CINEMA SQUARED

RED

2010-10-14T17:21:00.000-05:00

Red hits theaters with a sketchy combination of big-name talent and a dangerously vague title. You've likely seen the ads (and if you haven't, check out the previous post). You likely know the stars. Now the simple question is...is the movie any good?

Check out my review at filmcritic.com.

Hunting you Down Tomorrow...

2010-10-14T08:16:00.000-05:00

Red hits theaters this weekend, and the review is coming promptly. But while you wait, tackle this question: are you excited about a high-octane graphic novel adaptation which basically falls into the "Old-Guys-Still-Have-It" model?

Looking forward to the movie? Does the celebrated cast tip you into the "anticipated" category?

No judgment...just wondering. Review on the way.

Twinkle Fairies for Everyone!

2010-10-14T08:11:00.000-05:00

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue is now on Blu-Ray and DVD!

Ever wondered what happened to Tinker Bell before Peter Pan came into her life? No? Well your kids might, and that's why you should check out my review at filmcritic.com.

Bourne is Nowhere to Be Found...

2010-10-13T09:51:00.000-05:00

...and he won't be found. At least, not in the next film that bears his name.

Tony Gilroy, brilliant writer of the first three Bourne pictures (and deserving Oscar nominee for writing and directing Michael Clayton) has completed work on a script for The Bourne Legacy, the fourth installment in the popular action franchise, set for a 2012 release. He will also direct, marking the first time in the series since the original (when Doug Liman shepherded the franchise into existence) that Paul Greengrass hasn't been behind the camera.

Also, no Matt Damon.

In fact, no Jason Bourne. Yeah, that ain't no typo -- Jason Bourne will not appear as a character in the film that bears his name.

Gilroy is a great in the making, so let's all just calm down and wait to see what he comes up with. But for now, there will be confusion.

For more, check out my commentary on examiner.com.

Delicious

2010-10-12T10:42:00.000-05:00

I Am Love, Luca Guadagnino's beautiful and brilliant saga of love, family, and sweet, glorious food -- and the film that was unjustly robbed of Italy's Best Foreign Film Oscar submission -- is now available on DVD. One of the truly remarkable films of the year...you must experience it for yourself.

Check out my review at filmcritic.com.

It's Not Really That Big of a Deal

2010-10-09T13:30:00.000-05:00

This just in: Part 1 of the Harry Potter finale will not be screening in 3-D. At all.

But, really...does it matter?

Check out my thoughts over at examiner.com.

Secretariat

2010-10-08T08:46:00.000-05:00

The story of the Triple Crown's most legendary thoroughbred gets the Disney silver screen treatment, with great work from Diane Lane and John Malkovich. Gather the whole family together and buy some popcorn...but first go read my review at filmcritic.com.

The Social Network: The Anti-Twitter Review

2010-10-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

This is "The Anti-Twitter Review" because it is so long and languorous and it took me so long -- with some stretches in between where I couldn't get to the keyboard -- to crystallize my thoughts on the many different elements of the film. Sorry for the delay, so now block off half of your day and start reading...

The Social Network is a gangster epic that happens to be about a 21st-century internet phenomenon. It is Goodfellas for the Age of Internet Isolationism.

Now, hold on just a second: the above statement does not automatically mean the film is a classic masterpiece on the level of Scorsese, Coppola, or the like. There have also been critics who have mentioned the film being reminiscent of Citizen Kane, which is an equally gargantuan leap of critical affirmation, though there are ways in which it is structurally and thematically accurate (yes, this movie has its own version of "Rosebud"). But in the way in which it unfolds, The Social Network, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, is a great mob epic that chronicles the lightning-fast rise and grandiose fall of a young genius. That fall, by the way, has nothing to do with money, as the film's chief anti-hero, Facebook mastermind Mark Zuckerberg, still thrives as the world's youngest billionaire. No, Zuckerberg's fall is one of humanity. His is a loss not of innocence, since the man is not portrayed as having a ton of innocence -- or likeability -- to begin with, but a loss of the precious commodity that is human joy and connectivity. Kind of ironic for a guy who allegedly linked the entire electronic world together.

In essence, The Social Network presents the impetus story for one of the most infamous and iconic socio-boons of our current culture. It is part docu-drama, part character study, and part social chronicle. What perhaps keeps it from becoming an instant and enduring classic is its emphasis on the former two elements rather than the latter. As I've noted in a previous article, the birth and growth of the social networking craze possesses implications that run so deep that it seems nearly impossible to fully encapsulate its social significance, the ways in which the rise of electronic friendships has led to interpersonal isolation and other ills. This film feels like an epic, but its canvass is not broad enough (perhaps in this specific incarnation, it can't or shouldn't be broad enough) to encapsulate the cultural strains that Facebook and its like has infected, both positively and negatively (primarily negatively). But in telling this story, in focusing intently on these characters, in bringing a "face" to this phenomenon, The Social Network does find itself on the precipice of making a profound cultural statement, which in itself is mighty impressive. And the film is rendered with such magnificent prowess on every possible level that it would be monstrously entertaining even without the real-life social implications.

The film's true focus is on character, and in that pursuit is able to achieve that most laudable of narrative accomplishments: using the specific to influence and comment upon the general. The main protagonist, Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg, in his best screen performance), is the nerdy Harvard genius whose billion-dollar empire was, according to this story, born of a relationship gone awry, a drunken moment of infantile vindication against a woman who rejected Zuckerberg's particular brand of narcissism. In that moment, depicted in the film's brilliant opening sequence (arguably its best, although it isn't accurate to say the film goes downhill from there), Mark's sort-of girlfriend, Erica (Rooney Mara, whose screen presence instantly commands star-level attention), rebuffs the repulsive arrogance that Zuckerberg bears naturally, and it sends the hurt and angered young, entitled genius back to his dorm room, where the initial seeds for The Phenomenon That Would Be Facebook were planted in a soil of alcohol, blogging, and mind-boggling algorithms.

Most interesting about the Fincher-Sorkin-Eisenberg distillation of Zuckerberg (since this film is proudly a compilation of reality and rumor, of documented reality and cinematic invention) is that he is not so much a driven megalomaniac but rather a boy genius who is driven by girlfriend revenge and henceforth intent upon being seen as cool. In The Social Network, Facebook is invented in order to get girls, make friends, be seen as cool. And that is the goal that drives Zuckerberg for the remainder of the film: he wants to be cool. Plain and simple. He makes billions, but it is coolness that he seeks, and that never fails to be his ultimate mission. It is an interesting psychological representation, and one that does speak to the ultimate nature of social networking as it has progressed (transgressed?) over the better part of the 21st century: people want to add to their friend lists, want to be liked and enjoyed by a wide swath of people. Coolness is the goal.

Eisenberg is brilliant in this role. He is always fabulous -- has been since his big-screen debut in Dylan Kidd's wonderful Roger Dodger, and that continued through roles in The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland, and Zombieland, among others. What is so brilliant about Eisenberg's embodiment of the cinematic Mark Zuckerberg -- indeed, what is so ingenious about Sorkin's creation of this character -- is the viciously sharp edge that is brought to the traditional Geek Hero. Zuckerberg is simultaneously the film's anti-hero and its chief villain -- he is a complete prick, hateful and full of arrogance. He comes by these traits naturally, as his genius is nearly unparalleled even by his Harvard classmates. He can create a web universe in a week's time, then turn around and spin verbal yarns that twist his foes into knots when they question the validity of his enterprise. He is a complete nerd -- the kind that usually is presented as so sweet and wonderful in most modern comedies, and the kind that Eisenberg has made a successful career at perfecting -- but the hard truth is that nerds have the same seedy underbelly, the same cutthroat desire for likability and success, the same reckless narcissism that pretty, popular people possess. It is such a precise twist on the perception of the Cinematic Geek, such a unique upending of expectations, and such a beautiful tweak to Eisenberg's typical persona that the character is divine. And Eisenberg is a shoo-in for a Best Actor nomination, and at this point is likely the odds-on favorite to win.

Eisenberg is joined by a stellar ensemble cast, including the breakout Mara (who will take on the title role in Fincher's upcoming Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake, and on the basis of her work here I believe she can do it justice); Andrew Garfield (the new Spider-Man) as Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's best friend and co-founder of Facebook, whose mild-mannered business strategy is eventually flattened in the wake of Zuckerberg's big-thinking; Justin Timberlake, oozing slime from every orifice as Sean Parker, creator of Napster, who ushers Zuckerberg into the world of megalomania; and Armie Hammer, who comes out of nowhere to play twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, hulking members of the Harvard rowing crew who ask Zuckerberg to help them with a smaller, Harvard-based concept similar to Facebook, who eventually sue when he leaves them in the dust to pursue the much-larger worldwide phenomenon.

The film unfolds in a Rashomon-style multi-perspective style, which underscores the notion that there is no one answer to the Facebook conundrum. Many characters have many different ideas of how certain events unfolded, and none of these characters are truly, completely knowable. One thing that we know for sure: it is awfully lonely creating such a widely-embraced social enterprise, a fact that leads this Zuckerberg down the road of the aforementioned quick-rise, hard-fall gangster kingpin. He has "500 million friends," as the film's tagline cleverly exploits, and yet he is alone in a room, sitting in front of a screen. That is how his empire was created, and it is how his story concludes. It might seem ironic, but it is quite fitting.

There is a visceral excitement both within and surrounding the film, that sort of cosmic energy that tends to befall the films we think of as The Great Films. It is one of those movies where the beautiful combination of director, writer, cast, and crew that seems to breed unbridled greatness. Here the director, David Fincher, he of the gorgeous moody lighting, ambitious themes, and sardonic humor, has brought his particular cinematic attitude and worldview to a form and a genre that he has never before tackled. After a string of epic thrillers (Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac) and a throwaway literary adaptation (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Fincher finds himself squarely in the midst of a real-life drama. Because of the nature of this story and the attitude of this culture, Fincher is in many ways the ideal director for this subject matter.

In the same way, the writer, Aaron Sorkin -- he of the masterfully witty dialogue, unendingly intelligent characters, and tales of interpersonal love and struggle writ very emotionally large -- is a very interesting choice for this screenplay, which carries with it all the weight and implications discussed above. He brings a different sensibility to the table than one of the other big-name writers who might normally tackle the "Based On a True Story" cine-epics, like Eric Roth or Brian Helgeland or William Broyles, Jr. Sorkin brings a verbal energy and colloquial verve that automatically heightens the atmosphere, leavens the proceedings, injects a vial of sass. It automatically shifts the tone -- not from heavy to light, but from leaden to buoyant. At the same time, a guy like Sorkin could also easily cutesify the narrative with its talky nature and purposely heightened verbosity.

I've written forever, and yet there is still more to say. The conversation will surely continue for the rest of the year, as this film will surely be a frequent topic throughout awards season. The Social Network is an epic for the moment. It is not perfect, but its vast audacity and grandiose form lend it a certain magic that make it great. There likely is no way to make a single film that perfectly deconstructs the social networking phenomenon, but in tackling the myth head-on, The Social Network is about as ultimate as any such film could be.

My Nightmare: Another One of These Pieces of...

2010-10-07T08:28:00.007-05:00

A Nightmare on Elm Street just landed on Blu-Ray and DVD. I didn't see the film in its theatrical release, primarily because I never bother to waste my time on regurgitated horror remakes when they are in theaters. It has always seemed like such a profound time- and energy-suck, not to mention a waste of blog space. Every once in a while one of them comes along that raises my ire enough to make disgusted comments (last year's Friday the 13th remake comes to mind). And that is sort of the case with this Nightmare remake, albeit on a different level.

Unlike the 2009 Friday the 13th, unlike Hostel, Saw, or any number of other modern pieces of horror-porn, this film does not blend elements of salacious sex with brutal, unrelenting violence. I suppose that is to its credit, since the blending of sex and violence is one of the more offensive -- not to mention dangerous -- trappings of that heinous genre known as "Modern American Horror." But the simple lack of softcore sex doesn't come close to excusing the inept lack of drama, the soulless copying of the original, the cynical attempt to inject some sort of sanctimonious moral to this story, or the basic thematic and emotional preoccupations that plague this and every other Modern American Horror film.

That is to say, the Narcissistic Slog of Role-Playing Catharsis.

If you watch the new Nightmare on Elm Street, you might be struck by how closely it skews to Wes Craven's original -- which itself is not so fabulous upon my recent revisiting, but at least took an original concept to then-unseen places. This new film, directed by music video director Samuel Bayer and starring the great, resurgent Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger, does literally nothing to alter much of its basic structure from the original, which would be fine if the film were intent on cleverly homaging the material and proliferating a sense of fun. But "fun" is not a basic tenet of Modern American Horror, but "repulsive, persistent nastiness" is. There is an attempt to add a backstory to the character (a la Rob Zombie's self-serving, repugnant Halloween remake), one that, without giving anything away, offers two possible explanations, neither of which is less cynical than the other. And it makes no difference either way, because the point of this film is not to make audiences feel, but to make them jolt at false shocks, thus giving them some brief sense of release.

The audience is where I want to focus in this particular discussion, because as one who willingly sat down to view this film, I was taken aback at how entirely not scary, exciting, or even remotely compelling any of the material really was. It is not only a carbon copy of Craven's original, but a psychic copycat of every other entry into the modern horror-porn cannon in recent memory, which is to say it only exists to lure the late teens/early-20s set into theaters to vicariously cheer death and dismemberment. Watching the film, I could picture the type of person who would find this film enjoyable -- the sort of person who spends their days "Like"-ing Facebook status messages and sexting their entire contact list. There is nothing in this film that caught me by surprise -- one enters each scene under the expectation that it will be "shockingly" revealed to be a dream, and that there will be terror and eventually bloodshed. It is entirely episodic and not remotely surprising or intriguing, and yet I can imagine packed theaters jumped and shrieking with "terror" (read: delight). And it makes me wonder why.

Horror used to be socially relevant and spoke to a certain cultural malaise. In the days of early Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper and George Romero, there was sharp commentary and real terror being displayed on the screen. Horror was not only scary, but legitimately engaging on multiple levels. Now, in the age of Modern American Horror, the only commentary is that "pretty people should die," and the only people who find it scary or shocking are those who enter the theater seeking some sort of odd enjoyment from slaughter. In fact, I think most fans would willingly admit that horror is no longer scary, but a venue that showcases psycho-worship and empty violent catharsis. Roger Ebert has called this type of film a "geek show," and I couldn't say it any better myself.

The film is half-populated with good actors -- alongside Haley, who obviously decided to parlay his recent critical success into a big financial pay-day here, there is Rooney Mara as the lead, Connie Britton as her mother, and an interesting brooder named Kyle Gallner as "the boyfriend" -- and the other half consists of blank-faced 90210 rejects who are thankfully offed early, but not before they perpetrate heinous crimes against acting. Once Mara takes center stage, she is fabulously cinematic, a real breakout star with enormous talent (she's also flat brilliant in limited screen time in Fincher's The Social Network) who obviously saw this role as a way into the business, and she upstages the material at every turn. Gallner (the punk-boy victim from Jennifer's Body, a horror-satire that works in every way a movie like this fails) is also good as the emo-boy who researches the Freddy Krueger legend to aid his lady friend. Haley is not particularly fabulous, since Freddy doesn't talk much or interact in ways that don't involve screeching his blades against walls. He doesn't even get to chew much scenery with any great vigor. After he was Oscar-nominated for the brilliant Little Children, carried the weight of Watchmen on his back, and added great spice to Scorsese's Shutter Island, this just seems like a paycheck movie for Haley, which is unfortunate, but, I suppose, a rite of passage for the newly-minted star.

Whatever the case, this new Nightmare is a complete dead zone (no pun intended at all). It is empty, predictable, boring, and sort of sad. And to top it all off, in a year in which Christopher Nolan's extraordinary Inception so precisely and originally deconstructed the state of human consciousness and all the psycho and emotional weight that comes with it, this movie about a burn-faced specter who kills people in their dreams just seems so limp, so elementary, so pointless...so irrelevant.

Emma Makes Spidey a Must-See. Seriously.

2010-10-07T07:43:00.004-05:00

Sent a brief tweet about this when the news dropped yesterday, but a few additional comments are necessary.

I have not been a fan of the idea of a brand-spankin'-new Spider-Man franchise being crafted out of whole cloth. For proof, allow me to remind you about my posts from last year, first when I lambasted the very idea of starting a perpendicular Spidey franchise, and later when I discussed the hiring of Marc Webb as director, which was a good move given the guy's obvious filmmaking panache, but made me worry about his future career for jumping into a Spider-Man franchise that is attempting to ignore Sam Raimi's billion-dollar cash cow.

Of late, British actor Andrew Garfield signed to play Spidey, and lately he has made a splash as part of the brilliant young cast of David Fincher's The Social Network. Based on what I've seen of him, he will fit right into the Peter Parker persona.

And now, the news from yesterday: Emma Stone has been signed to play Gwen Stacy in Webb's new Spider-Man. And now I will be lining up early for this one.

Stone was the greatest possible hire that this franchise ever could have hoped to make. If you don't believe me or don't understand, go watch Superbad. Then watch Zombieland. And right now, while you can, go see Easy A in theaters, then stay to watch it again. It's brilliant. And she is especially brilliant.

Stone was originally rumored to be playing Mary Jane Watson, but Webb's film has moved on to another of Peter Parker's comic-book love interests -- a wise move, because it gives this new franchise a distinction from the Raimi films, which cast the wonderful Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane. Good for them for not imitating or attempting to over-match, and good for them for nabbing a casting coup.

Gwen Stacy did appear in Raimi's ill-fated Spidey 3, played ever-so-briefly by Bryce Dallas Howard, whose talents deserved better than the throwaway role she received. Now the character will get a full character arc, and will be embodied by the most infectious leading lady of the moment. No lie...Emma Stone has made me get excited about seeing the new Spider-Man.

Instead of dread, I now have anticipation. Instead of cynicism, I now have hope. And this development has also made me re-think the other pieces of the puzzle. Garfield is a very interesting actor, and it will be interesting to see him assume the Peter Parker role. As for Webb...(500) Days of Summer is a fabulous movie with oodles of style. That is just about undeniable. He will bring a very specific attitude to this franchise that will be fresh and interesting, especially with this cast.

For the record, I am still wary of jump-starting a new franchise only a few years after the demise of one of the most critically- and financially-successful franchises of the last decade. I would feel that way about any such endeavor (certainly the Ed Norton Incredible Hulk, which was horrible and unnecessary), and certainly about Spider-Man, which was so seamlessly and wonderfully crafted by Raimi, Maguire, Dunst, et al.

But maybe -- just maybe -- one of these reboot franchises can come together and work well. You can't make this many good decisions and leave me uninterested.

Barry Munday

2010-10-05T10:49:00.003-05:00

Oddball indie comedy now in select theaters. Watch respected actors strut around like morons...if you dare. But first, be sure to check out my review at filmcritic.com.

It's All Over, and Yet It Continues

2010-09-28T10:50:00.000-05:00

It was expected for months, and last Thursday, it became official: Blockbuster has filed for bankruptcy, citing assets of $1.02 billion against $1.46 billion in debt.

So what does it all mean?

Undeniably, competition has been bad for Blockbuster. Netflix and Redbox have been swallowing a vast chunk of the rental market, due in great part, I think, to their respective outlets -- Netflix's mail-delivery service and Redbox's in-store kiosks. In addition, Netflix offers instant streaming on an expanding library of titles, which itself has become more solvent in recent months due to the increasing ubiquity of network Blu-Ray players and instant streaming discs for video game consoles like Wii and XBox 360. The companies have swiped business from Blockbuster in spite of facing a 28-day window in which new films for the majority of major studios are contractually committed to only renting from Blockbuster, meaning that renters are willing to wait an extra month for the ease and convenience of mail delivery or picking up a disc on their way out of the grocery store. Additionally, On-Demand service from cable and satellite providers is becoming an increasingly viable option for renters, especially since there is no 28-day window for On-Demand service and most pay-per-view films are now available in HD, meaning one could hypothetically access a new video release in Blu-Ray quality picture with the click of a button, for a small fee...and they don't even have to own a Blu-Ray player, or pay a monthly fee to a rental company (those pay-per-view fees start to accumulate fast, though).

For their part, Blockbuster Online utilizes its own mail-delivery service that is almost identical to Netflix, and is planting its own branded kiosks to counter the Redbox onslaught. The former renting behemoth also offers an instant streaming option, although each viewing costs a small fee, whereas the Netflix streaming is included within the monthly fee for standard membership (yet another caveat, though: Blockbuster streams everything, with an emphasis on all new releases, while Netflix's streaming catalog, while expanding, is still limited and doesn't include many new releases). And yet, while Blockbuster has been solid at utilizing the formats offered by competitors, that very fact is, in many ways, representative of its downfall: the company is great at adding the features of its competitors, but unable to break new ground in order to raise the stakes for those competitors. Netflix raised the stakes. Redbox raised the stakes. Blockbuster won't -- perhaps can't -- re-raise. And it has been borrowing itself into oblivion just to be able to meet the standards set by other companies. Now all that borrowing has caught up to Blockbuster.

So what happens now? Well, more borrowing. According to reports, the company has reached a deal with bondholders, led by billionaire NY investor Carl Icahn, in order to rebuild and reorganize. Apparently $125 million has been committed by investors to repay suppliers and employees for the duration of this rebuilding period. Blockbuster Powers-That-Be promise that they will once again be able to achieve solvency, and that there will be a newer, better Blockbuster.

But the Blockbuster Era, such as it was, is over.

No more market domination, no more rental monopoly, no more Blockbuster-as-usual, much as they will work to make it seem that way.

Several Blockbuster stores have been shut down, and hundreds more will follow in the coming months. The number of Blockbuster stores nationwide that is being frequently quoted in the media is 3,000. That number will probably shrink to well under 2,000 by this time next year. More Redbox-style kiosks will pop up all over the country. The mail delivery and instant streaming enterprises of Blockbuster Online will continue in earnest. And over time, we will see how the the former juggernaut intends to survive in this Era of Home Entertainment Access that, at some undefined point, leap-frogged Blockbuster's old model while they were asleep at the wheel.

Wow, what a difference.

Sally Menke

2010-09-28T09:24:00.003-05:00

There will be a continuing stream of posts that were already in progress throughout the day and week, but this is some shocking and sad news that just arrived in my e-mail inbox.

Sally Menke, one of the great modern cinema editors, whose beautiful work helped define the brilliance of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, and Death Proof, and who was freshly coming off an Oscar nomination for Inglourious Basterds, was found dead early this morning in Los Angeles. She was 53.

