Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Well, the Golden Globe Award nominees were announced today, and is pretty much what has been keeping the cinematic blogsphere buzzing for the past fourteen hours or so. The biggest, and most welcome, surprise to me was that Todd Phillips' raunchy comedy win, The Hangover took a nod for Best Motion Picture- Musical or Comedy. The flick basically doesn't stand a chance against the upcoming musical Nine, directed by Chicago's Rob Marshall, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and a host of other Oscar darlings, along with Black Eyed Peas' Fergie oddly enough, and is loosely based upon Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. The quirky (500) Days of Summer, It's Complicated and Julie and Julia round out the category.

On the drama side of the major award, James Cameron's mega-blockbuster to release this Friday, Avatar, takes a nod that many are speculating will be in contention for the win, facing off against the one time Oscar favorite, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, Quentin Tarantino's ingenious, and my pick, Inglourious Basterds, the sleeper success Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire and a film that most sites have been raving about for most of the year, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker.

Sandra Bullock got a nod for The Blind Side, and from what I can tell of the trailer, may be the most overrated performance of the year. Hopefully she will fall to what looks like a powerful performance from the almost unknown Gabourey Sadibe in Precious. I would say Morgan Freeman's turn as Nelson Mandela in Invictus is all but locked for the award for Best Actor. I will also stretch out and predict that Marion Cotillard is a lock for Best Comedy Actress for her showing in Nine despite Meryl Streep's double appearance in the category, or Bullock showing up again for The Proposal (Note: If you have taste, you probably just said something along the lines of "Say whaaaaaat?" or "Fucking Hell!", and that is why the Golden Globes' validity is slipping dramatically). Comedy Actor is a solid category however, harnessing the likes of Matt Damon, Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr., Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Stuhlberg, and I can't say I'd be shocked by any of the five walking away with the award. Director is the only other category I could really see going all five ways. Bigelow gets a rare female nod in the directorial category for The Hurt Locker, being accompanied by James Cameron, Clint Eastwood, Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino.

Further predictions from my behalf. Keep in mind that since I live in a small area, I have yet to see many of the films that I would like to, so I am merely predicting who I think will take home the award, via buzz, awards favorites and so and so forth...:
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique for Precious
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds
Animated Feature: Up
Foreign Language Film: Broken Embraces
Screenplay: Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
Score: James Horner for Avatar, although my heart lies with Karen O and Carter Burwell's work on Where the Wild Things Are full throttle.
Original Song: "Cinema Italiano" from Nine

Finally, to get out of the pre-Oscar garbage that must be talked about by cineastes the world over, to much chagrin usually, here is a very bitchin' clip from Kick-Ass. I posted this sometime back when a grainy, bootlegged version made its way to the Interwebs during the San Diego Comic Con. All the same, enjoy one of the few great clips of Nicolas Cage floating around the world wide web.

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I can remember reading something earlier this year announcing that the Marvel/Icon comic Kick-Ass was going to be adapted into a film. Always willing to jump aboard a comic book movie, despite never reading or knowing anything about this, I saw that Christopher Mintz-Plasse was casted as one of the heroes in the movie, put it on a shelf of intriguing must-sees in my sub-conscience, and never really looked much more up about it. Well, today I go to IWatchStuff to see some good old fashioned pirated previews from the San Diego Comic Con on behalf of this film, and wow, did it blow me away. Upon further inspection, I found out that the comic looks certifiably bad ass, hence the caption on the image up there "Sickening violence: just the way you like it". The ongoing series is written by Mark Millar, of Wanted and Civil War fame, and illustrated by the legendary artist John Romita, Jr. The film itself also has a few credentials that would get me into the seat. The superhero fare will be helmed by Matthew Vaughn, the director of what I feel was the most underrated film of 2007, Stardust. Also, the lead character Kick-Ass, secret identity Dave Lizewski, will be portrayed by Aaron Johnson. Personally, I really know nothing about the up and coming British actor, but in a gruesomely, excuse the expression, kick-ass film, it will be much easier to get my girlfriend in the seats on opening night since he is best known, according to Wikipedia at any rate, from starring in Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, an adaptation of one of her favorite author's, Louise Rennison's, novels. However, take away all of the credits, if I had no clue who any of the involved parties were, take a look at this leaked trailer, as it will most likely be deleted in the upcoming days, and try not to be excited for this.


The Los Angeles Times has an interesting interview with Louise Leterrier, the director of The Incredible Hulk. Among other things, Leterrier gives his bid to direct the upcoming Marvel film The Avengers, as well as giving a very thought provoking vision of what the film could be. I highly doubt that anything Leterrier says will come to fruition, but it will definitely become the basis of what fanboys use to judge the actual direction Marvel will take.

