Here it is, folks.

A couple of mistakes on my list – An Education is not on the Best Pic list and Julie & Julia is.  Definitely swap the two.  I think Julie & Julia is a dark horse.  But who knows what I was thinking when I compiled mine to exclude An Education.  Thanks to Dominik for pointing it out.  Seriously, what good am I, as Bob Dylan would say.  To make matters worse,   I had forgotten to add Morgan Freeman on my Best Actor list and I do think he is going to be nominated – so please disregard his absence from my list.

Here is how it looks now:

Read the rest of this entry »

Indiewire’s Peter Knegt gets down to it with the locks and whatnot of this year’s race so far.  First he, then we…

Beyond that, I’d wager that there are roughly 17 films with something of a chance at the remaining 7 slots, some of them much better off than others (“An Education” and “Up,” for example, are looking pretty good right now).  It’s within the six films that few among us have seen – “Invictus,” “Nine,” “The Lovely Bones,” “Avatar,” “Brothers,” “It’s Complicated” – that this game could really change, though I have little confidence in the latter three.  As for the others… Simplistically put, they are this year’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Revolutionary Road” and “The Reader.” Films made for Oscar, and hyped as such from the second they start production.  But as we know from last year’s batch, not all of them end up making it work.

What should also be really interesting is what happens to the many films living on the brink here.  “A Serious Man,” “A Single Man,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Bright Star” – these are, let’s face it, films that would not stand stand a chance at the shortlist in a five-slot-year.  As a fan of all four, I think I’d forget my ten-slot apprehension if at least a couple of them ended up making the cut.  As far as things stand now, I’ve got one. Ranked in terms of likelihood, here’s my rundown:

Locks:
1. Up In The Air
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Precious

More after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rakish meets raucous. The more they tinker with these trailers, the more the movie feels tailored to exceed expectations. Maybe Holmes’ distinguished reputation survives the steampunk transformation intact and untarnished after all. Are we more excited yet?

Here’s a perplexing clue: Anthony Peckham, hot-property screenwriter of the moment, is responsible for loading both big guns for Warner Bros. this December: Sherlock Holmes and Invictus.

Just got back from a screening of A Christmas Carol.  Thought it was one of the weirdest, coolest, most unusual theatrical experiences of this year.  Thought it took very hefty balls to make a kids movie that was as dark and emotionally complex as the Dickens story.  Somehow I knew, though, that when I started looking around at the reviews I would find a handful of wet blankets ready to remove all of my fun.  And lo, a 55 rating at Metacritic.

At least a couple of them, Owen Gleiberman and Roger Ebert, liked it as much as I did.  I can say this about the movie: it is way ahead of its time.  I know I keep saying this over and over again about the movies I like that the groupthink doesn’t, but in this case I really do believe this film will be rediscovered by less grumpy people as time goes by.

I think to appreciate the movie, though, you have to be digging on the special effects, namely the 3-D.  I think it is as good and as enjoyable probably without the glasses, but with them – a whole new world unfolds.  This is digital effects as their most stunning.  Since I was greatly moved by Peter Jackson’s King Kong and David Fincher’s Benjamin Button, I think I have to dub myself a bit of an f/x geek.  Either way, I don’t know if it manages an Oscar nod or not, but this film is one of the best I’ve seen this year.  And I’m not afraid to go up against groupthink.  Just watch me.  See, not afraid.  Still not afraid.

Complicated? Looks simple enough to me.

Mariah Carey, Lee Daniels, Gabourey Sidibe & Paula Patton – Cannes Film Festival, May 15

“Nothing quite prepares you for the rough-cut diamond that is Precious. A rare blend of pure entertainment and dark social commentary, this shockingly raw, surprisingly irreverent and absolutely unforgettable story.” — LA Times, Betsy Sharkey

Climbing 21 points from yesterday’s low, currently looking very strong with a metascore of 78.

100 – Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman
100 – Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert
100 – Chicago Reader, J.R. Jones
100 – Wall Street Journal, Joe Morgenstern
90 – The New York Times, A.O. Scott
90 – NPR, Bob Mondello
90 – Los Angeles Times, Betsy Sharkey
88 – Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips
88 – ReelViews, James Berardinelli
88 – Rolling Stone, Peter Travers

Numbers like this from publications like those pretty much make any score lower than 50 irrelevant.

Cahiers asks: “Is this the first U.S. poster for Nine?”
Sheriff Bell: “If it ain’t it’ll do til one gets here.”