According to news reports, Menke went hiking Monday morning with her dog. When friends reported that he never came home Monday night, LAPD conducted a search. Her body was found near Griffith Park early Tuesday. No word yet on a cause of death, nor whether the current extreme heat in Los Angeles was a factor.

There will be more information as it becomes available, but for the moment, there is nothing but shock and sadness over the loss of a great film artist.

Better Than Ever...and Now Back On TV

2010-09-23T10:41:00.004-05:00

Roger Ebert Presents: At the Movies is the long-gestating, long-awaited, long-wondered-if-it-would-ever-come-together television project spearheaded by the Man himself. A while back, when the old Disney syndication contract ended and the historic "Thumbs" were packed away firmly within Ebert's palms, Ebert openly discussed vague plans for a new show--one that would feature Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips and Ebert's former Siskel replacement, Richard Roeper, and one that would restore the Thumbs to their showcased role as the foremost public arbiter of filmic quality.

Time passed. Disney continued without Ebert, Roeper, and the Thumbs, first casting a film review program that attempted to resemble the Ebert version with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz and "critic" abomination Ben Lyons. That tanked, for obvious reasons. Of late, the faux "At the Movies" featured Phillips--who, in his role with the Disney show, bailed on the new Ebert concept--and NY Times critic A.O. Scott. The result delivered stronger criticism and not-much-stronger television. And, as of August, it was defunct.

But alas, earlier this month, Ebert and Co. delivered the above video, a 7-minute demo of The Program That Will Be. It will feature Ebert not as a co-host, but in his own weekly segment, "Roger's Office," where he will do what he really cherishes the most: shed glowing light on overlooked gems, smaller pictures that are near and dear to his heart. It is a fitting segment for Ebert, who has long been famous for his thumbs and his arguments with Gene Siskel, but has been most passionate about sharing the joy of film with the world.

Christy Lemire of The Associated Press and Elvis Mitchell, former NYT critic and host of public radio's The Treatment, will serve as co-host, and Kim Morgan (sunsetgun.com) and Omar Moore (popcornreel.com) will be regular contributors. The show will retain the basic format of At the Movies' former incarnations, but with additional content and more feature segments, as indicated in the 7-minute pilot. Ebert has been quoted as saying the new show is "a rebirth of a dream," a sentiment that will surely be echoed by those of us who made the old Siskel & Ebert show a weekly obsession.

Ebert's health battles have been well-chronicled over the past four years, and his eloquent and triumphant return to the throne has been wonderful to behold (for my discussion of that journey, read my article from earlier this year). Roger may no longer be able to speak, but his voice is still loud and clear. He has, almost indisputably, never been better. And his new show will hopefully restore the passion and verve to the enterprise that has long been missing.

Roger Ebert Presents: At the Movies is slated to premiere on PBS in January. If I could set my DVR now, I would. But I will be waiting impatiently. I hope you are, too.

I Can't Wait For...

2010-09-16T10:08:00.004-05:00

Directed by David Fincher. Written by Aaron Sorkin. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, who leads an emsemble of one of the more interesting young casts in recent memory.

The film is receiving more widespread critical buzz than any film this year...can we start calling critics "Social Network Stalkers?" Will reviews for the film be called "Pokes?"

It looks mighty intriguing. And a film like this is very important for a time period such as this. But still I have questions. Is the film merely a (very recent) period piece recounting the controversial birth of a social phenomenon? Or will it dig deeper, recounting the birth of something much bigger, much more insidious?

The birth of socialization in miniature...the birth of iFriends...the birth of e-socialization in the face of flesh-and-blood isolationism. There are a great many implications to this era of social networking, and most of them are ugly.

If the film is brave enough to confront them, then we will have found a new American classic...and alongside last year's Up in the Air, the most prescient and relevant American film in years, and this year's Inception, a seminal masterwork of buried emotion and human consciousness, we may be marking a remarkable period of beautiful, frightening self-awareness in American cinema.

If it's not brave enough, we may still be intrigued and entertained, but the ball will be dropped on a monumental level.

I can't wait for The Social Network, but I still await the end product -- moreso even than with any other film -- to see if my anticipation will be fully rewarded.

On Blu-Ray and DVD: Letters to Juliet

2010-09-14T07:42:00.003-05:00

Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave are very huggable, but their movie came on way too strong for me. Letters to Juliet lands on Blu-Ray and DVD today. Check out my review on filmcritic.com.

On Blu-Ray and DVD: Killers

2010-09-09T08:42:00.002-05:00

Precisely the kind of movie one would describe as "wait for video." And as luck would have it, Killers is now available on Blu-Ray and DVD. Check out my review at filmcritic.com.

On DVD: Sparkle

2010-09-09T08:38:00.003-05:00

TV-tastic Brit dramedy is now available for your home entertainment. But before you add it to your Netflix queue, check out my review at filmcritic.com.

It's Been a While

2010-08-23T17:06:00.000-05:00

Hey there...remember me?

From September 2009 through March 2010, I posted hundreds of updates, solidifying a significant web space for Cinema Squared, jump-starting a wonderful series of discussions on all things film, and gaining some faithful followers in the process. Plus, it very simply gave me space to rant about the movies, a chance to share my voice with the world.

Once March hit, the posts became fewer and further between. In March, I averaged a posting rate of about once every 10 days. From April to May it was about once every two weeks.

Now it has been precisely 111 days since my last post.

There are several reasons for the lapse. One is the rhythm of life, which never fails to dictate one's schedule. Another is the presence of a day job, as I unfortunately don't get paid for writing, editing, and moderating this blog. And in my particular case, said day job has been pretty heinous for the past few months, so much so that it sucked all the energy out of me. Reason #3 would have to be the movies themselves, albeit with an asterisk. There certainly hasn't been a large amount of exciting films thus far in 2010. There has, however, been an expansive (and expanding) amount of awful ones, and an even larger number of disappointing and/or mediocre ones. So my energy level has been depleted, and the movies -- for the most part -- haven't been exciting enough to raise that energy level. But you know what...that's no excuse. Movies are movies, and though the modern cinema may giveth and taketh away, it is still my passion to watch, analyze, critique, and discuss film.

I want to get back there. I think I'm ready to start.

Before I do, though, I should mention one other major reason for my absence...

My blog has been invaded by space aliens.***

Rogue invaders have taken to posting random gobbledygook comments on various posts -- sometimes several at a time -- and the Powers-That-Be have done nothing to assist me in the matter. It started back in March, and was the initial reason my posting frequency began to drop off (you may remember the Technical Difficulties post, which vaguely referenced this issue...and has now itself been plagued with nonsense commenters). I persistently attempted to resolve the issues with the Higher Ups, but was turned away time and again. I then decided to put the issue behind me and continue with the work, at which point the aforementioned distractions began looming. Thus, it became that much easier to let the dust pile up on Cinema Squared.

But after all this time has passed, it just seems like enough is enough. Time to push past all the reasons to ignore what I love. Time to forge ahead with the work. Time to reignite this fire.

In the coming weeks, you can expect to see more frequent updates to Cinema Squared. There are so many things to discuss: Blockbuster's monopoly on the first month of the home video window, Netflix's potential big-deal instant streaming purchase, the 2010 wave of wonderful foreign and independent films, the 2010 wave of awful mainstream studio fare, and, of course, the movies themselves.

I've yet to discuss the overwhelmingly powerful beauty of Mother and Child.

I haven't had a chance to giddily discuss the towering genius of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

And then, there's Inception...one of the greatest films ever made. Period.

Oh yeah, and isn't Oscar season just about to slap us all across the face again?

It's all coming at you soon...as long as I can push forward and stay excited.

I will.

*** = By the way, I know there are no aliens taking over the blog...just random bored morons who have nothing better to do than screw with people's work.

I Can't Wait For...

2010-05-04T07:46:00.001-05:00

Only 3 Days Away...but still...

Summer's about to get jump-started. And Favreau, Downey, and Co. better deliver.

Oh, the Crimes being perpetrated...

2010-04-26T13:27:00.002-05:00

Everyone, quick! An outdated ABC Family TV movie has been limply packaged into a pathetic DVD release to cash in on the subsequent success of bit player Megan Fox!

Rush to the video store if you must, but stop by filmcritic.com to read my review first.

Date Night's Weekend Gross...What Happened?

2010-04-13T08:54:00.003-05:00

The weekend estimate for Date Night: $27.1 million.

The weekend actual for Date Night: $25.2 million.

The difference between the top spot and a close second: priceless.

Check out my analysis of this mini-boondoggle on examiner.com.

I can't wait for....

2010-04-06T12:48:00.003-05:00

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD

Starring Michael Cera. Directed by Edgar Wright. Featuring fight scenes that are a stylistic cross between arcade video games and Japanese anime, complete with visible onomatopoeia bubbles with phrases like "WHAM!" and "POW!"

Need I say more?

The film opens August 13...and I can't wait.

Random Instant Update #2

2010-03-27T15:26:00.002-05:00

Question of the day: Hot Tub Time Machine toes the line between inspired hilarity and hideous trash. How far is too far for these interchangeable sex comedies?

There Will Be Tweets

2010-03-27T12:40:00.002-05:00

Coming soon: Cinema Squared Mobile, featuring updates brought to you by mobile devices. Mobile updates, Twitter feeds, and more!

One Week Later: A Final Look at the Oscars

2010-03-15T16:56:00.002-05:00

It's all over. And in the interim, while Cinema Squared has been toiling away at dealing with some debugging issues, we've all had time to think back on the Oscar season that was.

Awards season functions in a six-month cycle -- six months of Oscar build-up, and six months of rest and relaxation. We have just entered the off-season. And it feels simultaneously freeing and frustrating, exciting and empty. Plenty to talk about, not a lot to get excited about. For better or for worse, Oscar season hones the focus of entertainment journalists of all stripes, and gives a context for the entire discussion for nearly half the year. In the case of Cinema Squared, I have always felt like it brought out the best in our content -- always fascinating items to bring up, discuss, and analyze. And, of course, there are the Oscar movies, which may not all be perfect, but that strive for perfection in a way early 2010 releases like Edge of Darkness or Dear John would never dare. (I can't stress enough in this first quarter of the year: Thank God for Shutter Island).

So, in honor, in remembrance, in a quiet yearning for the return of...the Oscars, here's a final look back at this year's ceremony, based on some of the notes I took throughout the ceremony.

Extended Actor Excerpts: Good
In the supporting categories, viewers were given extended sequences of each nominated actor's performance, allowing us to fully understand the depth and complexity of each work and get an insight into each character. It was one of the few real changes this year's producers decided to make, and it was a successful one. I would have preferred the same strategy be applied to the lead acting categories instead of the "former co-stars take stage to shower praise on each nominee" format, but that was decent enough as it was.

Wrap-Up Music, and By Extension the Decision to Race Through the Show: Bad
Contrary to popular belief, this year's show raced by with uncommon zeal, obviously an attempt to capture viewers' attention for the entire broadcast and to finally combat accusations that the show runs long. But the show still ran long, so it didn't matter that they rushed the entire ceremony, which felt less intimate and more business-like than usual. The most offensive arm of this strategy -- even more offensive than in past years, even -- was the use of wrap-up music to cut off any attempt at a lengthier acceptance speech. The Oscars are supposed to celebrate every facet of filmmaking, thus reinforcing what a group effort the filmmaking process really is...except that preferential treatment was given to those higher on the totem pole. No one would dare try to interrupt Bridges or Bullock, and why should they? Both gave wonderful speeches that deserved to be heard in full. But the same holds true for the filmmaking team behind The Cove and the special effects team for Avatar, yet they were cut off the same way a dozen others were cut off throughout the night. Sorry, but that's bullshit. The shooting gallery will take their shots about length no matter how short the ceremony is, so allow these filmmakers -- at ALL levels -- to finish their speeches. This moment is supposed be special. Don't spoil it for them.

Martin and Baldwin as Hosting Duo: Good
Because the hosts only do real hosting for the first 10 minutes of the show, it's hard for any of them to really exude consistent greatness. With his forceful musicality, Hugh Jackman sustained greatness for nearly four hours, making him the best Oscar host in years, and if next year's producers know what's best for them, they will make him an offer before anyone else. But, as a comedy duo, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin did a fine job. Their old-school rapport was one of the only elements to work really well in this year's show. Their back-and-forth shtick worked really well for them and for the show.

Horror Dedication Montage: WTF?!
What was the point? If you wanted to do an extended dedication to genre, and horror was one part of a much larger whole, then fine. Or if one or two of the prominent Best Picture nominees were horror films, that might even work. As it was, there was no rhyme or reason. It was a strange montage that included films that weren't even horror pictures. It stopped the show dead in its tracks.

Best Picture Intros: Decent
The use of frequent breaks in the action to introduce each of the ten BP nominees worked pretty well, with a separate stage for the presenters to stand apart from the rest of the action and a card at the bottom of the screen that listed each nominated film's primary credits.

Best Picture Announcement: Odd
Tom Hanks did a fine job presenting the Best Picture award (and I kinda liked the suppressed smirk on his face as he read the winning title, as if this was rooting for Hurt Locker all along), but the actual moment was so truncated that it felt like one rushed afterthought at the end of a rushed night.

Avatar shut-out in major categories: Good
We all pretty much knew this was brewing for weeks, thanks to the overall critical love for Hurt Locker and the David vs. Goliath story that resulted from it. But it was nonetheless satisfying to see a film that didn't deserve to win any of the major awards lose in every major category. Amazing thing is, Avatar also lost in some of the smaller categories, getting shut out of the sound categories by The Hurt Locker. Cameron's epic walked away with three awards, but only two of them -- visual effects and art direction -- were deserved. I had predicted The White Ribbon to win Best Cinematography, and actually assumed if it lost, it would be to Hurt Locker. But it's not a ridiculous win for Avatar, so...whatever.

So funny that watching the Oscars brings out the cutthroat, "rah-rah" mentality in all of us. I was actively rooting against Avatar for the entirety of the Oscar broadcast, even though I actually really like the movie. The Hurt Locker wasn't my number one for the year, but I feel like it was a big victory that it took home so many awards. Kinda ridiculous.

Up in the Air shut-out in all categories: Embarrassing
The biggest jaw-dropper of the night was Up in the Air losing the Adapted Screenplay Oscar to Precious. It is utterly shameful that the year's best, most enlightened and important film failed to win even one Oscar, especially for the core of its profundity, Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner's beautiful screenplay. Amazing...in the worst way. For his part, Geoffrey Fletcher was also shocked by his own victory, so much so that he literally couldn't muster a word without ample stuttering. The guy was in awe and I admire his genuine happiness, but of all the awards to give Precious, Screenplay was the least deserving, in my opinion. Fletcher's speech did provide fodder for the evening's best joke, when Steve Martin took the stage upon Fletcher's exit and proudly stated, "I wrote his acceptance speech."

The Hurt Locker mini-sweep: Very Good
Six Oscars for Kathryn Bigelow's masterpiece, which is a nice haul for one of Oscar's lowest-grossing Best Picture winners ever. The film charted an interesting trajectory, from little indie picture to critical favorite to Oscar dark horse to a victim of Avatar's expected dominance to the odds-on favorite. But this was one instance where the film in question deserved all the praise and came out on the proper end of the spin machine. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing...an impressive showing.

Bigelow Making History: Wonderful
Don't forget this moment...it may not happen for a while. But it has been done, which means it can be done again. The glass ceiling has been broken, and the road has been paved for future female filmmakers. Kathryn Bigelow could not have been more gracious in her moment of glory -- which, for me, was the ceremony's high point. She also could not have been more deserving. Politics come into play in any Oscar campaign, but Bigelow always stayed above the fray and let her work speak for itself. Make no mistake: this award was earned. And I can't wait to see what Bigelow chooses to follow up this momentous achievement.

HAPPY TEARS

2010-03-15T13:46:00.005-05:00

The new indie drama starring Parker Posey and Demi Moore is now in select cities and On Demand. It may cause more tears of cinematic despair, for this is one of the worst indie dramedies I've seen in years.

Check out my review at filmcritic.com.

Technical Difficulties

2010-03-15T13:39:00.002-05:00

Hey there, loyal readers. Guess what?

We're still here!

The past week has been a strange and tiresome one for Cinema Squared. We have had to deal with a couple different issues that have kept us from continuing the work we are dedicated to doing for you all. It seems -- for the moment, at least -- that we have managed to resolve said issues to the best of our ability. And with that in mind, it is time to return to the work.

Thank you for sticking with us. There are plenty of updates lined up...plenty of things to talk about.

Oscar Winners

2010-03-09T08:22:00.002-06:00

BEST PICTURE
The Hurt Locker

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

BEST ACTRESS
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Mo'Nique, Precious

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
El Secreto de Sus Ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes), Argentina

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Cove

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Up

ART DIRECTION
Avatar
Art Direction by Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration by Kim Sinclair

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar
Mauro Fiore

COSTUME DESIGN
The Young Victoria
Sandy Powell

FILM EDITING
The Hurt Locker
Bob Murawski and Chris Innis

MAKEUP
Star Trek
Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, Joel Harlow

ORIGINAL SCORE
Up
Michael Giacchino

ORIGINAL SONG
"The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" from Crazy Heart
Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

SOUND EDITING
The Hurt Locker
Paul N.J. Ottosson

SOUND MIXING
The Hurt Locker
Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett

VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew R. Jones

History

2010-03-09T08:16:00.002-06:00

Don't underestimate the moment.

OSCARS: He Said, She Said Final Predictions

2010-03-07T11:30:00.001-06:00

Oscar hour is almost upon us. Before tuning in tonight to find the actual winners, check out what we think will win and (because we just can't help ourselves in the big categories) what we think should win.

Best Picture:

Will Win: The Hurt Locker

Should Win: The Hurt Locker

Will Win: The Hurt Locker

Should Win: Up in the Air

Best Director:

Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow (...period.)
Should Win: Kathryn Bigelow (...period.)
JM

Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow

Should Win: Jason Reitman (with big props to Bigelow)

The rest after the jump...

Best Actor:

Will Win: Jeff Bridges

Should Win: Colin Firth
JM

Will Win: Jeff Bridges

Should Win: George Clooney

Best Actress:

Will Win: Sandra Bullock

Should Win: Gabourey Sidibe (or Meryl...or Carey)

Will Win: Sandra Bullock (Meryl is closer than you think)

Should Win: Carey Mulligan (or Gabourey...or Meryl)

Best Supporting Actor:

Will Win: Christoph Waltz

Should Win: Christoph Waltz

Will Win: Christoph Waltz

Should Win: Woody Harrelson

Best Supporting Actress:

Will Win: Mo'Nique (no doubt)

Should Win: Mo'Nique

Will Win: Mo'Nique (duh)

Should Win: Mo'Nique

Cinematography:

KM: The Hurt Locker

JM: The White Ribbon (Hurt Locker could take it in a big sweep)

Original Screenplay:

KM: The Hurt Locker (Quentin's Basterds script close)

JM: The Hurt Locker (Basterds could upset)

Adapted Screenplay:

KM: Up in the Air (the only thing close, but not too close, is Precious)

JM: Up in the Air (the most deserving award of the night)

Animated Feature:

KM: Up

JM: Up

Foreign Language Film:

KM: The White Ribbon

JM: Un Prophete (can't believe I'm going against White Ribbon, but I'm out on a limb...Ribbon could still take it)

Documentary Feature:

KM: The Cove

JM: The Cove

Film Editing:

KM: The Hurt Locker

JM: The Hurt Locker

Animated Short:

KM: A Matter of Loaf and Death

JM: A Matter of Loaf and Death

Live Action Short:

KM: Kavi

JM: The New Tenants

Documentary Short:

KM: Music by Prudence (Midwest poignance could work in The Last Truck's favor)

JM: Music by Prudence (I obviously have connection to The Last Truck, but voters might find Prudence more affecting and cinematic)

Art Direction:

KM: Avatar

JM: Avatar

Costume Design:

KM: The Young Victoria

JM: The Young Victoria

Make-Up:

KM: Star Trek

JM: Star Trek

Visual Effects:

KM: Avatar

JM: Avatar

Sound Mixing:

KM: The Hurt Locker

JM: The Hurt Locker

Sound Editing:

KM: Avatar

JM: Avatar

Original Song:

KM: "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart

JM: "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart

Original Score:

KM: Up (duh...and deserved)

JM: Up

Tune in tonight to count how many we got wrong. And we will be back to gloat and/or sob tomorrow.

--J & K

He Said: THE BEST OF 2009

2010-03-07T10:12:00.001-06:00

For as long as I can remember, I've spoken of how bad 2009 was for the movies. In many ways, that's true -- far too many mediocre films, outright disappointments, and some of the worst films of the last decade bowed in 2009, and it was enough to drive a critic crazy. Perhaps this list was delayed so long because I wondered if the year even deserved such a celebratory retrospective.

But whether or not the year deserves it, the movies deserve it. This year I have 20 titles to represent the year's best, and they are all worthy of special mention. A few others, pushed just to the outside, deserve mention as well. They are, in alphabetical order: Amreeka, Big Fan, Coco Before Chanel, Coraline, The Cove, Food, Inc., Funny People, The Hangover, Hunger, Sugar, Tyson, and Whip It.

So I guess the year deserved it after all.

Here are the Best Films of 2009...

Continue reading after the jump...

20. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER
A last-minute inclusion, because this film plays like clever perfection in subsequent viewings. A film that is both relationship-savvy and film-savvy, which can be a wondrous combination...it certainly is in this case.

19. OBSERVE AND REPORT
This film is off its rocker. Madcap brilliant story, hammer-it-home style, a beautifully uncomfortable tonal mess, and Seth Rogen in one of the year's great psychotic screen performances. I wrote in my original review that the film was like "Scorsese on coke," and that right there is enough for placement on this list.

18. THE INFORMANT!
A quiet gem from Steven Soderbergh, who is always experimenting with ways to mess with tonal balance and stretch the boundaries of the film, and who finds the perfect pitch in this film, which plays with the audience's perceptions in the same way its protagonist (in an Oscar-worthy bit of performing brilliance by Matt Damon) must play with the perceptions of everyone he comes into contact with.

17. FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Wes Anderson's films have always felt like live-action representations of arch, colorful storybook tales, and here he immerses himself firmly within the genre, crafting an animated film in herky-jerky stop-motion style that is simultaneously the ideal form through which to adapt a Roald Dahl book and the perfect extension to Anderson's signature style. The filmmaker has great winking fun with his PG-rated material, but somehow still retains his thematic obsessions with inner pain, emotional anger, and the family bond that can somehow make everything sane again.

16. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
That a film this beautiful and brilliant could be pushed this far down a list of twenty is, perhaps, a testament that 2009 wasn't so bad after all. Spike Jonze's indie-minded oddity is one of the great films ever made about childhood, in all its joyous, infuriating, intriguing, scary, contradictory splendor.

15. ZOMBIELAND
Might very well be the most fun anyone could have at the movies in 2009. Its humor is not merely funny, but witty. Its satire is not merely sharp, but incisive. Its violence is not merely bloody, but an over-the-top bath of carnage candy. Great stuff from Woody. More great stuff from Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin. And, of course, Bill F***ing Murray. Zombieland is like a great carnival ride where you're scared you're going to fall off at any second, but you can't wait to line back up when it's over.

14. BRUNO
If possible, even more spot-on and hysterical than the ever-brilliant Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen is not just a social critic, not just a comedian, not just a provocateur, but a mad genius who is able to seamlessly blend the three into one shocking, uncomfortable, drop-dead hilarious synthesis. Take that, American culture!

13. ADVENTURELAND
Do you remember your last summer before college? The summer where you were on the precipice of adulthood yet still fell prey to all the trappings of adolescence? Where you literally had no responsibilities and yet viewed your cookie-cutter emo-troubles as the end-all, be-all of human existence? What a silly, immature time that is, yet it is beautiful in its own way. Adventureland understands that beauty in all its frustrating complexity, and conveys it wit uncommon sweetness and subtlety.

12. BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS
A gonzo work of genius directed by the cinema's reigning king of Gonzo Genius, Werner Herzog, and featuring Nic Cage's best work in years.

11. THIRST
A vampire picture that could easily suck the life out of every other brooding vampire melodrama out there, and the most delightfully twisted, oddly appealing, vividly spellbinding love story of the year. Park Cahn-wook's unnerving masterwork blends a dissection of religious guilt, an exploration of forbidden passion, and a meditation on the all-encompassing power of desire.

The Top Ten:

10. BROKEN EMBRACES
A love letter to the cinema in the key of juicy soap opera. Pedro Almodovar is a genius at twisting tone to fit his unique purposes, and in Broken Embraces tells a story about love and loss where the one constant in the characters' lives is the revealing power of the cinematic image.

9. UP
Every other critic stole my line, but here it is anyway: Up begins with one of the great emotional sequences in film history. That sequence alone is enough to merit Up's inclusion on this retrospective list of the year's best. If Pete Docter's wondrous journey into the heart sustained that kind of emotional glory for its entire length, it would be a film for the ages. That it can't is not a huge problem, however; the film is a glorious, colorful, beautiful story of an unconventional family on a surrealistic adventure.

8. MOON
Great science fiction always contains great, lofty ideas, but what makes Moon soar above and beyond traditional sci-fi is its careful attention to humanity. Sure, there are psychic traces of Solaris and 2001 lovingly embedded in the framework of Duncan Jones' stunning directorial debut, but at its heart, Moon is a great human story -- a story of human struggle, a story of human naivete, a story of human weakness, a story of human triumph.

7. AN EDUCATION
An absolutely wonderful coming-of-age story about unreal expectations, harsh realities, and the complex dichotomies of feminism. Carey Mulligan's performance is a joyous revelation, and she exudes a fascinating blend of innocence flirting with danger, of intelligence flirting with stupidity, of youth flirting with adulthood.

6. A SINGLE MAN
The directorial debut of celebrated fashion designer Tom Ford is a sumptuous study of the world's intricate beauty from the eyes of man who wants to die. Yet in the midst of its downbeat tragedy, the film breaks the world down into its individual human elements -- the blink of an eye, the tapping of a foot, the glow of a smile -- and discovers the inimitable force of humanity that can return the color to our world, even when we thought it had forever faded.

5. MAMMOTH
Lukas Moodysson's first English-language film is a layered exploration of how big the world is, and how small. In an age of laptops and iPhones, of instant connectivity and up-to-the-minute updates, people have been given the gift of isolation; we are able, if we choose, to remain entirely connected to the world around us without ever actively stepping into that world. Mammoth dares to explore the implications of the world we live in, and draws some beautifully subtle parallels. We all have needs, wants, and desires -- but the obstacles we confront in order to achieve them depends on our status, our location, and our means. Some of us are rich and some of us are poor, some of us are big and some of us are small, but what the world sometimes forgets is that we are all human. It is that humanity that ties us together, even though the modern world threatens to pry us apart.

4. THE HURT LOCKER
Kathryn Bigelow's walks a tightrope of suspense, but it is not about thrills. It offers spectacular action sequences, but it's not an action film. The Hurt Locker is not a film about war so much as it is about the effects of war. It is not so much about the minutiae of a soldier's unique work as it is the inner workings on the soldier's mind -- the varying ways in which the experience of staring certain death square in the face on a daily basis wears away at the needs and desires of the men and women who carry out this unenviable job. There are bombs and explosions throughout the film, yet the most explosive bomb in the film is the one ticking inside each and every soldier we meet. Wondering when -- and how -- each bomb will detonate is the film's most extraordinarily suspenseful element. One builds up a lot of hurt on the battlefield; some can keep it locked up, and others blow. Bigelow's Oscar-worthy accomplishment is not merely the power of her film's images, but the power of its humanity.

3. THE MESSENGER
What happens when the soldiers from Hurt Locker return home? The Messenger offers an incisive, painful look. Oren Moverman's film exemplifies the phrase "hurt locker;" when Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) returns "home" from the Iraq war (though nothing feels like home except the battlefield), he is assigned to serve the rest of his tour as a messenger, one who delivers the "regret to inform" speech to deceased soldiers' next-of-kin. He sports wounds acquired both on and off the battlefield. And the reception Will is given as he delivers every last word of terrible news represents some of the rawest warfare ever put on screen. We don't hear a shot fired in The Messenger, yet we feel the residual shock of warfare like never before. We aren't subjected to shell-shocking explosions and bloody wounds, yet we leave the film with a better understanding of the modern American soldier than any war film ever made.

2. JULIA
Here is the best movie of 2009 that you've never heard of. Put it on yout Netflix queue, go find it at Blockbuster, and prepare to be taken on the wildest ride you've taken in years. Tilda Swinton gives the best performance of the year bar none. How she got overlooked for Oscar is extraordinary, despite the fact that the film is so small. And yet it is so large, so grandiose a tale of a drunken loser and pathological liar who somehow manages to maneuver her way through an international drug lords, all the while "caring for" the kidnapped son of her Mexican neighbor. Julia is simultaneously a hero and a villain, and the brilliance of Erick Zonca's screw-loose epic is that it dares us to ponder the legitimacy of Julia's intentions. Is she brilliant or profoundly lucky? Is she playing these criminal masterminds or skating by with serendipity? Does she know what she's doing, or does she even know what's true? What a joy trying to unravel the mysteries.

1. UP IN THE AIR
If it were released in the 1950s, it would have told the story of Ryan Bingham -- elegant corporate hitman who lives his life on airplanes, has no formal attachments, and who believes his lifestyle is the hidden secret to human satisfaction -- as a straightforward, sassy comedy. It would have been a popular classic. If it were released in the late '80s or early '90s, the story would have been about Ryan's lifestyle as a front for deep emotional pain, and wax sentimental on how he needs the love of a good woman to cure him. It would have been one of the great romantic comedies of the time period. But in 2009, as told by Jason Reitman with extraordinary human profundity and with a keen sense of the "now," Up in the Air hits the familiar notes of the '50s version and the '90s version, skewers them, and then goes far beyond to reach a shattering, revelatory truth about the modern world. Reitman is now playing with the big boys, and in his second consecutive masterpiece has challenged today's filmmakers to tell stories that simultaneously tap into the heart and the mind, the society and the soul. Up in the Air is funny and sad, heartwarming and tragic. It is a reflection of our world, and challenges society to look into one large mirror. Not many films can do that...only undisputed masterworks.

She Said: BEST OF 2009

2010-03-05T16:38:00.019-06:00

Here we are. Very late, but here nonetheless. Even though there were plenty of stinkers this year in film, 2009 was a truly fantastic year for cinema (in my opinion anyway). Dear "Oscar" has already declared its love with its top ten nominees, and tomorrow, we will learn which movie is Hollywood's pick of the year. However, below you will find my #1 in addition to 19 more that round out a top 20. There were so many worth mentioning this year, that I finalize my list with a few honorable mentions as well.

Without further ado...

Continue reading after the jump...

1. The Hurt Locker: A riveting, grab-you-by-the-throat, taut, verite-style film that is as authentic as it is important, as suspensful as it is detailed. The buzz ever since the film's July 2009 release was that it is the best Iraqi War film ever made. That buzz is spot-on, but I would add that it is among the best war movies ever lensed. Kathryn Bigelow's direction is brilliant for a film that should win the Best Picture Oscar as well as bring us our first Oscar-winning female director. It's about time and so utterly deserved.

2. A Single Man: The most beautifully-photographed film ever made. Big words? Yes, and I mean them. Each scene is an exquisite study of lush details and aching love. Nuanced and brilliantly anchored by Colin Firth's shattering performance, A Single Man is a delicate portrait of the potential beauty present in every waking moment of life.

3. Precious: A vibrant but harrowing story of identity, love, and hope in the face of such tribulations most of us could never even grasp. Precious takes us on a journey of honest and triumphant searching for tenderness in a world full of bitter, horrific pain. To be so genuine and unflinching in its rendering of truth, Precious is truly a priceless treasure.

4. Up in the Air: Timely, relevant and surprisingly complex, Up in the Air keeps its cynical wit about itself and keeps the painful spots sharply perky. Even as the film makes us question deep ironies and human angst, it keeps us gliding along safely in its witty embrace. The film has a surprising amount to say about gray areas of moral uncertainty, and I found that refreshing.

5. Up: The first 30 minutes of Up is perhaps the sweetest, most tender narrative in the history of cinema. Yeah, I said it. It may be a cartoon, but this buoyant, life-affirming, hopeful, witty film captured my heart completely and thoroughly.

6. Inglorious Basterds: Tarantino is my favorite director and I respect the hell out of his ability to revel and play with the genere. Here, war drama meets pulp fiction in an explosively gutsy way. Basterds is scrumptiously indulgent. I could listen to Tarantino's characters talk for days. For me, when I think of "film as art," I think Tarantino, period. This film is yet another reason why.

7. The Messenger: Can there be anything as horrible as losing a loved one to senseless war? Having to inform their loved ones would. The Messenger is a sobering drama which is a necessary companion piece to Hurt Locker. It is a wrenching, stunningly sad, deeply raw human character study--one which is important to see.

8. Mammoth: A huge, heartfelt film about what we sacrifice and how we become disconnected and isolated from what matters. The film subtly exposes how capitalism and solitude affects family and what we value.

9. Julia: Julia takes us on an intense, mesmerizing trainwreck of a journey where we feel as hopped up on liquor as the titular character is. Tilda Swinton is beyond brilliant as Julia, and the movie is seems to be one thing, morphes into another, and then seamlessly shifts into yet another--Each transformation more interesting and compelling than the last. The uncompromising realism of Julia needs reckoned with, but be ready to take a few aspirins after the pulverizing night of consuming this movie. To be sure though, its worth the hangover.

10. Amreeka: Equal parts tragic drama and comedy,this enlightened immigration story is honestly authentic, scathing, but also deeply tender. No other movie exposes the plight of people victim of xenophobia as deftly and sensitively as this one. Ever american should have to see this film and ask themselve what a real american, nay, a real human should look and act like.

The Runners-Up:11. Bad Lieutenant:Port of Call New Orleans: A psychedelic and nastily fun joy ride.

12. Food Inc.,: This expose changed my life forever; it brought this vegetarian out of the closet. Plant a garden, buy organic, and eat less meat (or no meat) everyone!

13. The Cove: Brilliant and riveting documentary that left me shaking, screaming, and moved.
14. Zombieland: Exhuberantly fun, classically gratuitious and wickedly hilarious.

15. Coco Before Chanel: A sumptious and piercing biopic made even more divine through Tautou's mesmerizingly perfect performance.

16. An Education: A sharply honest study of sexual politics and the dangers of youthful decisions.
17. Thirst: Wasn't expecting this gluttonously bloody and weird japanese vampire flick to take such a bite and leave its mark on me.
18. Broken Embraces: Almodovar's latest lushly vibrant soap opera about love, loss, and the blindness each create.
19. Moon: Rockwell superbly explores the depths of isolation, humanity, and the ethics involved in science.

20. This is It: An exuberant celebration of the most consumate and defining artist of our time.

Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order):
(500) Days of Summer
Adventureland
Big Fan
Bruno
District 9
Drag Me to Hell
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Hangover
Observe and Report
The Princess and the Frog
A Serious Man
Sherlock Holmes
Tyson
Where the Wild Things Are
Whip It

He's Why I Do This. He's Why I Love This.

2010-03-02T10:17:00.006-06:00

Roger Ebert is the reason this blog exists.

No, I've never met the man, and haven't had anything more than a one-sided e-conversation with him in the form of my many letters to his famous "Movie Answer Man." But without him, I would not be a movie writer. It was the years and years of watching Siskel & Ebert and the countless hours of reading all of Ebert's reviews, both new and archived, both in print and online, and the years of studying Ebert's historic, legendary work in his many books, from the wonderful Movie Yearbook series to the invaluable Great Movies collections. Roger Ebert has always been, and will always remain, my greatest hero and greatest inspiration in this field. He is the Scorsese of Film Criticism.

Why am I saying all this? Today, Ebert will appear on Oprah, and the world will witness the debut of Ebert's new voice -- which is, amazingly enough, his old voice. After many years of battling a few different forms of cancer and several surgeries on his neck and jaw region, Ebert was left without the ability to speak, and his face has been re-constructed to the appearance that recently appeared in a wonderful Esquire piece on the World's Most Notable Movie Lover. For the last few years -- while his writing has thrived unlike any other period in his career -- he has spoken through a computerized voice program, the first version of which his wife, Chaz, fondly dubbed, "Sir Lawrence," due to its British accent. Lately he's spoken in an American accent called "Alex." Now a Scottish company, CereProc, has devised a way to utilize all the recordings from Ebert's TV appearances and his DVD commentary tracks to form a new "voice" for Ebert, a voice that will sound far more familiar than Lawrence or Alex. It is an exciting development, and will be something to watch. So, too, will be his discussion of the upcoming Oscars, which I'm sure will also be an obligatory -- but oh so fun -- segment on Oprah's show.

I also mention Ebert based on another recent article, by Will Leitch for Deadspin, in which the author recounts his own personal history of following Ebert as his idol, much as Ebert has been my idol. It is a wonderful story...the story I wish I could tell, in all honesty. And so I link to the piece with some requisite light resentment -- why couldn't I have sat with Ebert in a deli, listening and learning and laughing? -- but also with an identification of a kindred spirit. Ebert is a luminary, a legend, but he is also, very simply, a movie lover who inspired me to be a movie lover. For the longest time, my movie reviews mimmicked Ebert's writing style, and I'm sure some of that tone still seeps in from time to time. His influence on me, as was his influence on Leitch and countless others in this business, is inestimable, invaluable, and incredible. I wouldn't be here if not for Roger Ebert. He can take full credit for me even though he's never met me.

Maybe one day I will meet him. Maybe not. But as we approach the industry's annual formal celebration of the cinema, I must give a note of recognition, a note of love, a note of thanks, to the person whose unmatched love of film both formed and informed my own.

Thank you, Roger.

Oscar Charts, Round 4: Five Days To Go

2010-03-02T08:40:00.001-06:00

I'm amazed at what a crap shoot it's all become. It seemed like it would be an incredibly competitive Best Picture race from the start, then Avatar came along and pounded its blue CGI chest...but then The Hurt Locker won 99% of the pre-Oscar awards...and now people are floating the idea of an Inglourious Basterds upset! Now we are back to square one...maybe not quite that far, but none of us can be so sure of our predictions...not even Tom O'Neil.

And what of the stories that are floating around as we barrel down the home stretch (ballots must be returned by today)? Hurt Locker producer Nicolas Chartier sending out e-mails to Academy members bad-mouthing Avatar...Hollywood mafioso Harvey Weinstein proclaiming that a Basterds win is already locked...Weinstein and Quentin Tarantino throwing lavish schmoozing parties to woo voter support...and the reports that Hurt Locker isn't an accurate depiction of soldiers in combat, and that the film is in fact a damaging portrayal. Bottom line on all these stories: they are all, for the most part, absolute crap. Chartier's e-mail was a mistake on the embattled producer's part, but the note wasn't distributed to so many Academy members that it would even make a difference, nor are his words all that inflammatory (Avatar is a big, blue money-making behemoth...anything false about that statement?). Weinstein, as always, is a bloviating producer monster, and he's out to grab those Oscars as voraciously as any studio head. It would be unfortunate, in my opinion, if he's able to massage Academy members into voting Basterds, but good for him if he does...it would be a move tantamount to his unlikely Shakespeare in Love win back in '98...maybe even bigger in light of the fact that it would simultaneously be defeating the year's unmatched critical darling and the highest-grossing film of all-time. The schmoozing parties are held all the time...no big deal. And as for Hurt Locker's accuracy or lack thereof: most of the naysayers have already been debunked months ago, and regardless, Kathryn Bigelow's film is not intended as an incisive look at military minutiae, but an incisive look into the soldier's soul...military minutiae is merely the backdrop.

Completed ballots will arrive today. Counting will begin tomorrow. Five days until this suddenly contentious season will come to an end. Most of our questions will be answered by Sunday night. Then it will be back to the movies, and isn't that the point of all this...the movies?

Of course, soon enough we will be handicapping next year's Oscar race, so enjoy the movies while you can.

This week's charts...

BEST PICTURE

1. The Hurt Locker

2. Avatar

3. Inglourious Basterds

4. Up in the Air

5. Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire
6. The Blind Side
7. An Education
8. Up
9. District 9
10. A Serious Man

Note: I'm not parting with The Hurt Locker just yet, nor am I so convinced by all this Inglourious Basterds rumor-mongering that I think it is suddenly a favorite, let alone that it would simultaneously leap over top of both Locker and Avatar. Who knows...maybe that will somehow change over the course of the next five days, but it's unlikely. However, there are clearly three films left in major contention: Locker, Avatar, and Basterds.

The weighted voting system might come into play, and if it does, it seems to me that Avatar would be the first film out. A lot of people think it should be awarded a first-place vote for its innovation and history-making technology...and history-making box-office. But it's hard to imagine, if voters don't think it deserves a first-place vote, that they would place it second or third. For many, Avatar is a love-it-or-hate-it type of experience. And yet it could garner enough first place votes to give it a substantial BP lead before the second and third place votes come into play. Hurt Locker and Basterds are less polarizing, and my guess is that Locker is the least polarizing, given the fact that it has been, very simply, the year's most widely praised film.

The rest of the major categories after the jump...

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

2. James Cameron, Avatar

3. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

4. Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

5. Lee Daniels, Precious

Note: At this point, Bigelow seems like a lock, even if her film somehow gets up-ended in the Best Picture race. Hers to lose.

BEST ACTRESS

1. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

2. Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

3. Carey Mulligan, An Education

4. Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

5. Helen Mirren, The Last Station

Note: At this point it seems like the mood is absolutely right for a Bullock win. Streep is still in the running, and there is a tiny group trying to sell the notion that Carey Mulligan is a possible spoiler (would be wonderful, but I don't think so), but Bullock is front and center in the public eye. Seems like an inevitability.

BEST ACTOR

1. Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

2. Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

3. George Clooney, Up in the Air

4. Colin Firth, A Single Man

5. Morgan Freeman, Invictus

Note: Bridges and Bridges. Obvious and over. But the interesting movement is Hurt Locker's Renner, who is the most likely upset candidate of the group, since literally no one else has done any sort of campaigning after feeling -- correctly -- the inevitability of the Bridges win. But Renner's been out there talking...doing his job to help the film, and in so doing he will help himself a little, too. And his performance is the film's anchor. He will likely still settle for second, though.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Mo'Nique, Precious

2. Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air

3. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

4. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart

5. Penelope Cruz, Nine

Note: Uh, let me think...um...let's see...maybe it's possible that...uh...GIMME A BREAK!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

2. Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

3. Christopher Plummer, The Last Station

4. Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

5. Matt Damon, Invictus

Note: It's a Bingo.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1. Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
2. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
3. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy, Up
4. Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
5. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man

Note: Sticking with Boal, come hell or high water. Might be dumb against Tarantino, especially in light of this recent hub-bub about a Basterds BP upset, but if Boal's screenplay was good enough to top QT at the Writer's Guild Awards, I will stick with it here. And let's face it: it's a better script!

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
2. Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Rocher, In the Loop
3. Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
4. Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9
5. JNick Hornby, An Education

Note: Up in the Air. The sleeper is In the Loop, which many get an undeniable kick out of, but the profundity of Reitman and Turner's work will win out fairly easily.

Coming up for the weekend: we will make final predictions in every category and offer a few last words about the awards season as we enter the industry's Holiday Weekend.

He Said, She Said: VALENTINE'S DAY

2010-02-28T10:47:00.002-06:00

He Said: J McKiernan: Happy Valentine's Day, K...

She Said: K McKiernan: Two weeks late, but that's okay, Love.

JM: In the spirit, let's unleash some "love" on Garry Marshall's star-studded, money-making, studio-fantastic film, Valentine's Day.

KM: I know it’s not cool to do anything but crack on this movie, but I enjoyed it. Was it the best filmmaking ever created? Hell no, but as a date movie, Valentine's Day delivers pretty much everything I want and expect. I was entertained and I got to sit and be embraced in nice warm fuzzies (mostly) for its running length. It helped that I was next to my valentine as well. Okay, so, go, tear me and the movie apart. I know you want to.

JM: Look, it would be fun to tear this movie apart, but I won't...at least not with the visceral vigor I expected to going in. Is the film pretty simpering and shallow? Obviously. Is it so densely populated with movie stars at every corner that many stories get short shrift? Absolutely. Is it Garry Marshall's lame attempt to score a Love Actually type lovebird happy movie? Yes, and it can't come anywhere near the joyous wonder of Love Actually. But is it the ungodly atrocity I expected walking into the screening room? Well, no, it wasn't. I expected a steaming turd, and I got a mediocrity with some sweet moments.

