Oscar nomination predictions, 2011

This year’s Oscar nominations arrive this Tuesday, so my predictions arrive now. As I usually do, I ask readers to bear in mind a couple of very important principles.

Nobody Knows Anything: I like to think I'm pretty good at predicting the Oscars, but they almost always throw in at least one loopy surprise that throws me. I've given up on trying to predict such loopy surprises, because I'm not good at that. So generally speaking, my predictions err on the side of safety.

Deserve's Got Nothin' to Do With It: Never, ever, ever use "It was so good" as your rationale for predicting tricker Oscar nominations. More often than not, you just end up looking silly. You start with your favorites and use reasonable guesswork from there. So here's the best of my guesswork.


BEST PICTURE

1. Black Swan
2. The Fighter
3. Inception
4. The Kids are All Right
5. The King’s Speech
6. 127 Hours
7. The Social Network
8. The Town
9. Toy Story 3
10. True Grit

Alternates: Winter’s Bone, Blue Valentine

In the end I felt safest going with the Producers Guild nominations. The shakiest best are 127 Hours and The Town, but I include it because it's the kind of classical storytelling the Academy likes. 127 Hours has faded from view, but I ultimately include it because Franco's performance is SO  central to it, and that performance is not in dispute.



BEST ACTOR

Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Robert Duvall, Get Low
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

Alternates:

Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine
Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter



Frith and Franco are locks, Bridges and Eisenberg very likely, fifth spot is the trickiest. I went with Duvall esentially because, well - he's Duvall. Bardem is gaining heat and is the likeliest spoiler.

BEST ACTRESS

Anette Bening, The Kids are All Right
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine


Alternates:

Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole

Lesley Manville, Another Year

Julianne Moore, The Kids are All Right

Portman, Bening and Lawrence are in for sure. But I'm going out on a limb a bit with this category. I think those who see True Grit will realize that Steinfeld is the lead. It's HER story.
Her character is in EVERY scene. So even though she's being pushed in supporting, I think, the Academy will recognize category fraud, just as they did with Keisha Castle Hughes in Whale rider. If Steinfeld goes to supporting, sub Kidman, although she's shaky because Rabbit Hole just hasn't built up much heat. I'm rooting for Moore to pull an upset, though. I liked her better than Bening.






BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
Christian Bale, The Fighter
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids are All Right




Alternates:


Matt Damon, True Grit
John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
Justin Timberlake, The Social Network


Bale, Garfield and Rush are your best bets, I go with Renner because he's well liked in a well liked film, and with Ruffalo who is grossly overdue for a nomination.







BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helana Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom


Alternates:



Barbara Hershey, Black Swan
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Dainne Weist, Rabbit Hole


Amy, Bonham Carter and Leo are in, and I feel very comfortable with Kunis, who has gained traction. That leaves slot five up for grabs, and I think Weaver is the most likely spoiler.




BEST DIRECTOR



Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David O. Russel, The Fighter



Alternates:
Danny Boyle, 127 Hours
The Coen Brothers, True Grit




Sticking with the DGA noms seems pretty safe.





BEST ANIMATED FILM



How to Train Your Dragon
Tangled
Toy Story 3


Alternates:

Despicable Me
The Illusionist



There will only be three nominees this year. Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon are secure. Tangled is vulnerable, but I'm sticking with it because it generated a lot of goodwill as a return to form for Disney. 


Remainder of the picks after the jump

A tale of two trailers - No Strings Attached

January 21, 2011

No Strings Attached opens today, and I'm quite eager to see it - especially because of the way it's been sold.

If you've only seen the green-band trailer - the one made for general audiences, you could be forgiven for thinking it looks fairly slight and  innocuous. Witness:




But then Paramount put out the Red-Band trailer - the one that can only play before R-rated movies. Take a gander at THIS, with the warning that it's NSFW:




Makes a world of difference, doesn't it? The red-band trailer actually made me laugh, while the green trailer only kinda made me chuckle.

