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, February 1st, 2010

That is one of the more priceless frightened faces on a child that I have ever seen. It is also completely unrelated to anything we're about to discuss. First off, in all of the award-season chaos, many people tend to leave the Golden Raspberry Awards off of their lists. Like always, the Razzies tend to be the worst of extreme mainstream cinema, instead of being the worst of cinema, period... as advertised. Case in point, Land of the Lost lands a nomination for Worst Picture, even though it had some supporters, one being Roger Ebert. Also, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen had a terrible script, but has kept a decent fan base, and despite not being a Fellini, the movie was entertaining enough at least, to keep it off this list. Other notables pointed out in /Film's coverage include four nods for The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Sandra Bullock's nomination for All About Steve, which could couple with a possible Academy Award nomination announced tomorrow for her role in The Blind Side (which for my consideration, would fit in more on this list than any other). There is also three decade awards that is worth checking out.

Other than Bullock, not a lot of Oscar speculation coming out of the nominations for the Razzies, but another award show went down over the weekend, the Directors Guild of America Awards, in which Kathryn Bigelow took home the trophy for Best Director for her film The Hurt Locker. Cinematical's Girls on Film column focuses on Bigelow's big win, trumping her ex-husband James Cameron among others. The article also notes that Bigelow's chances on Academy gold just shot up considerably, seeing that the winner of the highest honor the DGA presents has won the Oscar 90% of the time in the last 61 years. On top of all this, Bigelow also holds the distinction of being the first female winner of the DGA Award, and is looking as a nearly positive groundbreaker as the first female to gain the Oscar in the same category.

Finally stepping away from the award stuff for a bit, /Film has an article up focusing on Kevin Smith's Twitter account, where the Clerks. director has announced he is shopping Hit Somebody, a dramedy set in the world of hockey, to Warner Brothers. They also quote Smith as referring to Hit Somebody as an equal to 1993's Chasing Amy, the quality of which he has been, for lack of a better word, chasing ever since.

Well, with all attempts of not mentioning Avatar, the fact that the Oscars are announced this week, and the aforementioned news of Bigelow's triumph over the film makes it almost impossible. Also continuing to block me from ignoring the blockbuster is the fact that the film took the top spot at the box office again this week, for the seventh time, in the process breaking the record for the highest grossing seventh weekend of all time. Box Office Mojo's weekend report also estimates that the current record holder for worldwide box office will overtake the U.S. domestic record sometime this week, beating out Titanic. Cameron's film also was the first to cross the worldwide $2 billion mark over the past week. Many may wonder exactly why all the praise for the flick, including the comically monotoned guy that posted a 70 minute review of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on YouTube. He now has an 18 minute review of Avatar posted. Here is the first part, enjoy.

Monday, January 18th, 2010

The Avatar mania will not subside. Last night, despite facing a few more deserving films, James Cameron's blue cat people love story toppled the award show, pulling away with Best Picture - Drama, as well as Best Director for Cameron's part. Of course, this leads to the buzz that nobody really wants to hear, that Avatar now pretty much pulls out in front in the race for the top honor at the Oscars. The silver lining in the show, other than the Martin Scorsese tribute which I just watched online, was that Todd Phillips' raunchy comedy The Hangover pulled out the win in the Best Picture - Musical or Comedy category. Could this mean that the comedy could be a shocking entry into the contention for the Academy's ten nominees for Best Picture?

Building off the topic of Avatar, the film took the box office again this weekend, for the fifth straight time. Of course, as normal, it would also break a few records within the process, setting the record for the best fifth week showing of all time, beating out The Dark Knight and Titanic, as well as taking in the best long weekend for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, beating out Cloverfield's opening. Maybe even more impressive, the feat was accomplished with actual competition, toppling the opening weekend of The Book of Eli and the expansion of The Lovely Bones (which had a 53,000% increase). Next week, Legion and The Tooth Fairy will take on the blockbuster, but it is quite possible that we are looking at a sixth weekend at the top.