Continure reading after the jump...

KM: Uh, you aren't going to tear the movie apart? Um, you just did. No, visceral vigor? Ha, that seemed like quite the workout! In all fairness, I don't think it is possible for you restrain yourself. But really, why should you? You can think whatever you want of the movie, but I would say that it was more than mediocre.

JM: Describe...

KM: Yes, it had sweet moments, and it was also fun. I wanted to see where the plots were going, where they would intersect, where they would converge. And I enjoyed visiting with all my "friends." I know, I don't know any of the actors personally, but when you get an ensemble piece of this magnitude, it can be really nice to just sit and watch them all interact. Just see them all in “one room” at one time.

JM: Part of the appeal of the film -- for anyone, even curmudgeonly critics like me -- is the expansive cast of stars. In Love Actually it was Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, and Bill Nighy. In Valentine's Day it's Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Topher Grace, Queen Latifah, and occasionally, for about a minute at a time, Julia Roberts and Bradley Cooper.

KM: You are a curmudgeon and why are you keep bringing up Love Actually?

JM: And yes, recognizable faces bridge a gap between us and the characters, making us like them almost on sight, without getting to know them. So I get it. And admittedly, I was actually impressed by Kutcher, who anchors the movie in a weird way. He works and his story works, which is something I never thought I would say about Kutcher...ever. So good on him.

KM: I am sick of hearing critics say this movie is trying to be Love Actually. So, only one large ensemble acted romantic comedy is allowed to exist in the universe of Hollywood movie making? I adore Love Actually, A-D-O-R-E it, but I did not think about that movie one time while watching Valentine's Day. The two films are totally different tonally.

JM: I thought about Love Actually constantly. How it did so much more with so fewer cast members telling very similar stories that soared when Marshall is content with his stories merely coasting. There is no comparison with that much better film that Valentine's Day can win, yet for me the comparison is inevitable. It's like they wanted to fill the substance gap with more celebrities, which is...ahem...always a winning strategy.

KM: I agree. Love Actually is totally and completely the better movie, but that argument is rooted in the notion that the two are to be compared. I do not think they are supposed to be nor do I want to. Thankfully, you must have had some love to spread that day, because you were looking to gun it down completely, wearing your disdain for Garry Marshall proudly on your sleeve.

JM: I was, but in all fairness, there are elements that work here. The Kutcher storyline works, and his relationship with Garner works as the through-line for the movie. I also liked Anne Hathaway's performance, because there is never a reason to dislike any Anne Hathaway performance, even if her character's story has one uniquely unsavory off-shoot that doesn't quite work. I liked Jamie Foxx, too...funny and charming, which he rarely does anymore. There is one story I truly can't spoil for anyone who wants to see the film, featuring Grey's Anatomy's Eric Dane as a veteran NFL quarterback (in this film's unlicensed pseudo-NFL, that is), which is surprisingly tender by the end. I won't deny the film its deserving merits, but they are only parts of a much larger, much more flawed whole.

KM: Look, sure, V-Day could have developed some characters more complexly, it could have painted some characters less sharply, others less one-dimensionally, and it could have taken a little more time with some issues that take time to discuss, but the movie was a simple love note. It was a love note between different kinds of lovers and it was a love note to audiences who want a little sweet escape: a few laughs, a few recognitions of truth, and a few emotional moments. Pure and simple. It gives us what it sets out to give us.

JM: Okay, but is that really enough? I mean, Shirley Maclaine and Hector Elizondo as an old married couple is a good idea in principle, unless you plan to unearth some big secret to change our perception of their relationship, which feels fraudulent. Or the little boy who harbors secret love when it doesn't seem like any kid would be capable of love...there's a big ole' Love Actually rip-off. Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift seem like last-minute window dressing additives to make the film seem current (even though they aren't together anymore, so "current" goes out the window). And Garry Marshall's direction is pretty bad, as usual. Granted, he hasn't committed an atrocity like...well, any of his past films (is it odd to say that Valentine's Day is Marshall's best film ever? Go ahead and make a quote whore out of me!). But his need for inappropriate goofball jokes and awkward edits in the name of dumb-ass humor breaks the flow and reminds us where we are just when we almost forget and go with it. Which is unfortunate.

KM: Sigh. Yes, sometimes that can be "enough." Your comments seem an awful lot like hating the film and I am not seeing any of the "love" you said you would be unleashing. You are totally allowed to hate whatever you wish, but I think this movie is a prime example of why so many people just hate film critics. They read them, but they turn away often in disgust. Sometimes, just sometimes, you want to just enjoy the movie for what it is, and this movie has enough sweetness, love, and humor to make it worth seeing. So, I am going to grade it now. It gave me mostly what I wanted and sometimes, that is all audiences really want. I give Valentine's Day a B-.

JM: If you think my words are the equivalent of "hating the film," you ain't seen nothin' yet. We've reviewed truly terrible movies before and have done so already this year, as a matter of fact. Valentine's Day is not terrible, and the fact that any Garry Marshall movie isn't terrible is, in its own way, refreshing. Valentine’s Day had some good moments, some friendly faces, some good performances, some cute surprises, and some surprising sensitivity -- all positive, unexpected elements. I think the movie is too big and contains too many disenchanting elements to go full-tilt positive, but for me, a qualified C is surprisingly positive.

He Said, She Said Reel Dialogue: DEAR JOHN

2010-02-25T15:21:00.000-06:00

JM: Dear K, I think we need to talk about Dear John.

KM: Ok, let's get super sappy and start.

JM: So, let's see...movie about young love on some random local beach community where the guy is a black sheep and the girl comes from Southern high society, then he goes off to war -- 'cause he's also a soldier -- and gripping emo-drama ensues. Must be another insipid Nicholas Sparks adaptation.

KM: You know, maybe because it was near Valentine's Day and I wanted to have a good time, but the movie's first hour made me warm and fuzzy. I was along for the ride and was okay with it. But then, blech! Gone. No more good feelings. It really gagged me. Maybe there is only so much sweet I can take!

JM: Look, here's the deal. For the most part, I'm with you. I mean, this being a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, the story is never going to rise above standard romantic boilerplate; the conflicts will never be anything other than trials of love lost, and the solution can never be reached by any plot development more complex than death (Oops! I might have given something away!). But for the first hour, when it's all about charm and loveliness, when we are only receiving vague foreshadowing of the upcoming emotional vomitorium, the film is watchable enough.

KM: That's what I am saying. And, it certainly is not hard to watch the hunky Channing Tatum or the lovely Amanda Seyfried. Both actors are the best part of this film, by far, and they have quite the chemistry brewing. They are as talented as they are "easy on the eyes."

JM: I quite like Seyfried and Tatum as actors, and the film is directed by, of all people, Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules, Chocolat), who gives the film more directorial cred than any Sparks movie has ever possessed. But at the end of the day, no wonderful actors and no strong direction can save the day from a story like this, which only functions as an emotional conveyor belt.

Continue reading after the jump....

KM: I really went from being lulled to being really pissed. You said it best when you hinted at contrived tension. It seems Sparks doesn't believe "happily ever after" could ever occur.

JM: Right. Nicholas Sparks -- who wrote the novels on which many films have been based, like The Notebook and Nights in Rodanthe and A Walk to Remember -- has only one gear, and it is sullen contrivance. Plain and simple. He writes to jerk artificial tears. His works effect the viewer like two drops of saline solution. And it's tiring. Predictable, annoying, and tiring.

KM: That is what I meant by "I got pissed." Look, I like to get all emotional and cathartically vent my feelings, but filmmakers gotta earn it. It's no fair to concoct a world with situations that are just so far fetched and not gonna happen... all in the name of, as you say, "jerking tears." Not right. Angers me.

JM: Forgive me, but I can't get off this Nicholas Sparks thing. I read an interview with him a while back in which he seems to be living in a fantasy world where he is the greatest living author on the face of the planet. Like he speaks to the masses like no other writer ever has. And, you know, I guess he's right -- weak-willed saps across the country proclaim The Notebook the greatest romantic film of all-time, and they made Dear John the number one film in the country in its first weekend. Of all the films that could've knocked Avatar out of the top slot, it was this one. That's some powerful manipulation.

KM: I have never understood The Notebook. Literally, I sat there dumbfounded for two hours. "Uh, I don't get it. This is complete bull." Not one note in The Notebook earned a tear from me.

JM: Why should it earn a tear? It comes from the brain trust of Nicholas Sparks. He doesn't earn tears, he wrings them from an unsuspecting populace.

KM: But we are not talking about The Notebook, we are talking about Dear John. I am not sure it deserved to be the one to topple Avatar, but I understand what put it over the top... females. Everyone thinks the only story to write is one that men can relate to. I think Dear John proved what Sex and the City proved a year ago: humans without penises want to see movies, too. Sadly, though, we are all so hungry for a film where we see ourselves on screen, that we put up with an awful lot of crap when we get one.

JM: It's so true.

KM: Ultimately, Dear John is poop. It is not the worst film on the planet and as you said, it is probably Sparks' best one, but it still stinks a little too much.

JM: Did I say that? Well, I guess it is, considering the source. But that's not saying much, is it?

KM: I just really don't get why solid, well-crafted films can't embrace female audiences. I just don't get why, when producers knuckle down to earn some female bucks, it always has to be sap, shoes, and/or sex (I mean "love").

JM: A little background before we close with our grades.

KM: Yeah, sorry. Go for it. Some people may still actually want to know what the film is about. Shoot.

JM: Tatum plays John and Seyfried plays Dear. No, kidding. She's Savannah, a rich college student at home for the summer...the kind of home where they have constant social gatherings on the lovely beachfront properties. He's on leave from the military and walks around brooding while his autistic dad (now there's an appropriate, un-manipulative element! What the hell are you thinking, Richard Jenkins?!) sits at home staring at a coin collection and making lasagna. They meet and fall in love in an hour, and then he reports back to the army...and then 9/11 hits. What might have been an interesting cultural context for a smarter movie is just another turn of the plot in Dear John, where in a series of letters the lovebirds engage in emotional warfare of the sort that only happens in movies. Without giving too much away, the letters unveil a colossal misunderstanding that is purposely meant to screw with us, and the rest of the movie is spent unraveling an obligatory plot twist that completely disrespects our intelligence...as if we expected any more.

KM: That is precisely the point at which the film falls apart -- the montage letter scene. It was actually interestingly-edited, but represented the end of my tolerance with the film's plot contrivances when the script injected lunacy in order to create tension.

JM: We talk very critically of this film, and rightfully so. But what you said about the film's first act is right. It is formulaic and tedious after a while, but the actors have charm and chemistry -- and the film, in its own exhausting way, works for a little while. Does what it's supposed to do, kinda sorta.

KM: Yeah, it does.

JM: But when John goes off to war, and the letter writing begins, and we start to see and feel the gears grinding toward simpering inevitability, that's all she wrote. The film flies off the rails and falls deep into a river of cloying sentiment and false conflicts. Once we get to the end, it becomes clear the film's sole purpose was to bait us into falling for its screenplay contrivances.

KM: Ha, literally, that was all she wrote. Very funny.

JM: Film is such a precious and powerful art form that I become personally offended if someone uses this art I care about so deeply as an emotional magic trick. Film is a manufactured form, to be sure, but the best films capture truth and speak to the heart. Dear John is a sanctimonious heart-tugger that is not simply made, but engineered. And that is the worst sort of cinematic falsehood in my book.

KM: Okay, okay, so how about we quit bashing it and just grade this sucker? I will go first. I give Dear John a middling, lame C. The really sad thing is, it could have been a B.

JM: Aiming for mediocrity! Awesome! It starts as formulaic and eventually becomes insufferable. I hope everyone involved enjoys their money, because the only thing they will receive from me is a C-.

The Decades: 1990s

2010-02-25T10:45:00.000-06:00

A lot of people like to bad-mouth the 1990s. It was the decade that started the culture on a downward spiral, some might say. The music sucked, others might posit. Too many yuppies. Too much malaise. And the movies...well, many would argue that the decade is still too young to determine the true classics from the 1990s.

I don't buy that. The country was actually on the rise throughout the 1990s, and the movies reflect that upward mobility. Year after year delivered classic after classic. The decade started with a massive behemoth of a classic -- Goodfellas -- and ended with a flourish of virtuoso creativity with titles like Magnolia, American Beauty, Three Kings, Being John Malkovich, and many others. In between, the decade was marked by countless other films, simultaneously beautiful and daring, challenging and entertaining. Movies to make us think. Movies to make us cheer. Movies to dazzle us. Movies to change our lives. Yes, it happened in the '90s.

And setting aside any high-brow criticism and focusing solely on the personal heart of a lifelong movie lover, the '90s hold a special place in my heart. It was the decade I came of age as a writer, a critic, a filmmaker, a film scholar, a film-obsessed nut. It was the decade I grew up, and I grew up with these movies.

The list follows after the jump...

First, check out filmcritic.com's collective list of the decade's best.

And now, with love (and much frustration, since there are so many favorites to choose from that the list could literally change hour by hour, based on mood), my personal list:

1. Goodfellas (1990) -- The greatest mob film of all-time, and one of the most visceral expressions of pure cinematic ingenuity that will ever grace the silver screen. Scorsese is the King of Filmmaking, and this might just be his grandest gift to his loyal subjects.
2. Dead Man Walking (1995) -- One of the most emotionally wrenching, politically absorbing, complexly thoughtful films ever made. Not at all a soapbox diatribe, but a story of a lost boy, a wisened woman, and the powerful journey they trek before his imminent death. What their discoveries say about them, and about us, is almost too much to bear, but it is ever-so-important.
3. Magnolia (1999) -- Another movie that uses the standard filmmaking tools to completely blow our minds, and another movie that uses the cinema as a harsh mirror for the audience to stare into, contemplating the intricacies of life. Paul Thomas Anderson, still so young, is an unparalleled virtuoso among the directors of his generation. If there is a rightful heir to King Scorsese's throne, it is him.
4. American Beauty (1999) -- A jaw-dropping classic of astonishing beauty and enormous thought-provoking power. Funny but painful, sad but joyous, the film is one of the great cinematic journeys of all-time, and may possess the most beautifully, hauntingly lyrical ending of any film ever made.
5. Boogie Nights (1997) -- Paul Thomas Anderson's other sprawling masterwork of the decade is an epic pastiche of the '70s porn scene in the San Fernando Valley, charting an industry's path from theatrical entity to home video staple and a young man's journey from eager, humble boy to strung-out, narcissistic man. The film, made with extraordinary vision and vibrant passion, is not merely about salacious sex, but about the fall of humanity and unlikely possibility of redemption.
6. Breaking the Waves (1996) -- Lars von Trier's greatest achievement is one of the cinema's richest and most painful experiences. Bess, our heroine, is slavishly devoted to God and her husband. When he is rendered unable to walk, her strange psychosexual journey exposes the perversion of male sexuality and the hypocrisy of the modern religious institution. And yet Bess' pure faith somehow carries on. Maybe it's not the female believer who's crazy, but the earthly men who bind her.
7. Fargo (1996) -- Can this possibly be this low on the list? The Coens greatest masterpiece is a joyous expression of good-humored friendliness and violent villainy, a riveting thriller but also a hysterical human comedy. Like the greatest films, Fargo creates its own uniquely oddball universe, populates it with some of the most iconic characters ever put on film, and tells a story with the intensity and charm of a classic fairy tale.
8. Eyes Wide Shut (1999) -- Stanley Kubrick's final film is a meditation on sex, love, the marital contract, and the human contract. Some dismissed it as salacious, but those people obviously never saw the movie, which is so dense and thought-provoking that it takes multiple viewings to fully process its challenging themes and loaded imagery. The legendary filmmaker's last movie is one of his absolute best, a hypnotic journey into the wounded soul of humanity.
9. Pulp Fiction (1994) -- One of the great instant classics of all-time. Absolutely the most influential film of the decade. And, simply, Tarantino. Just Tarantino. I close with a passage of scripture:

"Ezekiel 25:17: The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the Valley of Darkness; for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the finder of lost children. And, I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers! And, you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"

Thanks, Jules.

10. Thelma & Louise (1991) -- One of the great entertaining joy rides of all-time, and the fierce, defiant, feminist masterwork of our time. Thelma and Louise break the law, they go on the run, they kill, steal, lie, and blow stuff up real good...and they laugh all along the way. And yet we cheer for them, for this is their escape, their freedom, their awakening.

Honorable Mentions:
American History X (1998) -- One of the most important films of our time, rendered with ferocious passion and visceral immediacy. An amazing directorial debut from Tony Kaye, who has still never made another narrative feature.
Being John Malkovich (1999) -- We received the combined gifts of Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze all in one ingenious headtrip of a masterpiece.
Casino (1995) -- Scorsese's bold epic about crime and punishment in Las Vegas.
Jackie Brown (1997) -- The most engaging and lyrical storytelling Tarantino has ever done. Really. Where Pulp Fiction was about itself, Jackie Brown is about a joyously engaging crime story unfolding with glee.
Jerry Maguire (1996) -- The great coming-of-age romance of the decade, and probably the last two decades. Cameron Crowe's masterful touches are inimitable, and this story of a man finding love and himself is a heart-rending classic.
Rushmore (1998) -- A vivid, colorful storybook of a movie, with a story simultaneously cynical and sweet, by the modern master of quirky, Wes Anderson.
The Sweet Hereafter (1997) -- Atom Egoyan's painful film about a community's painful loss and what happens next.
The Truman Show (1998) -- One of the great character journeys in cinema history, about a celebrity culture gone wrong, and a man who doesn't realize he is captivating a nation. His journey to find the real world is brilliant, tender, funny, and riveting.
The Thin Red Line (1998) -- One great war picture from the '90s, made by a true poet, Terrence Malick. It is a meditation on life and serenity in the midst of the most agitated, inhumane circumstances.
Three Kings (1999) -- Another great war picture from the '90s, this one an off-the-hook amazing expression of gut-wrenching emotion, gut-busting humor, and gut-punching style. Visually breathtaking, politically angry, and unexpectedly emotional, Three Kings is a masterful meditation on the spoils of war.

Is This For Real?

2010-02-25T10:43:00.001-06:00

If you happen to pop by the LA Times' Gold Derby blog, run by Tom O'Neil, who for many years was the happy-faced milquetoast who made predictions on all the E! channel's pre-awards broadcasts and is now the awards prediction guru/milquetoast, you may have noticed this little bit of gossip:

O'Neil is touting an Inglourious Basterds Oscar upset for Best Picture.

And he's sticking with it, calling his prediction "100% accurate."

O'Neil bases his pick on previous upset wins by Crash in 2005 and Weinstein's own Shakespeare in Love in 1998. Both of those films took the Best Cast prizes at the Screen Actors Guild awards -- since the acting branch represents the largest block of Academy voters -- over the season's presumed front-runners (Brokeback Mountain in '05, Saving Private Ryan in '98) and surged ahead for the eventual upset BP win. He also cites that, like The Hurt Locker, both Brokeback and Private Ryan won the Producers Guild and Directors Guild prizes their respective years, but the SAG winner took home Oscar gold. So...I get it. But history also shows us that both Crash and Shakespeare won the Writer's Guild award in addition to the SAG. And any sentient and knowledgable filmgoer will know that Tarantino is a writer first and foremost, and if Basterds was assumed to upset in any category, it would be for its screenplay. And Hurt Locker toppled Basterds at the Writer's Guild Awards this year.

So...my thoughts?

Read more after the jump...

Well, this is typical O'Neil, who has labeled himself to King of Award Predictions, even though he's just as fallible as anyone else. But, like any insider, he has access to a vast spectrum of Oscar voters and industry gossipers, and that kind of buzz is the stuff that helps formulate any guru's predictions. It is sensational gossip...but so, really, is any form of Oscar supposition. So, at this point, I am taking the prediction with a grain of salt...but acknowledge that it is not without merit.

Cinema Squared has consistently placed Basterds in the top three or four slots in all of our prediction charts, a fact that will be replicated on this week's charts. So it's always been right up there. And, in this expanded field, with the new system of tabulating the eventual Best Picture winner (which is now a weighted system as opposed to a simple count of first-place votes), its widespread love among Academy membership could carry it close to the top, probably in the top two or three. Plus, there is the added element of preferential voting, where a sneaky Basterd might list only one film and leave off all the others, thereby eliminating the possibility of the weighted system working the way it was intended to work. Or putting a movie like The Hurt Locker very low on the list, hurting its overall vote count in the weighted system. These games can, have, and will get played. It happens on every possible side, so it will likely even itself out at the end of the day.

We cannot forget, too, that this season has been devoid of a complete juggernaut. The buzz was with Up in the Air at the beginning of December. Then Avatar became the front-runner because of its technical mastery and its record-breaking box-office, but then the novelty wore off and it began to fade. Then Hurt Locker started winning everything under the sun, and so it has naturally slipped into the role of "Front-runner." But the season, as a whole, has been devoid of any one film that totally grabbed voters from the get-go, like an American Beauty or, last year, Slumdog Millionaire. It has been tossed back-and-forth. So it would be consistent with that tendency for another film to rise at the last minute. And Harvey Weinstein is a nasty dog on the schmoozing circuit, and he hasn't had a potentially-successful horse in this race for a while now. He's hungry. I get it.

But I don't buy it. Not yet. There is enough consistent buzz about Basterds across the board that I am taking notice, and am thus putting you all on notice: the potential for an upset is out there, and Basterds is one of the only two films that can pull it off...the other is Up in the Air, for which there are still a few (well-deserved) murmurs out there. It certainly seems that Avatar has nearly faded into its own special ecosystem, and Hurt Locker is still wanting to ride the wave into a BP victory.

Ten nominees, four films with a legitimate chance, a few gossipy gurus trying to change the game with their picks, one award to rule them all...and a partridge and a pear tree.

Stay tuned, you basterds.

Are We Really Doing This?

2010-02-24T14:27:00.002-06:00

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/kick-ass/hit-girl-red-band-trailer

View the new red band trailer for Kick Ass (in theaters April 26) and decide for youself. Are today's directors getting lazy or do they know what's super "cute"? Take a great concept and have the 12 year old female actor curse worse than a sailor.

She Says: Cheap. Lazy. Disappointing as hell.

He Said, She Said: PERCY JACKSON AND THE OYLMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF

2010-02-24T07:09:00.001-06:00

JM: So, K, are we ready to talk mythology?

KM: Sure thing, J.

JM: Okay, in the mythology of modern epic filmmaking, Chris Columbus is a villain worse than Hades, and his latest film, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, is like sitting in the Underworld for two hours.