:::: SPOILER ALERT :::: MAJOR SPOILERS AFTER 03:00 :::: & NSFW ::::

:::: SPOILER ALERT :::: MAJOR SPOILERS AFTER 03:00 :::: & NSFW ::::

:::: PLEASE NOTE ::::  This is an extended  promo reel intended only to be shown to prospective distributors, and it spills way more information about the plot that a normal trailer ought to.   It’s safe to watch the first 3 minutes, but if you don’t already know the twists and jolts from the Jim Thompson novel, then you’re going to find out more than you wanted to know past 03:00.

With those caveats out of the way, let it be said that as much as this promo reel reveals, it’s only the beginning of the depravity in this seriously twisted tale. From the back cover of the novel:

“Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered.” –Stanley Kubrick

Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he’s a little slow and a little boring. But, then, most people don’t know about the sickness–the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again.

An underground classic since its publication in 1952, The Killer Inside Me is the book that made Jim Thompson’s name synonymous with the roman noir.

Didn’t even know this was in production until Brad Brevett posted this promo reel at RoS today. Killer cast with a couple of names that might raise eyebrows but who seem to me perfect for the pulp vibe: Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Ned Beatty, Bill Pullman and Elias Koteas. This, along with William Monahan’s London Boulevard (starring Keira Knightley, Colin Farrell, Ray Winstone, and David Thewlis) should have any noir aficionado’s pulse pounding.

(click to enlarge)

Some grumblings around the web today on the release of the poster for A Single Man, as a few seem to think the poster wants us to believe the characters played by Colin Firth and Julianne Moore are in bed together.

The stills and screenshots from the film show that this pose follows a waltz around the living room in formal attire. Though the patterns and textures have been photoshopped for a cleaner graphic simplicity, there’s no mistaking the shape of those throw pillows for bed pillows. If this were meant to depict a heterosexual tryst, I don’t know how many straight couples jump into bed fully clothed with their eyeglasses and earrings still on.

The relationship between Firth and Moore is a pivotal source of drama in the book, so it’s only natural that a star of her stature would be featured in promo material. I don’t see anybody suggesting that side-by-side heads in 40 other posters this year are all sleeping together. Is a sofa pillow really that erotic for some people? Nope, much ado about nothing, like so many other manufactured “controversies” in the silly season.

Click here for the full-size poster, if you won’t get too turned on. Replay the trailer after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oscar season has a way of sweeping out the old to make way for the new.  This is really simply understood as award fatigue, an affliction caught by some as they keep sifting through the same old pile of films.  Naturally this would lend itself to the kind of breaking news that may or may not mean something — but it is notable and noticeable because everyone battles the same affliction.  In the end, the illness wears off.  It usually takes one full year for awards junkies to look back and think, wow, how did THAT happen?

Read the rest of this entry »

Reaching out to the various journalists and bloggers who write up the awards race reveals wise minds, and love of cinema.  The fact is, this isn’t an actual roundtable – it’s a q&a sent out to various people whose opinions I value.   I don’t think any of these writers would be doing what they do if they didn’t love movies.  This is really what drives the whole Oscar watching business.  Sure, it is about money, too, and it’s about the allure of being right, but underneath it all it’s the movies, stupid.

The participants are:

Ryan Adams, Awards Daily
Damien Bona, Inside Oscar
Brad Brevet, Rope of Silicon
Edward Douglas, Coming Soon
Gregory Ellwood, Hitfix
Scott Feinberg, And The Winner is
Pete Hammond, LA Times Envelope
Craig Kennedy, Living in Cinema
Tom O’Neil, The Envelope
Steve Pond, The Wrap
AJ Schnack, All These Wonderful Things
Kris Tapley, In Contention
Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today
Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, seems like every time I turn around someone else is emailing me a bad Precious review.  I get it, there is already awards fatigue and the films haven’t even opened yet.  There is desperation in the air, no doubt about it, and there will continue to be until both shoes drop safely but firmly on the ground.   Owen Gleiberman says this about Precious in his grade A review:

Precious comes to the attention of a welfare counselor, played by Mariah Carey with an authentically deglammed compassion, and once she’s in the class, she starts to wake up. These episodes aren’t the usual inspirational claptrap; they’re about troubled girls striving, and often failing, to turn themselves around. The more Precious tries to get away from her mother, the more she’s pulled back, and the final scene of revelation between them will leave you tearful, shaken, dazed with pity and terror. Precious captures how a lost girl rouses herself from the dead, and Daniels shows unflinching courage as a filmmaker by going this deep into the pathologies that may still linger in the closets of some impoverished inner-city lives. Precious is a film that makes you think, ”There but for the grace of God go I.” It’s a potent and moving experience, because by the end you feel you’ve witnessed nothing less than the birth of a soul.

So, here’s the deal, maybe if both Kenneth Turan and Manohla Dargis beat the film to a pulp it is still going to have a chance with Oscar – there are just some movies you don’t turn away from.