After it was announced that Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire was out of Sony's plans for a new Spider-Man flick, I didn't read any stories about it, but I thought back on the rumor that Maguire would be taking on the role of Bilbo Baggins. Well, the most concrete of all news sources, The Sun, has put Maguire's role in Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's classic The Hobbit as confirmed.

Variety announced today that Clark Gregg will reprise his role as Agent Coulson not only in Iron Man 2, but in Thor as well, presumably also leading to a role in The Avengers sometime in the future.

On a final thought, I spent the day not celebrating Dr. King's infamous speech, or sadly even the fate of our favorite late night host Conan O'Brien, but by celebrating the anniversary of my trip through the womb some 25 years back. It is a bit depressing, added with the workload of school bearing down on my procrastinating conscience awful heavily, but I also got motivated to start road-tripping as much as possible before the ability to do so enjoyably exits. One of the contemplated areas to go soon before the bigger trips begin is Philadelphia, so to give me a bit of hope, here is a low quality video of Sylvester Stallone running up the Philadelphia Museum of Art's steps in Rocky. Now, I bid you adieu to watch Scorsese on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

Sunday, January 10th, 2010 (Short Film Sunday: Partly Cloudy)

The Oscar season draws ever closer, and during a time where the only bit of sparse cinematic news has came at the hands of the huge financial successes of James Cameron's Avatar, there has not been much more to talk about than what could be the underdog and surprise picks for the Academy Awards. Of course, being my Short Film Sunday segment, I thought we would take a look at a very underrated category, the Best Short Film-Animated. I would like to say that I'm going to throw out an obscure short that nobody has ever seen, as that is my main goal while doing this segment within the blog, yet after finding that Partly Cloudy, the lovable short film that accompanied Up was on In Contention's short list, I had to pass along the flick.

The film comes from the masters of CGI animation, Pixar. It tells the story of the friendship of, what I suppose you may call co-workers, a cloud whom makes babies, and a stork that delivers them. It is directed and written by Peter Sohn in his directorial debut, formerly known as an animator/storyboard artist on films such as The Iron Giant, Osmosis Jones, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and WALL-E. Enjoy, and do it quickly before Disney pulls it.

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.

Friday, December 4th, 2009

'Twas a slow news day today, so I'll share with you my big find, a Chinese toy company, Hot Toys. They were behind the awesome Joker figure from The Dark Knight that surfaced last year, but I didn't notice the company behind it then. They are currently releasing new additions to the Iron Man and 300 series that are definitely worth your time.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Jason Reitman's upcoming Up in the Air was named by the National Board of Review the film of the year, creating a significant amount of Oscar buzz. I don't know if I have already said it or not, but usually after something with George Clooney is released, I automatically assume it will be overrated due to an insane amount of political power the former People's sexiest man has on the movie industry and award ceremonies. That may be bad, as Good Night, and Good Luck was an outstanding film and generally his acting is pretty solid. Maybe it was my feeling that Michael Clayton got way too much attention, I don't know. Anyhow, I watched the trailer and did some digging for Up in the Air and it has quickly gained a top spot in my must see list. The trailer down below looks quite great, and the supporting cast, all of whom had their roles written especially for them from Reitman, includes Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Danny McBride, Melanie Lynskey, Sam Elliott, J.K. Simmons and the wonderful Zach Galifianakis. That is truly a cast anybody can get behind. Anyhow, enjoy the trailer.

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.

Sunday, November 29th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: I Met the Walrus)

More than likely, you have never heard of Josh Raskin. In fact, when looking for an interesting short that I saw last year after reading it had been nominated for an Academy Award, I easily found the film I Met the Walrus. And despite the ease of finding his only body of work, finding any information on Raskin is difficult. What we do know about the director, interviewer, star, sound editor and animator of this unique short is that when he was fourteen, he had some interview equipment, and he managed to somehow score an interview with the legendary John Lennon at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto in 1969, catching Lennon at the age of 29, probably right before The Beatles' final studio album, Abbey Road, was released.