KM: It felt like longer than two hours, to be honest.

JM: I'm surprised it didn't run longer, given Columbus' bloated, overlong installments of the Harry Potter series. But this introduction to the Percy Jackson series -- an adaptation of the first of Rick Riordan's five youth novels -- is even worse than Columbus' clumsy, pedestrian Potter entries. By far. This movie is heinous.

Continue reading after the jump.....

KM: I was pretty disappointed. Going in, I was so excited for our son since he read all the books and was so looking forward to seeing it. Plus, when you have three children and the age span is pretty expansive, a parent can long for a more "mature" movie than the typical Disney fare. To that end, I was more entertained than I was in Cars, but I was too often baffled to be grateful.

JM: For the record, our kid is smart. As an avid reader of all five books -- and with the knowledge, perhaps planted in his head by one of us, that Chris Columbus is a cinematic criminal -- his expectations were appropriately tempered. And, indeed, even he left the film damning the film with faint praise. You know when even a rabid fan walks out of the movie only moderately pleased, you haven't accomplished anything significant with your movie.

KM: The movie plays heavily to the 10-to-13-year-old crowd, so why go out of the way to be so divisive when it comes to gender and sexuality? Why does there always have to be so much sexual tension? Why do the young boys have to have sculpted ab plates and why do the young girls have to have sculpted breast plates distracting us and our kids from the battle scenes?

JM: The gender typing is extraordinary throughout. Not simply gender typing, really, but there is a layer of mild raunchiness that feels genuinely out of place, like Columbus felt obligated to integrate culturally-impacted sexuality into an otherwise tame, boring kiddie flick. We know Columbus is a perfectly happy perpetrator of uncomfortable raunch, as evidenced by his 2009 entry, I Love You, Beth Cooper, which is one of the worst teen comedies ever made. But to integrate scenes of uncomfortable randiness in this film...it's time for Columbus to move on and let an actual filmmaker take over this material.

KM: Oh, God, I hated Beth Cooper. What a trashy, horrific film. I agree with you about all the uncomfortable raunch. There are not many safe places for young adults to turn. They either are patronized and talked down to in much G-rated fare, or they have too much pressure to grow up too soon and lose innocence in modern day PG-13 movies. So, for this PG-rated movie to shove tired stereotypes and bawdiness down the throats of pre-teens and young teens is quite disheartening. I found myself actually getting mad as I watched it.

JM: As if it really matters that much, let's cover the plot, which bothers me not so much because it's ridiculous as because it is handled with such utter stupidity that it seems like a colossal failure on a story level, when it actually might not be (can't totally say, since I haven't read the books, and won't be able to say, because I never will). Anyway, Percy Jackson is a typical school kid who discovers he's a demi-god, a hybrid of human and mythic god. Seems his mom got knocked up by Poseidon, and as a result he's capable of amazing feats.

KM: You will laugh at me, but I do not think the plot is that bad. Sure, it’s ludicrous, but so what? If handled deftly, it could have been a lot of fun.

JM: The film's inciting incident, explained in ridiculous expository detail in one of the worst pre-title cold opens in movie history, is that Zeus' lightning bolt has been stolen, and he believes Poseidon's son, Percy, is the titular thief.

KM: Yes, the fact that they thought they had to dumb down the text and explain everything so overtly in the pre-title spot did clue me in that the movie was not going to satisfy. Sometimes, you just know.

JM: Of course, Percy isn't the thief, and his journey is to discover who it really is while parading through cute-but-intense F/X sequences. Oh, and he attends a mythical school for demi-gods that operates in the film like a cross between Hogwarts and Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

KM: Ha Ha. The film’s sophomoric attempts at comedy are matched by its lame attempt to “surprise” us as to who the real lightening thief is. Awful. Kids are smarter than this. They do not need placated to by a man who obviously is less grown-up than they are.

JM: The whole enterprise is dead on arrival. And it is not simply that Columbus is immature, but that his understanding of filmmaking is third-rate. Here is yet another story about myths and magic where the entire world fails to even come close to capturing the imagination. The action scenes are ripped off of Columbus’ Potter sequences, which were limp and uninspired to begin with. The special effects are off-the-charts bad, especially for a film intended as an early-year tent pole and the first in a potentially-lucrative franchise. I’m not sure how Columbus went from a moderately competent director of earthbound family fare (Home Alone, etc.) to an atrocious peddler of half-assed otherworldly adventure. Any studio head who got an eyeful of his first two Potter films and said, “Hey, this is the perfect guy for our movie!” should be fired.

KM: And what about the actors. To see Uma Thurman, Catherine Keener, and Pierce Brosnan acting their hearts out as if they read a different script than the one that got put on screen. I felt sorry for them.

JM: Oh, lord. The sight of Pierce Brosnan in a transparent SNL-level bearded disguise is almost as bad as the sight of Pierce Brosnan’s torso awkwardly composited into the form of a centaur. I think I’d rather hear him sing in Mamma Mia! 2: Who’s Your Daddy? than give this a second look.

KM: Oh, and Rosario Dawson as the slutty wife of Hades who couldn’t wait to get some “ass” – er, I mean “goat” -- from the movie’s only black character in the movie, the offensively goofy, ever-horny, half-goat sidekick Grover. Stereotype after stereotype.

JM: By the way, the 16-year-old character is played by 26-year-old Brandon T. Jackson, who previously was seen on screen fronting “Pimp Juice” in Tropic Thunder. I guess the lesson to take away from this is, simply, that the guy is versatile.

KM: Shall we grade?

JM: Sure. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief earns the title of most labyrinthine title of the year, and a D from me.

KM: The part of me that wants to see a live action kids movie that isn’t Harry Potter is giving this film a C. But the other part, the one that is completely frustrated and angry over the inclusion of offensive and inappropriate material gives The Lightning Thief a D+.

He Said, She Said Reel Dialogue: A Tale of Two Atrocities

2010-02-23T16:02:00.003-06:00

HE SAID: J McKiernan: Hey, K, let's talk Edge of Darkness.

SHE SAID: K McKiernan: If you reallllly want to. Shoot.

JM: I've been waiting for this moment for weeks now, when I could go on record with the following statement: Edge of Darkness is the devil. It is the foremost example of cinematic evil.

KM: I feel really dirty when I leave a film like that, too. I did not think it as evil as you did, but I found it pretty repugnant. And, what is worse is that it does well. The idea of people loving to watch Mel Gibson be bad-ass and cutthroat nasty is really sad to me.

JM: I expected the film to beat Avatar in its opening weekend, but it didn't. So, actually, it hasn't done as well as I expected it to, this being Mad Mel's first on-screen lead in 7 ½ years. But the fact that this film made any money -- the fact that this film got made in the first place -- that's my problem.

KM: Right. Exactly. I am not saying it was the best box office smash, but the fact that it makes money period is nauseating.

JM: And look, obviously the film is not Horror Porn, but it inflicts a similar evil. It is “Revenge Porn.” We are intended to shell out $10 a piece to masturbate our bloodlust and exact emotional revenge on everyone who's wronged us in the past. I'd rather pay $90 an hour for a therapy session than watch Mel Gibson exact violent revenge.

KM: There is this very real and dangerous thread of Revenge Porn (as you so aptly term it) that is polluting cinema. Law Abiding Citizen, a fall 2009 thriller featuring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, which is being released this week on Blu-Ray and DVD, is an even worse example than Edge. I was completely horrified and baffled by the torture and execution of bloody acts in the name of a killed loved one. It should immediately be placed on an amended list of the Worst of 2009.

Read more after the jump......

JM: We absolutely need to alter the Worst lists for Law Abiding Citizen, which is last year's version of Edge of Darkness, only worse. And it actually does stretch into Horror Porn territory as well as Revenge Porn. It is quite a nasty combo.

KM: I guess it is harder for me to take Mel seriously. I mean... he turned Passion of the Christ into a Lethal Weapon bloodbath. I knew Edge would be over-the-top. And, although I did not like the film, at least it did not seem as utterly morally bankrupt as Law Abiding Citizen. I went in thinking the latter might be an interesting drama or thriller but it really was just nasty torture porn. I guess what I am saying is, I expected better from Gerald Butler and Jamie Foxx. What do we really want or expect from Gibson, anymore?

JM: Yeah, weird how these films are starting to permeate beyond the fringe. Citizen stars Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler...Edge of Darkness features Mel Gibson. Foxx is an Oscar winner. Gibson is an Oscar winning filmmaker and gargantuan superstar. Butler is a rising star. Most of the nasty stuff stars unsuspecting young hunks and starlets who take anything in order to break into the business. But these films turn established stars into violent perpetraters.

KM: So true. What are they doing in these films? Are they excising their own demons? I know we were talking Edge, but really, that movie did what I was expecting. I expect Mel Gibson to get "injured" and then to come back with a fury and "get even." But, really, what were Foxx and Butler thinking? Is it the movie they read when the accepted their parts?

JM: Before we get too carried away, the plot(s). In Edge, Gibson is Thomas Craven, a Boston homicide detective whose daughter is killed in one of the most gleefully violent scenes in recent years. He then goes on an "explosive" investigation where he discovers "extraordinary" corruption, "hidden" secrets, and "government corruption." So the plot is utterly ridiculous and in way over its head. The only thing of note about the film, really, is its ugly violence that is portrayed as valiant in the face of fatherly love.

KM: In Citizen, Butler plays a genius who watches the rape and murder of his wife and daughter...though the movie forgets the wife very early on and becomes a story about a guy avenging his daughter. Only this guy is a twisted genius who can torture and kill in labyrinthine fashion without anyone knowing how or why. He essentially becomes Jigsaw, hacking up, blowing up, and destroying anyone even remotely connected – and some not connected at all -- to the injustice that befell his family.

JM: The films are correlated in interesting ways. Law Abiding Citizen actually is better directed than Edge of Darkness. F. Gary Gray, who directed great crime thrillers like Set It Off and The Italian Job, makes his film look great, which in my mind only makes the evil more insidious. Edge was directed by Martin Campbell, whose masterful work in Casino Royale is made curious by the fact that this new film looks pretty cheesy...by-the-numbers visually. Edge's biggest surprise, though, is its co-writer, William Monahan, Oscar winner for his brilliant script for The Departed. You can see the strands of Monahan's worldview in bits and pieces of Edge, but the film obviously favors the version of the script written by Andrew Bovell -- a re-write likely demanded by Crazy Mel himself -- that takes away any interesting psychological context and replaces it with simpering cynicism.

KM: Oh, and don't forget the "Fatherly" endorsement it throws at us near the film's end! Not only can you go on a tirade and kill everyone in your path, but it leads you back to your daughter, in a roundabout way (not gonna give it all away). Gag me. I would draw some parallels to The Book of Eli, but I know that would be true fighting words, so let me just say, I am ready to go and see something other than gorey violence to avenge a person or book.

Both movies also have in common that the guys seem heroic in some way. Obviously, the portrayal of Gibson is even more so, but I got the gut wrenching feeling that we were supposed to want Butler to defend his child's honor. And although I found Edge ridiculous, it’s easier to "root for" (shame on me) a gunshot and poison than crude dismemberments.

JM: If we must evaluate one form of audience rape over another, then I suppose I'd agree with you.

KM: You have to agree that Michael Haneke would be laughing... or maybe crying is more to the point.

JM: Yes, Haneke (whose The White Ribbon is on track to win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar) needs to make ten more movies just to counter-attack this onslaught of heinous American hubris in films like Edge and Citizen.

KM: Are we ready to grade these and move on to happier film-going times?

JM: Why not...let's start with this week's DVD and Blu-Ray abomination. I'm slapping Law Abiding Citizen with an F.

KM: Oh, baby, a man after my own heart. That shit so deserves an F. Well done and well played.

JM: And Edge of Darkness?

KM: I guess because I expected it to just be a tension builder and then reliever, I will not flunk it outright. I would, however, give it the stinky D+ it deserves.

JM: Edge of Darkness, in my view, is an early contender for Worst Film of 2010, ugly and repugnant, and deserves a D-. And I would challenge anyone who would take issue with our grades to drop everything, go rent Michael Haneke's Funny Games, and then report back to let us know what they think about these movies...and themselves.

KM: Amen to that.

Thoughts on a Sure-fire Oscar winner

2010-02-23T09:15:00.006-06:00

In the midst of discussing every other movie in the world, we never got around to discussing Crazy Heart, even though it scored three big Oscar nominations and is about a 99.9% favorite to walk away with two of them.

And the nominations -- minus one -- are well-deserved. Jeff Bridges is a fabulous, incredible actor, one of the best of his generation and one of the best of the last three decades, period. And his work here, as Bad Blake, is wonderful and tough. He doesn't imbue the character so much as the character imbues him -- with the unmistakable ennui of a grizzled, hard-living shell of a former country legend. Great stuff. And the film's theme song, The Weary Kind, is a lovely ballad that is seamlessly incorporated into the film and perfectly encapsulates the film. Supporting Actress nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal...not as good, but it's not her fault, and we will get to that later.

To the fact that Bridges' Oscar is now a foregone conclusion: the performance isn't so ridiculously brilliant that it should automatically merit an Oscar. Let's calm down and get a hold of ourselves here. For all of Bridges' brilliant work throughout his career, the guy has never won an Oscar. So this year, in this film, in this category, the Academy is choosing to give the understood Career Achievement Award to Bridges. I don't want to diminish the work, because I love Bridges and I really like his performance in Crazy Heart, but it's not brilliant insanity. For this year, I would easily give the Oscar to George Clooney, who took on the most challenging and subtle role of the year in the most important movie of the year. And for me, Bridges should already have two Oscars, one for The Big Lebowski, which many loyal fans will agree with, and another for The Contender, which many people forget about, but shouldn't. If I controlled the universe, Bridges would not win this year, but I understand the reasoning and I admire the work.

The film itself? Decent. Solid. Sometimes more solid than other times, which I suppose would mean "uneven." And that's a fairly accurate critical description of the film in very generalized terms.

Continue reading after the jump....

Getting more specific, the film -- based on the novel by Thomas Cobb and adapted for the screen and directed by Scott Cooper -- is entirely reminiscent of every Down-and-Out Former Star Gets One Last Shot movie ever made. The particular world of this film -- the down-home country music scene -- further rusts any attempt at cinematic freshness. Bridges, as earlier referenced, plays Bad Blake, formerly a legendary country performer and songwriter, who now makes his way through the low-rent tavern circuit on his own dime, in his own run-down Suburban, using his only remaining cash on a continuous flow of whiskey. Occasionally someone will recognize him and provide the standard celebrity trappings of his choice: free food, whiskey, and one-night stands with aging bar floozies. Bad has continuing phone conversations with his frustrated agent, who attempts to score any and every small gig he can muster, but neither man is deluding himself into believing there is any way to restore Bad's glory days. All that remains of Bad is a hollow shell of a country singer, fueled only by booze, who is on his way to the gutter or the grave.

On one routine stop on Bad's endless road trip of small concerts, he meets with Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal, fellow Oscar nominee), a small-town reporter who apparently takes to Bad's charms so quickly that they nearly hook up during their first meeting. The relationship becomes the central hub for the film's drama, which becomes a problem since it is the film's least convincing element. Everything about the story, from its pacing to its structure to its ultimate resolution, feels rushed and, what's more, feels false. The actors are, obviously, not at fault, though Gyllenhaal's performance occasionally feels odd and untrue because it is, more than anything, a screenplay construction to create conflict.

Individual scenes work beautifully well. Many of them involve Bridges' interaction with Colin Farrell, who shows up in one of those Look-Who-It-Is! roles as Bad's former apprentice who is now the biggest country star on earth. His minor subplot, involving Farrell's renewed interest in working with his faded teacher, is far more believable and intriguing than the romance. The central story becomes irksome and feels painfully conventional at times, especially in the wake of last year's truly great The Wrestler, which took an almost identical framework and told the story with far more passion and intensity, not to mention logistical realism. And yet Bridges does create a real character, and the music is good (Bridges and Farrell do their own singing), and there is great interplay between Bridges and the other characters.

In the end, Crazy Heart is an uneven mixed bag, overrated at almost every level but with very strong moments, that manages to be engaging enough to carry the viewer through to the end. Worth a watch? Yes. Worth the hype. No.

Over the Weekend, Vol. 2: BAFTAs

2010-02-23T09:14:00.000-06:00

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts presented its 2010 awards over the weekend, and the biggest winner was...

...all together now....

The Hurt Locker.

Kathryn Bigelow's awards season juggernaut (which it absolutely is, sweeping literally everything from critics groups to nearly every major guild...forget about Avatar being the runaway freight train, though it is still in the thick of the Oscar race) continued to plow through the competition, taking home five BAFTAs in all: Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing.

Up won animation. A Prophet took Best Foreign Language Film. No surprise that Reitman and Turner won Adapted Screenplay for Up in the Air. Less surprise that Mo'Nique and Christoph Waltz took the supporting prizes. A little more surprise -- and delight -- that Carey Mulligan and Colin Firth won the lead acting prizes, though not too much surprise, considering they are both Brits. Nonetheless, the great work cannot and should not be diminished.

Avatar took two, for Production Design and Special Effects, and it will likely repeat that combo at the Oscars...though at this point, anything more seems iffy. Maybe one or both of the sound categories. Maybe not. Or maybe it will somehow pull out the Big One. Anyone's guess at this point, though it peaked a long time ago and has been on the decline ever since. The story is The Hurt Locker.

An amazing job by the Hurt Locker crew from top to bottom, and an amazing course charted by this "little film that coud" (HATE using that phrase, especially for this film, though they did deliver so much for so little). It has gone from being a small film making the festival rounds and scoring two low-level Indie Spirit nominations last year (thus making it ineligible this year) to being, at this point, the prohibitive front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar, as well as the film that will likely deliver the first female Best Director winner in Oscar history. Amazing work, amazing story, amazing movie.

Over the Weekend, Vol. 1: The Writers Guild Awards

2010-02-23T07:48:00.000-06:00

The WGA presented its annual awards over the weekend. Anyone have any guesses on who won?

The Hurt Locker, written by Mark Boal. I didn't discuss it much, just because there has been so much other stuff to chew on over the past month, but this, to me, was the last tea leave to read regarding Hurt Locker's chances of taking home Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars 12 days from now. Some were thinking Tarantino's Basterds screenplay was an Oscar favorite, and a WGA win might have cemented that idea. Instead, it was another win for Kathryn Bigelow's film...on its way, very likely, to an Oscar win in the screenplay category...as well as many others.

Adapted Screenplay went, very deservingly, to Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner for Up in the Air, which is also a locked-and-loaded Oscar winner.

Another Hurt Locker win

2010-02-23T07:37:00.000-06:00

The Hurt Locker won the Eddie Award, presented by the American Cinema Editors, for Best Edited Feature Film, last week, which only increases its overall loot. Pretty impressive as Oscar voting wraps up...the membership will likely take notice.

In other non-surprising news, Up won the Eddie for Animation and The Cove won for Best Edited Documentary.

SHUTTER ISLAND: A He Said, She Said Reel Dialogue

2010-02-19T16:15:00.000-06:00

JM: We’ve been waiting for it for months and months, and it’s finally here. K, it’s time to talk about Shutter Island.

KM: Scorsese, as always, in near perfect form. Shutter is not the utter brilliance of The Departed, but it certainly is dazzling cinema and reaches into further depths than even my favorite aforementioned film did.

JM: It is about as different from Departed as any movie made by the same director can be. The odd thing is that Shutter is just as highly stylized, but not in the slam-bang variety of The Departed. Scorsese is reaching for a style more sumptuous and subtle. In the same way, this film is simultaneously Scorsese's greatest departure and one that perfectly fits his thematic obsessions.

Now, before we go much further, I have to say that we are dealing with a major event. A new Scorsese film is reason to celebrate the cinema once again. The beginning-of-the-year placement is odd for any Scorsese film in recent years, and, indeed, Shutter Island was intended to be released last October. It got pushed out, I believe, because it was going to be a sure-fire Best Picture nominee, especially within the ten-film system, and since Scorsese won for his previous picture (the aforementioned Departed), the studio figured he wouldn't win twice in a row and bowed out to avoid the pesky Oscar promotion dollars.

KM: I will still never understand why a studio moves a picture because it could be a Best Picture nominee. That seems really off and ridiculous to me, but maybe that is a discussion for another time.

JM: Now, with all that said, I can say this: Shutter Island is obviously the first great film of 2010…

KM: Agreed!

JM: But, of course, that is almost damning with faint praise in a season where literally nothing comes close to touching greatness. But Shutter will reach far beyond the first quarter of the year. The film is already polarizing critics and will remain a major part of the critical conversation for the remainder of this year. It is that kind of seminal achievement, I believe.

Continue reading after the jump...

KM: To be fair, we should disclose that Scorsese is by far your favorite director and that probably there is very little he could ever do wrong in a film, right?

JM: Yes...full disclosure: Scorsese is my greatest idol and inspiration, if that is an academic or sophisticated enough way to put it. His films vibrate with passion and intensity, and he brings the screen to life in a way I truly believe we have never seen and likely will never see again. In my view, Scorsese is the greatest filmmaker of all-time. But I also hold him to a high standard. I'm not gonna walk around touting New York, New York or Gangs of New York as masterworks. But Scorsese has entered an artistic flourish in the last several years, and Shutter Island is another extension of that extraordinary track record.

KM: Again, agreed. Scorsese is easily one of the best filmmakers of all-time if not the best.

JM: Shutter is bound to be discussed and revisited again and again and again. The subtleties that Scorsese, his long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and writer Laeta Kalogridis achieve with the synthesis of their gifts is extraordinary, and, in all honesty, way too layered and complex for me to fully encapsulate in one viewing...or one review.

KM: To me, one of the most important and appealing aspects of Shutter is the dynamic duo. Film can do no better than a Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio pairing. And for all Shutter's lovely grainy grip, DiCaprio is what blew me away. He is, quite simply, amazing in this film -- raw, instinctual, fierce.

JM: DiCaprio, for all his accolades, is actually underappreciated as an actor. In addition to his other Oscar nominations, he should've been nominated for his work in Titanic and should've won the Oscar for his brilliant work in Scorsese's The Aviator. But I think I can say with utmost confidence that his performance in Shutter Island may actually be the best, most wrenching and difficult work he has ever done.

