After yesterday’s action-oriented domestic trailer for Green Zone, we now have the substantially improved international cut — more serious, more provocative, more relevant. As we’re tempted to make comparisons to The Hurt Locker or Body of Lies, let’s not forget that the job of those movies is to fictionalize reality, while Greengrass is telling...
Monthly Archives: October 2009
Screen Daily reports some details: Jury chair Anjelica Huston said of France’s foreign-language Academy Award submisison: “A masterpiece, Un Prophete has the ambition, purity of vision and clarity of purpose to make it an instant classic. With seamless and imaginative story-telling, superb performances and universal themes, Jacques Audiard has made a perfect...
Not to be outdone by yesterday’s trailers from 2 major mid-winter movies (Shutter Island and Green Zone), the 3rd important off-season release of 2010 comes out with another preview too. To my eye, there’s almost nothing new here that we didn’t already see in July — but the shots are edited together in different order, and the crowd reaction at...
Steve Pond over at The Wrap decides to figure out if there is any Oscar love available for the new Michael Jackson money grab documentary, This is It: Makeup: Let’s see – the AMPAS definition is “any change in the appearance of a performer’s face, hair or body created by the application of cosmetics, three-dimensional materials, prosthetic appliances,...
As fascinating as Shutter Island looks, are we beginning to understand why it might be a less likely Oscar candidate than two other major Paramount productions this season? If it becomes a classic of Gothic horror next February then its thrills will last long enough to see it nominated appropriately in 2010. If it’s simply a great time at the movies from a director...
Now that we’ve gotten a look at Invictus, it is a reminder that the Big Oscar Movies are warming up on the runway. And in the next few weeks, these films will be seen and discussed, for better or worse. If all goes well, the last remaining films will make up the bulk of the Best Picture frontrunners. But with ten slots, that leaves many openings for films that have...
UPDATE: Thanks to Alex Billington at FirstShowing for letting us borrow the embeddable trailer. No embed yet, but you can see it here in various QuickTime sizes. The months of blind speculation are over. Now that we can get a solid feel for the style and tone of the film, I’m happy to say it looks as polished and inspiring as anything we might have hoped for. ...
Opening March 12 — five days after the Oscar broadcast. Despite their late-Winter release dates, Shutter Island and Green Zone promise to be major Oscar contenders next year. It’ll be great for a change to have some healthy meat on the 1st quarter menu, to help stave off that sugar crash we usually feel in the weeks following Oscar. ...
I don’t get this thing about Mo’Nique hurting her Oscar chances by not upping her profile. I really don’t like the negativity floating around about her — based on what? She supposedly only shows up if she gets paid? She appeared recently on CBS’ Sunday Morning in a segment about weight (she’s lost 40 pounds). I think she’s pretty...
LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein believes that the choice of the genius Ricky Gervais (and AD’s number one choice to host the Oscars) has now given all of the heat to the Globes where there otherwise wouldn’t be any. Here’s Goldstein: Until today, the Golden Globes broadcast has always felt vaguely tacky, the award show equivalent of network stunt casting,...