I always eagerly wait the announcement of the slate of films to play at Sundance, as it usually contains the next indie darling of next year. Each year at least one or two flicks from the festival have me fall in love with them, and I expect next year to be no exception. A few immediately jump out at me, but the whole lot looks pretty interesting so far. Here’s the list of films competing next year at the festival:
Up until the announcement of the New York Film Critics Awards, Brad Pitt had been fairly low on my radar in the Best Actor race. I thought perhaps a nomination for Moneyball might happen, maybe, a distant chance for a nod for The Tree of Life was a possibility. But a win this year? Not likely. Winning the Best Actor prize from the New York Film Critics Association propels Pitt into the thick of the Oscar race, and could land the popular actor his first Academy Award.
Now let’s be clear, I still believe George Clooney is the man to beat for the award, but Pitt is going to make it a race. Now that said, let’s never forget that the winner of the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actor has often gone on to be snubbed by the Academy entirely. Steve Martin in All of Me (1984) felt the sting of such a snub, as did Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers (1988). David Thewlis seethed his way through Naked (1993) to an awards from the critics, though no Oscar nomination, while the great Paul Giamatti won the award for his masterful work in Sideways (2004) only to be ignored by Oscar. So until the morning of the nominations, we know nothing. Read more on Pitt Leaps in the Oscar Race with Earnest…
Ellen Barkin Born: April 16th, 1954 Place: New York City, New York Major Awards and Citations: Blockbuster Entertainment Awards (1997): Won Best Supporting Actress for ‘The Fan’
Chicago Film Critics Association (1990): Nominee for Best Actress for ‘Sea of Love’ and Best Supporting Actress for ‘Johnny Handsome’
Golden Globe Awards (1992): Nominee for Best Actress in a Leading Role- Musical or Comedy for ‘Switch’ Oscar Snubs: ‘Sea of Love’ (1989) and ‘Switch’ (1991)
Sam Levinson loves to talk about Ellen Barkin. The writer/director of ‘Another Happy Day’ has done nothing but rave about her every time he and I have spoken, and it’s easy to see why he does this. She’s a supremely talented actress who sometimes just isn’t in material worth her salt. It’s surprising to think that she’s never been nominated for an Oscar, but she hasn’t, which merits inclusion in our Under the Circuit series. Things might be changing this year (anyone who read my Early Review of ‘Another Happy Day’ knows that already, but in case you don’t, you can read it here), so what better time than now to explore her career? I’m going to do something slightly different this time around (consider it an experiment if you will) with the piece. Instead of just chronologically going through her filmography and commenting, I’ll be grouping her performances together into a few categories. Hopefully this is a different way of doing things that you all appreciate, and something I can do from time to time in this series to keep things fresh. In any event, it’s still Under the Circuit, so you know what we’re about to do. The only thing left is to do it. Read more on Under the Circuit: Ellen Barkin…
Just a few weeks ago, no one was really talking Hugo (2011) or Martin Scorsese as threats in the Oscar race, but after the film’s release, and the excellent reviews it has been getting…it is now a very real part of the Oscar race, and a genuine threat to play spoiler to the films most discussed for Best Film. While The Descendants, The Artist, and War Horse remain the films most likely to win that Best Picture Oscar, Hugo should not be counted out. Over at Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored 96% with critics, 87% with audiences, each terrific and more than indicative of the fact the film is a success with both critics and audiences. Add into the mix it is a brilliant picture, directed by a modern master, and suddenly the odds of Hugo getting into the race and perhaps winning, become a whole lot brighter.
Polanski handles comedy well in his newest "Carnage"…
Roman Polanski has created some of the most heart-wrenching and prolific films of the past four decades. In his newest film, Carnage, Polanski examines two couples as they discuss an altercation between their two children all in real time. Alan (Christoph Waltz) and Nancy (Kate Winslet), married with their son, have a hard time communicating between Alan’s pharmaceutical business and Nancy’s constant abrupt illnesses. Penelope (Jodie Foster) and Michael (John C. Reilly) are prim and proper and the owner’s of the home where our story takes place, and between Penelope’s badgering about perfection and Michael’s lackadaisical attitude towards life, tensions are building. The film handles the tension with sure-fire wittiness and ease not withstanding the terrific exchangeable words between our principals, Carnage is a delight for all movie-goers.