KM: Agreed. But I will say, for all the glory to behold in Shutter, it is not without some issues. For as gripping and “silver-stabbing” as the film is, I am disappointed that I had nearly the whole film entirely figured out from the trailer and then had it all confirmed for me within the first 15 minutes of the film. I love to figure out a good puzzle, to crack the mystery, but I want to have to work at it. I am not sure if Scorsese wanted us to know "the answer" that early or not, but I have to believe I am not some amazing genius...others are going to figure it out immediately, too. Right?

JM: Subsequent viewings will give more shape to my thoughts on the film's greatest virtues and nagging flaws, so I hesitate to go too deeply into either realm. But the work must be respected, plain and simple. And I have a feeling this is one of those films that demands to be seen multiple times. Sure, if you assume the film will be a hugely mind-bending supernatural ride (which many will, considering the tone of the film's trailer), it might be easy to say that the film is too predictable, that one could guess the "secret" from a mile away. By that standard, yes, that could be considered a flaw. But Scorsese and Kalogridis (and, originally, Dennis Lehane, who wrote the novel on which the film is based) are chasing after something more. Shutter Island poses questions that run deep, way deeper than any surface-level mind-bender.

KM: Scorsese is not in for the sucker punches or the easy messages. You are right. In retrospect, I get it now. It's not about me figuring it out. It's about the journey.

JM: As an auteur, Scorsese's obsessions run deep into themes of guilt and torment. A lot of people don't realize this is a guy who entered the Seminary before shifting his focus and becoming a filmmaker. And Catholic guilt plays a huge role in many of Scorsese's films, especially the earliest ones. I am actually a little surprised we didn't get more religious touches in Shutter Island, especially since it would be a welcome inclusion in a film that takes place in 1950s Massachusetts, and a film that is, very clearly, designed as a throwback to a couple of different genres. It is a challenge to make an old-fashioned thriller that fuses many different genres (among them mystery, psychological thriller, horror, and a lot of old-school detective procedurals) that still pulsates with the urgency of the "now," but leave it to Marty.

KM: I will say, though, that to me, his ending is pure movie magic. I do not want to go into it, but the "truth" about what is going on at Shutter Island is not what captivated me. With the exception of a few minor details, like I said, I had it all figured out. However, the very last exchange between DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, who stars as DiCaprio’s partner...that was the beautiful twist and haunting "surprise" for me. There was more resonance in DiCaprio's last line and more pain from me to him than in any other part of Shutter. And that says a lot because the film is intense, gripping, and riveting throughout.

JM: You nailed it. The real secret is, as you referenced, the film's last scene, right down to its last line and the subsequent closing visual. It is the psychological torment and emotional turmoil that interests Scorsese more than any plot twists or shocks.

KM: I do wonder how audiences will react. The film's trailer sells it as a supernatural horror film, but it really is all a psychological drama, an emotional journey for DiCaprio’s character as well as for the audience. You have to invest in this film, invest your heart and mind. So true what you said earlier about Marty and guilt-ridden angst and torment. The ride is an emotional, wrenching rollercoaster. I do think the "ride" went on a bit long at times, trying to coax out too much suspense and tension when it was really time to knuckle down and begin the reveal/revelation.

JM: Audiences will be tough. I think the film will be number one this weekend, and then probably take a hit in its second week because it doesn't deliver what anyone would be expecting. But the fascinating aspect of the film's accomplishment is that it seamlessly blends many popular genres into a psychological fever dream starring a hugely respected actor, and audiences will pack theaters and then be challenged by the power of what this film is really about.

KM: I personally was thrilled it was not a horror film. Shutter is too much of an instant classic study in psychology to be locked into such a pedestrian genre. I do think when audiences do not get what they expect, they will decide to plunk down even more ridiculous dollars for something that is what they expect and can pat themselves on the back for -- the blue football rah-rah game of Avatar. That would be sad, for they will be missing the deeper intricacies and (I would argue) importance of a film like Shutter Island.

JM: We could easily go on forever, and likely will in future discussions. The film is worth it. With Shutter Island, we are dealing with the latest masterpiece from America’s greatest filmmaker, a film whose intricacies and subtleties cannot possibly be fully realized, understood, and absorbed in one sitting. This is the kind of film that will take several viewings -- 4 or 5, I’d suspect -- before its full impact can be appreciated. And with that in mind, we need to make a date to revisit the film and submit further analysis at that time. For now, though, due to the constraints of conventional film criticism, let’s assign an “initial viewing” grade. I think Shutter Island will endure as a classic, and I slap it with an unequivocal A.

KM: I second the idea of multiple viewings because as we discussed here, I started to think through a few of my slight qualms I had with the film. Shutter is already a classic and I embrace it with an A-.

Only One More Day...Are You Ready?

2010-02-18T09:41:00.002-06:00

Love it or hate it...the new Scorsese picture is about to become part of the conversation.

More Oscar News: No Best Song Performances

2010-02-18T09:33:00.002-06:00

More Oscar show changes...

There will be no live on-stage performances of the Best Song nominees.

Instead, the songs will be played over clip montages of their corresponding movies. I don't have any confirmation on this, but my guess is that we won't hear the full version of the songs...more like extended clips...and they might be strung together in one slightly longer montage of all the nominated films.

What does this mean? Well, nothing much, really...just another re-vamp that is obviously intended to hold viewer attention, especially in a year where's there aren't any popular songs nominated. Sure, songs from animated features are nominated, but there are no over-the-moon spectacular numbers from animation. Yeah, there's a token "original number from a movie musical" nomination...but it's nothing to get excited about. Nothing to write home about. Nothing to watch.

And lest we forget, the winning song has likely already been engraved into the trophy: The Weary Kind from Crazy Heart will take the damn thing without any question or competition.

So...I get it. But it will be an odd omission. It is, however, right in line with the attempt to attract more viewers with more popularized movies and less overlong performances that drag down the show's running time.

Oscar Charts, Round 3

2010-02-18T08:11:00.004-06:00

Very little movement, but significant movement nonetheless.

We are at a moment where the only categories that can move, oddly enough, are the two big ones: Best Picture and Best Director. Most others are locked down...foregone conclusions in a very boring Oscar season. And really, most Oscar seasons are boring, with only a couple of categories left up in the air. But for those categories to be the two big ones...that's enough to inject some life in this race.

This week's charts...

BEST PICTURE

1. The Hurt Locker

2. Avatar

3. Up in the Air

4. Inglourious Basterds

5. Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire
6. Up
7. An Education
8. The Blind Side
9. District 9
10. A Serious Man

Note: It seems, at this point, that Summit is going to hold firm on their decision to withhold The Hurt Locker from theatrical re-release, the one move that I feel would successfully lock in the "upset" win. Getting the very cinematic film back into theaters where it can make some money, gain some more widespread love, and be seen on a big screen by Academy members...that's a win waiting to happen. But they may want to avoid the head-to-head theatrical competition with Avatar, and the film will still play potently on an HD flat screen.

Since Summit isn't forcing the issue, the story is formed by the current, visible developments. And by that measuring stick, The Hurt Locker has all the momentum. The film is coming off two major guild wins, and is the odds-on favorite to take another one, the WGA, this weekend. Meanwhile, Avatar's biggest advantage -- its box-office -- has been diminished ever-so-slightly, as it dropped from the top of the weekend box-office during the first weekend after the Oscar nominations announcement, and dropped even further the following weekend. And more people will be seeing The Hurt Locker on DVDs and Blu-Rays they receive in Netflix envelopes, especially if they are in a snowed-in part of the country.

For now, advantage Hurt Locker.

The rest of the major categories after the jump...

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

2. James Cameron, Avatar

3. Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

4. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

5. Lee Daniels, Precious

Note: Still trending Bigelow, and that whole "first female winner in history" wave is starting to pick up major steam.

BEST ACTRESS

1. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

2. Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

3. Carey Mulligan, An Education

4. Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

5. Helen Mirren, The Last Station

Note: Bullock on top. She is still making the interview rounds, tossing footballs with Letterman...doing the job. Streep seems to have ceded this one.

BEST ACTOR

1. Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

2. George Clooney, Up in the Air

3. Colin Firth, A Single Man

4. Morgan Freeman, Invictus

5. Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Note: Bridges. Over. Crazy Heart's up-tick in weekend box-office can only help more. Clooney isn't doing press...he knows it's all over. Firth and Renner are just happy to be there. And Freeman...please.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Mo'Nique, Precious

2. Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air

3. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

4. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart

5. Penelope Cruz, Nine

Note: Ha!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

2. Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

3. Christopher Plummer, The Last Station

4. Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

5. Matt Damon, Invictus

Note: Waltz...duh.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1. Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
2. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
3. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy, Up
4. Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
5. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man

Note: We will continue to track the percentages on this one. I still have to give the 51% edge to Boal's Hurt Locker script, over Tarantino's Basterds screenplay, which still sits as a 49% underdog. The WGA hands out its awards this Saturday, and that will be the next major indicator, though it is not an Oscar guarantee no matter who comes away with the prize.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
2. Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
3. Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9
4. Nick Hornby, An Education
5. Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, In the Loop

Note: All about Up in the Air, which would still be a major player for Best Picture if Avatar had never happened. As it stands, this is the only major award the film has a chance to win...and it will win it.

It's All Over But the Votin'

2010-02-11T10:29:00.000-06:00

Final ballots for the Oscars have been mailed out. Let the final push begin.

Ballots are due to be returned by 5pm March 2. The ceremony is March 7.

We are heading down the home stretch...

In Desperation News: Item #2

2010-02-11T10:25:00.002-06:00

The already-infamous Spider-Man 4 will be released in July 2012.................in 3-D!

Exciting! Innovative! Gimmick!

In Desperation News: Item #1

2010-02-11T10:22:00.000-06:00

Tom Cruise has signed on to star in Mission: Impossible 4, with a director yet to be named.

J.J. Abrams, whose heinous lack of directorial focus is what made M:I3 into one of the worst films of the past decade, will be producing this time out. And let's just hope they tap Rob Cohen to direct this one. Or Chris Columbus.

He Said, She Said Reel Dialogue: THE BOOK OF ELI

2010-02-09T14:17:00.000-06:00

HE SAID: J McKiernan: Alright, here we are, K, writing about The Book of Eli.

SHE SAID: K McKiernan: On any given day, I have mixed thoughts on it.

JM: Before I say too much, describe your mixed feelings.

KM: Well, seeing it came after having just seen the violent Edge of Darkness, and for the sake of release date chronology we are waiting to review that one next, but the thing is, after a while I get really tired of all the testosterone. Don't get me wrong, Eli is interesting and action-packed. But after awhile, all the doom and gloom and bible thumping wore me out.

JM: Yes, we are saving our thoughts on Edge of Darkness for that review, and there is plenty to say. But for me, Eli was an intriguing and entertaining graphic novel of a movie, made all the more interesting by the fact that it is not based on a graphic novel -- it has been produced as an original cinematic graphic novel. Very interesting.

KM: For me, it did not seem all that new. I know, weird, right? It is really the same plot line we see all the time. People are really nasty to each other. Guy saves the day. Sure, the sepia-saturated locale and characters (Non-white guy lead and young woman with strength) were a bit off the typical path, but I felt like I have been on this journey before. Now, I was entertained enough at the time. The film keeps one's interest. It just doesn't leave me with substance after having seen it.

JM: The film is not perfection by any stretch of the imagination, but I admire the ingenuity of its form and the originality of its story. Yes, we have seen graphic novels adapted into films before -- one of the first, in fact, was From Hell, directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, the brothers who directed The Book of Eli. But we have yet to see an original film that deliberately goes after that tone and style in a strictly filmic context. And we have seen plenty of "Apocalypse Movies" over the past decade or more...but never one with such a unique hook as this film.

Continue reading after the jump...

KM: What was the unique hook? The secret of The Book? Ha. If I wanted a religious lesson, I would go to church. Look, I admire the hell out of the Hughes brothers. Their first film, Menace 2 Society, was brilliant and deftly handled. And, again, I will say, Eli definitely entertained me. I am just saying that aside from the pretty lack of colors, it did not look all that different to me than eons of other films where the guy has all the answers and is able to save the world. Yawn.

And I really did not go for the ham-fisted "surprise" we get near the end of the film. Since when do graphic novels so deliberately try to jerk tears? Why did they feel the need to add such a melodramatic twist? It felt so false... like an afterthought.

JM: Before we go any further, let's refresh on the plot: Denzel Washington plays Eli, traveling the stark, unforgiving terrain that is the remnants of America (when and how our land was decimated is only vaguely hinted at in the film) carrying the eponymous book. Eli is has been told -- apparently through Divine means -- to head west, where...well, we aren't quite sure what awaits our hero in the west, but on he goes. There is another man who wishes to possess the book, a man with the wonderful comic book name of Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman as a nasty scenery chewer...and he spends most of the film hunting Eli in a series of visually stunning action sequences. Does that about cover it?

KM: Yeah. It does. I really come across as if I hated it, and I didn't. I just thought it might be a little less of a morality tale and a bit more thought-provoking.

JM: It was thought-provoking. Any film that attempts to discuss religion of any kind -- especially, in this culture, Biblical Christianity -- and do so without pandering or proselytizing, deserves to be considered. And this ain't no Focus on the Family transparent garbage. That's not Kirk Cameron playing Eli.

KM: Ha! Sure, I give you that. Like I said, it was nice to see a non-white hero. Still, it was doling out more sermon that I felt like dealing with. Funny, this seems like a movie that Mel Gibson would have loved to have gotten his hands all over.

JM: Sure, it might've been attractive to Mel, but it would've been bastardized into an ultra-violent mess (speaking of, we will get to Mel's latest very soon). And yes, this film is violent. And yes, that violence is stylized. But it makes sense within its own framework. Eli is always reactive, and he is on a mission to survive. I do get the possible contradictions that could be culled from a movie about protecting a sacred text that is also a bloody action picture, but I feel like the Hughes Brothers -- brilliant visualists and challenging storytellers -- have deliberately crafted a cinematic graphic novel. I keep beating that dead horse, but it is a wonderful conceit that is previously unheard of...kind of like making a live-action anime picture, which we still haven’t seen.

KM: I think it is a cop-out for people to love the message and embrace the violence. You don't get to espouse religious doctrines as you slay every limb off of others. Now, I love a good blood bath, ala-Tarantino as much as the next guy or girl, but Tarantino never muddies the message. He doesn't ever heavy-hand you pious messages of religious salvation and then crucify all in his path.
I do agree with you, though, that Mel would have wrung all the art out of Eli, but still he would have loved the idea of get-your-message-out while beating the tar out of every evil fucker in your path.

JM: Your sentiments are not lost on me, but I don't particularly believe The Book of Eli to be a religious film. It discusses the power and pull of religion -- in both positive and negative contexts -- but doesn't preach.

KM: I do not think we are all that far off from one another. I would be surprised to find us more than a half grade away from one another. I think Eli has more depth under the Hughes brothers than other directors may have given it, but it still does preach a bit too much and as I said before, it just does not seem all that "new" to me. How about we grade this one?

JM: I'll go first. I am intrigued by Gary Whitta's screenplay (his debut as a screenwriter), I love that the Hughes Brothers came out of an 8-plus-year hibernation to direct another interesting film, I liked Denzel, I love the graphic novel conceit, and I liked the presence of Mila Kunis -- whom we failed to mention in this review -- who plays Eli's unexpected protégé who eventually takes on a much more complex role. Overall, I would tag The Book of Eli with a well-deserved B.

KM: I did mention earlier that it was nice to see a young woman with strength in an action film. Still relegated to a sidekick who learns much from her "father" figure, but I will still take female strength where I can get it. And like I thought, we are not that far removed from one another. B- on a kind day. C+ on a cynical day.

Dear John: Congratulations on Knocking Off a Giant Blue Behemoth

2010-02-09T13:43:00.000-06:00

So...wow.

Originally, I had expected Mel Gibson's Edge of Darkness to topple Avatar last weekend, but it came up way short...probably the the film is an unimaginable piece of...well, we will be posting a review soon enough.

But alas, it has happened. At long last, Avatar has been knocked from atop the box office chart by...Dear John?

The film, based on one of those simpering Nicholas Sparks novels and starring rising commodities Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum, raked in just over $30 million, topping the Blue Giant by nearly $7 million.

It seems that a certain teen girl niche had gone ignored for weeks and weeks, and finally they had something at the movies to get excited about. There was nothing for the date crowd out there aside from the four-quadrant appeal of Avatar, and finally there was a legitimate date night flick to latch onto.

Even more striking than the fact that Avatar was topped not by Mel Gibson or Denzel Washington, but by Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum, is the fact that James Cameron's epic fell to second place on the first weekend after the Oscar nominations, when most films would receive a generous boost (the biggest winner in that category is Crazy Heart, which added 580 screens and landed on the top ten for the weekend). I'm not going to get into the business of fanning flames or throwing out pure conjecture as fact, so I won't go shouting that the drop to second place means that Avatar's Oscar run is finished or other such ridiculous nonsense. But the film's biggest claim to fame has become its box-office sensation. And as that story recedes into the background, the film's momentum could continue to dwindle just as The Hurt Locker is rising (a successful re-release of Hurt Locker would seal the deal, and I will continue to beat that drum into submission).

Time will tell...new Oscar charts coming soon...and let's face it, Avatar still pulled in $23 million, a drop of only 25%. But the film fell to second faster than Titanic, and its weekend numbers are about to fall behind Titanic's as well, even though it has already surpassed the film's total gross. Different time period, different kind of blockbuster...but in historic perspective, it means something.

The Decades: 1980s

2010-02-05T12:19:00.001-06:00

The great films of the 1980s were not just wonderful pieces of cinema, but definers of the cinema culture, films that would influence and inspire the filmmaking landscape for decades to come -- films whose influence and inspiration has, in all honesty, still not faded. There were incredible blockbusters, grand epics, and poetic filmic statements about the world we live in. And we still embrace the power of these films today. Here they are, the best films of the 1980s.

Check out filmcritic.com's collective list of the decade's best.

And now, my personal list:

1. Raging Bull (1980) -- Scorsese's extraordinary masterpiece about grace and power, victory and defeat, humanity and the loss of humanity.
2. Do the Right Thing (1989) -- Spike Lee's grandest masterwork, and cinema's boldest, most powerful statement on race in relations in America.
3. Ran (1985) -- Akira Kurosawa's intimate epic about the futility of wisdom, the consuming power of greed, and the profound sadness of an aging monarch. In many ways, the aging monarch was Kurosawa himself.
4. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) -- There is no greater, more profound Woody Allen picture than this, the legend's piercing dissection of humankind's virtues and flaws, its giddy joys and its lethal downfalls.
5. Blood Simple (1984) -- Legends were born in Joel and Ethan Coen, and their first film -- about a jealous man's increasingly complicated attempt to kill his wife and her lover -- is one of their absolute best.
6. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) -- In a decade full of Scorsese masterpieces, this vivid and powerful depiction of Christ's humanity is another brilliant insight into the human experience. The film was controversial, but in the opinion of this humble critic, there has been no more powerful cinematic depiction of Jesus than this film.
7. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) -- A story of transcendent wonder that speaks straight to the heart. The image of the flying bicycles with E.T. in the basket is one of the great iconic cinematic images, and the tension of watching the flowers wilt and then bloom again -- representations of E.T.'s resilience -- is one of the great magical joys of the cinema.
8. Fanny and Alexander (1982) -- Ingmar Bergman's sprawling epic -- over 5 hours in its truest form -- that tells a harsh, sad, and yet sometimes magical story of two young children growing up in Sweden. In many ways, it is the most revelatory explication of Bergman's complicated worldview.
9. Wings of Desire (1987) -- Wim Wenders' lilting lullaby of a film that ponders the existence of angels, the link between the earthly and the spiritual, and the lofty moral quandaries of celestial beings.
10. Platoon (1986) -- Oliver Stone's sobering masterpiece that confronts the horrors of war with extraordinary acuity.

Honorable Mentions:
After Hours (1985) -- Scorsese does comedy. You have to witness this wild brilliance.
Back to the Future (1985) -- The second great blockbuster of the decade.
The Breakfast Club (1985) -- The signature John Hughes film.
The Color of Money (1986) -- Another incredible Scorsese entry.
The Color Purple (1985) -- Spielberg interprets Alice Walker's classic novel.
Rain Man (1988) -- Barry Levinson's wonderful, ever-quotable drama about brotherly love.
Roger & Me (1989) -- Michael Moore introduces himself to the world and his first film is probably still his best.
The Shining (1980) -- Kubrick's legendary chiller.
The Thin Blue Line (1988) -- One of the extraordinary documentaries of all-time.
Tootsie (1982) -- Classic comedy.

Perspective

2010-02-05T12:19:00.000-06:00

Avatar, as we have discussed, is now the highest grossing film of all-time, no matter which chart you are discussing.

But let's look at total admissions, which relates to the total number of tickets sold.

Thus far, Avatar has been estimated at about 61 million in terms of admissions.

Titanic's total number of admissions at the end of its theatrical run: 128 million.

Avatar is never gonna get there.

Perspective...that's all I'm sayin'...

He Said, She Said Reel Dialogue: YOUTH IN REVOLT

2010-02-04T09:37:00.000-06:00

It was always the intent of Cinema Squared to be what the subtitle intends: a revolving film conversation between two unique viewpoints: one male, one female. Now, we usher in the new year of movies with a new resolution: to fulfill the initial purpose of this blog. Thus begins a series of "He Said, She Said" film reviews, back-and-forth discussions between passionate film critic counterparts. Our He Said, She Said series begins with one of the first films released in 2010, Youth in Revolt.

HE SAID: J McKiernan: So, K, let's talk Youth in Revolt.

SHE SAID: K McKiernan: Shoot.

JM: The critical rub has been that the movie is a lame retread of all the teen raunch comedies that have been released in the past five years, but actually, this one worked for me.

KM: I could not agree more. I thought it was not just a retread but was sweet and pretty cool.

JM: The other major problem many critics have pointed out is the omnipresence of Michael Cera, but he is the reigning king of awkward young male actors, and he is once again wonderful here.

Continue reading after the jump....

KM: Cera is adorable and he is why the film works, really. Back to what you said about "teen raunch" comedies. This movie has the gumption to move past the raunch. It is tender, sweet, and I would argue innocent in spots. Probably innocent because of Cera and his portrayal, but still, I tire of all the lame attempts at pornified humor. Here, sure, there is sex and yes there is bawdy humor, but this script does not mire itself in cruelty like most of those other raunch comedies (especially the Apatow variety). Cera, by the way, is also what saved Superbad from being too cruel and sexist. His deft touch at sweet sincerity is unmistakable.

