In his first scene as Sgt. William James in Kathryn Bigelow’s much acclaimed The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner is sitting on his bed with a cigarette in hand listening to loud heavy metal music. Like the music he listens to, James is stimulated by danger all around him.  As an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) specialist in the Iraq War, James has a swagger in...
Monthly Archives: March 2010
To me, there are a few races that seem to bob up more often than not. It does seem like once the Oscars get underway on March 7, it will be easy to tell if it is going to be a sweep, or the awards will be split up all over the place, and if it is a sweep, which film did they like the best? We still don’t know. We know the Globes liked Avatar. The Guilds and BAFTAs...
For a while there, it looked like a few people thought Inglourious Basterds would be the film to beat. Jack Matthews was one of those out front. But he has had a change of heart. This, in the wake of Basterds not making a major show in the guilds probably. It has won a Sound Effects Editing Award, a Critics Choice for Screenplay and a SAG ensemble win. Avatar has done...
We hear today that the Chilean earthquake set off strings of aftershocks around the world and knocked the planet 3 inches off its normal axis. No seismic rumbles warn us of any significant shift in the off-kilter tilt of the Academy’s Foreign Language Film committee. Our friend Craig Kennedy at Living in Cinema takes a look at the committee’s options, running...