So it distresses me a bit to see that the reviews are mixed. And in light of these trailers, I'm particularly intrigued by Roger Ebert's comments:

The movie is rated R, but it's the most watery R I've seen. It's more of a PG-13 playing dress-up.

I'm also mindful that the film's director, Ivan Reitman, has been off his game for a number of years. He's gone from great entertainment such as Ghostbusters and Dave,  to piffle such as Father's Day and My Super-Ex Girlfriend. I was kind of hoping his son's influence had rubbed off on him. Jason Reitman has directed Thank You for Smoking, Juno, and the best film of last year, Up in the Air. Given the reviews of No Strings Attached , maybe not.

Still, I will definitely see the film. For one thing, the suddenly ubiquitous Ms.Portman is always worth watching, even if her movies aren't. Most importantly, it could make for a really interesting He Said/She Said review with my colleage Hannah Poturalski.

And as Leonard Maltin puts it in his review of the film.

I do wish all these talented people had produced a more original, or memorable, film, but it is January, after all. We shouldn't expect miracles.

The Green Hornet Dilemma

January 18, 2011

Combining the titles of the two movies I've seen in a theater most recently isn't just a matter of me being clever. There really is sort of a dilemma here, because the films kind of confounded me. The Dilemma came in below my expectations, while The Green Hornet actually somewhat exceeded them.

The Dilemma

I knew going in The Dilemma might be a problem. The reviews came in soft, and I was suspicious that a Ron Howard film was being released in January, which is usually a quality graveyard. Still, it IS Howard - can it be THAT bad?

Actually, yes, it  can. This is the rare Ron Howard film that is not only a misfire, but is actively unpleasant.

The ads sell the movie as a comedy, but it's only comedic in spurts. Long stretches of it are actually serious and sobering, as the story shows what happens when Vince Vaughn realizes that his best friend's wife is cheating on him. and he doesn't know how - or even if - he should tell his friend (Kevin James).

That storyline and of itself isn't the prolem, it's the shifts in tone around it. The dilemma becomes so dire that when Howard tries to let off the gas and bring a little comedy into the movie, it's jarring.

My colleague Hannah Potrualski liked the movie, making this one of our rare (so far) splits. She acknowledges Howard has made much better movies, like Frost/Nixon and A Beautiful Mind. But she also said:

All this drama was balanced fairly well with the comedic moments. It was refreshing to have a “serious comedy.” There aren’t too many of them around. It makes the drama easier to handle and the silly moments more tangible.

The cast can't be faulted. This is one of Vaughn's better performances - one where he doesn't just crack wise but actually has to show some emotional range, and he does it well. Ditto Kevin James, who reminds us he's actually better than most of the dum-dum Adam Sandler-produced comedies he's in.  And it's especially nice to see Winona Ryder continue her hike on the comeback trail, with some of her strongest acting in years. As Hannah amusingly put it.

Winona Ryder was good in the film and is definitely making a bit of a comeback, with Black Swan as well — whether I like it or not. She does play bitch well. 

Alas, Jennifer Connelly is somewhat wasted in an underwritten part, and Hannah agrees with me on that.

Still, it isn't just Connelly - the movie as a whole manages to feel overdone and half baked at the same time. As written by Allan Loeb, the drama is too intense, and the comedy isn't funny enough to alleviate it.  At one point during the movie, one character absolutely wallops the other - and I felt like The Dilemma sucker-punched me.


GRADE: C


(Viewed 1/16 at Rave Motion Pictures at the Greene)

The Green Hornet

The Dilemma may have stung me, but The Green Hornet did not - and I mean that as a compliment. 

As was the case with the Dilemma, the reviews came in negative, but the film ended up entertaining me, if not quite delighting me. 

Once again, we're faced with the odd sitauton of a seemingly A-production coming out in Janauary. This time there's a reason for it. The filmmakers decided late in the game to convert the film to 3D, after they had completed principal photography.

