etc., etc. behind an Anderson-directed stop motion adaptation of a highly imaginative Roald Dahl children's book, the trailer actually furthers the anticipation for this thing. Has there ever been a year, with this and Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are and Henry Selick's wonderful Coraline earlier this year, so great for children's film? Not since The Dark Crystal has children actually had something that doesn't insult their intelligence. And of course, something that adults will very much enjoy. Enjoy the trailer.