JM: To me, Youth in Revolt aligns itself more with the quiet, subtle, offbeat films of Terry Zwigoff, or even, at times, Wes Anderson. The tone is very arch, and the use of quirky animation throughout the film only enhances that quality. Youth in Revolt's characters -- led, as you said so well, by Cera's brilliantly quirky sweetness -- are very interesting comic creations. They talk about things a lot of film geeks would respond to. Forget raunch...this movie's best joke involves Cera's character, Nick Twisp, not knowing that Tokyo Story was directed by Yasujiro Ozu.

KM: Do you think the quirky animation was at all inspired by his real life or perhaps faux real life girlfriend, Charlene Yi? Or perhaps since this film was made two years ago, that Yi was inspired by the animation in Youth when she made Paper Heart?

JM: Most likely not. Yi is her own brand of performance artist, and the "animation" in Paper Heart is literally cardboard cut-outs of the characters controlled by hands. The more-complex animation photography in Youth was directed by Ivan Abel, an up-and-coming cinematographer. But Paper Heart is an interesting reference point for this movie. The tone is similar -- offbeat, sly, and mildly sad. There is a melancholic quality to Nick's loneliness in this film, even as he creates the "supplementary persona," Francois Dillinger, who perpetrates all the mayhem that people will be familiar with from the trailer. In actuality, the film is different than its trailer. Very funny, yes, but clever and introspective, too.

KM: That was my next point. I was shocked that the film had something to offer -- actually, a great deal more to offer -- besides what the trailer promised. I had seen the trailer so many times that I figured I had pretty much seen the movie, yet they played with the chronology and many surprises still lurked. You are so right about the sadness. Perhaps it is the dry, deadpan tone, but this is not a raucous film. It is sober and feels more true even in its offbeat, odd moments.

I was dismayed when I read a review in Entertainment Weekly saying it wasn't worth seeing. Lisa Schwarzbaum said, as you referenced earlier, that Cera was just too "everywhere" and that this film was too late. I think that is so wrong. Cera is perhaps my favorite in his two Nicks. Here as Nick Twisp in Youth and as Nick in Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. They are his two best.

JM: Youth in Revolt really reminded me of a cross between Ghost World and Rushmore, and no, I don't say that so my quote can be pulled for placement on the back cover of the film's Blu-Ray box. Those are two of my favorite films about teenagers living in a specific moment in our rapidly changing culture, and two films with very unique and beautiful cinematic tones. I'm not gonna go overboard and say that Youth in Revolt is quite that good...but to say that it reminds me of those wonderful films is high praise indeed.

And regarding Cera, he is often charged with playing the same role over and over, but time and again he proves his extraordnary talent by tackling these roles -- that are, in all fairness, similar at first glance -- and creating vastly different characters. Sure they are all sort of awkward and sensitive and funny, but Cera alters his quirks and mannerisms and even the tone of his voice and maturity of his demeanor to make each character unique. Going back to the beginning of his career, if you compare Arrested Devlopment to Superbad to Juno to Nick and Nora to Youth in Revolt, each character is different. Each is a unique creation. All credit goes to Cera...amazing work.

KM: I never really got into Rushmore, but I can totally see what you mean about Ghost World. There is this "too-savvy-for-one's-own-good" attitude rocking in both movies. It's as if that savviness creates such loneliness and despair. Lost in a world you are not supposed to be in... or at least not so aware of.

JM: Lost in the world, struggling to find your place...absolutely. That is the very essence of Youth in Revolt. It is the reason Nick feels so inclined to invent a persona so that he can break the rules and be a rebel. He wants to win the affections of the beguiling Sheeni Saunders (played wonderfully by relative newcomer Portia Doubleday), but he feels like The Real Nick can't do it...so in steps Francois. It is all about being lost in the world, and finding yourself...unsure that the real you is the "best" you.

KM: Yes, and that sensitivity to our human id is not what most expect walking into the film. They expect a bunch of "pussy" jokes and new ways to talk sex. But the movie is actually pretty mature. This film trounces the horribly immature, cruel Knocked Up.

JM: It's so true. There are a few sex- and drug-related moments, although what makes them funny is their surreal oddity, not the raunch. Again, this isn't about raunch at all...it's about loneliness and identity. That is also a strand that runs throughout the work of the film's director, Miguel Arteta. I loved Arteta's two prior works, Chuck and Buck and especially The Good Girl, which are both about being unable to reconcile one's place in an ever-so-strange world. There was a seven-year gap between Good Girl and Youth, but once again Arteta announces himself as one of indie comedy's most interesting poets.

KM: Do you think that's why it was not such a "hit?" People do not want to ponder or listen to "poetry"? They just want the dirty joke?

JM: Most likely.

KM: You know...I find myself wanting to talk about the end a little bit and what Nick discovers, which is pretty enlightened and actually beautiful, but I do not want to spoil anything for anyone who happens to read this. So, how about I give a grade to summarize my thoughts? I would say Youth in Revolt earns a B+. How about you, J? What would you give it?

JM: The film's ending is very simple, and yet grandly momentous is its own wonderful way. So allow me to end this review in the same manner: my grade, like yours, is a B+.

Move over, James Cameron...

2010-02-04T09:36:00.000-06:00

...and make way for James Cameron!

As of Tuesday, Avatar has become the highest-grossing film of all-time, raking in a domestic total of $601.1 million (and counting). That is enough to nudge it past the 12-year reigning box-office champion, Titanic, which now sits in second place -- something that seemed unthinkable even as Avatar opened just over a month ago -- with $600.7 million. Yikes. The unthinkable has happened.

Also unthinkable is that Avatar already became the highest grossing film worldwide (once again passing Titanic), and over the past week became the first film to reach $2 billion in worldwide grosses.

I have covered all the reasons why I think Avatar was able to pull off such a feat, and I have also gone over the different caveats any box-office observer -- casual or professional -- must take into account when discussing the all-time grossers (inflation, 3-D up-charges, etc.). But no matter what asterisks you place beside the title, Avatar is now the all-time highest grossing film, both domestic and worldwide. And that is a momentous achievement. It is big news in this business.

It is also significant that the top highest grossers of all-time, the two films that will be almost impossible to beat for years and years, are both made by James Cameron. Not Spielberg. Not George Lucas. Not any other well-loved blockbuster director. James Cameron. It is both a credit to his brain as both a technological innovator and as a screenwriter, because he has now tapped directly into the brains of the modern filmgoer twice in the last 12 years, and has kept them coming to the theaters again and again. Extraordinary.

Right now, with the Oscar nominations likely giving the film a bump that will last it another month or so, the sky is the limit for the film. $700 million seems like a certainty...$800 million seems possible. Maybe more...who knows. We will get a better idea in the next couple weeks, as higher profile films are released and Avatar will have to continue defending the number one spot for the weekend. But for future projections, I think we can assume that Avatar will hold onto the all-time top spot for just about as long as Titanic did. Even the eventual Avatar sequel will have a difficult time rising above the original. Ideas like Titanic and Avatar become cultural phenomnenons because of their uniqueness as film experiences. Sequels aren't likely to rise to the top spot of all-time. They can get close -- like The Dark Knight or Shrek 2 -- but the highest all-time grosser is reserved, I think, for original films. Highest first weekend grosses are sequel territory, but all-time highest? It will always be an original film.

The next plateau? Well, obviously $1 billion domestic is the next huge mark, and it will be hit eventually...someday. At this point it seems like a very steep climb for Avatar, but never underestimate a Cameron invention. I would predict $800+ million for Avatar, and that the record will stand for around a decade...and then the next huge thing will crack $1 billion domestic, which will be the next amazing box office feat of our time.

For now, no matter what our personal feelings on the matter, we should step back, take a deep breath, and remember the moment when the ship was finally sunk. It feels wrong, in a way. And there is plenty of asterisks to discuss. But nonetheless...this is one of those moments. One of THE moments. Take it in.

Happening already...

2010-02-04T08:18:00.000-06:00

This Friday:

An Education expands to 760 screens...just about enough to be seen in all major, most mid-level, and a fair amount of small cities. The film, which plays really well with audiences, was begging for this opportunity.

Crazy Heart will expand to over 500 screens...as if Bridges even needed the help. But still, a chance for the film to reach a wider audience, where it will likely thrive.

Precious is also expanding...not sure how wide.

Still waiting for Summit to announce a 1,500 screen re-release of The Hurt Locker...it's the move that, if successful, would vault the film into "Best Picture Front-Runner" status.

Keep your eyes peeled.

The Oscar Race: First Post-Nomination Charts

2010-02-02T11:05:00.000-06:00

Fresh off the nomination announcements, here are Cinema Squared's first post-nom Oscar charts, featuring all the big nominees and fresh predictions now that the full Oscar field finally has finally been unveiled.

BEST PICTURE

1. Avatar

2. The Hurt Locker

3. Up in the Air

4. Inglourious Basterds

5. Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire
6. Up
7. An Education
8. The Blind Side
9. District 9
10. A Serious Man

Outside looking in: The Messenger, The Last Station, Julie & Julia, Star Trek, Nine

Note: Okay, so...here we are. The first field in the new 10-nominee system is set, and it is nice, eclectic group. I'm sort of surprised, looking at the balance in this field, that we didn't also see a film like Julie & Julia represented -- pleasant comedy with a female bent. But there was plenty of love for a variety of genres, a variety of tones, a variety of focal points.

At this point, it becomes a two-film race. I will give the advantage to Avatar at this stage, simply because the box-office juggernaut, the visual effects phenomenon, the gargantuan epic must be considered the favorite at this point. But The Hurt Locker is a much closer number two than most will openly admit, and it is clawing at Avatar's blue heels. An expanded campaign coupled with the film's embrace by the PGA and DGA could mean Hurt Locker leaps to a victory here. Time will tell.

The rest of the major categories after the jump...

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

2. James Cameron, Avatar

3. Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

4. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

5. Lee Daniels, Precious

Outside looking in: Lone Scherfig, An Education; Neill Blomkamp, District 9; Pete Docter, Up; Clint Eastwood, Invictus

Note: I say the DGA win vaults Bigelow to the top of this list. The eventual result will depend partly on the campaigning over the next month, but mainly on how the story holds up. Will Hurt Locker open in theaters once again, giving Academy members the chance to see it on the big screen? And will non-3D screenings diminish the impact of Avatar? Right now it's Bigelow's to lose...my guess is that she will take it.

BEST ACTRESS

1. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

2. Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

3. Carey Mulligan, An Education

4. Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

5. Helen Mirren, The Last Station

Outside looking in: Zoe Saldana, Avatar; Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria; Marion Cotillard, Nine

Note: Bullock seems like a runaway freight train. Streep was a lock for months, but Bullock became a sensation, The Blind Side became a huge hit, and then the awards started flowing in. Bullock is such a good person and her speeches are so charming and that performance was truly her career best. Oscar voters will want to honor her.

BEST ACTOR

1. Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

2. George Clooney, Up in the Air

3. Colin Firth, A Single Man

4. Morgan Freeman, Invictus

5. Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Outside looking in: Tobey Maguire, Brothers; Viggo Mortensen, The Road; Ben Foster, The Messenger

Note: Bridges takes it. Not much anyone can do to stop it. Clooney deserves this one, and a PR push could boost his chances, but I think he wants to stay out of that game-playing. So...Bridges. Done.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Mo'Nique, Precious

2. Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air

3. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

4. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart

5. Penelope Cruz, Nine

Outside looking in: Julianne Moore, A Single Man; Samantha Morton, The Messenger; Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds; Susan Sarandon, The Lovely Bones

Note: Not even worth much discussion. Mo'Nique.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

2. Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

3. Christopher Plummer, The Last Station

4. Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

5. Matt Damon, Invictus

Outside looking in: Alfred Molina, An Education; Alec Baldwin, It's Complicated

Note: Waltz is locked at this point. Would be nice to see Harrelson get out there and campaign, because he does fabulous work...but at this point Waltz seems inevitable.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1. Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
2. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
3. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy, Up
4. Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
5. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man

Note: Two-man race between Boal and Tarantino. Can't ever count out Tarantino, the Dean of Film Writers in the last decade...but that Hurt Locker screenplay is extraordinary...way better, really, than Tarantino's Basterds script, which is funny and clever but that's it. Say Boal is the front-runner at 51%, with Tarantino at his heels at 49%.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1. Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
2. Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
3. Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9
4. Nick Hornby, An Education
5. Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, In the Loop

Note: I'd say Reitman and Turner's extraordinary Up in the Air screenplay is an 85% favorite here, just about locked. Since the film will likely be overlooked in every other category, this will be the chance for the Academy to honor the film. Its closest competitor is Fletcher's Precious script, which might have a better chance if the film still held the momentum in built in the October/November timeframe, but it doesn't. It's Up in the Air's to lose.

More discussion to come...and updated charts should arrive on a weekly basis from here on out...

Best Picture Nominees by Domestic Gross

2010-02-02T10:36:00.000-06:00

Best Picture nominees, according the current domestic numbers:

Avatar: $595.7m
Up: $293m
The Blind Side: $237.9m
Inglourious Basterds: $120.5m
District 9: $115.6m
Up in the Air: $73.2m
Precious: $45.4m
The Hurt Locker: $12.6m
A Serious Man: $9.2m
An Education: $8.7m

About half of the films are still in some form of theatrical release, and the other half have already been released on Blu-Ray and DVD. We will see if any of those films will opt for an additional theatrical run...I'm sure a few of them will.

Oddly enough, the film with the most to gain from a re-release, The Hurt Locker, seems to be opting out of that strategy, at least for now. But with the film taking PGA and Bigelow walking away with the DGA win, it's time to start campaigning in earnest, because while Avatar still must be considered the favorite and will continue to make its cash, in the awards race, Hurt Locker is the film of the moment, and it is the one film that can take down the giant blue people. A re-release could boost the film's gross to $50 million, and with the right marketing push could even haul in $100 million...and that, in my opinion, would be enough to win Best Picture and Best Director. Right now it seems like the best move that won't happen, but if it does, we are in for an intriguing Oscar night.

In my view, the film that will get the biggest boost from the nomination is The Blind Side, which was already a gargantuan hit beyond all expectations, but with the BP nod could push past $300 million, which is insane. Avatar will keep pushing and could get as high as $800 million, but that's sort of old news. The big story will be the success of The Blind Side, which was never intended to skyrocket to this level of success. An even bigger story would be a Hurt Locker re-release, for which I want to spearhead the campaign RIGHT NOW!

For the rest, Up in the Air could well make its way to $100 million thanks to the Oscar love...and I wish that could affect its chances, but it probably won't. Up is likely content with its huge numbers, since it is a shoo-in for the Animated Feature prize and has no chance whatsoever in the BP race, but who cares? A wonderful film got its due on every level. They might get wild and try to turn the Basterds loose in theaters again, but that won't do much to affect its gross or its chances. It's still a third- or fourth-place BP runner, with a shoo-in win for Waltz in Supporting and a 49% chance that Quentin will take Original Screenplay (51% for Mark Boal's Hurt Locker script at this point). Precious might see an uptick in its gross as a result of its six nominations, and the two indies -- Serious Man and An Education -- might see an expanded theater count and widened audience, if the studios see fit. Both deserve to be seen, and An Education in particular will play well with wider audiences.

K's Quick and Immediate Oscar Reactions

2010-02-02T10:02:00.003-06:00

No Invictus in the Best Picture category! Now there's something to cheer about!

The Blind Side is the not-so-surprising surprise of the Best Pic field.

Sad that The Messenger failed to garner a BP nod, but I will gladly go along with the Academy's logic, if that logic dictates that Invictus gets left out in the cold.

More to come...Happy Oscars!

Immediate Reactions

2010-02-02T10:00:00.001-06:00

Okay, so...we've been discussing The Blind Side as being a potential sleeper candidate for a BP nod for a while now, and I will shamelessly pat myself on the back for dropping a note about the film's chances just three minutes before the announcement commenced. Good job, J and K.

Other surprises: the biggest, for me, was Maggie Gyllenhaal's inclusion in the Supporting Actress category for her work in Crazy Heart. Yes, the category has about three sure-fire locks in Mo'Nique, Farmiga, and Kendrick, and Cruz was widely seen as a likely fourth, but even amid all the discussion of who would fill that final wild card slot -- Julianne Moore, Diane Kruger, Samantha Morton, Susan Sarandon, etc. -- Gyllenhaal's name never came up much. So good for her and good for Crazy Heart, which came away with three nominations this morning (Bridges, Gyllenhaal, and Best Song), and is the odds-on favorite to win two of them on March 7.

No surprises in Best Actor or Best Actress. In Supporting Actor, many of us had been looking at Alfred Molina to sneak in, but conventional wisdom prevailed in the form of Matt Damon in Invictus.

Speaking of Invictus, Eastwood's movie only came away with two nods: Damon in Supporting and Freeman in Lead Actor. No Best Director, no Best Picture. And thank God for that: based on the group of films nominated this morning, Invictus would have easily been the least deserving, and good on the Academy for side-stepping an obligatory "Clout Nomination." Eastwood has, can, and will do much, much better.

Now that Invictus is out, it falls to District 9 and The Blind Side for the "worst of the lot" awards. Both films likely filled the 9 and 10 slots, respectively. And yet, while I would not personally nominate either picture...I get it. District 9 is an ingenious idea. Blind Side is a quality crowd-pleaser. Both were very popular hits. Blind Side is still chugging, and the Oscar traction might be responsible for carrying the film to $250 million domestic, maybe more.

So...the "10 Nominees" thing worked well this time out. I wish The Messenger had prevailed, as many of us were thinking it might a few weeks ago...but I guess even the smallest films can peak early...and the film got well-deserved nods for Harrelson's career-best performance and the film's pitch-perfect screenplay. As far as the two intentions of adding five additional BP contenders, more crowd-pleasers got in than indie favorites, but at least the Academy didn't lobotomize itself into nominating Star Trek or other such crap. I think the nod to The Blind Side will be very popular among mainstream movie-goers, and as the Best Picture categories third-highest grosser (and it may be the second-highest grosser by Oscar night), it will be responsible for a viewer bump, I imagine. This may well be the highest-rated Oscar telecast in recent memory, which means the 10-nominee strategy paid off in a big way and will become the Oscar standard for the better part of this new decade.

Even more after the jump...

I failed to post my predictions for the screenplay categories, but I have been talking about In the Loop's chances for weeks, and the film walked the walk today. The rest of the Adapted Screenplay nominees are as expected...happy for Hornby, whose work on An Education is wonderful, and despite the fact that I didn't love either film, good for Fletcher on Precious and Blomkamp and Tatchell on District 9. I may take issue with either film's ultimate success, but the difficulty of writing both screenplays was very high to say the least, and I admire the work. Of course, the category's obvious winner is Up in the Air, and I obviously have no complaints about that.

I do have a complaint that Up in the Air didn't manage to score anything outside of the major categories. Six total nominations, including all three actors, BP, Director, and Screenplay, but...no love for the year's best score, by Rolfe Kent? No recognition of Dana Glauberman's extraordinary editing? What about Eric Steelberg's cinematography? Or "Help Yourself," the wonderful original song? This film should have led the field in nominations. Sad to see wonderful work go ignored, but the film got its due in the major categories.

Nine managed to score four nominations despite being shut-out of the BP race, though oddly enough, the film's most deserving aspect, its cinematography (by former Oscar winner Dion Beebe), was ignored. I would have traded Penelope Cruz's Supporting Actress nomination (a fun, cheeky performance, but not a large enough supporting role to merit a nomination, in my opinion) for a Cinematography nod.

Avatar and Hurt Locker lead the field with nine nominations each, interesting symmetry for the two movies, which will go toe-to-toe in most of the categories. Give Bigelow the advantage in Best Director at this point, but give Avatar the advantage in Best Picture at this stage...but both could shift in the coming weeks. Avatar takes the visual effects award going away (Hurt Locker obviously isn't up for that one) and Hurt Locker has gotta be the favorite in Original Screenplay (Avatar didn't get a nomination there), but the other categories -- among them Cinematography, Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing -- are still toss-ups. A few of them might be parceled out to other deserving nominees, but at this point I have to expect the two Big Ones to go head-to-head in most of these categories. It will be interesting to see how the race unfolds over the next 32 days, and all the more interesting to watch how the grudge match resolves itself on March 7.

More conversation and analysis lies ahead, including updated charts with new predictions.

Happy Nomination Day to All, and To All a Frustrating Month of Prognosticating.

A Note of Congratulations

2010-02-02T08:55:00.001-06:00

Before we settle into the nitty gritty of analyzing all these Oscar nominations in depth, I want to take a moment to send out a word of congratulations to two of my filmmaking mentors, Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, whose wonderful The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant received a nomination this morning for Best Documentary Short Subject.

Check out my review here, and check your local listings to see this important film.

Well done, Steve and Julia.

Nominations by Film

2010-02-02T08:46:00.002-06:00

Avatar -- 9

The Hurt Locker -- 9

Inglourious Basterds -- 8

Up in the Air -- 6

Precious -- 6

Up -- 5

District 9 -- 4
Nine -- 4
Star Trek -- 4
An Education -- 3
The Young Victoria -- 3
The Last Station -- 2
Invictus -- 2
Fantastic Mr. Fox -- 2
The White Ribbon -- 2
Sherlock Holmes -- 2

Oscar noms

2010-02-02T08:27:00.004-06:00

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

The rest after the jump...

Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

Actor in a Leading Role
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Actor in a Supporting Role
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

Actress in a Supporting Role
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo'Nique, Precious

Original Screenplay
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglorious Basterds
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy, Up

Adapted Screenplay
Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, District 9
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, In the Loop
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Animated Feature
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up

Foreign Language Film
Ajami, Israel
El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Argentina
The Milk of Sorrow, Peru
Un Prophete, France
The White Ribbon, Germany

Documentary Feature
Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home

Happy Nomination Morning

2010-02-02T07:35:00.000-06:00

Just for a morning appetizer...I keep hearing rumblings about The Blind Side sneaking in for a Best Picture nomination. Probably taking the tenth slot. I already made my final predictions, but here comes a real sleeper possibility.

More soon...nominations announced in 3 minutes...

Oscar Charts, Round 2: The Eve of the Nominations

2010-02-01T21:19:00.000-06:00

A lot of the eventual winners are set in stone -- and so, too, are the majority of the nominees -- but there is still some intrigue surrounding the few remaining wild card slots. Which two films will fill the last two Best Picture slots? Will it be A Serious Man and The Messenger? District 9 and The Last Station? Or will the Academy go way audience-friendly by recognizing The Blind Side and Star Trek? And what about Julie & Julia? Or, hell, even The Hangover? Or the inevitable nominee that fell completely out of the race but could still come back in a shocker, Nine?