In most cases like that, (Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender) the resuilts have been allegedly disastrous, but Green Hornet took a somewhat different tact - the visual effects, added in post, WERE specifically designed for 3D. And they work rather well. 

That's partly why The Green Hornet actually comes off better as an action flick than a comedy. Director Michel Gondry certainy isn't working on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind level here, but he's clearly having fun with visual devices like split screens, and he stages the action well. A climactic car chase/shoot-out INSIDE a newspaper building is especially inventive. I never thought I'd see rolling presses interpolated into an action scene, but thank goodness Gondry did. 

Hannah enjoyed the movie as well, but she is far less tolerant of action than I. She writes:

The film’s action scenes were highly scripted but in an interesting way. Chou’s supreme mental and fighting skills were so good and the viewer got a little glimpse into how his mind worked. But the scenes were just over-the-top in a way that I absolutely hate. Hence, why I rarely see action films — I have little to no suspension of disbelief. I saw the film in IMAX 3-D which really heightened the action scenes but otherwise was not noticeable.

The action is exciting well enough that it's disappointing the comedy falls somewhat flat. The chief downfall is its lead, Seth Rogen, who also co-wrote the film with his Superbad writing partner, Evan Goldberg. Rogen's shtick of a rowdy layabout has worn out its welcome and become grating. So it's a good thing that Jay Chou mitigates Rogen with a fun turn as Kato, the role made famous by Bruce Lee. I only wish Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) and Cameron Diaz hadn't been used mainly as exprssive props.

As far as superhero movies, one can do worse than The Green Hornet. One can do better too. Hopefully, this summer's Green Lantern will fall in the latter category. 

GRADE: B-

Hannah's complete review of both films. 

(Viewed 1/18/11 at Showcase Cinemas de lux) 

Golden Globes reactions

January 16, 2011

Presented in the order of um ... presentation:

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter - Not only did he execute his usual transformative  work flawlessly, but he may also be transforming his image so that people like him again. He's the man to beat for the Oscar.

Best Original Score: The Social Network: Hooray for non-traditional work by multiple composers! That's probably a death knell for its Oscar chances, so I was thrilled to see Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross get their due. I would have voted for Hans Zimmer's propulsive Inception score, but no complaints. And the Social Network is great workout music to boot!

Best Original Song: Zzzzz ... something .... zzz .... Cher .... zzzz Diane Warren ... zzzz ... schlock.

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3. Duh.


Best Actress. Comedy: All hail Annette Bening in The Kids are All Right, but I would have preferreed her partner, Juliane Moore. I would have preferred Emma Stone in Easy A even Moore. Er, more.

Best Screenplay, The Social Network: Never saw that coming. And if you believe that, Mark Zuckerberg is a panhandler.

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter.  I actually didn't recognize her at first, which says a lot about her ability. Naturally, I would have preferred her co-star to win - some chick named Amy - but recognition will come her way soon. It's just a matter of time.

(An aside - Megan Fox got to introduce The Tourist. Is that cosmically appropriate or what?)

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network. Few directors out there have a better eye and sense of rhythm than he does.

Best Actor: Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version: Have to take this one on faith, as I've not seen the film, but Giamiatti was good even in a POS like Lady in the Water. Why not?

Best Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan: She was perfect.

Best Picture, Musical/Comedy: The Kids are All Right, of course. Any other winner would have been an embarrassment.

Best Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech: Inspiring.

Best Picture, Drama: The Social Network, bitch. Yeah, I would have preferred Inception. But I'll tell you this much. When it comes to your Oscar pool, bet against The Social Network at your peril.

Rooney Mara IS Lisbeth Salander?

The first pictures of Rooney Mara in full Lisbeth Salander regalia were published Wednesday. Color me intrigued.

I think the look strikes just the right balance. It's faithful to the look Noomi Rapace created in the original films, and yet it's different enough to suggest that Rooney will be her own animal.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think it's because she looks somewhat younger than Rapace did, suggesting more of a tarnished soul underneath a pierced exterior.

It's not just the look that sells me, though. It's Mara's performance in The Social Network.

