Quentin Tarantino’s career-long itch to put his stamp on the beloved Spaghetti Western finally takes form with the release of Django Unchained to begin the Christmas weekend. It’s going head-to-head with Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the epic musical drama, Les Miserables. Rounding out the long weekend is Gus Van Sant’s latest, Promised Land.
Django Unchained
Language: English
Rating: R
Genre: Action/Drama/Western
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx
Django, a bounty hunter and former slave, sets out with the help of his mentor to free his wife from a brutal plantation owner. See what Clayton had to say about Tarantino’s latest. Read more on Weekend Openings: 12/25-12/28…
Categories: Weekend Openings Tags: Anne Hathaway, billy crystal, Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained, Frances McDormand, Gus Van Sant, Hugh Jackman, jamie foxx, john krasinski, Les Miserables, Marisa Tomei, Matt Damon, Parental Guidance, Quentin Tarantino, Russell Crowe, Tom Hooper, West of Memphis
As you all know, this year, like almost every other awards season, we’ve had a few party-crashers looking to shake up the slow march to the Oscar nominations by coming out a few months early. Sometimes they hit, like “Million Dollar Baby,” “Crazy Heart,” or “Slumdog Millionaire” but plenty of the time they wind up not making a big mark on the race. This awards season has two surprise entrants hoping to be more like Clint Eastwood’s Oscar winner than another in a long line of films that should have waited an extra year. The titles in question for 2012 are “Hitchcock” and “Promised Land.” Both are possibly big contenders, though both could easily wind up shut out in the race. Gun to my head, I think the former has a stronger appeal than the latter, but both are clearly aimed straight at the Academy’s wheelhouse. Both have a lot of potential, but let’s not have a coronation them as Oscar winners just yet. What we should be doing is considering them in a way we’ve only briefly done before. What are the awards prospects for both films? Read more on Battle of the Late Contenders – Hitchcock vs. Promise…
Categories: Article Tags: Alfred Hitchcock, analysis, Anthony Hopkins, Dave Eggers, focus features, Frances McDormand, Gus Van Sant, Hal Holbrook, Helen Mirren, hitchcock, James D'Arcy, John J. McLaughlin, john krasinski, Matt Damon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Oscar hopefuls, Promised Land, Rosemarie DeWitt, Sacha Gervasi, Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette
 Taking a break from all this Bat-talk. Trekking through the year 2000 was a daunting task. There were many films I hadn’t seen in years, while others I’ve never feasted my eyes on before. Naturally this brings on a dilemma. A 15-year-old Clayton watching movies is very different from a now, 28-year-old Clayton. I like to think there is a maturity there that lacked before. I realized that after re-watching Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In 2000, I found the film immensely overrated and couldn’t understand what people were so mesmerized by. Naturally, I’ve never officially appreciated it or thought it to be among Ang Lee’s best. Enter last weekend. Talk about being fantastic a second-time around, the film was nearly hypnotic in its style and approach. Do I consider it the best of the year? Not really. One of the best? Definitely so.
With our ACCA 2000 closing up on Friday, and winners being announced on Sunday’s podcast, I have to let you in on my favorites of the new millennium. Please include yours in the comment section and let’s see what commonalities or differences we have. Bold denotes winner. Enjoy after the jump: Read more on Davis Awards 2000 Announced!…
Categories: Article, Community, Editor Tags: Almost Famous, American Psycho, Awards Circuit Community Awards, Benicio Del Toro, Billy Crudup, Cast Away, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Christian Bale, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Darren Aronofsky, Davis Awards, Davis Awards 2000, Ellen Burstyn, Frances McDormand, Gladiator, Jennifer Connelly, Joaquin Phoenix, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Laura Linney, michelle yeoh, Requiem for a Dream, Ridley Scott, Robert Zemeckis, Russell Crowe, Scary Movie, Steven Soderbergh, tom hanks, Traffic, Ziyi Zhang
 Few filmmakers are as easily identifiable as Wes Anderson in terms of knowing their work when you see it. For some, he’s a constantly quirky delight, while for other’s his films are a struggle to sit through. I find myself usually somewhere in the middle, and that’s again where I find myself with his latest flick ‘Moonrise Kingdom’. As visually stimulating as anything he’s done, but as indifferently plotted, this is a perfect example of how Anderson the director and Anderson the writer (or co-writer, to be more precise) are pretty much two different people. For all the obvious care that he puts in behind the lens, he seems to just be writing for the sake of it, not really caring what the movie is going to actually be about, so long as it looks good. This is the core of my issues with Anderson. Now, he’s got a surprisingly compelling young love story at the center, but not enough time is spent there, leaving us instead with an A list supporting cast with too little to do, even if they all turn in good performances. Newcomers Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward are both rather great and the film is at its best when they’re on the screen. Sadly, that’s not as often as it should be. Still this might be Anderson’s easiest film to digest in quite some time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns into a surprisingly big hit and makes a play for a Best Picture nomination. I wouldn’t necessarily support it, but I can see it happening if a perfect storm of sorts occurs.
Read more on Moonrise Kingdom (**½)…
Categories: Film Reviews Tags: Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Bruce Willis, edward norton, Frances McDormand, harvey keitel, jared gilman, jason schwartzman, kara hayward, Moonrise Kingdom, Oscar hopeful, Tilda Swinton, Wes Anderson
 Directed By: Wes Anderson
Written By: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
Cast: Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Kara Hayward, Jared Gilman, Jason Schwartzman, and Harvey Keitel.
Synopsis (From IMDB): Set on an island off the coast of New England in the 1960s, ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ follows a young boy and girl falling in love. When they are moved to run away together, various factions of the town mobilize to search for them and the town is turned upside down – which might not be such a bad thing. Read more on Awards Profile: Moonrise Kingdom…
Categories: Award Profile Tags: award profiles, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, edward norton, Frances McDormand, harvey keitel, jared gilman, jason schwartzman, kara hayward, Moonrise Kingdom, Tilda Swinton
The "Transformers" franchise continues its slow decline into bad movie-ville…
When a director admits that a film he made was “crap” or that the process in completing the film was “a BS way to make a movie…”, you kind of have to take notice. These words come from director Michael Bay and he was referring to 2009′s “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen”, one of the biggest grossing films and sequels ever made ($402.1 million grossed domestically and $836 million taken in worldwide), and one of the most panned and belittled films of recent memory. For awhile, Bay heralded the film but along the way his tone shifted to one of apologetic, second chance-speak and “I’ll do better” mantras to the press. For a man branded as one of the most egotistical filmmakers around, his reflections on the second “Transformers” was rather unique, for lack of a better term.
So, two years removed from that massive success, Bay and lead actor Shia LaBeouf have publicly proclaimed a leaner, better, and more impressive “Transformers” this time around. LaBeouf has admitted that Bay’s second “Transformers” film was something he found to be “utter chaos” to work on and “completely indecipherable” to watch.” Hmmm. And so…believing that Bay and his team and LaBeouf and writer Ehren Kruger have clicked and are all on the same page, we have the third (and final?) “Transformers” epic – “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon”.
And yes, this film is better…and still not any good at all.
Read more on Transformers – Dark Of The Moon (*½)…
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