They bitched, they moaned, and after all this about David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo not being screened in time, the New York Film Critics ignore the film completely. The big win of the day was Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist which landed a Picture and Director win respectively. I felt when I first saw the film that it would be a Sideways-type of affection among critics throughout the season but then Alexander Payne’s The Descendants swooped in and started gaining a lot of momentum. The film, which garnered three four-star reviews from our own writers here at the site, was looking signed, sealed, and delivered for some true awards attention. Clooney even failed to get a mention today and he’s one of the best things to come out of an actor’s performance this year.
The film opened back in the summer and was very successful at the box office, along with critics and audiences, maintaining that trajectory up to this moment. Based on a bestselling novel, beautifully adapted and brought to the screen with no less than six Oscar caliber performances from gifted women, dealing with a subject that is to this day sensitive and difficult, the film has all the ingredients of an Oscar winner. And let’s never forget Crash (2005) won with a hell of a lot less just a few years ago!!
When witnessing the evolution of film, it’s hard to grasp how it went from a seemingly simple concept of silent imagery into a loud, uproarious third dimension experience. Michel Hazanavicius’ silent film The Artist plays homage to the origins of our cinema in a general manner while attaining a massive respect that can’t be denied. The film tells the story of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent film actor megastar who withers away into obscurity when the introduction of “talkies” meets monumental popularity. Movie extra Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) is a star on the rise who’s admiration for George’s work runs much deeper than the film’s they share.
Writer/Director Michel Hazanavicius explores the deepest parts of his soul which he calls “a love letter.” What a beautiful letter it was. He makes conscious choices to illustrate the medium in the most toxic and potent fashion. A Q & A with Hazanavicius’ at the end of the picture placed much into perspective. His funny, mild-tempered personality will carry him extremely far in this year’s Oscar race. He could easily be the new director that everyone roots for. His stamp on the film is evident and his adoration and tribute to the genre is clear and ostentatious. Read more on The Artist (****)…
Best Picture – The Artist!!!!
Best Cinematography – The Tree of Life!!!!
Best Screenplay – Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin – Moneyball (Why isn’t Stan Chervin’s name listed? He’s just as much a part of it.)
Best Director – Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist!!!
Best Actor – Brad Pitt – Moneyball, The Tree of Life
Best Actress – Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
Best Supporting Actor – Albert Brooks – Drive
Best Supporting Actress – Jessica Chastain – The Tree of Life, The Help, Take Shelter
Best Non Fiction – Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Best First Feature – Margin Call
Best Foreign Language Film – A Separation
Best Feature:
50/50
Beginners
Drive
Take Shelter
The Artist
The Descendants
Best Director category:
Mike Mills (Beginners)
Nicholas W Refn ( Drive)
Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter)
Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)
Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
Best Int’l Film:
A Separation
Melancholia
Shame
The Kid With a Bike
Tyrranasaur
This week there’s a pretty big slate of movies hitting shelves for your purchasing/viewing pleasure. It’s been a number of weeks since this many films have been recommendation worthy in my eyes. To be fair, none of these blew me away, but there’s lots to like with this grouping, so I’m hardly complaining here. For my PICK OF THE WEEK, I had a hard time making the choice, as 3 top contenders all were about the same in my eyes…good comedies that weren’t outstanding but entertained me. Ultimately, I went with the one that I had the least amount of reservations about. It’s not an amazing work, but I did dig it quite a bit and thought it was better than it had any right to be. It’s:
Friends with Benefits
I was very pleasantly surprised with this romantic comedy, as it had some of the best chemistry between leads in 2011. Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis made a great pairing, and the supporting cast was eclectic and well used. While not on the level of director Will Gluck’s last flick Easy A, it still was a very good time at the movies. It suffered at the box office a bit due to comparisons between it and the similarly themed rom com from earlier in the year No Strings Attached. This is a much edgier, hipper, and ultimately better film, so this is the one to see. It’s ultimately a feel good flick, but the first half is an excellent deconstruction of the romantic comedy genre. Give it a look and DVD and you should enjoy yourself more than a little.