That may seem strange considering she's in the movie for all of 15 minutes, if that. That may be true in terms of screen time - but her character is everywhere in that film,

As The Social Network tells it, Mara's character, Erica Albright, was the motivating force behind the creation of Facebook. And every time Mark Zuckerberg thinks of her, it only increases his already formidable drive to make himself the winner of whatever game he plays. And the pitch-perfect ending drives home just how critical Mara's work was in the film.

It helps, of course, that David Fincher directed The Social Network and will direct The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Fincher has rarely stepped wrong, and I trust in his skill and judgment. And Mara already has me hooked.

Through the lens of a cinematography geek

January 11, 2011

The American Society of Cinematographers (that's what ASC stands for) has announced its nominees for its year-end award. I know this isn't a big deal to most people, but this is my favorite technical category. For those not in the know, the cinematographer is the camera chief - the man chiefly responsible for the lighting of a picture. 

I am a geek overall, but that's especially true when it comes to cinematographers. I know that field very well. I can spot the styles of certain DP's (that's directors of photography). I can name every cinematographer Martin Scorsese ever worked with from Mean Streets forward without looking at IMDB. I can also list all the DP's who have worked for James Cameron and Steven Spielberg.

Here's a demonstration, with some trivia about this year's nominees.

Danny Cohen, The King's Speech

Well, maybe Cohen isn't a good place to start. I'm least familiar with his work. And with all due respect, the nomination surprises me a bit. Cohen did good work, to be sure, but I would have much preferred to see Robert Richardson's work in Shutter Island nominated.

(Richardson at left, with Scorsese on Shutter Island)

Jeff Cronenweth, The Social Network

Croneweith has worked with Fincher before, having shot Fight Club. He is the son of esteemed cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth, who shot Blade Runner. Jordon briefly worked for Fincher, having started Alien 3 before he fell ill and had to withdraw. Some of his work remains in the film, which was completed by Alex Thomson.

Cronenweth in foreground

Roger Deakins, True Grit

It's my guess that Deakins will be the one who will go on to win this year's Oscar - he's grossly overdue for one. In addition to shooting most of the Coens' films, he also shot The Shawshank Redemption and Kundun, among many others. He also served as a lighting consultant on both WALL-E and How to Train Your Dragon.

Deakins with Joel Coen

Matthew Libatique, Black Swan

Libatique has worked primarily with director Darren Aronofsky, but he also has some big-budget credits, incluidng both Iron Man movies. If I had a vote, Libatique would get it - I loved his combination of gritty realism and nighmarish visions. 

Wally Pfister, Inception

Pfister has shot every film by Christopher Nolan, save Following, which was shot by Nolan himself. He pulled a particulary neat trick with Inception, shooting some of the scenes (I suspect the snow ones) in 70 MM - something very rarely done anymore.

Pfister at left, with Nolan

The DGA noms - the HDTV squash n' stretch

January 10, 2011

The DGA noms were announced Monday.  The nominees are:


Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David Fincher, The Social Network
Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
Christopher Nolan, Inception
David O. Russell, The Fighter

All five nominees are deserving, most especially Mr. Nolan. And he could win, but The Social Network has collected just about every critic's award under the sun, and I have a growing feeling that this is Fincher's year. And what's wrong with that, as the song once said?

The surprise for most people here was the omission of the Coens for True Grit. And they could still make Oscar's cut, supplanting Russell. Both fir the profile of auteur directors that the Academy likes, but the Coens have a longer resume and are more highly regarded. I'm betting they get in with Oscar.
------

I was going to write about Exit Through the Gift Shop, which I watched on Sunday, but as the owner of a new HDTV, I feel compelled to speak out on a GIANT pet peeve of mine - people's insistence on "stretching" the picture to fill the TV frame.

This drives me NUTS , because it makes movies, especially old movies,  look terrible. A little education is in order here.

