I'm seriously going to have to get rid of some of these awards categories. It takes so long to completely my annual medal giving jamboree... here's me still trying to wrap up. I never said as much but...
I think Will Smith was really good in I Am Legend. He was definitely not phoning it in like I felt you could maybe say about I, Robot. I love that in the best (and scariest) scene, when his faithful dog runs into a dark building, he doesn't play it all macho. He looks pee-himself terrified and I'm all for that. I don't care if your character is mankind's only hope, if your life is threatened chances are you're going to be scared. The Oscar like traditional categories will have winners very soon. Until then, enjoy more "specials" with Best Hero, Villain and Diva!
...that all movie villains this year were supposed to be using GREEN cgi magics.
Angie, ever the rebel, swaths herself in gold sorcery whenever she emerges from the blue waters of her vagi ... uh, "cave", in Beowulf (review) This is like that time when Cher showed up to a black & white Hollywood party in The Player (1992) wearing fire engine red --attention grabbing star mojo playfully veiled under "who, me?" innocence. One might say that Imelda Staunton's Dolores Umbridge in Order of the Phoenix also willfully ignored the green memo but some people are just exempt from dress codes (magical and otherwise). Umbridge's pink fetish is so overpowering it's rather like Tom Cruise's Xenu-loving grin or Goldie Hawn's heavy banged hairdo. Immune to changing times, public perception and style, they will outlast us all.
But back to the new emerald city. Is all this green wickedness a visual embodiment of Hollywood's self-loathing over its own insatiable greed and/or its endless faux liberalism? Discuss. *
To celebrate The Golden Compass' wide release today (review), a film in which every human has an animal "daemon" companion to represent their soul, I'd like to suggest "daemons" for the other movies in release right now... and point you towards earlier posts on the same films. I can't be bothered to write about them again --It's December! Hollywood demands that I try to cram in several movies a week. Since everyone and their dog will soon be celebrating "best of the year" this & that, you'd better cram in several too.
As for new releases, The Golden Compass is the only wide release this week. It's impossible to give it one animal, since it's veritably teeming with them. But as for quality, is it a rare exotic breed or a mutt? Depends on if you've read the book I think. My review is up @ Zoom-In
Margot at the Wedding -The further I get away from my initial screening the more annoyed I am by this movie's stumblings. However... I'm still crazy for Nicole Kidman's maddening tactless mean-drunk Margot. God bless Kidman for challenging herself so frequently. I wish more world famous actresses would (no names necessary but a lot of them, even ones I love, stay in their comfort zones) Redacted -Brian DePalma's scathing divisive drama on American soldiers in Iraq. As a fan of The Black Dahlia last year and also a Carrie nut, I should probably see more DePalma movies --not as familiar with his filmography as I'd like to be. Maybe it was Mission to Mars (barf) that scared me off Southland Tales -The uncategorizable Richard Kelly oddity is finally here
The must-see in limited release is still the Coen Bros No Country For Old Men (prev post) starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin. It added 120 theaters yesterday so keep an eye out. Maybe you'll get it soon. My prediction: this certain Oscar contender will amass the most top ten list citations of any film this year (with Ratatouille as a close rival)
Love in the Time of Cholera -Javier Bardem again. Busy man. Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium -Commercials for this movie rot my teeth Beowulf-My full review is up at Zoom-In and there's two previous posts about it if you scroll down. I'm anxious to hear your feedback. It's discussable, so chime in. Extra credit points to any film experiencers who send us photos of themselves wearing those 3D glasses! We'll make a collage.
Things I never expected to see in a major motion picture:
Angelina Jolie reprising her Alexander role in full: snakey visual motif, unplaceable Dracula's daughter accent, and birth mother to killing machine
Ray Winstone with Brad Pitt's body
A lengthy animated fight scene wherein the warrior is buck naked
A dragon battle that's actually thrilling (the movies have never been able to do dragons well --this one made me believe that a film version of the Temeraire series is a good idea )
A hide the salami scene that's almost as funny as the famous nude Austin Powers sequence
Crispin Glover all sympathetic instead of just freaky
And yet, there they were, all of these improbable things in one place: Robert Zemeckis' gargantuan goofy motion capture spectacle Beowulf.