How long was this interview just part of Raskin's private collection I haven't a clue. Was it published somewhere? Did it even make a local news channel? Screen in a school classroom? With the limited information on Raskin and his film, I suppose we don't know. But whatever the case, the interview doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about one of the more iconic musicians in history. Conversely, the entertainment wielded from this piece actually comes from Raskin, as the entrancing animation captures the scatterbrained fantasy that would be a fourteen year old boy's mind whilst interviewing a rock and roll god.

I mentioned that the flick was nominated for an Oscar, but lost out to Suzie Templeton's inferior, in my opinion, Polish stop motion animated Peter and the Wolf. The short did win the somewhat new Daytime Emmy category of New Approaches in Daytime Entertainment, which went to Sesame Street this year. Maybe more of an achievement in my mind than others. Still, enjoy I Met the Walrus...

Friday, November 20th, 2009

I was going to take off the day from blogging due to some school work and just consider it one proverbial long awkward pause in honor of The Twilight Saga: New Moon's release today, but then I read some good news at the hands of Cinematical to combat my rant against the local movie rental place I posted the other night. The article announces that Netflix will soon be streaming independent films for download while their still in theaters due to unavailability to most audiences due to the limited releasing. The new program will be implemented through IFC and their Festival Direct project, which shows the indie flicks that are making splashes at some of the bigger film festivals, including Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca, Toronto, etc. as well as the In Theaters + On Demand service, which begins streaming certain films on the day they premiere in limited release. A lot of possibilities there, and with the rental company coming soon to Play Station 3 and my growing dismay towards Movies to Go, I'm sure I will soon be able to give a firsthand review of this.

Speaking of disappointment in the movie industry (that is, if you can consider my local rental store to be the movie industry), the short list for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards Best Documentary Feature Award has been receiving more and more controversy. I included the story of the snubbing of Capitalism: A Love Story and Anvil! The Story of Anvil on my blog the other day, but I left one major contender that was snubbed out, that being the highly reviewed James Toback documentary on the infamously bizarre and misunderstood namesake boxer in the flick Tyson. Toback himself took notice of this, as he took to an interview with The New York Times to claim that the selections process borders close to "extortion". The article goes on to give the Academy's rebuttal of Toback's claims; however, I'm sure it will not quite squash the buzz and controversy as we move ever forward to the iconic award show.

And... today is Friday, so that means new releases. Among the films in theaters this week include what looks like one of the more overrated flicks in some time, especially in regards to Sandra Bullock's performance, which the trailer at least doesn't really wow me, The Blind Side, the true story of a mediocrely famous Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman. Also, The Rock's career continues to look sadder in the animated Planet 51. We also get a helping of Werner Herzog's take on Abel Ferrera's cult classic in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, starring Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes, in a flick that most certainly has a better behind the scenes and back story than anything that will actually appear on the screen. And finally, yes, New Moon also made its debut last night at midnight. Instead of giving my take on how I feel about setting uncomfortably in a theater watching the only wet dream of Native Americans I've ever seen, I'll direct you to Roger Ebert's review, which includes the phrase "long pauses interrupt longer ones" while describing the plot. If that wasn't fascinating enough, to give a break of all the Twihard madness, here is a clip of Kevin Smith from this past San Diego Comic Con describing why we shouldn't hate the Twihards, and his feeling on the trailer of New Moon that debuted at the convention. Definitely worth a listen.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

There is never any shortage of arguments as the Academy Awards begin to loom closer. Although we are still about three months away from the 82nd annual ceremony's nominations to be revealed, the controversy cloud has already swirled up with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's official site's announcement of the fifteen films that have been shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature Award. Why would this be controversial? Well, because the only film on the list that I'm really familiar with is Louie Psihoyos' The Cove. That may be a bad example, as I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about most films that have passed through the public radar during the past year, but it is easy to let some decent documentaries to slip under undetected. Still, two of the most prolific films of the genre this past year, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and the surprise hit Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which boasts quite a high Tomato Meter rating on Rotten Tomatoes, are not present on the list. Not saying that the fifteen movies the Academy included on their list doesn't sound interesting, but none of them compare to Anvil!'s rating, nor do some of them even register a rating.