Movies come in 3 basic shapes. The first of these is the 1.33: 1 ratio, what's called the "Academy" ratio. Almost every movie made before the 1950s fit into this shape, which was a very modest rectangle and was the size of standard definition TVs. Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and Singin in the Rain, to name a mere three, are examples.

Then there's the 1.85: 1 ratio, which came out in the 50s. This is about the size that HDTV's are now. Movies made this way include North by Northwest, E.T. and A Christmas Story, to be somewhat seasonal.

Finally, there's the 2.35: 1 ratio, or what's called Scope. Movies made this way include How to Marry a Millionaire, all the Star Wars movies, and Inception. HDTV's slightly letterbox Scope films, with small, unobtrusive black bars on the top and bottom.  Here's a comparison:

Blessedly, movies made in 1.85: 1 and 2.35: 1 typically don't suffer on HDTVs. But oh, the horrors that are done to 1.33: 1 movies. Here's a prime example:

This is the best musical of all time, Singin' in the Rain. The bottom frame is how it's supposed to look, with the bars on either side. This is the way Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen meant for us to see it. See how naturally proportioned the faces are, even with Donald O' Conner contorting his?

The middle image is zoomed in, which doesn't look horrible to me, but still isn't right. It's the top image that's the atrocity. 

Frustratingly, so many people feel they have to "stretch" the image to fill the frame which makes the actors look like linebackers, or like they had really horrible facelifts. Or maybe they're auditioning for Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Whatever the case, it defeats the whole purpose of HDTV - to make the image look better. 

It's even worse when cable channels stretch the images on their own. AMC-HD is an egregious offender of this. They were showing John Ford's Fort Apache the other day. Fort Apache was NOT shot in widescreen. Yet AMC felt compelled to make it that way.

It's worse still when HD channels take a cropped version of a movie, like say, The Godfather, like the one that would get shown on a standard-def TV. Then, they stretch THAT image to fill the frame. It's comically, egregiously WRONG. 

I know some HDTVs have a mode that only stretches the outer image of the picture, keeping the center relatively intact. That looks kinda-sorta OK - unless the camera moves, in which people and objects on the outer edge of the frame  look like they're reflected in funhouse mirrors. This page explains the various modes pretty well. 

To my eyes, there's nothing fun about this. Whatever the case, it defeats the whole purpose of HDTV - to make the image look better. 

Let me put it this way. If Francis Ford Coppola came to your house and watched a cropped/stretched print of The Godfather, he'd probably shit his pants. And if you ask me, that's even worse than waking up next to a horse's head in your bed. 

PS - I know some plasma HDTV owners are concerned about the issue of a 4:3 picture causing "burn-in." This page addresses that issue. 

REVIEW: Tron Legacy

To say that Tron: Legacy repeats history by being all visuals, no story. is to say very little. People who aren't overly affected by the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia know this was true of the 1982 original - but those people love it all the same. 

I strongly suspect, however, that when people talk about Tron: Legacy 28 years from now, they won't be viewing it through the nostalgia glasses. If anything, it'll be 3D glasses.

The new movie delivers pretty much what I expected: a tremendous visual kick. It looks great, and director Joseph Kosinski stages the action scenes with flair. A chase with flying vehicles is dazzling, and Kosinski wisely shot the movie with 3D cameras. The added depth doesn't have quite the wow factor of Avatar, but it's one of the rare instances where the third dimension is actually worth the three extra bucks. 

Tron: Legacy, like its predecessor, falls short in the story department, but it's not because there's "no story." It's because the movie takes itself far too seriously. 

What made the original Tron so much fun  was that it was simultaneously ahead of its time and very much of its time. For all its groundbreaking use of computer animation, Tron still had that Disney cheesiness that was typical of the period. It's not as dorky as one of the Herbie movies or The Cat from Outer Space, but Tron has more in common with those films than most geeks would like to admit. 

Although Tron: Legacy is skillfully made, I missed that lightness of touch. The almost always vibrant Jeff Bridges adds some pizazz to the movie, but not enough to make it more than merely good. The original Tron was something special. Tron: Legacy is just another action movie that's solid but not exceptional on the whole.