Are we underway now? If so, we start the 2011 Oscar season with a TIE?!?!?!
Yep. A tie. Between two films that could not be more diametrically opposed to one another. Mike Mills’ Beginners and Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life each get a tally mark for winning a Best Feature/Best Picture prize.
The critics are about to dish out their favorite films of 2011 and what year it has been. I spent the Thanksgiving holiday weekend catching up on a plethora of screeners, some I need to buckle down and review like Albert Nobbs, Carnage, and Coriolanus, but I’m ready to dive head first in what seems to be one of the most interesting and competitive races in some years. Some categories are questions marks still and with the new Oscar voting system in place, we’ll have no idea how this will affect the “quality” of nominees.
Filmmaker Ken Russell passed away today, and I wanted to make sure mention was made of this on the site. He may not be the most well known director ever, but he was important to the industry and revered in some circles for the rock opera ‘Tommy’. Here’s an obituary from The Hollywood Reporter that pays tribute to him:
Iconic British filmmaker Ken Russell has died aged 84.
Reports of his death broke across the Internet early Monday in the U.K.
Russell’s friend, arts writer, novelist and columnist Norman Lebrecht, said a family friend told him of Russell’s death on Sunday morning. The filmmaker is reported to have died peacefully in his sleep.
Russell was a British director known for films that attracted controversy, were visually arresting and attracted a loyal following.
Originating in 1935, the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) have been a noteworthy player in the precursor Oscar season. When reviewing their own website, they may seem to espouse a belief that their selections matter more than other critics’ groups, citing quotes from John Ford and John Huston indicating that awards from the NYFCC are “the greatest honor that anyone in my profession can receive” (Huston) and “it means more to me than any honor” (Ford). They even identify themselves as “prize harbingers”.
So are they? As part of an ongoing series this Oscar season, we will be looking at many of the more influential critics organizations and checking their track record in recent years to determine how accurate, how influential, and how the statistics shake out in terms of how can truly be known as “harbingers” or “kingmakers” during the Oscar season.
The Independent Spirt Award nominations are fast approaching and they’re one of my very favorite awards of the season. Besides being s slightly edgier show, one of their many other charms is how unpredictable their nominee slate usually is, and I expect that to be the case again this year. That makes predicting their nominees a fool’s errand, but one can still get an idea of what they might be looking towards honoring, if not specifically so. One thing to be aware of is the budgetary limitations that often exclude films you’d expect to do well with Film Independent. It’s just a matter of waiting and seeing what gets nominated, but in the meantime, we can do some guessing. Consider this a broad look at what each category might have in store for us at the Spirit Awards. Perhaps I’ll be able to catch that Indie Spirit…
Helmed by a powerful lead performance by Elizabeth Olsen, Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene dribbles right on the edge of thriller and suspense without coming off gimmicky. Olsen evokes and drowns herself in her character keeping the questions right on the surface and not losing sight. Though the film’s narrative never fully develops and fails to explore the deepest parts of this cautionary tale, the full commitment from the directing style and its performers transform a seemingly A-typical story to something new and dynamic. Co-star John Hawkes shines once again in a new villainous and demented turn which remains one of the great supporting male works this year. A notation for Hugh Dancy is worth mentioning in a presumably vacant character but effective and taunting performance.