The above rant isn't to say that the Academy hasn't done anything right for this coming ceremony. In addition to adding five more nominees onto the ballot for the Best Picture category, as I covered yesterday, the cult film director Roger Corman garnered an honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards last week. Of course, the exploitation master's sometimes lacklusting career isn't without its naysayers. An argument between two Cinematical writers have been brewing today, and I'm taking the side of Scott Weinberg, the supporter of Corman's massive body of exploitive fun.

The Spider-Man 4 rumors keep piling in. Monday, I wrote about how Rachel McAdams shot down the rumor that she would be filling the role of Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat. Today, Deadline Hollywood has already replaced McAdams role in the rumor mill, claiming that Anne Hathaway has been approached to take on the villain, or misunderstood love interest, or Marvel's answer to Catwoman or whatever the hell you want to call The Black Cat. There is no denying that Hathaway does look the part, but as many of the rumors coming in, I highly doubt there is any truth in this.

Finally, my patience is wearing thin with our local movie rental store, Movies to Go. There are a few others, but they're not even worth mentioning. Anyhow, void of newer releases Anvil!, Away We Go and Gigantic, but stocked with about twenty copies of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, as well as a few other flicks that make the second attempt at the video game franchise adaptation look like Citizen Kane, such as Sasquatch Mountain, several Girls Gone Wild selections and the straight-to-Nickelodeon George Lopez movie. Not only that, but I could spend days talking about how wrong the categorizations are, such as the Classics section, which is actually period pieces, or the fact that I noticed Into the Wild in the Comedy section. Also, we have the inability to alphabetize correctly, and the blaring sounds of The Pussycat Dolls emanating from the back, while the gaggle of harlotry that operates the cash registers have zero knowledge on basic movie information. Being a small store, I don't expect an academic lecture on Fellini or a section of exploitation rarities to rival Something Weird Videos' archives, but come on, I'm seriously thinking about committing the sin of starting to rent off of the Red Box. Come to PS3 Netflix.

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

I have yet to jump aboard the Blu-ray fad. I know that it is supposedly better quality, but really, I'm doing the majority of my at home movie watching on a 90's Magnavox television set that probably couldn't differentiate the difference between the platform and its predecessor of DVDs anyhow. Also, I like to be consistent, and seeing that there are still movies out there that I want to see that have yet to make the jump from the VHS platform (John Waters' Multiple Maniacs for example), I just feel that the time to jump ship on the DVD train has yet to come. Still, the District 9 release may be the first Blu-ray that I purchase. Not only is Neill Blomkamp's feature length directorial debut a fantastic film that comes with the regular run-of-the-mill featurettes and extras that usually comes with a home release, but the Peter Jackson produced science fiction flick, according to SciFi Squad, will be making history by including a playable demo of a video game, this one happening to be to the highly anticipated Play Station 3 game God of War III. Also, enticing gamers to play the demo before the game is released, once the demo is completed, a featurette for the game is unlocked. And one final reason that this is becoming a must buy, in honor of the rapidly approaching Christmas shopping season, Amazon is already pre-sailing it for just $19.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave out the Governors Awards a few days back, and it would of went completely under my radar if I hadn't of noticed a Cinematical article on the topic. Among those receiving the honorary Oscar was actress Lauren Bacall, acclaimed cinematographer Gordon Willis and one of the original true cult directors Roger Corman.

Spider-Man 4 casting rumors has become one of the more common topics on here, and today Entertainment Weekly shot down one of the bigger rumors, that Rachel McAdams was set to play Felicia Hardy/The Black Cat during an interview to promote Sherlock Holmes. So does this put Dylan Baker as The Lizard back at the top of the runnings for the film's villainous lead? Also, when will we find out Bruce Campbell's role?

Sunday, November 15th, 2009 (Short Film Sunday: Hotel Chevalier)

I've been slacking on blogging again due to school *sigh*. I know, I know, I need to get my priorities straight. Anyhow, to be quite brief tonight, in honor of Wes Anderson's new film The Fantastic Mr. Fox debuting this past weekend, although nowhere remotely close to my home theater, I thought I would take a look at Anderson's beautiful short film Hotel Chevalier.