I'm not playing today. You can't make me!10 things I'm doing instead of writing the top ten...
01 Giggling to myself about Beowulf 02 Eating an apple 03 Wishing someone could do "performance capture" on me. If Ray Winstone can go from this... (left) to this (right) why can't I? Where is Robert Zemeckis when I need him.
04 Cancelling my DVR subscriptions to Bionic Woman and Heroes 05 Bitching to the Boyfriend about how dramatically inert Heroes is and how much it continually promises not to be. Hate it
<--- 06 Petting the kitty 07 Staring at a bill I don't want to open 08 Laughing at Jennifer Coolidge on Nip/Tuck 09 Knowing that I really have to do laundry tomorrow 10 Wishing it were Wednesday so I could be watching Pushing Daisies
Just cuz I won't play Tues Top Ten doesn't mean you can't. Share whatever top ten you'dlike in the comments. Or maybe the top ten lists you'd most like to see... What ten things are you doing right now?
Is it just my imagination or are the fall trailers coming faster than one can keep up with. Isn't August supposed to be a slow month? You may have seen some of these elsewhere but here they are all collected for your viewing and discussion pleasure
Beowulfemerges from the development waters under the direction of Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) who once made charming 80s films like Romancing the Stone and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and now has a real fetish for stop motion capture. This looks visually arresting but also highly creepy. Exactly how many times can Angelina Jolie look like a plastic videogame character onscreen before she ceases to exist offscreen [sorry. That sounds like the premise of a really bad sci-fi horror film -ed.]? Even creepier is the vision of Robin Wright Penn plasticized... though I couldn't say why exactly. Help me out here in the comments.
Lars and the Real Girl has such a capital Q Quirky premise that one hopes they get the tone exactly right as it plays out in full feature form. In trailer form the premise sits there stubbornly, refusing to be either funny or sad or fascinating or disturbing or, better yet, a collision of multifacted tones. I'm still curious though.
The Kite Runner, based on the well loved novel of the same name, is shepherded to the screen by Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction) whose past work has left me cold because it's trying too hard to warm. Plus there's the bothersome schizo feeling that he both overcooks and underdramatizes his topics. Many people have high hopes for this one come Oscar time and it could be very moving indeed. But it might prove a touch alien for AMPAS' full embrace.
Be Kind Rewind is the new comedy from the ingenious clutter happy Michel Gondry (Science of Sleep) . Watching this trailer one understands that the premise (video clerks recreating famous movies in truncated low budget form) is a complete match with the director's goofy hand-made aesthetic. Question: too much of a good thing or just right?
Gone Baby Gone, directed by Ben Affleck, looks like Mystic River redux but two hours rather than two minutes might give it its own identity once it opens. That earlier film played well with Oscar voters but this is a trickier proposition. Though Oscar loves an actor-turned- director, Affleck doesn't demand automatic respect like Clint Eastwood and his lead is his brother Casey Affleck rather than Great Actor Sean Penn (this is not to knock Casey who has obvious talent...just to point out that prestige is a different commodity). Still it's easy to imagine the jostling for supporting honors (Ed Harris? Amy Madigan? Amy Ryan? Morgan Freeman?) if the film is a critical hit.
Reservation Road On this one, I'm torn. Terry George's follow up to Hotel Rwanda might go the distance but it could just as easily be one of those secondary fall films that gets one or two key nominations but not much else (like Little Children?). One thing seems sure from the trailer: it's a story of two fathers (Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo) at odds. My guess is that they're the leads and their wives (Mira Sorvino and Jennifer Connelly) are the supporting characters. We know however that Oscar don't play like that. Oscar Category Fraud is on its way, mark my words.
/Film is boycotting Regal Cinemas. Ticket buyers are not the enemies...even when they make stupid decisions. By Ken Levine a TV writer names his favorite comedic screenplays. Great choices. NewNowNext Scarjo is in Louisiana and in the studio recording her first album Anne Thompson on the already controversial animation race for this year's Oscars. Is Beowulf animated? Evening Class on Edith Head, the eight time Oscar-winning costume designer
today's must see: Women in Film - 80 blended portraits. It's quite the hypnotic video [src]
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