GRADE: B

(Seen 1/4/11 at Showcase Cinemas Springdale in IMAX 3D).

PS - I saw the film with Hannah Poturalski, who is working on her own review. For now, I've gone back and added her viewpoint to my reviews of Black Swan and True Grit. 

The Book of Eli/Uuhhh ....

January 9, 2011

The Book of Eli (2010: The Hughes Brothers): The Hughes' Brothers long-awaited return to narrative filmmaking is not a return to form. In fact, it's the weakest movie they've made. In addition to being dour and draggy, it's not even technically accomplished. The picture has been digitally processed out the wazoo, and the movie appears to have been shot through unflushed toilet water. A vibrant performance by Mila Kunis and a couple decent action scenes provide what few spurts of life the movie has. GRADE: C

I also received the Blu-Ray of one of the best movies of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as a late Christmas present. In a word ... WOW. The picture is breathtaking and the sound has a presence I've never heard at home before. Can't compare to seeing the movie on the big screen in 70 MM (the way it was shot), but this is easily the next best thing. And sadly, it may be the ONLY thing readily available since 70 MM screenings of any movie are hard to come by. 

I watched the excellent documentary Exit Through the Gift shop this weekend, and I'll offer more on that later. For the moment, though, the movie has inspired me to someday begin a review with the word "Uuuhhh ...." 

Hmmm. Maybe I SHOULD see the third Transformers film. 

Classic Takes: Blue Skies/The Lion in Winter/TCM books

January 8, 2011

Blue Skies (1946, Stuart Heiser): Watched this in hi-def from TCM because I was curious about what is probably the least well known of the three Astaire/Crosby team-ups. It's not a patch on the prior classic, Holiday Inn, but it's actually better than the overrated and better known White Christmas, cheifly because of two great musical numbers. In "Puttin' on the Ritz," Astaire dances with multiple images of himself, while Astaire and Crosby team up wonderfully in "A Couple of Song and Dance Men," which is a hilarious take on the fact that Fred was a great dancer and Bing had two left feet. GRADE: B

The Lion in Winter (1968, Anthony Harvey) : This semi-sequel to 1964's Beckett, in which Peter O'Toole also played King Henry II, gets most of its juice from watching O'Toole and the great Kate duke it out in a war of wits. However, it also has a number of smaller pleasures, such as a fine film debut from a commanding Anthony Hopkins, and a surprisingly vivid take on French King Phillip II, played by a very young James Bond - er, Timothy Dalton. GRADE: A

TCM Books 

Having received the Turner Classic Movies book Leading Ladies as a Christmas present, I also purchased the companion books, Leading Men and Leading Couples. I'll post in more detail later about the folks included/excluded, but I have to say right off the bat that TCM made a rare grave error by leaving Shirley Temple out of Leading Ladies. No, her acting career didn't amount to much after she hit puberty, but simply put, she was THE biggest movie star of the 1930s, of any gender or height. When Entertainment Weekly put together a similar list that also included contemporary stars, they put Temple in, as they jolly well should have. With all due respect to the ladies I'm about to name, Temple deserves a place in the book over Susan Hayward or Ann Sheridan.  Shame.

Still, the books are a very fun read, most especially Leading Couples. They give vital stats for each couple, as well as key quotes. This comes into play very nicely indeed when the couple is Fay Wray and King Kong.

Fay Wray 

BORN 

Vina Fay Wray 

September 15, 1907

Cardston, Alberta Canada

DIED 

August 8, 2004

New York, New York

Natural causes.

STAR SIGN 

Virgo

HEIGHT

5' 3"

HUSBANDS and CHILDREN

Writer John Mark Saunders

(1928-1938) divorced.

Daughter Susan Carey

Writer Robert Riskin (who wrote most of Capra's great screenplays) 

(1942-1955) his death

Son Robert Jr. 