The film acts as a prologue, and had its theatrical debut alongside Anderson's most underrated film of his career, 2007's The Darjeeling Limited. The storyline of the film is simply the character Jack, whom is called and visited by his ex-girlfriend, in which they engage into a tiny bit of non-explicit promiscuity and we assume it is the end of their relationship, ending with the couple taking a view of Paris. Jack is played by Anderson regular, the incredible Jason Schwartzman and his ex is portrayed by the stunning and amazing Natalie Portman. It's minimal, offbeat, beautiful and perfectly coupled with the feature film that follows. The only thing in my opinion keeping Hotel Chevalier from gaining the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film is that the Academy disqualified the film for being released on the Internet before its theatrical run, as Anderson first released the films as an iTunes exclusive. Anyhow, please enjoy, unfortunately in two parts, Hotel Chevalier.

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

The accompanying picture for today's blog is quite possibly the most normal image to ever grace the screen on PictureIsUnrelated. Of course, there is no current news on Hayao Miyazaki's much revered animation classic My Neighbor Totoro, whose main character is taking center stage in the photo, but any chance I can get to direct people's attention to that site, I'll take it.

Yesterday, I reported on a interview done with Eduardo Sanchez of The Blair Witch Project, speaking of Paranormal Activity's recent success. As inevitable as this was, it is quite a shock that it took this long for rumors of a sequel to start brewing around, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter. The article says that Viacom's CEO Philippe Dauman is the instigator of the rumor, stating that it could be a possibility during the earnings conference call earlier in the day. At least it goes on to state that an analyst has serious doubts that a follow-up could garner the critical and financial success as its predecessor.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released in a statement today that Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin would host this year's Academy Awards. The only thing that worries me is the amount of time in the statement dedicated to promoting the hell out of Martin's banjo career.

Finally, I was directed to Walmart's buy page of a new Pink Label Barbie set, modeled after Edward and Bella from The Twilight Saga, from Cinematical. I suppose that the onslaught of New Moon advertising is unavoidable, but it still creeps me out to know that the marketing of pale disturbing paranormal stalker sex appeal keeps targeting younger and younger. Anyhow, since I resorted to toys that I didn't like, I have to include one that caught my eye a while back that I really want. Sideshow Collectables has released an awesome new action figure of Harrison Ford's turn as Indiana Jones in the already infamous "nuking the fridge" scene from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

The casting for Michel Gondry and Seth Rogen's 2010 superhero flick, The Green Hornet, has been one of the more fascinating since I've started keeping a movie blog. Today, I learned that, despite principal photography and filming actually taking place now, the casting news thickens. First off, Rogen, in an interview with MovieWeb, has confirmed that Anvil, the Canadian metal band that gained prominence with this year's documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, will play a band for the film. Also, Rogen announced that Edward Furlong has also been added to the lineup, although he would not confirm in what capacity.

A lot of things to cover today, so moving more quickly, an online petition has been started to get Sam Rockwell a nod for this year's Academy Awards, as the sponsor feels that Moon will be overlooked due to the film being director Duncan Jones' directorial debut, and nowhere near the promotional buzz needed to trump the other films that will be campaigning. I absolutely hate how political the Academy Awards are, as it really comes down to the best campaign, and not the best performance. Anyhow, without seeing Moon, I have to say that I hope Rockwell lives up to the praise, but I can't have an extreme opinion as of yet.

MarketSaw announced today that The Lizard will be the only villain in Sam Raimi's upcoming Spider-Man 4. This is good news for Dylan Baker fans (assuming that I'm not the only one), but makes us have to question what the expanded role of Bruce Campbell will be. Also, it has to be noted that the source is MarketSaw, which reported last week that Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola will both direct a chapter in a sequel trilogy of George Lucas' Star Wars saga. Trustworthy?

At midnight, or a few short minutes from when I'm writing this, the highly anticipated Michael Jackson documentary This is It debuts at theaters. I still have my doubts about this rushed doc's quality, but who can resist the spectacle?