How about Best Director? Four of the five slots seem to be sure bets, but what about the last one? Is it Clint's? Or a sleeper like Neill Blomkamp? Or Lee Daniels, who seemed like a lock when Precious first hit theaters? An animation director like Pete Docter for Up? Or will there be two female nominees for the first time ever, with the inclusion of An Education's Lone Scherfig?

This whole "10 Best Picture Nominees" thing is slightly altering the shape of the Oscar race, and for more categories than merely Best Picture. The doors haven't been swung wide open, but they have been opened to wider than they have in several years. The announcement, which comes at 5:30am Pacific, will be interesting to watch for one primary reason: it will be fascinating to see who sneak in through that wider opening.

Tomorrow, Cinema Squared becomes Oscar Central, with reports and extensive analysis of all the nominations. And then we will settle into the "Who's Gonna Win" game for the next month.

The updated prediction charts follow after the jump:

BEST PICTURE

1. Avatar

2. The Hurt Locker

3. Up in the Air

4. Inglourious Basterds

5. Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire
6. Up
7. An Education
8. Invictus
9. District 9
10. The Last Station

Outside looking in: The Messenger, A Serious Man, The Blind Side, Julie & Julia, Star Trek, Nine,

Note: I feel like District 9 is gonna have a surge of support that will get it into this race. That leaves just one slot left, and it could conceivably go about seven different ways, and even if you pare it down to the likeliest of competitors, it still seems like three different films are in serious contention. I have a weird feeling that The Last Station could be one of those literary period pieces that swings in without much attention to take four of five nominations, including Best Picture. I will cling to that limb, though I am fully aware that A Serious Man or The Messenger could take the last spot.

BEST DIRECTOR

1. James Cameron, Avatar

2. Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

3. Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

4. Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

5. Lee Daniels, Precious

Outside looking in: Lone Scherfig, An Education; Neill Blomkamp, District 9; Pete Docter, Up; Clint Eastwood, Invictus

Note: The top four are locks; for the wild card fifth slot, I will go with Daniels, who was a huge sensation when Precious first started buzzing a few months ago. Eastwood is a possibility, but for my money, the likelier sleeper candidates are Scherfig or, most likely, Blomkamp, whose vision is the primary reason why District 9 gets the BP nod.

BEST ACTRESS

1. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

2. Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

3. Carey Mulligan, An Education

4. Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

5. Helen Mirren, The Last Station

Outside looking in: Zoe Saldana, Avatar; Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria; Marion Cotillard, Nine

Note: Seems locked. If there is one upset contender, it's Saldana, but that seems unlikely.

BEST ACTOR

1. Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

2. George Clooney, Up in the Air

3. Colin Firth, A Single Man

4. Morgan Freeman, Invictus

5. Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Outside looking in: Tobey Maguire, Brothers; Viggo Mortensen, The Road; Ben Foster, The Messenger; Peter Sarsgaard, An Education

Note: Another case where it seems pretty well set. Maguire could sneak in for his well-loved turn in Brothers, but that seems like the only logical substitute.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1. Mo'Nique, Precious

2. Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air

3. Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air

4. Julianne Moore, A Single Man

5. Samantha Morton, The Messenger

Outside looking in: Penelope Cruz, Nine; Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds; Susan Sarandon, The Lovely Bones;

Note: This one's a little more up in the air. The top three are locked, and Julianne Moore seemssolid in the four slot. For the fifth, I'll go out on a limb and say Samantha Morton in The Messenger, though it would be an odd fit if the film didn't score the BP nod as well. Penelope Cruz is the top contender to steal the fifth slot away from Morton, and Diane Kruger is a long-shot.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1. Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

2. Christopher Plummer, The Last Station

3. Woody Harrelson, The Messenger

4. Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones

5. Alfred Molina, An Education

Outside looking in: Matt Damon, Invictus; Alec Baldwin, It's Complicated

Note: Top four are locked. I will bet that the Academy recognizes the wonderful work of Molina in An Education for the fifth slot, though conventional wisdom has Matt Damon filling it for Invictus.

Tune in tomorrow to see how wrong I was...Happy Oscar Dreams...

DGA Winner = New Oscar Front-runner?

2010-01-31T22:05:00.000-06:00

The Director's Guild of America announced its winners on Saturday night, and the feature film winner made history. Kathryn Bigelow, director of the extraordinary The Hurt Locker, became the DGA's first ever female winner. Wonderful. Well-deserved.

But it comes with potential to alter the shape of this awards season. Going into the weekend, most would have predicted James Cameron, King of Everything and director of Avatar (Bigelow's ex-husband, by the way), would walk off with the DGA prize and thus be further cemented as the odds-on favorite to win Best Director at this year's Oscar ceremony. But now, with Bigelow winning DGA, the race becomes interesting once again.

Let's look at history. The DGA has been the most accurate Oscar predictor for decades. In the last 61 years, the DGA winner and Best Director Oscar winner have corresponded all but six times -- astounding accuracy no other awards entity can come close to matching. Further history would reveal that the best predictor of the eventual Best Picture winner at the Oscars is he who wins (or maybe, finally, she who wins) Best Director. The Best Director and Best Picture winners have corresponded all but 12 times in the last 60 years of Oscar ceremonies (the last three of which, it may or may not matter to note, have taken place in the past decade). Put the two stats together, and you might have the makings of a momentum surge in favor of The Hurt Locker.

It is still too early to make any huge leaps in judgment, or to deviate too far from the conventional wisdom -- that the highest grossing film of all-time, both domestic and worldwide (which Avatar will be well before Oscar night), would lose Best Picture to a low-budget indie war drama that was made for roughly $11 million, never played on more than 535 screens, and only managed to haul in a little over $12 million. But the momentum has shifted. In the next few weeks, we will see how the story changes. By how much will Avatar beat Titanic? Which film will manage the best media campaign? Will people further tire of Avatar Mania? Will Oscar voters value the power of a film or the power of a film's phenomenon? Will the true passion for The Hurt Locker be enough to push it to an eventual BP -- and BD -- win?

Thanks to the Producers Guild and the Directors Guild, the next month will be much more interesting than expected.

The Disappointing, 2009

2010-01-31T13:53:00.006-06:00

There were far more 2009 films that were just plain bad, rather than merely disappointing. But in a way, the disappointments sting worse than the bad movies. Most of the time, when walking into a bad movie, the badness is expected. But disappointments are a different beast. Expectations are elevated, hopes are high, and the possibility for greatness is tangible. And then, for whatever reasons, hope fades and the greatness evaporates.

The lists that follow commemorate the 2009 films that coulda, woulda, shoulda...but didn't. Here are films whose ambitions were high, whose intentions were virtuous, whose potential was unquestionable, but who couldn't quite deliver. ~ J and K

Presenting the Most Disappointing Films of 2009, with analysis to follow:

He Said:

The disappointments were crushing in 2009, and they came from a large group of some of the our finest filmmakers. Any knowledgable film lover must enter the year expecting a fair share of near-misses, but 2009's group stung especially badly, since films with such intriguing subjects, extraordinary performances, and powerful, important intentions never quite accomplished their lofty goals.

Brothers, in my view, was unquestionably the year's biggest disappointment, tackling complex family issues and deep moral quandaries of our nation's military and adding some of the year's most astounding acting work from Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and young Bailee Madison. But the film gives away all its powerful secrets, and ends when the real story is just beginning.

Lars Von Trier's Antichrist runs in a close second, a film of staggering beauty in which von Trier inches ever closer to openly discussing his twisted gender issues, and yet the film descends into a jumbled mess of purposeful confusion. And Precious, that film of such great literary pedigree and unending cinematic potential, lands with such an overwrought thud in the third slot.

Rounding out my sad list of 2009 disappointments, Richard Kelly's The Box is another pretentious-yet-intriguing mind-bender that becomes unintentionally laughable; Capitalism: A Love Story is the first time Michael Moore seems to be following the trend of the times rather than defining it; Michael Mann's Public Enemies is a sprawling crime epic but isn't ever that involving; Nancy Meyers' It's Complicated has a message that was too complicated and a plot that was oh-so-simple; The Girlfriend Experience is a failed Soderbergh experiment; Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock takes the build-up and payoff of the greatest concert of our time and makes it tepid and boring; and Away We Go, directed with sincerity by Sam Mendes and acted with subtlety by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, is enjoyable but not totally fulfilling.

She Said:

There were quite a few movies this year that did not live up to the grand expectations I had for them. Whether it was the over-indulgence of Nine, the irritating blandness of Invictus, the sleep-inducing A Christmas Carol, the gloss-over, boring Taking Woodstock; the pretentious and too-weird Antichrist, the surprisingly not-so-powerful Capitalism: A Love Story, the annoying and cloying Away We Go, the nauseating drivel and one-dimensional He's Just Not that Into You, the laughable, simplistic characterizations and dialogue of Avatar (not to mention its hypocritcal message of peace while simultaneously engaging in a 30-minute bloodbath), or the sheer inanity and beffudlement of The Box, the films on this year's list all exhibit one common trait -- they could have been and should have been so much more. So much more.

When a movie earns a spot on the worst list, it's not typically painful. It is what it is. But this list is different. When you have the amazing caliber of actors, directors, writers, and producers, when you have the sorts of ideas, concepts, and technology that these movies possess, it is all the more heartbreaking to know that this potential is squandered.

The Bad, 2009

2010-01-28T07:59:00.019-06:00

2009 was a disastrous year for the cinema. We try to stay optimistic, but years like the one that just passed slowly drain us of said optimism. We are ever grateful for the handful of wonderful films that were released in 2009 and are happy to report that we will save the best for last, discussing and celebrating the best films of 2009 in the coming days. But for now, we focus on the films that defined 2009: the bad ones.

In attempting to compile this list, we came up with approximately 30 titles to fill 10 slots. Yikes. It was a great year for terrible movies -- one of the best years for terrible movies in recent memory. Amazing. Bad sequels, bad original films, bad horror, bad comedy, bad sci-fi, bad animation, even bad indie drama...it was quite an eclectic year for crap.

What follows is a final warning, a final goodbye, a final dagger in the heart of 2009's awful films. We hate you, and we hope to forget you soon. --J and K

The lists, followed by commentary:

He Said:

If not for a few truly wonderful saving graces, 2009 would go down as the worst year for movies in the decade that just came to a close. What a way to go out, Movies of the 2000s. There are films to celebrate, and so I can't wait to move forward to discuss them. For now, we must pay tribute to the horrible films of 2009, and there were so many it was difficult to select only 10.

I Love You, Beth Cooper was clearly the year's worst, a revolting comedy that simultaneously wanted to court Superbad fans and the Home Alone crowd and was actually appropriate for neither. Speaking of Home Alone, the film was directed by Hollywood's Worst Director, Chris Columbus, who apparently thinks it is sweet and funny to depict sluts running wild with a creepy man-child and falling prey to ridiculous pratfalls and uncomfortable sexual situations. Fun!

It says something that any movie could top Land of the Lost, which is the tackiest, ugliest, most awkwardly unfunny and entirely inappropriate film Will Ferrell has ever made. Awful from top to bottom. Ferrell's career is not dead, but it is now on life support after that unmitigated disaster.

And rounding out the top three (bottom three?) is another heinous would-be comedy, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which is a simpering, stupid, unsavory load of celluloid refuse featuring Matthew McConaughey as an idiot womanizer (accurate enough, I guess) who is visited by annoying "ghosts" (even though most of them aren't actually ghosts) who guide him through the folly of his life. Each subsequent joke falls flatter than the last, and the film's transparent attempt to moralize at the end is shameless and revolting. And Michael Douglas' extended cameo as the lothario grandfather is just gross.

As for the rest, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was the comedy classic of the year, Serious Moonlight debased Adrienne Shelly's legacy, Spread attempted to trick us into thinking its vapid nastiness was somehow profound, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, by far the worst sequel I've seen in years, was ridiculous, overblown, overlong macho porn, Love Happens was an utterly disastrous romantic comedy, Knowing should have been blown up with its brooding characters, and Astro Boy set new standards for uncomfortable ugliness in animation.

*******

She Said:This year's worst movies for me fell into two categories: banal retarded nonsense or atrocious misogyny masquerading as comedy. Well, sometimes said movies achieved such awfulness as to manage to hit both categories.

This year's spread of bad movies made even more clear that the limits of PG-13 are bursting at the seams. Such raunchy, offensively tacky and woman hating films as Beth Cooper, Land of the Lost, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Fired Up, and Transformers 2 proved we need another restriction between ages 13 and 17. Or, perhaps movies like those previously mentioned could just not be greenlit at all. From boob mugs, scorin' contests, and "stabbin' wagons" to preening porn postures and "facials," most of the films in my worst list are not just the worst but are shameful and repugnant.

Toothless

2010-01-26T09:47:00.009-06:00

If there is any positive to take away from Tooth Fairy, it's that now I'm pretty sure that I only have to find nine more movies to place on my "Worst of 2010" list. Thanks, Dwayne Johnson.

The positives end there. Tooth Fairy is a heinous would-be comedy that is intended to put a creative twist on the legend of the tooth fairy, but the result is more painful than a root canal -- and before you roll your eyes at my use of bad humor, I must say that I can't help myself, and that the movie is even worse. This is a pale imitation of a mediocre Disney movie where the humor isn't funny, the fairy tale isn't magical, and the actors are all so hapless to stop the disaster that it barely seems like they are participating. Here is a film that literally seems to evaporate as you watch it.

Johnson, aka "The Rock," plays Derek Thompson, a hockey player known as "The Tooth Fairy" because he knocks so many teeth out. Ha ha. He has his own recliner in the penalty box. Hee hee. At this point you might be asking yourself, "didn't The Rock already play an arrogant bastard hockey player in a family comedy?" Well, you're close: it was an arrogant bastard football star in The Game Plan, which was a middling Disney comedy, but by comparison is a work of staggering brilliance. In that film The Rock wore a tutu, and in this one he sports a fairy outfit replete with gauzy skirt, tights, and, of course, wings. Last year Rock starred in another family film, Race to Witch Mountain, and in my review of that film I wondered if he was contractually obligated to star in limp Disney film after limp Disney film. Tooth Fairy is, in fact, not a Disney film, which answers my question: The Rock is not contractually obligated to anyone; he just has a predilection for embarrassing himself on film.

Anyway, Rock's character once had the makings of a great NHL star, but then got injured and was banished to the minors, where he basically stopped trying and settled for being the rough-and-tumble dude that never scores goals. That's a big theme in Tooth Fairy: scoring goals is infinitely important. "I used to score," Rock tells his young friend, as if one has no value in the game of hockey unless they are a prolific goal-scorer.

After telling his girlfriend's (Ashley Judd) young daughter that there is no Tooth Fairy, our hero is summoned to appear before the regal woman who is, I guess, the Queen of Tooth Fairies (Julie Andrews), or something like that. She sentences him to two weeks Tooth Fairy duty, and for the remainder of the film Rock prances around like an idiot in disastrous set piece after disastrous set piece, all under the illusion that the antics are somehow funny, or heartwarming, or at the very least filmable. But he's wrong.

The film is an absolute mess from start to finish. The director is Michael Lembeck, an Emmy-winning TV director who brings a TV skill set to his feature films, and indeed Tooth Fairy is about as visually stimulating as an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Lembeck previously directed the two awful Santa Clause sequels, and he drains the magic out of this film in a similar fashion. The screenplay, which is credited to five different writers, doesn't help matters, offering a throwaway formula and adding ice skates and fairy wings. It's not funny, it's not enchanting, it's not even watchable.

I'd rather face the dentist drill than sit through Tooth Fairy again. And again, I will not apologize for that cheap line -- this movie doesn't deserve anything more creative than that.

The Decades: 1970s

2010-01-26T09:05:00.008-06:00

The 1970s was a decade of giants. This is the decade where the great directors stretched to deliver some of the greatest work the cinema has ever known. Big ideas, important themes, daring stories, brilliant performances, and filmmaking that set the bar so high that no decade has ever quite reached. The 1970s was, perhaps, the greatest decade in the history of film.

Check out filmcritic.com's collective list of the decade's best films.

And without further ado, my personal list:

1. Network (1976) -- Simply put, the most incendiary satire of all-time, featuring the most complexly intelligent, cracklingly funny, bitingly poignant screenplay ever, by Paddy Chayefsky. Screenplays like this just aren't written anymore...and they weren't back then, either. Network is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, and its brilliance holds up 34 years later.
2. Taxi Driver (1976) -- Martin Scorsese's first of several extraordinary masterpieces, a film that underlines the political anxiety of the decade, set Scorsese's brilliant filmmaking style in motion, and gave us one of the cinema's most indelible characters, Travis Bickle.
3. A Clockwork Orange (1971) -- A frightening look into a downward spiral of a future, made with calculating precision and nasty ironic humor by Stanley Kubrick.
4. Day for Night (1973) -- Francois Truffaut's greatest film, and one of the great influencers of filmmakers to come. Made with a wealth of humor and unmatched reverence for the joys and trials of filmmaking, Day for Night is the greatest film ever made about making movies.
5. The Godfather (1972) -- The great mob epic of our time. A giant, a legend, a classic.
6. Scenes from a Marriage (1974) -- Ingmar Bergman's haunting masterpiece, about a love that stands the test of time, even if it fails the tests of marriage and fidelity.
7. The Godfather, Part II (1974) -- Greatest sequel of all-time, continuing the Corleone saga in an epic just as sprawling and brilliant as its forebear.
8. Cries and Whispers (1972) -- Another Bergman masterwork, this one his most brutally painful film, about women whose love and resentment boil to the surface as they care for their cancer-ridden sister.
9. Apocalypse Now (1979) -- Coppola's third gargantuan film of the decade (after the two Godfathers), this one is the greatest war picture ever made, a brilliant symphony of frightening images that will linger forever.
10. Rocky (1976) -- Possibly the greatest crowd-pleaser in cinema history, plain and simple.

Honorable Mentions:Nashville (1975) -- Altman's sprawling work of brilliance.
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) -- The surrealistic masterpiece by Luis Bunuel.
Mean Streets (1973) -- Scorsese's first great film of the decade, and the first great film of his legendary career.
Annie Hall (1977) -- Wonderful Woody.
Manhattan (1979) -- Wonderful Woody, volume 2.

How did Avatar happen?

2010-01-26T08:06:00.005-06:00

I'm not talking about the impetus, or the many years Cameron spent waiting for the technology to advance, or the long, complicated production. I'm talking phenomenon. Avatar is the highest grossing film worldwide of all-time. In the coming weeks, it will become the all-time highest domestic grosser as well, surpassing Titanic, which seemed unthinkable for over a decade and was still unthinkable even as Avatar was released. How far the film will surpass its behemoth predecessor is still unsure. It could raise the stakes by $150 million or more.

So I pose the question: how did Avatar happen? How did it climb this high? And why this movie?

There are, in my estimation, a few simple answers.

The first is easy: the movie itself. Avatar was built as the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and it has made good on its reputation. It was the most hyped film of the decade, and I say that not simply because of the intense speculation about its quality that took place over the course of 2009, but also because people have been talking about the movie for the better part of the 2000s. Cameron took over the world with Titanic in '97, then went away for...this one movie. A twelve-year absence from cinema screens for Cameron...because of this one movie. And he didn't waste away the time. He perfected live-action 3-D filmmaking. He perfected motion capture technology. He seamlessly created a vivid world. And the film is gorgeous, exciting, and powerful.

Next, there are the stats that many speculators have brought up, and the argument is more legitimate than ever as Avatar closes in on Titanic: higher ticket prices. Higher ticket prices in general, and especially the 3-D ticket prices. For the longest time I have been an opponent to that argument, since more than half the Avatar screens are 2-D, and even more international screens are 2-D. In addition, 3-D has been legitimized far before this film, and the ticket prices have always been higher. So I had dismissed the argument...but that's primarily because I never thought it would seriously threaten Titanic's gross. Now that the film is bearing down on the big ship, one cannot dismiss or deny the financial factors at play in this situation. When it comes down to it, far more people went to see Titanic than Avatar. 3-D prices are the true culprit, because even without adjusting for inflation, Avatar would not nearly be as close to Titanic's domestic gross without the up-charge for those glasses. So as a new all-time box-office leader takes its place atop the chart, one must place a slight asterisk next to the number. As the gross continues to climb -- possibly as high as $800 million domestic -- the argument will start to erode, but it will never be erased completely. The higher ticket prices are, in the end, a major factor in Avatar's ascendance.

But in my view, no single reason -- not the film's extraordinary technological innovation, not Cameron's pedigree, not even the 3-D ticket prices -- compare to the primary reason Avatar has become the money-making phenomenon of its time. That reason: release date.

In 2008, The Dark Knight became the second-highest domestic grosser of all-time and the first film to get within $100 million of Titanic's number. But in the climate in which it was released, it just wasn't feasible for the movie to reach the magic number of $600 million. Dark Knight bowed in July, in the heat of the Summer Movie Season. A new blockbuster every week, a new threat to the top of the box-office, and it still got closer to Titanic than any other film in history, up to that point. Now, there were ticket issues with that film too (IMAX mainly), but nothing like the issues with Avatar.

Avatar was released on December 18, 2009. Yeah, Sherlock Holmes followed one week later, but that was the only real blockbuster to ever enter the conversation against Cameron's behemoth. And now here we stand, in the thick of January Dump Season, when studios release most of their shelved crap because it might make enough to break even. In short, there is nothing to compete with Avatar's domination. And while the same was true of Titanic, that film ran for months....literally months. It was still at the top of the box-office in April '98 after its December '97 release. That's a stat even Avatar will never top. Titanic was one kind of phenomenon, and Avatar is another. Titanic was a phenomenon that defied the limitations of its generation; Avatar is a phenomenon that is defined by its limitless generation.

And I posit this with utmost assurance: Avatar would not become the highest all-time grosser -- domestic or worldwide -- if it were released in the summer.

Am I slinging mud or casting aspersions on the venerable Avatar legacy being formulated before our very eyes? Not at all. I have stated my respect for the film on every level -- it is the most innovative film of its time, and will be the most influential film of the new decade. Am I a Titanic apologist? Not in the slightest. I am analyzing the how's and why's of the film that, when the dust settles, will be the highest grosser ever, likely to stay atop the chart for just as long as Titanic did. The reasons why deserve to be discussed seriously.

Let's keep talking...