Daughter Victoria

Brain surgeon Sanfard Rothenberg

(1971-1991) his death

King Kong

BORN 

Kong (Megaprimatus Kong)

August 1927

Skull Island

DIED

March 7, 1933

New York, New York

Bullet wounds and a fall

STAR SIGN

Leo

HEIGHT

18'-24' (depending on the shot)

WIFE and CHILD

Unknown mate

Son

KEY QUOTE

Kong: GRAWWWWRRRR!

Wray: AAAAAAAAAAHH!

A New Year, a new format: Diary of a Cinemaniac

I've often thumbed my nose at New Year's Resolutions. All resolutions do is give you something to break and then make you hate yourself for doing so.

No, instead I make New Year's Wishes. Wishes imply no obligation. They simply express a desire and a hope for something better. My wishes for this blog are three-fold: To do something new and fresh (at least for me), to increase posts, and hopefully increase my readership. I saw that I wrote 164 posts last year, and I really ought to be doing more than that, to maintain interest both for myself, and for you.

Then a projector bulb flickered on over my head. (We movie geeks think visually.)  Contrary to popular belief, I don't see a movie every single day. But I do something movie-related every day, whether that's seeing a movie, reading a movie news story, or even having a fun movie conversation with someone. That being the case, what I'll do is write this blog in a diary format.

Mind you, I will still write reviews of movies in theaters, and I will definitely continue the He Said/She Said reviews I've been doing with my Cox colleague, Hannah Poturalski. I'll still predict the Oscars, opine on  trailers and all that fun stuff. I'm just repurposing the content.

It will look something like this. Entires will typically be a bit longer than what I've posted here.  - consider this Condensed Cream of Criticism.

Jan. 1, 2010

Bells Are Ringing (Vincente Minnelli, 1960): Not the finest hour of Vincente Minnelli, Arthur Freed or Comden and Green, but still quite charming all the same, with a winning lead performance by Judy Holliday, in her swan song. GRADE: B




Jan. 2, 2010

Flipped (Rob Reiner, 2010): The first movie I started watching in 2011 is the best movie no one saw in 2010. It's also a return to form for Rob Reiner, with this being his best film since The American President. Give this one a try. You won't be sorry. GRADE: A

All Good Things (Andrew Jarecki, 2010): A quite intriguing mystery/drama, powered by an excellent performance from Kirsten Dunst. When she disappears from the last third of the film, however, the movie slides off the rails as it becomes too bizarre and moody. Still very much worth a look. GRADE: B




January 3. 2011


(Insert thoughtful tribute to Pete Postlethwaite here)


Jan. 4. 2011


Sir Critic returns to the newspaper with a look ahead at 2011's movies!


Jan. 5 2011


The PGA has announced its nominees. These could well be the 10 Oscar nominees too.


127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit

Also saw Tron Legacy (Joseph Kosinski 2010): a bit like the original – great visuals, iffy story. What makes it a clear step down from the original is it takes itself too seriously. As ahead of its time as the 1982 Tron was, it still had that Disney cheesiness that was typical of the period. I missed that sense of fun here. 


(Note: I will post a full He Said/She Said review of this later.)


Jan. 6, 2011


Black Swan continues to resonate in unexpected, funny ways. Had this conversation with a friend on Facebook.


Friend: (I saw) Black Swan. For the first time, not the 101st like you. ;-)


Me: So I have a thing for leotards. Sue me! ;)


Friend: Perfectly understandable. I think I may have a thing for several things I didn't necessarily have a thing for before, as a result of seeing that movie. :)


Me: Like Tchaikovsky, I'm sure.


Friend: ‎...if that's what you want to call it. ;-)


Me: ‎...if that's what you want to call it. ;-)


Other friend: Eric - only you could come up with a link from that movie to the Beatles.


Me: I gotta be me.


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Insular? Obsessively detailed? Well, yeah! Ya wanna make something of it?


In all seriousness, this is a work in progress. But let me know what you think. Meanwhile, I think I'll go free up some space on my clogged DVR ....