Paranormal Activity took the top spot at the box office this weekend, beating out Saw VI in its opening weekend. This is a breath of fresh air to anybody like myself who thinks that the Saw series has finally run its course, as well as anybody that is just generally excited about independent films gaining widespread success.

Movie-related Christmas ideas have already began pouring in, as DVDSnapshot, courtesy of a link from Cinematical, has posted the details and contents of The Mel Brooks Collection, a nine disc Blu-ray compendium of comedy, which will include such films as Blazing Saddles, History of the World: Part I, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Silent Movie, Spaceballs and Young Frankenstein among a few others.

Finally, I had a decent weekend whilst not blogging as I partook in several October activities including taking in The Rocky Horror Show live at Berea College, a corn maze and attending The Grand AdventureCon in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We actually set in on two panels, one for Mickey Dolenz (of Monkees fame) and one for Kevin Nash, So Cal Val and Traci Brooks of TNA. I'd like to say I brought back some exclusive knowledge for my blog, but I don't think any of their cinematic careers, if they even exist much at all, are flourishing at the moment. Still, when looking up to see if they were going to be in anything, I ran across the fact that Dolenz was in Rob Zombie's re-working of Halloween, which I didn't know, and this picture...

That is So Cal Val in Princess Leia's infamous slave girl get-up. And yes, it is from a site dedicated to cosplay of that one costume (and does border of creepy most of the time). Even though my only readership is my fiance and another straight female, I think even they would appreciate such a site.

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I have to admit, I enjoy the first Saw movie. This whole new subgenre of "gore porn" was in its infancy, and James Wan and Leigh Whannell actually seemed to care as much about plot, as they did the imaginative ways to implement a modern day Herschell Gordon Lewis gorefest. Now, we are almost at the release date of the sixth installment, with a seventh announced, due out next year, and to say that the franchise has gone stale, catering more to teenage boys with mental complexes, with complete abandonment of story, or horror for that matter, is an understatement. I mean, the movies even spawned a show in VH-1's Celebreality line-up to find a star for Saw VI for Christ's sake. Let's just say, as much as we all may tire of Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, we haven't seen their likenesses alongside Flavor Flav, that douchebag that killed Jasmine Fiore and New York in the same television line-up. Terrible. With that said, I also generally like 3-D. As a gimmick, take for instance this very NSFW trailer to Tom DeSimone's raunchy exploitation 3-D Prison Girls, it works great. For big budget events, it at least gets us excited, case in point James Cameron's upcoming Avatar. It also isn't that bad of an idea for a traditional showing, a la Disney's annual release of the 3-D treatment of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, this overkill of everything 3-D is killing me. With both of these generally good things, turned this cinephile's biggest maddening movie peeves, it is no surprise that ShockTillYouDrop has announced that Saw VII will indeed be shot in 3-D format. Is anybody honestly going to be excited for this?

Further destroying any hopes for me to write anything but some bitches and moans today, IWatchStuff posted an interview with Bill Murray, in which he states that Harold Ramis may have overstated Murray's possible return to the character of Peter Venkman in the possible Ghostbusters 3. It's not that Murray is completely against doing another film, but thinks the script should at least be better than Ghostbusters II. Really though, wouldn't we all be mad if Murray would return to something cheap. This is actually good news, masquerading as disappointment.

MovieWeb has the official list of the submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. I really know nothing about any of the possible nominees. In fact, I've only heard of a few like Joon-ho Bong's Mother, Havana Marking's Afghan Star and Miguel Littin's Dawson, Isla 10. Of course, this award, more than any other at the Oscars, is the most political and usually many good films get left out. For instance, Tomas Alfredson's brilliant Let the Right One In got snubbed at last year's Oscars and Guillermo del Toro's beautiful Pan's Labyrinth didn't get the nod in 2007. One movie I have heard a lot about this year not present in the list is the South Korean horror flick Thirst. Anyhow, this is always just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Oscar displeasure, so stay tuned for those rants.