 The Warner Brothers Awards Site has had their roster listed for a few weeks now. Big contenders like Ben Affleck’s Argo, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas have their respective categories listed. Even Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike is pushing a campaign for Matthew McConaughey and the rest of the cast. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a film that our own Mark Johnson has stood by all year-long, has started listing their categories for consideration. Read more on ‘The Hobbit’ submits an Original Song for Oscar Consideration…
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And so, in what seemed like an impossible dream to just about every comic book geek in the world, the first-ever major superhero crossover film finally opens in America today. There’s really no point in pretending that this won’t absolutely kill at the box office this weekend, it’s just a matter of how high it can soar at this point:
Read more on Weekend Openings (May 4-6)…
Categories: Weekend Openings Tags: Bill Nighy, Captain America: The First Avenger, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, comic book films, Demi Moore, Dev Patel, fanboyism, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, iron man, Jeremy Renner, Joss Whedon, judi dench, Maggie Smith, Mark Ruffalo, middlebrow art films, Mother's Day, popcorn movies, Rebecca De Mornay, remake, robert downey jr, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, superhero movie, the avengers, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Thor, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Wilkinson, Weekend Openings
Fantastic and visually accomplished, "Captain America" concludes the prelude to 2012's "The Avengers" in terrific fashion…
Delivering the final cinematic chapter before the upcoming “Avengers” blockbuster in 2012, “Captain America: The First Avenger” is an entertaining and visual marvel, aiming for a story more straightforward and classic in tone than its predecessors “The Hulk”, “Thor”, or “Iron Man”. Featuring a solid performance by Chris Evans in the title role, “Captain America: The First Avenger” may lose its focus at times, but is a well made and entertaining ride from start to finish.
I acknowledge that going into “Captain America: The First Avenger”, I knew very little about the story, while a number of my friends were kind enough to fill me in with their knowledge and memories from the comic books of their younger days. For me, the story felt fresh and fairly original and I came in with some anticipation in learning how Steve Rogers not only fit into the “Avengers” storyline, but also how he transformed into the superhero who sets out to save the world during the heyday of World War II and Nazi supremacy.
Told almost entirely in flashback to the early-to-mid 1940s, we are first introduced to Adolf Hitler’s head of weaponry, Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), who has long been seeking the Tesseract, an energy source that will enable Schmidt to design and develop weapons that will virtually guarantee the Nazis the winning of the War. The discovery also gives Schmidt designs on what may ultimately lead to his own opportunity to takeover the world. Read more on Captain America – The First Avenger (***)…
The Big Boys
By Robert Hamer
And so the summer flies by, and we Oscar prognosticators can steel ourselves for the “real” contenders to roll out over the fall and winter months. But as we look forward to how this season shapes up, what can we take from this year’s summer slate? What interesting events happened the last three months as far as the big, massive blockbusters go?
One trend that is not unusual or noteworthy is the number of sequels and remakes that hit us in that time. It does amaze me how seemingly every August some pundit will declare “The Summer of Sequels” or some such nonsense as if franchise pictures haven’t plagued the multiplexes at this time every year for the past decade. True, seven of the ten highest-grossing films of the year domestically were part of franchises (nine of you count The Avengers preludes), but that’s commonplace in this era of shareholder cinema. Read more on Sayonara, Summer!…
Categories: Article Tags: Another Earth, Attack The Block, Beautiful Boy, Beginners, Bellflower, Bridesmaids, Captain America: The First Avenger, Cars 2, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, collaborative article, Crazy Stupid Love, Everything Must Go, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, Hesher, Independent Spirit Awards, Mel Gibson, Midnight in Paris, Oscar hopefuls, Passion Play, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Project Nim, Sarah's Key, Senna, Submarine, Super 8, Sympathy for Delicious, Terri, The Beaver, The Future, The Guard, The Help, The Tree of Life, Thor, Transformers: Dark of the Moon
What will the summer bring?
Ah, summer. The season when school is out, sun tan is in, and cinephiles like us can look forward to massive studio-produced blockbusters that rake in the big bucks. These movies don’t usually have a strong presence during the awards season, but that’s slowly changing with the recent expansion of the Best Picture nominees to ten (spurred in part by the snubbing of a big-budget superhero film, I might add) and more ambitious treatments of what we used to call “summer flicks.” So what major releases for the months of May to August could be seen again at the Oscars, or *gasp* might actually be great movies?
In previous years, the easy answer to that question was almost always Pixar. They have earned by far more Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature than any other studio, and since the expansion to ten have produced two consecutive Best Picture nominees. So you would think that once again they’re a sure bet to dominate – both financially and critically – the summer slate of family entertainment…unless of course we’re talking about a sequel to their worst film yet. For reasons unknown to me, the illustrious studio has decided that their upcoming films should include a sequel to Cars and, for 2013, a prequel to Monsters, Inc., despite neither film being that good in the first place. But maybe I’m being presumptuous. After all, both of the Toy Story sequels were outstanding and I don’t even know what Cars 2 is about. Let’s check the official synopsis… Read more on The Summer and the Oscars…
Categories: Article Tags: Another Earth, Beginners, Bellflower, Bridesmaids, Captain America: The First Avenger, Cars 2, Conan the Barbarian, Cowboys and Aliens, Green Lantern, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, Higher Ground, One Day, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Project Nim, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Super 8, Tabloid, The Beaver, The Future, The Guard, The Hangover: Part II, The Tree of Life, Thor, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, upcoming films, Winnie the Pooh, X-Men: First Class
This Comic-Con weekend marks the last comic book superhero film of 2011, and the second commitment-free sex comedy of the summer:
 Continuing Marvel Studios’ attempt to build up to The Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger stars Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, a brave but puny young man who is selected for the U.S. Army’s super soldier program. Armed with newfound physical strength and his trademark shield, Captain America battles the evil Nazi commander Red Skull over a mysterious artifact. The reviews for this film are decent, but not enough for me to break my ban on superhero films; although critics are mostly relieved to find a genuinely wholesome, nostalgic superhero epic, many also claim that the film is a rather generic, obligatory set-up for The Avengers (God! Think of all the wasted time and effort if THAT film ends up being a failure!). The big problem for our star-spangled hero is Harry Potter, as the latter film shows no significant signs of slowing down its box office dominance and will probably barely hold on to the top spot this weekend. Still, this should bring in about $50-60 million in its opening weekend.
Also opening this weekend, a hotshot actor and the actress from Black Swan star in a comedy about two people who decide to add casual sex to their friendship, but can’t anticipate the complications that ensue. I am of course referring to No Strings Attached Friends With Benefits. Ahem…I am obviously not the first or the smartest critic to notice that the two films have basically the same premise, so how does this latter one distinguish itself? Why, you get the Marine Corps to help out! Yep, it appears as though Kunis and Timberlake’s little stunt of going to the Marine Corps Ball has boosted the visibility of this otherwise non-entity of a film, and has given nice publicity from those who may want to opt out of sci-fi/fantasy spectacles. $17-22 million by Sunday. Read more on Weekend Openings (July 22-24)…
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The Warner Brothers Awards Site has had their roster listed for a few weeks now. Big contenders like Ben Affleck’s Argo, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas have their respective categories listed. Even Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike is pushing a campaign for Matthew McConaughey and the rest of the cast. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a film that our own Mark Johnson has stood by all year-long, has started listing their categories for consideration. Read more on ‘The Hobbit’ submits an Original Song for Oscar Consideration…