Nothing too shocking at the box office this weekend, with G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra taking the top spot, followed by another debut in Julie and Julia. The most saddening news looking at the results is that Charlyne Yi's semi-documentary Paper Heart only grabbed the 25th spot, barely edging out the terrible The Taking of Pelham 123 in its ninth week. Next week, I'm curious if G.I. Joe can gain a second go at the top against District 9.

The Boston Globe had a few announcements courtesy of hometown Boston directors, The Farrelly Brothers', upcoming biopic on The Three Stooges. First, after Sean Penn announced he would drop out of the role of portraying Larry Fine some time back, it was announced the Jim Carrey, whom was once rumored to be playing Curly Howard was out as well. Some good news though came as well, that Paul Giamatti, a good actor that visually looks similar, will replace Penn as Larry.

Finally, a new trailer for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are. After a few looks at Jonze's rendition of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book, it still looks absolutely flawless. Enjoy.

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Yesterday, in the midst of mourning over the loss of the 80's icon John Hughes, I mentioned the casting news for Robert Rodriguez' upcoming exploitation film Machete. Today, The Hollywood Reporter ran a story that the remake of the 60's science fiction sexploitation Barbarella is starting development back. At first read, this may seem that Rodriguez is single-handedly bringing back the beloved kitschy era of cinema, yet upon closer inspection of the THR article, Rodriguez is out as director (as rumored some time back), and now taking over is Robert Luketic, made famous by an IMDb resume of moderately watchable fare. Even more disheartening is the fact that the writer Joe Gazzam plans on keeping the sexuality and science fiction elements of the original, but trying to produce a film without the campy nature that the original was known and loved for. Almost every blog I've visited tonight is in agreement that this is a bad idea, and is alienating the built in fan base. I will link to Monika Bartyzel's article on Cinematical, which pretty much sums up the collective view from the blogsphere. I tend to think it will end up watching like a direct-to-DVD Species sequel myself. The only good news is that the original film's producer Dino De Laurentiis, along with his wife Martha, will be returning as producers in the reboot as well.

I reported that LatinoReview had announced Stephen Chow's replacement as Kato in The Green Hornet as Kwon Sang-woo. Today, MovieWeb released a conflicting article stating that Taiwanese actor Jay Chou will be the man stepping into the role. Chou may be a little more recognizable to American audiences, having starred in Curse of the Golden Flower, which saw a stateside release. Whatever the case, I'm still not really concerned. As long as the actor is somewhat talented, my unrelenting faith in the director-writer combination of Michel Gondry, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, makes me think that it will turn out spectacular.

It's Friday, which means a batch of new films are being released, three of which will be in wide circulation. The big one, and sure box office winner will be Stephen Sommer's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. The mixed response (Rotten Tomatoes updated score for the film is at 38%) has me more curious than anything. I also have had the mental debate of how terrible the super suits make this thing seem, and how awesome Ray Park's Snake Eyes and Sienna Miller's Baroness make it appear to be a feasibly good popcorn summer flick. There is also Julie and Julia. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to classify this as a chick flick, but the fact that Meryl Streep is almost always amazing, and even gives Dan Aykroyd a run for his money in her Julia Childs will definitely make it watchable. Finally, A Perfect Getaway, another horror film promising a plot twist, just two weeks after Orphan. I'm speculating that this will be terrible.

Buried beneath the wide releases this week are a few noteworthy films. First, Paper Heart, a self-proclaimed "hybrid documentary" starring the underrated Charlyne Yi along with Michael Cera. The film looks interesting, original, and most intriguing of all, being Yi's screenwriting debut, the film took home the coveted Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Also, another horror/comedy film for the year, this time with a good bit of historical adventure thrown in, via the film I Sell the Dead. The film stars the appealing trio of Dominic Monaghan, Ron Perlman and Larry Fessenden (whom was mentioned in a recent blog as the director for the English speaking remake of The Orphanage). And finally, Cold Souls, which stars Paul Giamatti playing an actor of the same name, driving himself further and further to psychologically prepare for a role. The film looks to be a quirky comedy completely driven on the talent of Giamatti, which probably is a decent idea. So all in all, about five watchable films this week.

Finally, the trailer for Terry Gilliam's highly anticipated The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was released today. It looks like vintage Gilliam, ala Time Bandits or Jabberwocky with an Oscar-worthy cast and a bit more budget. I don't really see how this can fail. Enjoy.