“Perhaps he has reached the stage where obedience is more important to him than originality.” This pointed criticism from the Russian psychoanalyst Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) is made in response to her therapist and lover Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) announcing his intellectual break from his professional mentor/rival Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), and I couldn’t help but crack a smile upon hearing it, as I would accuse David Cronenberg and Christopher Hampton’s treatment of the intriguing but flawed A Dangerous Method of similar constricting reverence towards the same figure, recreating the dense ideas of their main characters without really pushing them far enough to leave a lasting impression. Based on Hampton’s play The Talking Cure, which was in turn based on John Kerr’s book A Most Dangerous Method, which (almost there!) was based on actual letters exchanged between Freud, Jung, and Spielrein, the film focuses mainly on Jung and how his eventual split with Freud and the torrid relationship he had with Spielrein shaped psychoanalysis in ways that are inquired and debated about to this day. Read more on A Dangerous Method (**½)…
There’s always been a bit of Billy Wilder in Cameron Crowe’s films, but this year with ‘We Bought a Zoo’ marks the first time he’s gone in the direction of Frank Capra. The result is a very effective, if lightweight film that works to make you laugh and make you cry. This isn’t an “important” movie, but it’s an entertaining dramedy and has the right balance of elements to fulfill an audience member. In terms of previous Crowe works, it has a bit of ‘Jerry Maguire’ to it, but perhaps more similarities to ‘Elizabethtown’ than many might prefer (not me though, I love that flick and consider it one of the more underrated films in some time). This is Crowe making a family movie, and while he hasn’t lost any of his keen observation powers, he manages to make a film for a wide range of people. Of course the soundtrack is excellent, but that’s no surprise. What’s more noteworthy is the strong acting by the cast (including Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Elle Fanning, and Thomas Haden Church), all of whom do slightly different work than we’re used to seeing from them. I suspect a number of people will find this movie, based on Benjamin Mee’s nonfiction book of his experiences, to be too cute for their liking, but for me it was a borderline delight. I don’t know if the Oscars will have any use for it, but the Golden Globes have just the category for this…
Perhaps you’ve heard of a little film called ‘The Dark Knight’. It came out a few years ago and did pretty well. As such, a sequel called ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is hitting theaters next year, and will be debuting it’s opening sequence as a sort of expanded trailer, just like the last film did. The Playlist confirms the date of this tease:
In all the excitment last week over Empire‘s debut of two new looks at Batman and Bane on the cover of their latest issue, a small morsel of important info from “The Dark Knight Rises” seemed to be overlooked. Just as they did in the run up for “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. are planning to give audiences a healthy, early taste of the final installment of the trilogy. If you go to a select IMAX cinema starting December 21st, you’ll get a look at the first six or seven minutes of the upcoming movie.
A lot has been written in the past few years about how the focus of tent pole films has moved from using big movie stars to utilizing well known and established brands. The sequel or remake has become the new movie star. That being said, A-list actors and actresses still exist, and though they may not have the sway that they once did, they certainly are still out there. This got me wondering what the next generation of A-listers might look like. I came up with a list of 10 actors and 10 actresses that I think will wind up being big stars in the next few years or so. One or two are on the younger side, but many are right there on the cusp of A-list status. I’ll try to even explain what works might be the ones to vault them to the list. It’ll be interesting to look back on this in a decade and see if there’s any correlation whatsoever. Will there be? I definitely think so, but show business is a funny thing. I certainly want to know what you all think at the end, but we’ll get to that soon enough. For now, let’s get on with my picks, ranked in a simple alphabetical order. Here we go. Read more on Next Generation of A-Listers…
The last time Michael Haneke brought a film to Cannes he walked away with the Palme d’Or for his startling film The White Ribbon. He returns to the Croisette this year with his new film Amour and the trailer for that film has just been released is is located after the jump. Synopsis: Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music […]
I always eagerly wait the announcement of the slate of films to play at Sundance, as it usually contains the next indie darling of next year. Each year at least one or two flicks from the festival have me fall in love with them, and I expect next year to be no exception. A few immediately jump out at me, but the whole lot looks pretty interesting so far. Here’s the list of films competing next year at the festival:
