Musings and Stuff...

Weekend Box Office

2012-02-12T23:44:00.000-08:00

Twas the weekend before Valentine's Day, and the romantic weepie from the Nicholas Sparks canon ruled the day, but wait...there's more. Of the four movie that opened in the wide release over the weekend, all of them (even though all of whom had questionable critical backing) won as well, with openings above $20 million. Already the marketplace seems to rebounding from last years doldrums.

1. THE VOW- Obnoxiously tagged as "based on a true story," the latest Sparks adaptation starred Rachel The Notebook McAdams and Channing Dear John Tatum and vaulted to the top of the charts with an estimated $41.7 million over the weekend. The only clear pre-Valentine's Day choice, this one will likely sizzle on Tuesday and be all but forgotten come next weekend. No worries though, this melodrama cost only $30 million to produce.

2. SAFE HOUSE- Never count out Denzel Washington, even in middling, beginning of the year endeavors, his latest (co-starring Ryan Reynolds) took in $39 million in its first weekend, as a nifty sense of counter-programming to love-in weekend. Safe House cost $85 million to produce.

3. JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND- The 3-D sequel to the surprise Brendan Fraser family flick Journey to the Center of the Universe (2008) did pretty swell as well, reeling in families (and taking advantage of the inflation only cheap glasses can afford) with $27 million. I suppose the real trick in tackling a potential franchise is dropping its leading man and replacing him with The Rock.

4. STAR WARS: EPISODE 1- THE PHANTOM MENACE- George Lucas continues his streak of crapping on his fan boy base with the 3-D re-issue of one of the most misguided choices in the franchise movie making history. It still cashed in with $23 million.

5. CHRONICLE- Last week's champ dropped a reasonable 44% in week two for a total so far of $40 million. Icing on the bratty superheros cake: the $12 million production budget-- perhaps the biggest prank of all. Also the hopeful creative future for director Josh Trank.

6. THE WOMAN IN BLACK- Daniel Radcliffe's Harry Potter-follow is performing adequately, if not at the numbers he's known for-- in its second weekend, the period horror flick dropped 50% for a $35 million total so far. It will shortly however become distributor CBS Films highest grossing film to date surpassing 2010's The Back-Up Plan, which made $37 million.

7. THE GREY- In it's third week, the Liam Neeson survival tale has made $42 million. However, like The Woman in Black, upstart distributor Open Road Films should be pleased-- it's their highest grossing title of all time.

8. BIG MIRACLE- Drew Barrymore's save-the-whales true story dropped 49% in its second weekend for a sad total of $13 million.

9. THE DESCENDANTS- The only title in the top ten also nominated for Best Picture-- the Alexander Payne dramedy has made $70 million so far, and will become the writer\director highest grossing film ever in a few short days-- Sideways made $71 million in 2004. It dropped 23% in its thirteenth week of release.

10. UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING- Does anyone really watch these movies? Just curious, because I don't, and yet they keep coming. The last chapter has made $52 million in four weeks, offset by a production budget of $70 million, perhaps will this be the last one...

FURTHER DOWN:

The Artist- While secured at least of not being the lowest grossing Best Picture winner of all time (should it win), it's grosses aren't terribly impressive as the film has gone wider either. It also seems that on 800 screens, The Weinstein Company is appearing sheepish to fully release the charming, if reasonably hard sell, French black and white silent film. Ranking 13th place this weekend, down 12% for a total so far of $22 million. C'mon people-- this is majestic filmmaking.
Hugo- Martin Scorsese's heavily Academy Award nominated film has made $64 million so far, a decent gross for a ridiculously expensive art film\homage to begins of the medium. It won't make its money back sadly.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close ranked 15th over the weekend, the surprise Best Picture nominee has earned $29 million in eight weeks of release.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is chugging along in quiet limited release. On 16 screens, the Tilda Swinton shocker has made nearly $500,000 for a decent $5,000 screen average after four weeks of release.
Rampart, the Woody Harrelson corrupt cop morality play opened this past weekend after a one-week Oscar-qualifying run last November (I saw it then, it has some problems despite strong acting from Harrelson) earned $65,000 on 5 screens for an OK-screen average of $13,000. More on this one later.

Best Great Best Actor Debate

2012-02-12T21:52:00.000-08:00

The chart above shows the 2011 Best Actor stands by the awards they won. Highlighted in red are Oscar nominated, yellow are the sad unfortunate men left outside the Kodak Theater this year. The green distinguishes the more prolific prizes (they are just way too many critical bodies, industry fawning trophies in any given year.) They're were a few others who won single prizes throughout the season...Gary Oldman won San Francisco for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Paul Giamatti won Indiana for Win Win, Joseph Gordon Levitt won Utah for 50/50, and Ryan Gosling won a Satellite Award for Drive, however these are the only five to have won a handful of prizes, or prolific ones.

It's interesting at the start of the season, the big question was the highly competitive field Best Actress had, what with Viola Davis, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close all in the question, but that one's been fairly tightened for a while...sure there's still a bit of horse race between Davis and Streep, but I strongly feel that the heat is on Davis to take the trophy. Meanwhile, it appeared (and really only appeared) that George Clooney was coasting his way to a second Oscar for his performance in The Descendants, but in reality he won as many prizes as Oscar-snub Michael Fassbender, and only a few more than rivals Brad Pitt (at an awkward advantage\detriment as some of critics wins were shared for Moneyball and The Tree of Life), Michael Shannon (outside the Oscar race for his amazing work in Take Shelter) and last minute-possible frontrunner Jean Dujardin, who is smoldering with just as much charm as Clooney for his work in The Artist.

Dujardin's late in the game victories at both SAG and BAFTA make him a serious threat, and awaken something this Oscar race hasn't really seen much of: a breather of excitement. However, looking at the stats, everyone was a bit vulnerable...all of the five "frontrunners" won at least one major prize...meaning an industry type trophy (Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA) or a top tier critics prize (NBR, NSFC, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago.) I like this; I like this a lot.

And a great surprise for Jean Dujardin's substantial performance for The Artist would be delicious icing on the top of a somewhat bland Oscar cake.

Viola Davis Wins the Award For Most Impassioned Oscar Nominee of 2011...

2012-02-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

Watch Actresses Viola Davis & Octavia Spencer on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

...and while intelligent and dead on, the way she 'goes there' is a bit scary.

British Academy of Film & Television Awards

2012-02-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

FILM: The Artist
BRITISH FILM: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer, The Help
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan
BRITISH DEBUT: Tyrannosaur- Paddy Considine
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: Senna
FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: The Skin I Live In
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Hugo- Dante Ferretti & Francesca Lo Schiavo
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Artist- Guillaume Schiffman
FILM EDITING: Senna- Gregers Sall & Chris King
ORIGINAL MUSIC: The Artist- Ludovic Bource
COSTUME DESIGN: The Artist- Mark Bridges
MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING: The Iron Lady
SOUND: Hugo
VISUAL EFFECTS: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2
OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO BRITISH CINEMA: John Hurt

The Artist leads with 7 BAFTAs, while a too-little\too-late last minute bone is given to the homegrown Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Irish Film & Television Awards

2012-02-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

FILM: The Guard
DIRECTOR: John Michael McDonagh, The Guard
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
ACTRESS: Saoirse Ronan, Hanna
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Chris O'Dowd, Bridesmaids
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Fionnula Flannigan, The Guard
SCRIPT: The Guard- John Michael McDonaugh
________________________
INTERNATIONAL FILM: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

INTERNATIONAL ACTOR: Ryan Gosling, Drive
INTERNATIONAL ACTRESS: Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
CINEMATOGRAPHY: We Need to Talk About Kevin- Seamus McGarvey
COSTUME DESIGN: The Iron Lady- Consolata Boyle
ORIGINAL SCORE: Albert Nobbs- Bryan Burns
MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING: Albert Nobbs
SOUND: Albert Nobbs

Evening Standard Awards

2012-02-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

BEST FILM: We Need to Talk About Kevin
BEST ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame; Jane Eyre
BEST ACTRESS: Olivia Coleman, Tyrannosaur
BEST SCREENPLAY: Weekend- Andrew Haigh
BEST DOCUMENTARY: Senna
LONDON FILM MUSEUM AWARD FOR TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT: Wuthering Heights
MOST PROMISING NEWCOMERS: Tom Kingsley & Will Sharpe, Black Pond
PETER SELLERS AWARD FOR COMEDY: The Guard- John Michael McDonagh
BLOCKBUSTER OF THE YEAR: PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD: Harry Potter

Just Say NO!!!!!

2012-02-10T02:51:00.000-08:00

In unfortunate and altogether ridiculous new, Hollywood is toying with the idea of ruining yet another masterful work of art, in this case with a planned re-make of Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 Oscar-winning Rebecca. The original film, based on the grand Gothic novel by Daphne du Maurier, starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine as unexpected lovers tormented by the ghost of his first wife, and the chambermaid still in the past, played with timeless creepiness by Judith Anderson in one of the all time greatest villain showcases in movie history. Alright, first off, it Alfred freaking Hitchcock, and certainly Gus Van Sant can attest to the notion of trying to better or even putting oneself in the light of comparison is an error no one can run away from. Secondly, this is a masterclass work of Hollywood glamor and distinction, a property of which should not be touched...it's still a wonder. Thirdly, no matter the gifts of scribe Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises), nor the passion backed from DreamWorks and Working Title Films as the planned distributors, Rebecca is that one in a million type of classic that cannot be bettered nor filtered through the new-Hollywood reckless way of carbon copying. This is an endlessly special film, and the first Hitchcock made for Hollywood. PLEASE DON'T DO IT!!!!!! Mrs. Danvers will burn down your house.

Chronicle

2012-02-10T02:30:00.000-08:00

The latest in the recent sub-genre of "found-footage" films, Chronicle is the story of three high school friends-- one an alienated depressant, the other an in-the-middle social climber, and a hot shot athlete running for student body president-- who through a mysterious sunken hole gain telekinetic powers. The first half of the film is a surprisingly fun popcorn yarn, taking a premise not exactly the freshest, but tweaked by spry and inventive sense of control and a smooth flow, nicely dusting off the cobwebs of the whole faux-superhero movie, and the dingy, crappy looking veneer of expected Cloverfield rip-offs. Director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis (son of Jon Animal House Landis) also have a great sense of play with the good natured, boys-will-be-boys shenanigans, a loose sense of fun with the boys discoveries of their new-found powers and a crisp pace. For a while, this silly film begs the question, "How in the hell is such obvious junk food done so well?" Then, unfortunately, the slogging and confounding, not to mention bordering on that PG-13 rating type of violence, third act drags the fun and a weird uneven notion becomes clear that Chronicle wants to be more than it should. Not just a pleasurable diversion, but a morality play on powers going overboard, and the darkness of fragile sensitive youth.

Set in Seattle, with the prime Pacific Northwest rain as it's background, we are introduced to Andrew (Dane DeHaan), an awkward young high school student who for purposes unknown or irrelevant has decided to carry around a video camera and record everything in his path. Some things should probably have been kept more private, not just for Andrew's sake, but also the movie-- like his alcoholic father and his fits of physical abuse, and his at-her-deathbed mother, as well as his daily assaults from bullies inside and outside of school. Whatever the case, he's taken under the wing of his only real friend, and cousin Matt (Alex Russell) to break through his moody shell and live a little. Dragged to a party one night, Andrew and Matt, as well as jock Steve (Michael B. Jordan) stumble upon some crazy, mysterious sunken cavern in the middle of nowhere. They enter the whatsit Twilight Zone-y portal and awaken with new found gifts. Trank has stylish fun with film, using camera tricks and sound effects for optimal thrills, but it's all kind of inventive in an it's-far-better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be sort of way.

The boys prank their classmates, innocent bystanders at local stores and there's a sort of gleeful child-like amusement in their exploits. Yeah, they're kind of jerks, but it's all in a no one is getting hurt way...until someone does. Andrew's a tad dark, and has trouble realizing the ramifications of his suddenly very potent powers-- he's also an unstable sad sack. The film biggest weakness is that just as it becomes apparent that Andrew is going to dark side, he's already sort of lost any sympathy from his audience. He's too grim and moody to start off, and the bad situation at home and constant bullying turn Chronicle into something it shouldn't be: heavy-handed. The best sequences are such silly flights of fancy, not dark histrionic-filled. Like the sequence where the boys literally take flight-- it's a joyful, over-the-top, theme park attraction that elicits a genuine sense of playful imagination. Andrew turn into sociopathic, We Need to Talk About Kevin terrain feels a bit too much, as does the overly violent conclusion. B-

Jean Dujardin Auditions for Villian Parts (as well as Oscar Votes)

2012-02-10T01:54:00.000-08:00

Jean Dujardin's Villain Auditions from Jean Dujardin

The silent charmer in The Artist wants to proudly proclaim he can be funny (and speak-- even if his English is still a bit rough) in this Funny or Die ad.

Funniest bit: "Larry Crowne...time to drown."

I do worry that many in the blogosphere have given Dujardin the reductive Roberto Benigni comparison so far, as I see none...he's sincere and delightful, not all in the irritatingly mugging variety, and hope there's more American exposure to come to him, despite the full awareness that most in the country will not have heard of him before Oscar night.

The Weinstein Company would like to remind you that Meryl Streep hasn't won an Oscar in 29 Years!

2012-02-08T23:22:00.000-08:00

Tacky? Perhaps, but no less than Melissa Leo's odd self-campaigning last year. Plus, it's kind of nice to see some dirty play in this years more maudlin race. The real news might be the borderline offense pulled, as Academy rules specify that mentioning prior performances or films in their campaigns are a no-no!

The Oscars Hurt: A Continued Reflection of Masochism

2012-02-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

It has been announced that the Academy has scrapped the musical numbers from the Best Original Song category this year. While this category is need of a major overhaul (and perhaps altogether abandonment) judging on their lack of hearing, taste or discretion, and while no one will complain that a forgettable song from a film long forgotten like Rio won't get any Oscar screen time...this also means that the category's frontrunner, the joyous "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets won't either. The song, like others, in the film was written by Flight of the Concords alum Bret McKenzie won't get any action at this years Academy Awards. In a wild dream, I was hoping for a medley of Muppets tunes, including the stupidly snubbed "Life's a Happy Song," and Kermit's touching ballad "Pictures in My Head." While the Academy has taken this stance in years prior...even a few years back when a worthy and totally listenable tune, like 2009's winner "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart wasn't given the stage, there's a bigger point on hand I feel. Is this a commentary on the Academy's embarrassment of the song category? Why not let the two songs have their three minutes of stage time; it can't be a choice decision to reduce the run time-- the show is always LONG!!! One feels that if the Academy isn't going to support the ruins of the flawed Songs- just get rid of them...

The shapelessness of the Best Original Song is so variable however, that take a year like 2011, where the song selection may not have been prime, aside from The Muppets soundtrack, and the overlooked Captain: America pastiche "Star Spangled Man." Mostly neglected from the Academy versus a stronger year like last year when they had an opportunity for prime awards catnip with the Cher-headlined ballad "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me,"-- yes Burlesque was a dumb movie, but that song rocked, and the performance at the Kodak could have to (Toy Story 3 won the Oscar for the familiar sounding Randy Newman tune "We Belong Together.") And yes the performances have always been up and down...for every joyous Amy Adams charmer "Happy Working Song" from Enchanted in 2007, there's an overdone clunker like "In the Deep" from Crash in 2005. The other conundrum lies in the nominating process altogether-- in that the same group can acknowledge worthy songs like "Falling Slowly" from Once in 2007, or "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart in 2009, but overlook (or as conspiracy theorists might say, intentionally snub) something as moving as "The Wrestler," Bruce Springsteen's beautifully moody and weathered melody that was so appropriate to the narrative of The Wrestler in 2008.

I hope Kermit the Frog mugs away from Billy Crystal and sings for the four hour telecast in mad protest.

The Avengers

2012-02-08T17:42:00.000-08:00

I can't help but really not care about this one at all-- I say in full awareness that the fan boy contingent is preparing the pitchforks set at my doorstep--the whole Marvel lexicon reeks kind of desperate and cheap at this point. What with the forwarding and perhaps way to neatly (and rushed) pre-packaging of their characters. The bright side is that Joss Whedon is a master of wit and mythology. I'm just keeping expectations grounded so it can rock...

Visual Effects Society Winners

2012-02-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS (in an effects driven feature)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes

BEST SUPPORTING VISUAL EFFECTS (in a feature)
Hugo

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS (animated feature)
Rango

BEST ANIMATED CHARACTER (in a live action feature)
Caesar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes

BEST ANIMATED CHARACTER (animated feature)
Rango, Rango

BEST CREATED ENVIRONMENT (live action feature)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

BEST CREATED ENVIRONMENT (animated feature)
Rango

BEST VIRTUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY (live action feature)
Hugo

BEST VIRTUAL CINEMATOGRAPHY (animated feature)
Rango

BEST MODELS
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

BEST COMPOSITING
Captain America: The First Avenger

This just makes it confusing-- who's the frontrunner now in the Best Visual Effects category-- Hugo? Rise of the Planet of the Apes? Transformers?

2011 Runners-up

2012-02-08T01:47:00.000-08:00

As I slowly start to realize that the calendar year has changed (Hollywood makes that so hard when it's January\February offerings are so unappetizing), it's time to recount my favorites of the last year. Before I get to the creme de la creme of 2011, first I'd light to indulge and highlight a few favorites that didn't make my final list. Admittedly, 2011 was a bit shy in brilliant cinema, but here's a few runners-up that caught my attention and stayed with me enough:

BRIDESMAIDS
Certainly the best full-on comedy of 2011, and at times a deeply felt portrait of depression and self hatred. Kristen Wiig co-wrote and starred in a tour de force performance that's ugly in that's utterly truthful and hysterical in its full on mania. While the film sometimes feels shapeless and edited by shards (perhaps that's understandable to a degree, what with the wide range of improv pros in its ensemble...this must have been a monster edit to condense ever line reading into something that was coherent) and wears out it's welcome by a considerable run time, Bridesmaids need not be remembered as the female Hangover, but as an entity all of its own (and a surprise 2-time Oscar nominee) showcasing a wealth of talent, at least three whoppers of comedic sequencing (the endless toast, the airplane scene and the messy bridal shopping scene) and finally an ultimate coming out party for a star that's been at the sides for to long...that would be Wiig!

HUGO
My second (or third) favorite Best Picture nominee depending on the moment of the day is Martin Scorsese's loving and beautifully rendered ode to le cinema. Who else could turn something so dependent on major movie studio cash (in 3-D no less) and come up with something so utterly non-commercial and lush and an ultimate statement on film preservation. Part of the joy of Hugo is, I believe, just that-- how else could a film be so critically beloved and Oscar-approved if it wasn't directed by the medium's most loyal admirer. The slow and dithering first act finally seep into the realm of the magical when the auteur let's loose on the films (and his) most personal passion. It also helps that Ben Kingsley gives such a moving (and sadly un-nominated) performance as Scorsese's stand-in-- a passionate filmmaker obsessed with the wonders of the past and the hopes of entwining it with the future.

LEAP YEAR
Few people saw Michael Rowe's provocative film from Mexico, a Cannes winner at the 2010 festival. Hardly matters, I suppose, for I'd hope the few brave moviegoers that did felt the same as me watching this difficult, raw and exposed portrait of a young woman, struck by guilt and shame, and only roused by the dangerous sexual ploys of her latest suitor. Monica del Carmen and Gustavo Sanchez Parra may never become household names, but their intimate and soulfully rendered performances charge this voyeuristic and unsettling film. Leap Year was notable, albeit only the small art house foreign language world, as a film full of sex, and that's more than true, but there's a genuine chill, not just from the content, but of the raw exposure that the actors dare to show and stillness that Rowe films it. From a synopsis that might read as the NC-17-rated dramatic version of Bridget Jones's Diary comes an almost heartbreaking story of romantic longing and baggage that separates two people. NETFLIX it!

MARGARET
I just saw, and just wrote about, but I can't quite shake Kenneth Lonergan's messy tapestry of a small personal tragedy woven into a greater post 9\11 mindset, thought-provoking drama. Mostly I can't shake Anna Paquin's difficult, demanding and altogether stellar performance as a self-deprecating, self absorbent, hysterical teenager rapt by hormones and guilt-- it's such an exquisitely calibrated piece of acting that one certainly hopes that it's internal PR problems don't overshadow it's legacy. That of which is a supremely flawed, but ambitious piece of filmmaking that feels all too literary and universally cinematic at once.

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Every once in a while Woody Allen surprises us with something that reminds us why he is America's favorite screenwriter (or at least the Oscars) with something so undeniably charming and nimble and a perfect anecdote, not just for franchise filmmaking doldrums, but those who enjoy (and likely miss) the pitter-patter of delightfully witty banter. While I feel that Midnight in Paris was ultimately too lightweight and slightly overrated (it's Allen highest grossing film in history, unadjusted for inflation) to get a shout out on my true top ten, I still feel more than smitten with his ode to Paris and his endless ruminations of the past. For Woody Allen has never been hip, but a nerdy paean to his own neurosis-- that after a million pictures, maybe he's soften (and realized that not every one of films needs an Allen surrogate; though Owen Wilson is quite close to the model) and become playful and maybe even inventive like he was in the 80s with such confections as The Purple Rose of Cairo and Zelig again. Whatever the case, Midnight in Paris, while not transcendent is still pretty lovely.

THE MUPPETS
Again with lightweight, but whatever, The Muppets was pure joy through and through, even when it stretched out farther than it needed to, and even though not quite every joke landed. The film started with the wondrous refrain, "Life's a Happy Song," and for the most part lived up to it. For me it was almost an awakening of characters I hadn't realized that I missed-- a silly and madcap caper with the best showbiz "let's go on with the show" attitude I've seen in years.

PROJECT NIM
James Marsh won an Oscar for directing Man on a Wire, and his follow-up was shortlisted this year for the Academy. Unfortunately, it didn't make the final cut, but kvetching aside, Project Nim was one of the best documentaries of the last year for sure. In recounting, using clever archival footage, reenactments and actor accompaniment, Marsh made a sad, unforgiving and poignant feature about a chimp that was raised like a human in the late 1970s. While the animal abuse angle of the subject is the most emotional, the human aspect to Nim and the humanity in which his story is told is bold and unforgettable.

SUPER 8
What with Hugo and The Artist, 2011 was quite a year for the grand homage to filmmaking. While The Artist payed tribute to the silent era, and Hugo delved even earlier, Super 8 was all about the age of Spielberg, and it was a nice and humble tribute that while may have delivered less than its blockbuster intent was a gleefully (perhaps too sincere) ode to the naivete of youthful creativity. Whatever criticisms exist, and many are quite valid, even a fan must admit, there's a dash of magic and spark of awe that lights up in remembering J.J. Abrams homemade-felt dash of 70s-seaped, Close Encounters-inspired pastiche.

TABLOID
How does one tell a crazy story of an ex-beauty queen who kidnapped her lover and seduced him to turn his Mormon beliefs away so they can be together. Well, one hires Errol Morris, the classiest and shrewdest American documentarian of modern times and the rest sells itself. Tabloid was a genuine contender on my top ten, and stands as one of the best documentaries of recent year. Of course the Academy wasn't going to bit...it's so weird, and playful with the subject too wild and Morris is clearly having too much fun baiting Joyce McKinney, a woman of a questionable past and perhaps even more questionable memory. The film makes perhaps an obvious, not dishonest, note about the nature of infamy in our pop culture, and McKinney, through strangeness (and perhaps high IQ) is either a knowing or naive product of such...she's now best known as a crazy broad who cloned her dog.

YOUNG ADULT
Most of praise of the underrated dark comedy was given to Charlize Theron's beautifully ugly comedic performance as a writer of teen lit trying to woo back her old boyfriend, as well as writer Diablo Cody's anti-Juno antihero creation. While I toast both (Theron is terrific in the role, even more specific and texture than her Oscar-winning Monster), I think the true champion of Jason Reitman's fourth feature as a director is film editor Dana E. Glauberman, whose lean finessing leaves a trim finished product without a wasted shot and with precise attention to Theron's terse and ingenious line readings. Young Adult was a strong contender for my last slot, and I almost feel remiss to include it in the also ran pile, however despite it's paltry box office and zero Oscar interest, I'm hopeful not just for the films legacy, but for the opportunity to see more of Cody's dark side and Theron's funny side...she's got a gift!

Margaret

2012-02-06T00:20:00.000-08:00

With all the troubles and bad press that comes with Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret, it's a bit difficult to see the movie outside of all of that. Filmed in 2005, Lonergan's second feature as writer\director-- following his 2000 acclaimed art house film You Can Count on Me-- the film was only given a teeny toddler of an actual release in September of last year. What with all the lawsuits and bridges burned within the post-production hell, it certainly felt that distributor Fox Searchlight saw nothing else to do than to bury this troubled movie. Whatever disputes and trials it took for it come around, the most unsettling thing about Margaret is that it's too much a thing a value to easily shake. While the version I saw was not Lonergan's vision-- most of the legal action had to due with the monster editing job that a bevy of the world's most accomplished cutters took part in for the film to reach it's contractually obligated two-hours and thirty-minute run time-- and thus perhaps, still unfinished, Margaret is such a messy, ambitious, volatile film of scope. Martin Scorsese is claimed to have called an earlier, much longer cut, a "masterpiece" some years back, and while the great auteur may have more patience than myself, there's so much texture and longing in the "final" product for the film to be totally overtaken by it's negative public relations.

Margaret is also a bit of a relic-- but in the sort of rediscovery sense-- not just because leading actress Anna Paquin is playing a high school student, or that co-star Matt Damon looks ten years younger, or that the film features Olivia Thirlby before she became Juno's BFF, or Rosemarie DeWitt before she was Rachel Getting Married in small parts. Margaret was written and filmed in a specific post-9\11 New York City mindset, a mood that carries the movie in it's anger, sensitivity and its sense of ambivalence and adjusted morality. And how a smaller more personal tragedy (at the root of its story) equates with a larger more global one. Not to say the film isn't overstuffed, or pretentious (it fits both a whole lot-- this is a sprawling ensemble drama where Upper West Side teenagers speak like middle aged intellectuals and its title is taken from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem briefly mentioned), but its messiness and rough around the edges exterior actually compliment the messiness of its complicated characters. Lonergan's gift for novelistic characterizations (which was so potent in You Can Count on Me) is given greater depth and bigger scope with Margaret, that the parts that sting do so with such power. It's a shame, or at least interesting, that so much of the film is shapeless and unformed. That is aside from it's leading character.

Paquin plays Lisa, a 17-year-old Manhattanite of certain privilege. Smart, and pretty if a bit too tightly wound and overly hysterical. At the beginning, there's banal exchanges-- her debating her geometry teacher (Damon) over a test grade, a nervous boy trying to ask her out, a quest for a cowboy hat-- before the tone shifts. Lisa lays witness (and may be partially responsible for) a bus accident that kills a pedestrian. Shot with anguish and naked emotion and Paquin's blood soaked clothing as she comes to victim's aid, it's clear within that early sequence, that Lisa's overly pampered adolescence is pretty much over. Not that she see's it like that immediately. Paquin is so adept at channeling such girlish hormonal histrionics and tuning with on in different ways with different characters, that at times her performance feels like a carnival act. But her sense of guilt and moral dilemma of culpability are just as vividly expressed when she's capital A acting versus when she's given moments of silence. It's such a complicated characterization that one would be hard pressed to simply write her off as unlikable or good or bad-- she's human. At times irritating, selfish, stubborn, but also empathetic and aware of her own brattiness. One of the films best and worst qualities is in the very human way, especially after something traumatic, that life goes on. Margaret goes on...and on, in finding that striking imbalance of dealing with something deep and the (un)healthy human reaction to continue as if everything is alright.

Lisa's complications arise when hit with tremendous bursts of guilt-- her statement wasn't entirely accurate-- she did so in a way to help the bus driver (played by Mark Ruffalo), who must have a family to support, and to overcome her own responsibility. She's also got a heavily dysfunctional relationship with her family-- her mother Joan (played by J. Smith Cameron) has bouts of hysterical mood shifts herself, which compliment her as a successful stage actress; her father is in Los Angeles in is played by Lonergan himself in a series of increasingly flippant phone conversations. Rounding out the intensity are the bickering post-9\11 debates at school, where Lisa's classrooms might as well be war rooms. The tapestry of the nuanced textures of the Lisa's life are massive, even if the locations themselves are commonplace. The words are strong and the mood is all over the map-- there's even a snap shot of romantic comedy as Joan is pursued by Jean Reno, in the films wonkiest stretches-- but is somehow kept together because Lonergan never loses focus with Lisa, and Paquin's performance, prickly as it is, is what Margaret is rested upon. In Lisa's over-compensated attempts at making amends, she befriends the victim's sole friend, another prickly New York broad, played with brio by Jeannie Berlin, and the films final sections set about the wrong and right ways this accident such be held accounted for. It's striking (not to give anything away) that Margaret becomes a cynical near satire of sorts of naked human suffering.

What's left with this problematic film? Well, it's still a problem, and quasi-operatic undertones jell unevenly with the somber personal themes, but there's a wealth of wonderful acting and writing and that ambition thing comes back. Lonergan has so many conflicting ideas and so much at stake in Margaret, it could fill four films I'm sure. But even in it's unrefined state, there's an almost lovely glow even in it's soggiest, a flicker of hope and artfulness that wasn't yet established eleven years ago when he made his first feature. It's in the candid moments and sequences of New Yorkers unaware of what their fair city will become, full of fear, but also warmth. And while it may be but a relic some six years after the movie was shot, there's also a bit of timelessness to it as well, as while those days (for better or worse) may be gone, the memories of them are still so engrained in our soul.

Perhaps the best thing to come from it's barely-there invisible release last September, was a movement started on Twitter, #TeamMargaret, formed in an effort to get the film back in cinemas, and to continue and further the conversation. I can think of fewer films in the last year that have the ability to generate such an immediate after-thought-- whether it is loved or hated, or both, it would be hard not to be affected on some level. While the campaign itself may have been just as quiet as the film's release was, it did come back to a few screens, and while I myself may not quite by on Team Margaret, I stand beside it, for this movement, I believe, is not just for a chance for audiences to get to see Lonergan's film, but also a case for inexpensive, American dramas about grown ups, for grown ups to once again have it's place in the cinema all too crowded with unnecessary and banal sequels and wannabe franchise whats-its. Whether affected or not, Fox Searchlight did send out screeners of Margaret to Academy members in late December; the film received no Oscar nominations, but I would argue-- even for those whose generosity for the film doesn't go beyond interesting failure-- that Margaret is leaps and bounds better than most of nine nominated Best Pictures. B+

Annie Award Winners

2012-02-05T02:07:00.000-08:00

2011, and it's sad year of animated features is almost over...here are the Annie Winners:

ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DIRECTING: Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Kung Fu Panda 2
VOICE ACTING: Bill Nighy, Arthur Christmas
WRITING: Rango- John Logan
ANIMATED EFFECTS IN AN ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin
ANIMATED EFFECTS IN A LIVE ACTION FEATURE: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
CHARACTER ANIMATION: Rio
SCORE: John Williams, The Adventure of Tintin
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Kung Fu Panda 2
STORYBOARDING: Winnie the Pooh

Art Directors Guild Awards

2012-02-05T02:01:00.000-08:00

BEST ART DIRECTION (Period Film)
Hugo

BEST ART DIRECTION (Fantasy Film)
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Part 2

BEST ART DIRECTION (Contemporary Film)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Hugo will be and certainly is the frontrunner of the Art Direction Academy Award, but one wonders if the sentiment factor of Harry Potter might be able to sneak in here. Certainly since the Art Direction of the 7-film saga is the most Oscar-nominated piece that Harry has been recognized.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

2012-01-30T01:34:00.000-08:00

Tilda Swinton's ghostly face can tell volumes more than can ever be written on a page. Within the small details of her androgynous features, there's always a weird collection of tics and emotive clues to her characters, and whatever alien talents she inhabits, one can never call any of her creations less than interesting. That face is the primary focal point and the main reason to talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin, a strange art house horror-existential crisis potboiler from filmmaker Lynne Ramsay based upon the novel of the same name by Lionel Shriver. A fussy, more is more piece of finely-tuned pretentiousness that works (even at its looniest) thanks to Swinton's pure conviction, and indeed that face. Hard and chilling and told without the treat of accessibility in sight, this an odd parental angst\nightmare drama that feels like the love child of The Omen and Elephant mixed with Euro-nuanced indie twitches. A more sober plot description of We Need to Talk About Kevin is that it's a before and after recount of a neglectful mother and her disconnected relationship with her sociopath son who would become a nonchalant monster. The filmmakers offer a thoughtful, if chilly mediation on the argument of nature vs. nurture, an idiosyncratic difficult doozy of a film without definition, but motivated by mood.

The best compliment that can be said about We Need to Talk About Kevin in the clearest sense is that I would find it nearly impossibly not to have an instant guttural reaction. For filmmaking this good and a subject and treatise so eery and troubling, one might feel the need to shout for joy for the next wave of independent filmmaking, or jam their fingers in their eyes in discomfort. For a film that's so confounding, there's so many questions left unsolved...why is the color red to predominant in the film (from the red paint thrown across Swinton's Eva's home and car window to the strangely evocative red mush slopped about in the film's carnal prologue), and why is food so bizarrely featured and it's messiness so sharply captured in close-up? Yet for everything seemingly strange visual tic, and there's plenty more-- including a soundtrack of offbeat tunes offset to sequences of unhappiness and despair-- there's this added psychological mystery that shreds through a wacked artifice. And again Swinton's face place a picture. The films cuts back and forth in the span of a nearly sixteen years, but settles on a present-day gloom where Eva is alone, forced to deal with what she created, and how she may have caused it.

We cut back to more carefree days of a la-la-land party girl Eva, where she seduces a wimpy schlep named Franklin (John C. Rielly)-- they dance in the streets and kiss and hump happily and without a care in the world. That is until a baby boy springs about. Withdrawn and disconnected from parenting a child, a thought perhaps too bourgeois for Eva (or Swinton?) and settling with a cowardly man in nondescript suburbia is of little interest. And it's clear (or not) that Kevin, her misbegotten offspring is aware of mom's disinterest; or perhaps he's just a monster from the start. There's a rabble-rousing scene of Eva pushing her screaming child's stroller through a street of road work that's obvious and artful at the same time. Kevin grows up into a nerd-chic, holier than thou spoiled teenage (played by Ezra Miller, with the same androgynous chip on his should as his mum) and scowls and screeches his hatred and unhappiness with mom in such over-stylized line readings it hard to tell whether it's a point of parody or drama that he's given such free-reign. His ultimate showdown is a tragic high-school massacre, and while it's a subtly hinted Columbine commentary, there's hardly any mystery that the young man is deranged.

Fortunately for the films credit, it's Swinton's story, and the aftermath sequences of Eva trying to find employment, trying to find comfort and shield the grief and pain for the atrocities she's (whether fairly or not) responsible for is the far more compelling story. It's in Eva's refrain, and lack of defense, of naysayers and the grudge-filled townspeople around her that's startling and unrelentingly emotional. For when Ramsay calms on the gorgeously-if-needlessly staged grandeur of her talents and hallucinogenic over-stylization, and focuses on that face, We Need to Talk About Kevin feels like a lived-in thesis on grief. For Swinton's credit, she refuses to confine her character on either side of responsibility and gives a warmly nuanced and graceful portrayal of woman final understanding the affects of misguided parenting. Miller is chilling and effective in the sense that one should believe he did exactly what was required of him, but there's a startling amount of questions unresolved (either by choice, or by casting) of the Point A to Point B cause and relation of how his Kevin went so far. Like Elephant, Gus Van Sant's tranquil depiction of a high school shooting spree, Kevin provides no psychological clues...unlike Elephant, Kevin doesn't even provide a snapshot of his madness.

And that's the main conundrum for a film so purposeful and elegantly made...a film that feels exactly as intended within every edit, every musical cue, ever mad splash of red and odd displayed crumble of food. Does one condemn a film for doing exactly as one presumes it intends to do, even if the end result is a small state of madness of itself? We Need to Talk About Kevin is a film of many values, and certainly a finely crafted piece of whatchamacallit, but is it mere high end exploitation masquerading as art, or art transcending exploitative subject matter in an attempt to find truth within its tics. Whatever the case, that face mesmerizes, and the subject deserves a proper talking about...B+

2012 Sundance Film Festival Winners

2012-01-29T23:37:00.000-08:00

GRAND JURY PRIZE (Dramatic): Beasts of the Southern Wild- the film was snapped up by Fox Searchlight Pictures.

AUDIENCE AWARD (Dramatic): The Surrogate- Fox Searchlight picked up this much raved about film starring John Hawkes and Helen Hunt.

DIRECTING AWARD: Ava DuVernay, Middle of Nowhere

DIRECTING AWARD (Documentary): Lauren Greenfield, The Queen of Versailles- picked up by Magnolia Pictures.

WALDO SALT SCREENWRITING AWARD: Safety Not Guaranteed- stars Mark Duplass as a romantic loner who wants to time travel, written by Derek Connelly

GRAND JURY PRIZE (Documentary): The House I Live In- directed by Eugene Jarecki (brother of Andrew Jarecki, director of the acclaimed documentary Capturing the Friedmans and the not-so-acclaimed narrative All Good Things.)

AUDIENCE AWARD (Documentary): The Invisible War

WORLD CINEMA JURY PRIZE (Dramatic): Violeta Went to Heaven

WORLD CINEMA AUDIENCE AWARD (Dramatic): Valley of Saints

WORLD CINEMA JURY PRIZE (Documentary): The Law in These Parts

WORLD CINEMA AUDIENCE AWARD (Documentary): Searching for Sugar Man

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE FOR ENSEMBLE ACTING: The Surrogate

Screen Actors Guild Winners

2012-01-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

ENSEMBLE: The Help
ACTOR: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer, The Help

Before anyone starts to ask the question, is The Help a potential Best Picture spoiler now because of it SAG victory (a la Crash and the waves of misguided judgement that plagued Oscar Season 2005), let's all remember that the Ensemble Award at SAG is typical of responding the not necessarily the Best Ensemble of the year, but the biggest. And that while past Best Picture winners such as The King's Speech, Shakespeare in Love, Chicago and, indeed Crash took home the top prize at SAG, so did Oscar also-rans such as Inglourious Basterds, Traffic, Gosford Park, The Full Monty as did the un-nominated big cast phenom The Birdcage.

The bigger deal is the wondrous inclusion of Dujardin as Best Actor in a year that has spelled pretty much nothing but CLOONEY throughout...the big question mark out of this years SAG awards is not the relevance of The Help dominating, but the momentum of the charming Frenchman, whose a possibly contender with him SAG award, Golden Globe award, and bona fide charisma...plus a little Weinstein publicity magic and being in the Oscar Best Picture frontrunner likely doesn't hurt either. The other question is the race between Doubt square-offs and off-screen friends Viola Davis and Meryl Streep for Best Actress...the jury is possibly out for now, but neither can be counted out. Plummer and Spencer will be safe as they've dominated all the majors heading into the home stretch...

Directors Guild of America Winners

2012-01-29T23:08:00.000-08:00

DIRECTOR (Feature): Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist
DIRECTOR (Documentary): James Marsh, Project Nim

It's worth noting that the top top critical and guild prizes for Documentary Feature film were given to titles either not shortlisted by the Academy (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Into the Abyss, Senna, Beats, Rhymes & Life) or ones shortlisted, but snubbed (Project Nim.)

Anyhow, the DGA is best historical record there is that will predict the eventual Best Picture Oscar winner..which should make Hazanavicius and The Weinstein Company very happy Oscar night.

Only 12 times times since the DGA's inception has it not corresponded with the eventual Best Picture winner.

*Driving Miss Daisy is the real fluke as it's the only Best Picture winner that wasn't even nominated for a DGA directing award.

Critical Intake

2012-01-26T02:58:00.000-08:00

The inclusion of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as a Best Picture finalist got me thinking: How could a film widely critically derided score a slot as one of the finest of cinema of the year. While critical reaction of any film should always be taken as with a grain of salt, and sites such as Rotten Tomatoes as a scope of evil on movie making-- it's about the conversation, not about a score (how does one score a work of art anyway?)-- there is a piece that critical response plays a part (how big is up to interruption) in mounting an Oscar campaign. How else could one explain the dominance of a critical favorite, but barely seen film like The Hurt Locker rising the ranks to the pantheon of Hollywood's biggest stage. And while such a reductive "it's a dud" and "it's a hit" response does nothing and belittles the conversation that cinema really should be, we live in a universe where that can help or kill a film right off the bat...the Twitterers can claim a film's a piece of crap within seconds of opening and doom it right off the bat. Let's check in on the lowest reviewed (as per the Tomatometer) of films nominated for Best Picture in the last ten years for a glimpse:

10- Seabiscuit (2003)- 77%
War Horse (2011)- 77%
8- The Help (2011)- 76%
Moulin Rouge! (2001)- 76%
6- Gangs of New York (2002)- 75%
5- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)- 72%
4- Babel (2006)- 69%
3- The Blind Side (2009)- 66%
2- The Reader (2008)- 62%
1- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)- 46%

Based on this summation, 2011 was the worst crop of Best Picture finalists critically, with 3 films placing in the bottom ten of the 64 movies nominated in the last ten years.

RIP: 2011 Oscar Also-Rans

2012-01-26T02:01:00.000-08:00

There's so much at play when it comes down to Oscar nominations-- the glorified popularity contest of it all, the media-schmoozing decadence, and perhaps less so, the actual quality of the product. With film as such the subjective art form it is, it's always bullish to call something "the best,"-- the Academy has thus spoken. Here's a few of the shunned this season:

Michael Shannon in Take Shelter
The actor, nominated in 2008 for his supporting performance in Revolutionary Road, goes down a seemingly familiar road playing a paranoid middle-American husband and father, who may be experiencing allusions of a looming apocalypse, or losing his mind. However, this is perhaps one of the finest performances of the year and the compassionate, resonate portrait of a struggling average joe trying to grasp his grasp of reality. For a subtle, small performance in a tiny independent film, Shannon did quite well this awards season, taking a handful of critics prizes but didn't make it all the way; would have been a nice surprise (ahem...Demian Beshir!)

Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin
The Academy has now gone three for three in snubbing the alien goddess that is Swinton now after the past two years of gigantically esteemed work in Julia and I Am Love and now this...the Academy has some problems I since. The sick joke is that Swinton did so well in the precursor race (starting with her win at the National Board of Review), and earned nominations from the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild; a damning tease. The snub likely says more about the film itself than the performance (more on Kevin later), because the nutty creepiness of the flick can't come close to diminish the unique power of Swinton's expressive and grief-stricken mother of a sociopath.

Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia
Yes, it would be hard to say it's a shock that Dunst's extraordinary, career-expanding performance in Lars von Trier's Melancholia was snubbed for an Oscar, but it's still a bit sad that such a performance didn't gain a bit more traction. Her win at the Cannes Film Festival last May, and the National Society of Film Critics just last month notwithstanding, here is a big name actress in a game-changer of a performance from a visionary (if divisive) auteur. It's always strange in years like this one, in which the product is (or least perceived) as week, that the Academy always tends to go moreso to their bandwagon than expand into more startling territory. That's an error, I believe, since Dunst proved with her massive mediation of depression and passivity clearly isn't afraid of such danger.

Albert Brooks in Drive
This must fall into a case of a performance (one that's massively received critically, that just missed the ball) as a case of the Academy not really digging a certain film versus the performance or the actor. Drive was always going to be way to cool for the Academy-- too hip, too arty, too over-stuffed with glossy 80s music and way too hyper-stylized to be taken seriously by the stodgy members of AMPAS. The first tell-tale sign came from Brooks' lack of a Screen Actors Guild nomination, and the general sense of surprise that the supporting categories sometimes bring...c'mon nobody predicted Max von Sydow (from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Loud) and Jonah Hill and Kenneth Branagh...

Elizabeth Olsen in Martha Marcy May Marlene
Again, like Dunst this wasn't exactly a shocker-- Olsen strangely never quite received traction in a very competitive best actress race. Still what's startling is that in a year with an impressive roster of younger ladies in impressive, moody roles, that it was Rooney Mara who received the nomination. Olsen's work is (arguably) a bit more skillful, as she exhibits a range and control of emotions, as well as charming movie star veneer, all the while playing acharacter whose lack of an identity and sense of self is a strikingly mature piece of work. Subdued, but emotive as hell...I look forward to a career of more nominatable work in the future.

Ewan McGregor in Beginners
One day, the Academy will realize the error of its ways in the disservice to this fine Scotsman-- perhaps the most generous leading male in the past decade without an Oscar nomination to his credit. Thinking about it, would Nicole Kidman (Oscar-nominated for Moulin Rouge!) shinned quite so dazzlingly or even Christopher Plummer (nominated this year for Beginners) radiated such gravitas without such a stellar chemistry with McGregor. His work tends to be more recessive than the Academy prefers in their leading men, but he always manages to make a connection with the actors he shares a scene with-- his charm radiates. Even as a male lead-- he's the best supporting actor.

Charlize Theron in Young Adult
Even though the South African beauty has an Oscar already on her mantle (for Oscar's favorite female trick of a pretty face going ugly for Monster), and even though she's been a movie star\sexpot\Dior salesman for some time, 2011 was a true year of discovery for Theron. That she managed to be so funny, deliver such pointed and brilliant line readings and turn the table of an actress being so ugly, whilst being so pretty was a feat that was sadly unappreciated. Whatever the turn of the Academy, what she accomplished with her tart, startling and complicated work as brittle writer Mavis Gary was utterly inspired and a career-elevator that makes me long for the next messy portrait she tackles.

Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids
While the actress scored a nomination for co-authoring Bridesmaids, the first ever of Apatow-produced affair mind you, it would still be great fun to consider what spunk she would have been as a nominee for Best Actress. It's certainly no great shocker she was excluded...the Academy thinks lesser of comedies in general, and raunchy ones at that, forget about it (oh wait, they kinda liked this one.) It is however, the achingly universal qualities she brought to her performance-- that of jealousy, depression, immaturity and depravity that differentiate this as a bargain basement feminine slant of The Hangover, and that she managed to be riotously hilarious at the same time is some kind of miracle in of itself.

"Life's a Happy Song," from The Muppets
The Best Original Song category is typically grating for not just movie fans, but musical ones too, and this year...a stranger one than usual that included just two (Rio's "Real in Rio" and The Muppets' "Man or Muppet) Shamefully, or perhaps expectantly, they shunned the most joyful song in the most joyful musical of 2011...further anguish should be given to Alan Menken's cheerful and delightfully catchy (and story-mover) "Star Spangled Man" from Captain America.

Michael Fassbender in Shame
This one actually stings. I can understand that dark, disturbing drama about a man battling a sex addiction may not be the Academy's cup of tea. I can understand one's perhaps difficulties of the film itself, what with it's patches of reductive reasoning and a dash of Lost Weekend cliches. I can understand one being turned off by the sight of a naked man. However, I can't quite settle why Fassbender's tremendous and volcanic work could be overlooked by an Academy of actors who, seemingly, would kill for a role that requires such subtlety, vulnerability and humanity. For his performance was far more than the over-publicized quick shots of his anatomy, but an aching portrait of loneliness in search of human connection. And with a cinematic resume that overachieves most in a lifetime in the span of a single year...this was a node that the cinema deserved.

Whilst on the subject of the Oscar-shunned, it's time to consider that will a surprise Best Picture slot was made available to Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and films as varied as W.E., Real Steal and actors as varied as Jonah Hill and Glenn Close were considered, the following films of 2011 received zero nominations:

Martha Marcy May Marlene- the best debut of the year about a young woman trying to re-assimilate into normal society after being seduced by a cult. Sean Durkin's debut as a writer and director is a nifty introduction of what hopefully will be a terrific career, as is Elizabeth Olsen's breakthrough performance.

Melancholia- Lars von Trier doesn't make Oscar-type films (in fact- the famously plane shy auteur will likely never step foot in America), but there's an almost accessible and absolutely romantic quality to his end-of-the-world melodrama that's rapturously operatic and thrillingly dramatized that I wish the Academy had a bit more of an open mind to.

Shame- yes this NC-17 tale of the depths of sex addiction may not appear to be prime Oscar bait, but with performances so tight and such style behind the camera, it really should. It's a shame (!) that one relatively weaker years such as these that the Academy usually tends to go back to its tried and true formulaic mindsets rather than expanding its range and honoring something a bit more dangerous.

Take Shelter- a small, but astonishing portrait of a middle class American struggling to keep him family taken care whilst having end of days allusions. Is it a mid-life crisis, a mental breakdown, or a damning reality. What's wonderful about this feature, is that it offers no easy solution, but delivers a startling case study of recession-era Americans at odds, with a final scene of absolute power and control, one that's tight and scary and moving all at once.

Weekend- a surprise snub, hardly! As this independent British mood piece was snubbed by it's own country. But queer sexuality aside, this is one of the very best romantic pictures in years-- a startlingly frank, smart and bittersweet chamber piece of brief encounters and soulful connection. I hope the truest award this film earns is a small, but treasured slot in film history as one of the most romantic (gay or straight) movies of all time.

Further gripping to come...

Academy Award Nominations

2012-01-24T21:12:00.000-08:00

BEST PICTURE

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

BEST DIRECTOR
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne, The Descandents
Martin Scorsese, Hugo

BEST ACTOR
Damian Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

BEST ACTRESS
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
Bridesmaids- Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
Margin Call- J.C. Chandor
Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
A Separation- Asghar Farhardi

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Hugo- John Logan
The Ides of March- George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Beau Willimon
Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
A Cat in Paris
Chico & Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Hell & Back Again
If A Tree Falls: The Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

BEST FOREIGN FILM
Bullhead
Footnote
In Darkness
Monsieur Lazhar
A Separation

BEST ART DIRECTION
The Artist- Laurence Bennett & Robert Gould
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2- Stuart Craig & Stephenie McMillian
Hugo- Dante Ferretti & Francesca Lo Schiavo
Midnight in Paris- Anne Siebel & Helene Dubreuil
War Horse- Rick Carter & Lee Sandales

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Artist- Guillaume Schiffman
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Jeff Cronenweth
Hugo- Robert Richardson
The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
War Horse- Janusz Kaminski

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Anonymous- Lisy Christl
The Artist- Mark Bridges
Hugo- Sandy Powell
Jane Eyre- Michael O'Connor
W.E.- Arianne Phillips

BEST FILM EDITING
The Artist- Anne-Sophie Bion & Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants- Kevin Tent
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter
Hugo- Thelma Schoonmaker
Moneyball- Christopher Tellefsen

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Adventures of Tintin- John Williams
The Artist- Ludovic Bource
Hugo- Howard Shore
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Alberto Iglesias
War Horse- John Williams

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
"Man or Muppet," The Muppets
"Real in Rio," Rio

BEST MAKE-UP
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Iron Lady

BEST DOCUMENTARY (Short Subject)
The Barber of Birmingham
God is the Bigger Elvis
Incident is the New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

BEST SHORT FILM (Animated)
Dimanche/Sunday
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life

BEST SHORT FILM (Live Action)
Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic

BEST SOUND EDITING
Drive
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

BEST SOUND MIXING
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Nine is the number! But still quite a lonely number it may be. Future gripping and musings to come (please join me.) Hugo leads the field with 11 nominations (despite zero acting nods); The Artist comes in second with 10 nominations. The only real surprise comes in the (questionable?) inclusion of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close which may certainly holds the distinction of the lowest critically regarded Best Picture nomination of all time...way to go Stephen Daldry!

Producers Guild Winners

2012-01-23T20:22:00.001-08:00

FEATURE: The Artist
ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest

MPSE Sound Editors Nominations

2012-01-21T01:26:00.000-08:00

BEST SOUND EDITING: SOUND EFFECTS & FOLEY IN A FEATURE FILM

Drive
Fast Five
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse

BEST SOUND EDITING: MUSIC IN A FEATURE FILM

Drive
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hop
Hugo
Priest
Super 8
Transformers: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
The Tree of Life

BEST SOUND EDITING: DIALOGUE & ADR IN A FEATURE FILM

Abduction
The Help
Moneyball
Quarantine II: Terminal
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8
War Horse
The Way

BEST SOUND EDITING: MUSIC IN A MUSICAL FEATURE FILM

Footloose
The Muppets
Perfect Age of Rock 'N' Roll
Pina

BEST SOUND EDITING: ANIMATED FEATURE

The Adventures of Tintin
Cars 2
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango
Rio
The Smurfs

BEST SOUND EDITING: DOCUMENTARY

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
George Harrison: Living in a Material World
Lemmy
Pearl Jam Twenty

BEST SOUND EDITING: FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

1920. The World's Most Important Battle
Circumstance
Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within
The Flowers of War
In the Land of Blood & Honey
Sarah's Key
The Skin I Live In

Iowa Film Critics Awards

2012-01-21T01:17:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants
DIRECTOR: Alexander Payne, The Descendants
ACTOR: Brad Pitt, Moneyball
ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
BEST FILM YET TO OPEN IN IOWA: We Need to Talk About Kevin; Project Nim

London Film Critics Circle

2012-01-21T01:13:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
BRITISH PICTURE: We Need to Talk About Kevin
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
ACTRESS: (tie) Anna Paquin, Margaret; Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Sareh Bayat, A Separation
BRITISH ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
BRITISH ACTRESS: Olivia Coleman, Tyrannosaur
SCREENPLAY: A Separation
YOUNG BRITISH ACTOR: Craig Roberts, Submarine
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
DOCUMENTARY: Senna
TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT: Maria Djurkovic, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (production design)
BRITISH BREAKTHROUGH FILMMAKER: Andrew Haigh, Weekend

Costume Design Guild Nominations

2012-01-21T01:05:00.000-08:00

BEST COSTUME DESIGN (Period Film)
The Artist- Mark Bridges
Jane Eyre- Michael O'Connor
The Help- Sharon Davis
Hugo- Sandy Powell
W.E.- Arianne Phillips

BEST COSTUME DESIGN (Fantasy Film)
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2- Janey Temime
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides- Penny Rose
Red Riding Hood- Cindy Evans
Thor- Alexandra Byrne
X-Men: First Class- Sammy Sheldon

BEST COSTUME DESIGN (Contemporary Film)
Bridesmaids- Leesa Evans & Christine Wada
The Descendants- Wendy Chuck
Drive- Erin Benach
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Trish Summerville
Melancholia- Manon Rasmussen

Melancholia received a guild nomination-- WOOHOO!

Cinema Audio Society Nomiations

2012-01-21T00:40:00.001-08:00

BEST SOUND MIXING

Hanna
Hugo
Moneyball
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Super 8

Best Foreign-Language Film

2012-01-19T02:20:00.000-08:00

The always contentious battle for Best Foreign Film is underway as the Academy has whittled some 69 films to 8 semi-finalists for the Academy Award. They are:

Bullhead (Belgium- 5 nominations\no wins)- directed by Michael R. Roskan
Footnote (Israel- 9 nominations\no wins)- directed by Joseph Cedar
In Darkness (Poland- 8 nominations\no wins)- directed by Agnieszka Holland
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada- 3 nominations\1 win)- directed by Philippe Falardeau
Omar Killed Me (Morocco- never nominated)- directed by Roschdy Zem
Pina (Germany- 16 nominations\3 wins)- directed by Wim Wenders
A Separation (Iran- 1 nominations\no wins)- directed by Asghar Farhadi
Superclasico (Denmark- 8 nominations\3 wins)- directed by Ole Christian Madsen
Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (Taiwan- 3 nominations\1 win)- directed by Wei Te-sheng

Georgia Film Critics Awards

2012-01-17T23:14:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Tree of Life
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
ACTOR: Brad Pitt, Moneyball
ACTRESS: Juliette Binoche, Certified Copy
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life
ENSEMBLE CAST: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Moneyball
FOREIGN FILM: Certified Copy
ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin
DOCUMENTARY: Senna
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life
ART DIRECTION: The Tree of Life
SCORE: War Horse
ORIGINAL SONG: "Man or Muppet," The Muppets
BREAKTHROUGH AWARD: Jessica Chastain

BAFTA Nominations

2012-01-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

The British are coming! The British are coming!

BEST FILM

The Artist
The Descendants
Drive
The Help
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

BEST BRITISH FILM

My Week With Marilyn
Senna
Shame
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
We Need to Talk About Kevin

BEST DIRECTOR

Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive
Martin Scorsese, Hugo

BEST ACTOR

George Clooney, The Descendants
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

BEST ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Viola Davis, The Help
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Jim Broadbent, The Iron Lady
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Ides of March
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Jessica Chastain, The Help
Judi Dench, My Week With Marilyn
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Carey Mulligan, Drive
Octavia Spencer, The Help

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
Bridesmaids- Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
The Guard- John Michael McDonagh
The Iron Lady- Abi Morgan
Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
The Help- Tate Taylor
The Ides of March- George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Beau Willimon
Moneyball- Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

The Adventures of Tintin
Arthur Christmas
Rango

BEST DOCUMENTARY

George Harrison: Living in a Material World
Project Nim
Senna

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Incendies
Pinna
Potiche
A Separation
The Skin I Live In

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Artist- Guillaume Schiffman
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Jeff Cronenweth
Hugo- Robert Richardson
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Hoyte van Hoytema
War Horse- Janusz Kaminski

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

The Artist- Mark Bridges
Hugo- Sandy Powell
Jane Eyre- Michael O'Connor
My Week With Marilyn- Jill Taylor
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Jacqueline Durran

BEST FILM EDITING

The Artist- Anne-Sophie Bion & Michel Hazanavicius
Drive- Mat Newman
Hugo- Thelma Schoonmaker
Senna- Gregers Sall & Chris King
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Dino Jonsater

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Artist- Laurence Bennett & Robert Gould
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2- Stuart Craig & Stephenie McMillian
Hugo- Dante Ferretti & Francesca Lo Schiavo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Maria Djurkovic & Tatiana MacDonald
War Horse- Rick Carter & Lee Sandales

BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC

The Artist- Ludovic Bource
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Hugo- Howard SHore
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Alberto Iglesieas
War Horse- John Williams

BEST MAKE-UP AND HAIRSTYLING

The Artist
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
The Iron Lady
My Week With Marilyn

BEST SOUND

The Artist
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
War Horse

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

The Adventures of Tintin
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
War Horse

BEST DEBUT OF A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER

Attack the Block- Joe Cornish (director\writer)
Black Pond- Will Sharpe (director\writer), Tom Kingsley (director) Sarah Brocklehurst (producer)
Coriolanus- Ralph Fiennes (director)
Submarine- Richard Ayoade (director\writer)
Tyrannosaur- Paddy Considine (director), Diarmid Scrimshaw (producer)

ORANGE WEDNESDAYS RISING STAR AWARD

Adam Deacon
Chris Hemsworth
Tom Hiddleston
Chris O'Dowd
Eddie Redmayne

The Artist continues its awards domination with 12 nominations from the British Academy of Film & Television Awards, as homegrown espionage tale Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy follows with 11 nods. There's both a telling difference and similarity between the British equivalent and the Oscar itself-- message pictures (like The Help) transcends geography, as does star power-- look at the overwhelming effects of both the Clooney and the Streep-factor-- The Descendants, almost an epitome of American domesticity (despite it's tropical setting) managed a Best Picture nomination, and The Iron Lady, despite being fairly horrible (outside of Her Majesty's greatness) managed a few extra nods of her coattails, despite portraying a woman widely denounced in Great Britain. I'm sorry but that Screenplay nod is absolute nonsense. The BAFTA also cherishes their own-- with hometown pride sewn up with Tinker Tailor, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Senna and My Week With Marilyn, a screenplay nod for The Guard all making strong impressions and earning lofty mentions for it's lofty British cast members. Then again, they also are strong risk-takers than the AMPAS, given the Drive popularity-- way to cool for the stodgy American film Academy...also Pedro Almodovar films are considered for Best Foreign Film-- Spain hasn't submitted a feature of his for Oscar consideration since All About My Mother (1999.)

Best mentions worthy of applause include nominations for Arthur Christmas in the animated feature category (the best animated feature of 2011, in my opinion), which has been ignored erroneously stateside, Best Film Editing for Senna is absolutely deserved...it's a masterwork of woven storytelling presented all through archival footage, the costume nod for Jane Eyre (by Michael O'Connor, who won the Oscar for The Duchess in 2008) and of course the richly deserved across the board continued success of The Artist.

Questionable mentions include the abundant love for My Week With Marilyn (Branagh and Dench are terrific actors, but they're coasting here...come please), as is Jim Broadbent in The Iron Lady and the aforementioned screenplay. And with all the honoring of prime British work, why is there not one mention for one of the strongest British debuts in recent years: Weekend, the subtly soulful queer romance.

Snubbed completely: The Tree of Life

ACE Eddie Nominations

2012-01-16T20:06:00.000-08:00

Here's one of the biggies. The ACE Eddies honor the best in film editing, which many have argued that without a complementary Best Film Editing Oscar nomination, a film simply cannot win Best Picture. No motion picture has done so since 1980's Ordinary People, which Crash-fans rally as the defacto argument in its triumph over Brokeback Mountain in 2005. Of course, the ACE Eddie offer both drama and comedy categories, so this honor helps only slightly. Here are the nominees:

BEST FILM EDITING (Drama)
The Descendants- Kevin Tent
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter
Hugo- Thelma Schoonmaker
Moneyball- Christopher Tellefsen
War Horse- Michael Kahn

BEST FILM EDITING (Musical or Comedy)
The Artist- Anne-Sophia Bion & Michel Hazanavicius
Bridesmaids- William Kerr & Michael L. Sale
Midnight in Paris- Alisa Lepselter
My Week With Marilyn- Adam Recht
Young Adult- Dana E. Glauberman

BEST FILM EDITING (Animated Feature)
The Adventures of Tintin- Michael Kahn
Puss in Boots- Eric Dapkewicz
Rango- Craig Wood

The big snub: The Help

The 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards

2012-01-16T00:13:00.000-08:00

PICTURE (Drama)- The Descendants
PICTURE (Musical or Comedy)- The Artist
DIRECTOR- Martin Scorsese, Hugo
ACTRESS (Drama)- Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
ACTOR (Drama)- George Clooney, The Descendants
ACTRESS (Musical or Comedy)- Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
ACTOR (Musical or Comedy)- Jean Dujardin, The Artist
SUPPORTING ACTRESS- Octavia Spencer, The Help
SUPPORTING ACTOR- Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SCREENPLAY- Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
ANIMATED FEATURE- The Adventures of Tintin
FOREIGN FILM- A Separation
SCORE- The Artist- Ludovic Bource
SONG- "Masterpiece," W.E.

The naval gazing of the Hollywood Foreign Press is done with, and usual suspects like George Clooney and Meryl Streep added shiny new statues to go with their several old dusty ones, and The Artist lead the field with 3 wins and The Descendants followed with 2 awards. I'm curious if this share the good-will act will continue with the Academy Awards, as this year has but a few consensus titles, but of which (The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, The Help, Moneyball) could all find themselves in small spots of recognition.

One question that I've been hovering on lately is if the race is in fact between The Artist and The Descendants, might the Clooney-ness of it all be enough for a Best Picture win. The Artist is the clear winner of the critical derby, and has the Weinstein loyalty for it, but it's also a low-grossing black and white silent film made by and starring a French guy. In truth, inside Hollywood types of films, even glowing homages to old-Hollywood have never been awarded Best Picture in the past. Some crystal ball gazing tells me the next month may not be as kind to The Artist. I fear of backlash-- though am glad that that silly Kim Novak-raping-of-Vertigo fuss wasn't enough to start one.

The Descendants, one the other hand (despite not being the best film of 2011) is an all-American drama-comedy, one with an exotic-enough Hawaiian location that is distinctive, but not off-putting. It seems reminiscent of past Best Picture winners like Kramer vs. Kramer, Terms of Endearment and Ordinary People. Then again, movies like that haven't been honored in twenty-eight years. I assume that some questions might be solved come SAG Award evening...

For the record, Meryl Streep's victory for The Iron Lady marked her 25th Golden Globe nomination and eighth award. Her Golden Globe collection:

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979, Best Supporting Actress)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981, Best Actress-Drama)
Sophie's Choice (1982, Best Actress- Drama)
Adaptation. (2002, Best Supporting Actress)
Angels in America (2003, Best Actress- TV Mini-Series)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006, Best Actress- Musical or Comedy)
Julie & Julia (2009, Best Actress- Musical or Comedy)

Nevada Film Critics Society

2012-01-15T02:39:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: Hugo
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
ACTOR: Tom Hardy, Warrior
ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, EVERYTHING
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
ANIMATED FEATURE: Puss in Boots
ENSEMBLE: The Help
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: (tie) Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene; Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
CHILD ACTOR: Asa Butterfield, Hugo

One of the only genuine surprises of the 2011 awards season is the striking success of Hugo, what with it's 3-D, based on a popular children's book pre-package looked not exactly like pure Oscar-bait-- the Scorsese factor notwithstanding. And as a fan of the film, I'm still surprised by it's enormous critical acceptance. Yes, the film is a lovingly and superbly crafted ode to cinema, which certainly would make any cinephile or movie-buff, or perhaps even passer-by fan swoon to some extent. And yes, Hugo has moments of inspired filmmaking magic. However, it is still a slow burn of a film, with long patches of inconsistency of tone, dull characterizations and mediocre performances (especially the young ones), coupled with the top-dollar price tag that Paramount Pictures (despite the high number of Oscar nominations the film will likely earn) will likely never recoup. Scorsese is the medium's biggest champion, which I suppose is reward enough.

Critics Choice Awards

2012-01-13T00:17:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: George Clooney, The Descendants
ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer, The Help
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: George Harrison: Living in a Material World
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
ART DIRECTION: Hugo
CINEMATOGRAPHY: (tie) The Tree of Life; War Horse
FILM EDITING: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
COSTUME DESIGN: The Artist
SCORE: The Artist
SONG: "Life's a Happy Song," The Muppets
SOUND: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
MAKE-UP: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
VISUAL EFFECTS: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
ENSEMBLE: The Help
YOUNG ACTOR: Thomas Horn, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
ACTION MOVIE: Drive
COMEDY: Bridesmaids
HONORARY AWARD: Martin Scorsese
JOEL SIEGEL AWARD: Sean Penn

Denver Film Critics Society

2012-01-12T02:01:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Tree of Life
DIRECTOR: (tie) Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life; Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: Brad Pitt, Moneyball
ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
ENSEMBLE: The Descendants
SCREENPLAY: The Descendants
DOCUMENTARY: Page One: Inside the New York Times
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
SCORE: The Artist
BREAKOUT STAR: Jessica Chastain

American Society of Cinematographers Nominations

2012-01-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

The best pieces of cinematography of 2011, as per their own peers are:

The Artist- Guillaume Schiffman
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Jeff Cronenweth
Hugo- Robert Richardson
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Hoyte Van Hoytema
The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki

The biggest surprise must be the inclusion of Van Hoytema for his work on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which has had a soft awards run so. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's inclusion should be surprising, considering films it bested, but it's awards (and specifically guild) turn-up has been the most surprising element of the second stage of Oscar mania. With it's near perfect (save for SAG) guild run, could this film really be on its way to a Best Picture nomination? Really...this is second-tier Fincher people; just stating.

SOME TRIVIA:
Schiffman, a longtime collaborator of The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius back in France is celebrating his first ASC nomination. His work also includes last year's art house flick Gainsbourgh: A Heroic Life (a Best Make-Up finalist for this years Oscars.) Very likely he'll be championed by the Academy.

Cronenweth has collaborated with David Fincher before, earning both an ASC and Oscar nomination last year for his (far superior) work on The Social Network. He has also lensed Fight Club, Down With Love and One Hour Photo.

Richardson is one of the biggest and most acclaimed cinematographers currently working, and the current go-to-cameraman for both Scorsese and Tarantino. He started to gain notoriety for his work with Oliver Stone, earning his first ASC nomination for 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and his first Oscar nomination for 1987's Platoon. While this is his tenth ASC nomination (he was last nominated for 2009's Inglourious Basterds), he has yet the win the prize. Richardson has, however, been Oscar-nominated six times and the Oscar twice-- for The Aviator (2004) and JFK (1991.)

Van Hoytema is receiving his first ASC mention, but has produced memorable work on films such as The Fighter and his last collaboration with Tinker Tailor director Tomas Alfredsen-- the dreamy vampire coming of age tale Let the Right One In.

Lubezki is one of the major cinematographers of modern cinema. While that sounds like hyperbole, his work backs up that statement. The preferred DP of Alfonso Cuaron and, now Terrence Malick has illuminated movie screens with some of the astonishing and inventive camera work of last fifty years. He earns his third ASC mention for his work on The Tree of Life, a film I didn't even care for mostly, but still deserves to win-- he was previously honored by the ASC for the startlingly brilliant work he did for 2006's Children of Men and was also nominated in 1999 for Sleepy Hollow. He has earned four Oscar nominations for Children of Men, The New World, Sleepy Hollow and A Little Princess-- he has yet to win!!!!

Last years line-up was:

Black Swan
Inception
The King's Speech
The Social Network
True Grit

In a rare move-- the Oscar nominations matched 100% and Inception took both prizes. If that holds true this year, than films like War Horse, Drive and Midnight in Paris will be one nomination-less than perhaps hoped for.

Vancouver Film Critics Awards

2012-01-10T02:22:00.000-08:00

FILM: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
ACTRESS: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help
SCREENPLAY: The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation

BEST CANADIAN FILM: Cafe de Flore
DIRECTOR OF A CANADIAN FILM: David Croenberg, A Dangerous Method
ACTOR IN A CANADIAN FILM: Peter Stormare, Small Town Murder Songs
ACTRESS IN A CANADIAN FILM: Michelle Williams, Take This Waltz
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A CANADIAN FILM: Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A CANADIAN FILM: Helene Florent, Cafe de Flore

Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards

2012-01-10T02:15:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs; Octavia Spencer, The Help
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash; Moneyball- Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin
ENSEMBLE CAST: Bridesmaids
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: Buck
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
FILM EDITING: Hugo- Thelma Schoonmaker
SCORE: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross; Hanna- The Chemical Brothers

BEST WOMAN DIRECTOR: Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin
BEST WOMAN SCREENWRITER: Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig, Bridesmaids
KICK-ASS AWARD FOR BEST FEMALE ACTION STAR: Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; Saorise Ronan, Hanna
BEST ANIMATED FEMALE: Bean (Isla Fisher), Rango
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
FEMALE ICON AWARD: Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
THIS YEARS OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT BY A WOMAN IN THE FILM INDUSTRY: Jessica Chastain
AWFJ AWARD FOR HUMANITARIAN ACTIVISM: Angelina Jolie, In the Land of Blood & Honey

Directors Guild of America Nominations

2012-01-09T23:16:00.000-08:00

When it comes to Oscar prognosticating, nobody is closer than the DGA in terms of ratio to Best Picture wins. Like last year, when there was still a contentious race between The King's Speech and The Social Network, both parties (as sad as it was) had to concede that when Tom Hooper won the DGA, the fate had been sealed. Here comes the five men, all middle-aged (and in two cases, beyond such) white men (no diversity this year, unless a French white man counts) that have been named as the frontrunners for this years honor:

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
David Fincher, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo

The big winner of the field must be Fincher, whose film, while critically acknowledged if not salivated over and completely outside the traditional wheelhouse for such distinctions, has been doing a great job as of late in keeping itself in the Academy mindset, with it's PGA nomination to coincide. Is it a pity vote for last year, one may wonder...I'm somewhat baffled by his inclusion. The snubbed list includes Steven Spielberg for War Horse, a surprise since the DGA salivates over him whenever it gets the chance to, Bennett Miller for Moneyball, Tate Taylor for The Help (not so much a surprise except for the films near sweep of guild honors so far), and George Clooney for The Ides of March.

Woody Allen has been nominated by the DGA before four previous times, winning the prize in 1977 for Anne Hall, and nominated for Manhattan (1979), Hannah & Her Sisters (1986) and Crimes & Misdemeanors (1989.) He also received the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.

This is Michel Hazanavicius' first DGA nomination.

David Fincher was nominated for the DGA last year for The Social Network and in 2008 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In 2008, he was nominated for Best Achievement in Direction of a Commercial, and in 2004, he won the DGA for the same category.

Alexander Payne was previously nominated for the DGA for directing Sideways in 2004.

Martin Scorsese received his first DGA nomination for Taxi Driver in 1976. Since then, he has been nominated seven other times: Raging Bull (1980), GoodFellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006) and the pilot episode of Broadwalk Empire (2010). He has won the DGA twice (for The Departed and Boardwalk Empire) and received the 2003 DGA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Best Make-up

2012-01-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

Far and away the nuttiest category on the Oscar ballot...for which we can thank for forever qualifying movies like Norbit and Click as Oscar nominees have announced their semi-finalist for the Best Make-Up Academy Award. None such dubious selections this year as the seven films vying will be:

Albert Nobbs
Anonymous
The Artist
Gainsbourgh: A Heroic Life
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
The Iron Lady

While I'm no fan of The Iron Lady, the make-up and aging process of Ms. Streep is pretty immaculate.

Missing: the aging prosthesis used to make Leonardo DiCaprio old-man J. Edgar.

Kansas City Film Critics

2012-01-08T23:58:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
ACTOR: George Clooney, The Descendants
ACTRESS: Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Beginners- Mike Mills
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin

ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
FANTASY FILM: Hugo

National Society of Film Critics

2012-01-08T01:54:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: Melancholia
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
ACTOR: Brad Pitt, Moneyball; The Tree of Life
ACTRESS: Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life; Take Shelter; The Help
SCREENPLAY: A Separation
DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki

Central Ohio Film Critics Awards

2012-01-08T01:17:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: Drive

Top Ten of 2011:

Martha Marcy May Marlene
Take Shelter
Melancholia
The Descendants
Midnight in Paris
The Tree of Life
The Artist
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive
ACTOR: Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
ACTRESS: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
ENSEMBLE: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Source Code- Duncan Jones
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Steven Zaillian
ANIMATED FEATURE: Arthur Christmas
DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
SCORE: Hanna- The Chemical Brothers
ACTOR THE YEAR: Jessica Chastain
BREAKTHROUGH FILM ARTIST: Nicholas Winding Refn
MOST OVERLOOKED FILM: Margaret

Writers Guild Nominations

2012-01-08T01:05:00.000-08:00

I'm terribly behind, but let's pretend I'm not, for that would make me sad...The Writers Guild is a strange bird, not necessarily for bad choices (many every year, including this year are quite stellar) but for their rules and guidelines. So many scripts get tossed aside because the writers are not WGA members, or certain paper work isn't processed in time, or it's an animated feature. There's so many (perhaps too many) obstacles.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

50/50- Will Reiser
Bridesmaids- Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
Win Win- Tom McCarthy
Young Adult- Diablo Cody

A good line-up, albeit a strangely comically-bent one. Bridesmaids continues guild domination, which is an eye-brow raiser, but a nicely raised one at that.
Not Eligible: Arthur Christmas, The Artist, Beginners, The Iron Lady, Like Crazy, Margin Call, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Melancholia, Rango, Shame and Take Shelter

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Steven Zaillian
The Help- Tate Taylor
Hugo- John Logan
Moneyball- Steven Zaillian & Aaron Sorkin

Also notable is the striking success for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a decidedly non-awards type of film, in the guilds.
Not Eligible: Albert Nobbs, Carnage, Drive, Jane Eyre, My Week With Marilyn, The Skin I Live In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Iron Lady

2012-01-05T01:50:00.000-08:00

There's always a difficult tightrope that must be walked when making a biography film about a controversial historical figure. The tone, it seems, matters more than the performance more times than not-- even if it's the performance that always must invariably carry the picture. There must be, at some end, I suppose, a conscious decision of said person. Oliver Stone has walked this murky path several times, with varying degrees of success-- spinning his liberal conspiracy theories on several US presidents, typically throwing away accuracy, consistency of tone, even logic aside to distill his nervy point of view. Just in the past two months, Clint Eastwood struggled with his J. Edgar tale with his cultural reverence and political timidity weighing down the figure's controversy and unpopularity. Now Margaret Thatcher gets the big screen treatment in a wacky new mess directed by Phyllida Lloyd (Mamma Mia!) and written by Abi Morgan (Shame), both of whom leave the heavy lifting to it's leading lady, Meryl Streep. Whether due to sheepishness or reluctance of convictions, The Iron Lady succumbs to typical biopic standards of greatest hits speechifying and meandering thoughtlessness; any verve or style or hard-pressing dialogue of Thatcher-the-woman vs. Thatcher-the-politican is dismissed in favor of it's leading lady's technical grace.

That grace is pure, as Streep is as thrilling and commanding as ever. Of course, that's hardly surprising-- this great actress has always been such a fine technician and a joyful presence. All of her legendary qualities are put on display from the outset-- the voice, the poise, the pearls that Thatcher loves so, but what makes the performance pop in such a vibrant way (one that the film itself has no idea of what do with) is the great sense of texture and nuance she brings to her Thatcher, one that despite the filmmaker's all too quiet reverence, doesn't let her off the hook so easily, but presents a challenging portrait of a challenging woman whose decisions invariably, and unfortunately, are still being felt today. Streep has also always been kind of a ham, and that marvel that comes through when a character that she can bite her teeth into comes her way, there's always been a certain charm to it. Too bad nearly everything that surrounds this adept and powerful character study is nearly all a waste.

Like J. Edgar, The Iron Lady is framed by the old icon looking back-- in this case, we meet a present-day Margaret, applied with heavy make-up work for Streep. She's a recluse for the most part, battling dementia, eating breakfast with Denis (Jim Broadbent-- the go-to prestige Brit actor to tango with legends playing legends losing their minds; also included Iris), her long deceased husband. Seen as increasingly over-the-top stages of grief, Thatcher looks back at her life-- her drive and fortitude that brought her from a small-town grocer's daughter to Oxford graduate to the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain. Framed more so by montage than flashback, the primary chord of The Iron Lady is that of feminist pride. And by which there is nothing wrong with-- whatever one may feel about Thatcher's politics, her decisions, or the repercussions of both-- there is always something moving about anyone outside who can join the ranks of the all-white-male party and not only stand beside them, but move above them. There's a certain flake that the movie can be forgiven for because of that; it is the fault of the film that, however, that any of the criticism or cultural distress caused by Thatcher gets nearly thrown away or white-washed completely, or turned-off in the case of a slightly unflattering TV news program. It would almost feel akin to a Hitler biopic that fails to mention the Nazis. Reckless and irresponsible, but also a missed opportunity, for Thatcher's story-- while perhaps permanently at odds-- is a compelling one.

Feminist agenda and white-washing of history aside, there's one big piece of bull that discredits the film from any serious merit. When the young Thatcher, then a determined outside named Margaret Roberts (played by Alexandra Roach) meets her future husband- young Denis is played by Harry Lloyd, she makes a pointed speech she makes after he proposes-- that she, a grand lady of many speeches to come, will never the be the dutiful housewife type, she is meant and destined to do and serve and blather, blather, blather. The saddest and most difficult thing to swallow in The Iron Lady is while Thatcher's determination of reminded (yet hardly taken into actual account) in scene after scene, the film succumbs to a simple, stand by your man theme that feels fake, not just its conceit, but to Thatcher herself, and the great services that Streep does in embodying her.

There's an even nuttier spin as the film meanders to it's climax, as we spend more time with the losing-her-grips modern day Thatcher. She's drinking too much and dismissive of her ill health, and while Streep and Broadbent appear to be having marvelous actorly play, there's an altogether strange and baroque undercurrent to the way Lloyd films the last stretch of the film. Shot in bizarre angles (and while it may appear to be an improvement from the stilted shots of Mamma Mia), it has a jarring, almost horror fun-house effect. The Iron Lady moves away from conservative porn to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? campiness, with nothing but the stern, but surely tired, shoulders of Streep keeping it afloat. The actress does her part, and her legend will remain intact, but this film doesn't deserve it in the least. D+

Art Directors Guild Nominations

2012-01-03T22:12:00.000-08:00

BEST ART DIRECTION (Period Film)

Anonymous- Sebastian Krawinkel
The Artist- Laurence Bennett
The Help- Mark Ricker
Hugo- Dante Ferretti
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy- Maria Djurkovic

BEST ART DIRECTION (Contemporary Film)

Bridesmaids- Jefferson Sage
The Descendants- Jane Anne Stewart
Drive- Beth Mickle
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close- KK Barrett
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Donald Graham Burt

BEST ART DIRECTION (Fantasy Film)

The Adventures of Tintin
Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys & Aliens
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

For these keeping track with us, of the three guilds to announce nomination (PGA, SAG and now ADG), four films have swept thus far-- The Artist, The Descendants, The Help and Bridesmaids.

Producers Guild Nominations

2012-01-03T22:07:00.000-08:00

FEATURE FILM

The Artist
Bridesmaids
The Descendants
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
The Ides of March
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
War Horse

ANIMATED FEATURE

The Adventures of Tintin
Cars 2
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

I would critique, but instead I yawn!

Online Film Critics Society

2012-01-03T21:53:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Tree of Life

DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame

ACTRESS: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango

DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

FOREIGN FILM: A Separation

CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life

FILM EDITING: The Tree of Life

SPECIAL AWARDS:

Jessica Chastain (breakout performer of the year)

Martin Scorsese (in honor of his work and dedication in the pursuit of film preservation)

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T00:53:00.000-08:00

As we say goodbye to the somewhat daffy, somewhat dreary, whatever-you-make-of-it year of cinema that was 2011, and welcome a time of reflection and hope for a better one to come, I offer some of my favorite memories of the past year of movies. Note this is not a best-of list (that comes with more reflection and timing...damn the critical society for their silly Oscar dazing; filmmaking requires a time to breath to truly absorb.) Here's some happy gems I savored:

The grotesque, but fascinating demise of Gwyneth Paltrow in Steven Soderbergh's outbreak horror global flick Contagion.

When Owen Wilson's Gil met Salvador Dali (played with a never before seen sense of humor by Adrien Brody) in Midnight in Paris.

The nuttiest and most hilarious sequence of the year: when the Bridesmaids gals took that ill-fated plane ride to Las Vegas-- Kristen Wiig was "ready to paarrtttyyy," and welcomed everyone to the celebration of perhaps the most artfully executed girls-gone-wild piece ever created for the silver screen.

The nervy, stomach-inducing sequence atop the world largest building in Dubai, whereTom Cruise scaled in Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol. Shot with such tense, such verve, such "how the hell did do that" kind of cinematic magic that franchise filmmaking appears to have lost some time ago. I didn't feel good watching it, what with the butterflies in my stomach churning of the fear of heights I never knew I had, but damned if I wasn't compelled.

The alarming and worthwhile sense of discovery in watching the absorbing charm of Elizabeth Olsen tackling a dense, hard to define character of many names in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Ditto the arrival of Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, just to cheat a little.

The shock and awe of George Valentin's nightmare possibly becoming a reality as everyone has a voice but himself, the greatest silent movie star in the world in The Artist.

"Life a Happy Song," the best musical sequence in a feature film since Catherine Zeta-Jones belted "All That Jazz" in The Muppets.

The opening prologue to Melancholia, in which director Lars von Trier romantically and beguilingly scored his end-of-the-world operetta to tune of Wagner's Tristan & Isolde. von Trier has never been quite so unnervingly and beautifully poetic.

That nifty, ultra cool, so-stylized it hurts elevator shot in Drive, where Ryan Gosling became not just a movie star, but a generational icon.

The sad and haunting conclusion to best romantic story of the year-- the bittersweet farewell of the lovers from Weekend.

What are your favorite cinematic moments of 2011?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Young Adult

2011-12-31T23:20:00.000-08:00

The drippy darkly tinted charm of Young Adult is tests its audience within the first few minutes. Charlize Theron, playing a narcissistic, holier-than-thou vamp goes on a date with a faceless gentleman who drags on and on about humanitarian efforts in a third world country, when the comely beauty barks, "Why?" The stinging burn, tossed-off with such a whatever-ness contempt explains the character, the films breathless, uneasy comedy from the start. This isn't going to be a likeable portrait of a pretty young women brought to you by the award-winning crew of the mirth instilled Juno. Yet it's the fact that director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody bring such an anti-Juno spin to their second collaboration seems to enhance and rejuvenate their spirits, their sense of play, and sense of character. It marks a rejuvenation for Theron for herself, freed of the histrionics of having to gain weight and put on prosthetics to be taken seriously, for she is allowed to be very beautiful and entrancingly ugly at once, chewing on Cody's biting and hard to pin down dialogue with such aplomb that one must ask the question-- how has nobody ever correctly tapped into her hidden comedic talents before? If Young Adult in the end proves nothing more than a standout vehicle for Theron's under-utilized talents, her spirit and joie de vivre in her harsh, yet deeply textured portrait of misanthropic Mavis Gary, is more than enough nourishment for comedy deprived movie-goers.

Mavis was that small town girl back in high school that everyone knew, and many probably loathed. The prom queen, pretty-type who flaunted how much better she was. She had the football heartthrob for her beau (played as milquetoast corn-fed grown-up by Patrick Wilson) and the drive and haughty grandeur of someone who would never come back to her hick small town roots-- her home is the quaint (and invented) town of Mercury, Minnesota. Long ago traveled to the big city and seemingly a successful writer of young adult fiction, living her carefree existence in her very own condo, Mavis' disillusion of grandeur are apparent from the start-- she's but a ghost writer of a successful series of youth-driven books, who spends the bulk of her days finding quotes from CW-like television shows, and the bulk of her nights drinking up a storm. With the realization that her book series work is nearly extinct, the true tailspin occurs when Mavis receives a mass e-mail blast from Buddy (Wilson) on the arrival of his newborn child. Nearly hellbent, but utterly nonchalant, Mavis decides the only thing she can do is save her old flame from his humdrum domesticity.

Along the way, she meets a compatible drinking buddy, a former high school nobody with a tragic past (played by Patton Oswalt), the only one who instantly calls Mavis' bluff from the start, and raises lots of trouble. However, it's the reckless abandon of Theron's performance that is utterly inspired, as well as the crisp notes that Reitman and Cody lay down from the start-- she is never let of the hook for a second, for it would be too easy for the film to be overtaken with last minutes odes of redemption. Mavis is a strong, smart, manipulative, domineering, nearly detestable, absolutely enthralling characterization that it's shocking a major studio (in this case, Paramount) would agree to finance the film to begin with. But it's the nimble and unmatched charm and stinging energy that Theron provides that gives Young Adult its bent and springy awkwardness-- one that's never quite laugh-out-loud funny, but impeccably timed and nearly courageous in it's go-for-broke splendor.

It's also a nice respite for Reitman, a filmmaker, perhaps slightly weighed down by the heavy lifting of his previous film-- the awards magnet Up in the Air, who has unabashedly returned with a nicely scathing humanistic portrait, one that one must concede could never have been made for the hope of gold statutes. B+

Austin Film Critics Awards

2011-12-31T01:46:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: Hugo

Top Ten of 2011:

Drive
Take Shelter
Midnight in Paris
Attack the Block
The Artist
Martha Marcy May Marlene
I Saw the Devil
13 Assassins
Melancholia

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive
ACTOR: Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
ACTRESS: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Drive- Hossein Amini
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
FOREIGN FILM: I Saw the Devil
DOCUMENTARY: Senna
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
ORIGINAL SCORE: Attack the Block- Steven Price

I really love this line-up. Not that I so much agree with everything, that's absolutely besides the point-- but for the most part, this is a totally unabashed best-of list with little intention of having any influence over Oscar or media baiting, but rather a personalized collection of a group of people's best of movies of the year. Texas did something right.

War Horse

2011-12-23T00:46:00.000-08:00

How could a film with such sweeping themes are war, honor, family and equines turn up so emotional distant? A film with such a refined pedigree, based on a glowingly received novel by Michael Morpurgo, which was turned into a Tony Award winning play, and now a film directed by Steven Spielberg, War Horse is one of those leaden, somewhat obnoxious films that doesn't need to be great or adored to earn awards plaudits and generous box office numbers. That's a shame considering the end result is decidedly hum-ho, as opposed to rapturously emotional. For the story at hand is decidedly so up Spielberg's sentiment-heavy zone, it should be the type of the film that melts its audience within minutes, what with it's canvas of gorgeous landscapes and wartime setting, a perfect coming back party for the director the showcase his John Ford-esque skills matched with his bravura technical know how. Perhaps it could have been a fine reminder of the depth of scope, cinematically, creatively and emotionally the franchise friendly filmmaker eschewed with films like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and most recently, Munich. Instead War Horse is presented, almost arbitrarly in fine family friendly attire as a timid tale of a Disney-fied version of WWI, a tale of a horse that nobody wanted, and the one plucky boy whose spirit and optimism all meant to shake humble movie-goers to torrents of tears, while indiscriminating Academy voters check off their ballots.

Perhaps I am coming off a bit harsh, the film, warmly lit and often beautifully (if at times distractingly) photographed by longtime Spielberg collaborative cinematography Janusz Kaminski is presented as but a confection, at least at the start. We see a warm vista of a young horse running and scampering with his mum, while a young man- we learn later that he is named Albert, our eventual co-hero in the tale, played with a wide-eyed vacancy by newcomer Jeremy Irvine- watching in nicely Spielbergian childhood glee. Early on, comparisons to Black Beauty and Seabiscuit feel apt, as this young equine, a half thoroughbred with an inconsistent temper, is marked and labeled as nearly worthless. Presented at auction, an older, miserly drunk named Ted Narracot (Peter Mullan) makes a bid, either as a desperate pride play or a true believer, it's a bit difficult to read. Moreso because the first act of War Horse has such an inconsistency of tone-- it wavers from tragic to slapstick to saccharine within single scenes. Narracot is in a bind, however, as he's nearly broke, nearly going to lose his farm and his wife, a spitfire named Rosie (Emily Watson) is less than pleased. Luckily his son, it's Albert, is a consistent true believer and volunteers to train the cantakarious horse in hopes of plowing the family farm and saving the family from destitution.

The giveaway for matters of the heart is connection Albert and his horse, newly named Joey, which would be grand and harmonious if it weren't for the unabashed corniness of not just Irvine's performance, but the film as a whole-- War Horse was written by Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) and Richard Curtis (Love Actually.) Fortunately, the supporting cast, headed by great gamesman players like Mullan, Watson, Tom Hiddleston (Thor), Niels Arestrup, David Twelis and Eddie Marsan (Happy Go-Lucky) are gifted enough performers to settle personalities that may not have been there on the page. There is certainly something moving about the bond between man and animal, there always has been-- but there's hardly enough dimension given to either Albert or Joey to make us care too deeply about their bond. And there's a few too many throwaway faux emotional asides that play hokey and unintentionally humorous-- there's a early sequence that reads eerily similar to How to Train Your Dragon when Hiccup is trying to appease Toothless...seriously same gestures. The first stretch of War Horse is certainly the weakest, for even as an emotonally dormant film, it gradually starts to pick up as the weight of it's subject matter rises.

That rise comes as WWI officially begins, and starts the journey of its titual creature. As an effort to keep up the rent, Narracot is forced to sell Joey, despite Albert's cries, and the still tempestuous Joey is off to war. Fortunately, the charmingly and seemingly noble Cap. Nicholls (Hiddleston) becomes his new guardian. There's a certain rousing and rooting interest as the war sequences start, not just because Spielberg can usually counted on as a master showman, but also because it's the first taste of any sort of movable action in the film, and it's quite a long, somewhat slow one at that. We follow Joey's journey through enemy lines, as the horse is forced to go both sides as collateral damage more than once, as well follow Albert's journey of becoming a British soldier, while holding on (perhaps a bit too tightly) to memories of him and his friend. There's a brush of sentiment, but it's hardly moving as the tricks and knobs are turned, in such obvious attempts at gushes of tears. There's certainly sadness in the subject, war is indeed sad, and a gangbuster of a scene where Joey scampers down a painfully distracting CGI field jetting from bullets, but it's mishandled with a payoff that not only martyrs Joey, but makes him a truce for peace. War Horse ultimately gets weighted down because of it's own earnestness.

Had Spielberg kept the film from the point of view of the horse, it perhaps wouldn't be less corny, but might be have been more moving ultimately. Instead, the film jettisons in too many windy directions with its large cast largely left to their own devices, and a quaint notion of a small-sized tale of devotion between boy and horse is overcome by a film that has both a larger and smaller scope than it's aiming for. What's left for emotional refrain might just be the lilting over-scored music composed by John Williams to lull us in the space of story or character. C

Utah Film Critics Awards

2011-12-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: Drive
runner-up: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
runner-up: Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive
ACTOR: Joseph Gordon Levitt, 50/50
runner-up: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
runner-up: Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
runner-up: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Amy Ryan, Win Win
runner-up: Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

David Fincher's take on the massively popular The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo phenom is a slick, glossy tale of nihilism and sadism, all with the pre-packaging of an exploitation flick masquerading as feminist fantasy. That being said, he is the best suited auteur for such an undertaking. The thriller procedural, based on the bestselling novels (and already the source for another popular film franchise; the clunky Swedish films directed by Niels Arden Oplev) starts with a teasingly abstract opening credits sequence, with a Karen O. doing her now-famous cover of the Led Zeppelin tune "Immigrant Song." It's all splashy and dark, grinning with the impending violence and thrills to come-- Fincher has always had a gift for starting his films with the most precise mood, and here it feels like he's both showing off and having a ball. And as ridiculous as it may sound for a film that's so sinister, there is a certain joie de vivre in watching it-- for the story and elemental mystery that rests at the center of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is really just a hyped up, R-rated version of a TV crime drama mashed up with a little Euro-spliced Silence of the Lambs matted with slight and out-dated political commentary.

Yet Fincher seems aware of this, as does writer Steven Zaillian, for the rooting factor of the series rest not of invention of story, but rather the titular lady. The goth-agnst-ridden-punkette Lisbeth Salander has become a certain kind of icon, a variation on the women in jeopardy\women who kick ass sub-genres-- for she's a total mess, but sly and smart. The best upgrade from the first feature to Fincher's take is the upping of the ante of her character study. And while the original films starred the interesting Noomi Rapace-- the best decision upgrade is in the casting of Rooney Mara; she was the girl who called Mark Zuckerberg an asshole in the first scene of last years The Social Network. Wirey and mousey, the starkly pale Mara gives an electrifying performance, one that not only elevates the film, but marks a seething impression. She imbues her Lisbeth with such ripe timidity and rage it's startling and scary, until one gives in and falls for her anyway. A violent, anti-social ward of the state (stemming from a doomed childhood, and bouts of lethal malevolence), Lisbeth is a hacker and feels like a stand in not only for the over-caffeinated, computer geeks of the world, but also the rebels of punk past, presented with her choice in hair styles, thrift shop clothing, and multiple piercing and tattoos. She's an odd character, but Mara gives her such texture and expressiveness (she's even more haunting when trying to remain perfectly still), that however Lisbeth may or may not be defined by her authors creator, the late Stieg Larson, she feels almost complete.

It's a bit of shame that it takes the film so long to pick up the pieces that most of us by now can see coming. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, with its two leads-- the other being Daniel Craig as discredited journalist Mikael Blomkvist, takes its sweet time in strolling through its narrative. It takes the film over an hour for our heroes to even meet. What feels like endless exposition, despite featuring some incredible sequences and accomplished acting, as Blomkvst, dour and near financial ruin, accepts an assignment to investigate to the forty-year old murder case of Harriet Vanger, who was likely killed by a member of her eccentric and vindictive family, one of the richest and most lofty of all of Sweden, but most of us already know about that. As we chart Lisbeth's life pre-Blomkvist, and her troubles with her new guardian, a tubby misogynist. Fincher has great fun with the set-ups, as well he should, as he is totally within his wheelhouse with a story so grimy and dangerous-- he's one of the great stylists currently working in cinema; it's just a shame that generica of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's premise doesn't match his nor his actors panache.

At the very least he's lightened up the sodden Swiss version, with a bit more humor and firmer hold of the treacly relationship between Lisbeth and Mikael-- the two of course bed early after meeting, but there's both a sort of tenderness and awkwardness to their rapport that feels more appropriate, given age, background, and the fact that Lisbeth, despite her talents and scarily fit photographic memory, is a bit of a loon. Mara is whip smart with the selective words she always her Lisbeth to say, but with the soft and pleasing Swiss accent, and always ironic eye roll, the most joyful and frightening part of the feature is her teasing but succinct line readings, off set by an ever smooth performance from Craig. The film meanders, as it must, in solving the mystery of the Vanger clan, and adheres close enough to the original material, so as not to offend the devout, while Fincher and team gently crack the artifice of built-in franchising. However, little can really be done with the case itself, it's solved before it's cracked.

What needed a bit more finessing was the excess of this overly long feature. At two-hours and thirty-eight minutes, it felt unfathomably interminable for the last stretch of the film, where it diverges from the source, and decides it doesn't want to finish. I'm fairly convinced that Fincher and team are still working on the film for there's more multiple endings that damage the small and graceful closing shot. What starts and promises as a swift thrill ride, ends as a meandering and slow stroll through Fincher's angry mind. B

Flordia Film Critics Circle

2011-12-20T00:32:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Artist
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants
ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin
DOCUMENTARY: Project Nim
FOREIGN FILM: The Skin I Live In
ART DIRECTION: Hugo
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life
VISUAL EFFECTS: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
BREAKOUT PERFORMANCE: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene

J. Edgar

2011-12-19T22:56:00.000-08:00

As glossy awards bait, J. Edgar seems merely impeccable what with the actorly demands of a role like it's infamous titular character. He's a historical icon, one with a sketchy, hard-to-pin-down set of modus operandi, one with a distinctive, authoritative voice who, for better or worse (and the film offers no set conclusions on either side) was one of the most influential Americans ever. Coyly directed by Clint Eastwood, with his typical no-frills approach and dark lighting and exhaustively scripted by Dustin Lance Black (Milk), as a feature this significant creature of history is given a dreary and dry biopic. While Leonardo DiCaprio hems and haws his way, and fairly gracefully more often than not, through the meaty difficulties of J. Edgar Hoover, he alone can hardly save the film from the doldrums it inevitably succumbs to. In the end of this very long, not so accomplished film, one may walk away knowing even less about the enigmatic man, the father of the FBI, than before, and the shy stance it takes on tackling one of the most cutthroat men of American politics. Perhaps this may have been the one case where Eastwood's famous directing needed more focus, more takes, more impulse, more something...

The dithering biography begins with Hoover writing his memoirs, giving dictation and telling his stories to a cute young ghost writers (all male) all the while espousing the hype and grandeur of not only his celebrity, but of his brain child within the Bureau of Investigation, which would become the FBI. While notions and credits are giving his way, like the very nature of criminal investigation that Hoover spear-headed, and while accomplished as it is, there's an unlikable aura and sting of social awkwardness and confusion that overcomes Hoover. This is naturally and wonderfully projected by DiCaprio's performance, but stymied by the bullish and at-arms-length approach given by director and screenwriter. DiCaprio is game for the ugliness, pettiness, and megalomania associated with the icon, a man who kept everyone's secrets, and was hated by many, while keeping a stern fragility all to himself. The actor game fully goes for the awkward rumored homosexuality that battled the core of J. Edgar (Armie Hammer plays his male companion, his right arm name at the FBI, a sly and gentile man named Clyde Tolson.) The actor, however foolishly handled, runs with the silly mother-issued subplot (Judi Dench plays his proud mum), and the even-flimsier awkward romancer at the (Naomi Watts plays Helen Gandy, his future secretary and comrade; the two first meet on an awkward date.) The actor handles the roles with an aplomb that elevates the dreary picture, but also alienates from it as well...he's never judgmental of his J. Edgar, and seems to relish the challenge, all the while Eastwood and Black snooze on the pedigree, hoping that that is enough.

There's no passion, no fire, just an endless blithering of facts. Some should be quite compelling...J. Edgar proved a diverting pleasure in small doses in Michael Mann's recent John Dillinger film Public Enemies, however Eastwood seems to have little finesse or control over the film, nor the audience's waning attention spans. The distance, and non-committal approach, the lack of judgement, or simply letting the man off the hook grows tired and is frankly offensive. If not a complete white-washing of history, there's at least a grudge to be held that Eastwood's J. Edgar is only doomed with loneliness, never once a fight of consciousness, no matter how much DiCaprio tries to texture him. D+

Best Original Song

2011-12-19T22:25:00.000-08:00

Here are the 39 finalist for Best Original Song at this years Academy Awards:

"The World I Knew," African Cats
"Lay Your Head Down," Albert Nobbs
"Star Spangled Man," Captain America: The First Avenger
"Collision of Worlds," Cars 2
"Dakkanaga Dugu Dugu," DAM999
"DAM999," DAM999
"Mujhe Cho'd Ke," DAM999
"Rainbird," Dirty Girl
"Keep On Walking," The First Grader
"Hello Hello," Gnomeo & Juliet
"Love Builds a Garden," Gnomeo & Juliet
"Bridge of Light," Happy Feet 2
"The Mighty Sven," Happy Feet 2
"Never Be Daunted," happythankyoumoreplease
"Hell & Back," Hell & Back Again
"The Living Proof," The Help
"Coeur Volant," Hugo
"It's How We Play," I Don't Know How She Does It
"When the Heart Dies," In the Land of Blood & Honey
"Ja Nao Estar," Jose & Pilar
"The Keeper," Machine Gun Preacher
"Life's a Happy Song," The Muppets
"Man or Muppet," The Muppets
"Pictures in My Head," The Muppets
"Summer Song," The Music Never Stopped
"Imaginary Friends," Olive
"Sparkling Day," One Day
"Taking Your With Me," Our Idiot Brother
"The Greatest Song I Ever Heard," POM Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold
"Hot Wings," Rio
"Let Me Take You to Rio," Rio
"Real in Rio," Rio
"Shelter," Take Shelter
"Pop," White Irish Drinkers
"Think You Can Wait," Win Win
"The Backson Song," Winnie the Pooh
"So Long," Winnie the Pooh

A selection of the some of the possible frontrunners, including the Alan Menkin (he of Disney fame, and several Oscar for The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast and Aladdin) penned anthem of Captain America, the Mary J. Blige ballad at the end of The Help, and the zippy tune for Winnie the Pooh authored by Zooey Deschanel's band He & She. However, if The Muppets loses this...this means war! Which by all means, it surely could, their music branch is, well...you know.

St. Louis Film Critics Awards

2011-12-19T22:04:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: George Clooney, The Descendants
ACTRESS: Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Berenice Bejo, The Artist
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin
DOCUMENTARY: Being Elmo
FOREIGN FILM: 13 Assassins
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
MUSIC: The Artist
VISUAL EFFECTS: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
COMEDY: Bridesmaids

Southeastern Film Critics Association

2011-12-19T21:57:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants

Top Ten of 2011:

The Artist
Hugo
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
Drive
Midnight in Paris
Win Win
War Horse
The Help

DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
ACTOR: George Clooney, The Descendants
ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: Project Nim
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
ENSEMBLE: The Help

Chicago Film Critics Association

2011-12-19T21:50:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Tree of Life
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
ACTOR: Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: The Interrupters
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
ORIGINAL SCORE: Drive- Cliff Martinez
MOST PROMISING PERFORMER: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
MOST PROMISING FILMMAKER: Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene

One of the more surprising facets of the awards season right now must be to the amount of critics prizes Michelle Williams keeps earning for My Week With Marilyn. Not that she's not wonderful in the part, but it's the volume of prizes she has amassed that's most surprising, making me question not only her status as an actual contender, but perhaps as a dark horse winner...I really can't expect anyone else netting the Golden Globe for Musical\Comedy at this point, even if it's complete category fraud-- the film is light and fizzy, but here presence is the epitome of drama!

The Dark Knight Rises Teaser

2011-12-19T21:43:00.000-08:00

Shivers...as the "epic conclusion" to Christopher Nolan's mythic revamp of the Batman saga rears. Or as it may be referred to as the mini-Inception reunion (really Joseph Gordon Levitt, Tom Hardy and Marion Cotillard all join the illustrious ranks.) I do however have a worry here, perhaps out of nowhere, or a mere way of calming over-excited nerves, as The Dark Knight is surely a hard act to follow, if not an impossible one. Also concerns over the more star-studded ensemble at hand...the three top drawer talents mentioned earlier also includes Anne Hathaway, Juno Temple, and but of course, the formidable crew of the past. I have an over-crowded Spider-man 3 knee jerk reaction. NOOOO!

Trailer looks cool, though!

Arthur Christmas

2011-12-19T05:09:00.000-08:00

The fine wizards at Aardman Animation, the same nifty conjurers of Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run, have come, at the very least slightly, to the rescue of mundane Christmas-y filmmaking with their latest concoction Arthur Christmas. A refreshing and spirited holiday yarn that should find its inclusion onto a box set of Christmastime features that get rehashed year after year. Set in the North Pole, it's a fun and clever inside view of Santa's workshop, a place that runs like the tightest of ships, newly restored with the latest state of the art technology. With Santa (amusingly voiced by Jim Broadbent) making his rounds on this Christmas night, hemming and hawing like the celebrity he is to his to his worker elves, while his two sons Steve (voiced by Hugh Laurie), the militaristic alpha male, and Arthur (voiced by Jim Broadbent), the clumsy doormat in charge of Santa's letter writing, eagerly await who will be the heir the Santa throne. Adding more whimsy and humor to the familial dimension is Grand Santa (voiced to the hilt by Bill Nighy.) What sounds like a merely throwaway premise (which in essence, it is) makes for a charming lark of a feature, one, that like most of the Aardman pleasures may find itself to be more clever than hilarious. The set-up follows, as Santa returns from his nighttime sleigh ride (now thanks to Steve, a super-powered engine craft thingy that looks nothing like we've seen before-- on film, or in the heads of eager children's imaginations), there's a hitch-- one little British girl didn't receive a present, which prompts Arthur to go against orders and make his voyage in the sky. All of which brings about nicely greased lessons of the the real spirit of Christmas, and family loyalty and all that well and good stuff. Thankfully, Arthur Christmas with its gentle charm and manic speed never takes any preaching too seriously, nor wears out its welcome.

And for a year that's been so uncharitable on terms of quality animated features, I'd handily argue that this small confection may turn out to be the best this year. B

San Diego Film Critics Society

2011-12-19T04:53:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Winding Refn, The Artist
ACTOR: Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
ACTRESS: Brit Marling, Another Earth
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Nick Nolte, Warrior
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
ANIMATED FEATURE: Arthur Christmas
FOREIGN FILM: La Quattro Volte
DOCUMENTARY: Project Nim
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Hugo
FILM EDITING: Beginners
SCORE: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
ENSEMBLE: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
BODY OF WORK: Jessica Chastain

The fine film folks in San Diego have made a vivid impression in both going against the grain and adhering to group think with their selection of the best of 2011. A top nod to The Artist is no but old news, but welcome, since the film is nearly irresistible. However, the oddest choice made by an governing body this season must be the inclusion of Brit Marling as Best Actress for Another Earth, an ambitious if ultimately unsatisfying arty fun house.

Golden Satellite Awards

2011-12-19T04:41:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive

ACTOR: Ryan Gosling, Drive

ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Tree of Life- Terrence Malick

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash

ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin

DOCUMENTARY: Senna

FOREIGN FILM: Mysteries of Lisbon

ART DIRECTION: The Artist- Gregory S. Hooper & Laurence Bennett

CINEMATOGRAPHY: War Horse- Janusz Kaminski

COSTUME DESIGN: Water for Elephants- Jacqueline West

SCORE: Soul Surfer- Marco Beltrami

SONG: "Lay Down Your Head," Albert Nobbs

SOUND: Drive

VISUAL EFFECTS: Hugo

FIRST FEATURE: Tyrannosaur- Paddy Considine

ENSEMBLE: The Help

The Satellites can't really ever be trusted, neither as Oscar prognosticator, nor as a legitimate film society based on some of the nuttier mentions, and the constant "Who are they?" factor. How else to explain a Screenplay mention for The Tree of Life, which features little to none actual spoken dialogue, an esoteric (or nearly invisible) structure or narrative...visually daring, absolutely...as a master class of writing, probably not.

Still it's a little fun to see such oddball mentions thrown out there as well, such as the score for Soul Surfer getting a random slot, as well as the costume design for Water for Elephants, which is a film that should be getting more mentions for it's technical achievements...it's a very pretty movie for a vacant drama. The rest, a predictable lot...

Dallas-Ft. Film Critics Association

2011-12-17T01:56:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants

Top Ten of 2011:

The Artist
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Midnight in Paris
The Tree of Life
Hugo
50/50
Drive
Shame
Moneyball

DIRECTOR: Alexander Payne, The Descendants

runners-up:

Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

ACTOR: George Clooney, The Descendants

runners-up:

Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

runners-up:

Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

runners-up:

Albert Brooks, Drive
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Armie Hammer, J. Edgar
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

runners-up:

Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Carey Mulligan, Shame

SCREENPLAY: The Descendants

FOREIGN FILM: A Separation

DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams

ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango

CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki

RUSSELL SMITH AWARD: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Detroit Film Critics Awards

2011-12-17T01:46:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week My Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Carey Mulligan, Shame
SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life, The Help, The Debt, Take Shelter
ENSEMBLE: Carnage
DOCUMENTARY: Tabloid

Finally some love for Carey Mulligan for Shame, and a nicely formidable line-up from the folks at Detroit.

Roger Ebert's Top Ten of 2011

2011-12-17T01:38:00.000-08:00

Agree with him or not, he sets the standard for modern film criticism, and one can never dismiss his taste nor influence within the industry. A stamp of approval from him always looks nice on FYC ads.

A Separation
Shame
The Tree of Life
Hugo
Take Shelter
Kinyarwanda
Drive
Midnight in Paris
Le Havre
The Artist

A Separation is a strong contender for Best Foreign Language Film (Iran's official selection), and is getting a strong push from distributor Sony Pictures Classics, given it's end of the year release date...and Ebert's endorsement.

Golden Globe Nominations

2011-12-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

PICTURE (Drama)

The Descendants
The Help
Hugo
The Ides of March
Moneyball
War Horse

PICTURE (Musical or Comedy)

50/50
The Artist
Bridesmaids
Midnight in Paris
My Week With Marilyn

DIRECTOR

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
George Clooney, The Ides of March
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Martin Scorsese, Hugo

ACTRESS (Drama)

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin

ACTOR (Drama)

George Clooney, The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

ACTRESS (Musical or Comedy)

Jodie Foster, Carnage
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Kristin Wiig, Bridesmaids
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Kate Winslet, Carnage

ACTOR (Musical or Comedy)

Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brendan Gleeson, The Guard
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 50/50
Ryan Gosling, Crazy, Stupid, Love
Owen Wilson, Midnight in Paris

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Albert Brooks, Drive
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

SCREENPLAY

The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
The Ides of March- George Clooney & Grant Heslov
Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin

ANIMATED FEATURE

The Adventures of Tintin
Arthur Christmas
Cars 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

FOREIGN FILM

The Flowers of War (China)
In the Land of Blood & Honey (USA)
The Kid With the Bike (Belgium)
A Separation (Iran)
The Skin I Live In (Spain)

ORIGINAL SCORE
The Artist- Ludovic Bource
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
Hugo- Howard Shore
War Horse- John Williams
W.E.- Abel Korzeniowski

ORIGINAL SONG
"Lay Your Head Down," Albert Nobbs
"Hello Hello," Gnomeo & Juliet
"The Living Proof," The Help
"The Keeper," Machine Gun Preacher
"Masterpiece," W.E.

Screen Actors Guild Nominations

2011-12-15T00:49:00.000-08:00

THE HELP LEADS WITH 4!

BEST ENSEMBLE

The Artist
Bridesmaids
The Descendants
The Help
Midnight in Paris

Actors were in a more comedic mood than typical, or "lighter" as all five films are bent in a lighter way (even though one film deals with a tragic family, and another with racial discordance in the South.) No Moneyball, no The Tree of Life, no Hugo, no Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, no Carnage (despite it's starry cast), although I suppose those aren't exactly strange omissions. I liked each of these five films (and in the case of The Artist...I luurve), but a strangely soft line-up.

BEST ACTOR

Demian Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Whoa boy! While a great out-of-left-field nomination for Bichir is nicely unexpected (however at the loss of say Michael Fassbender for Shame or Michael Shannon for Take Shelter, perhaps not so much) the real issue with the otherwise formidable, if predictable line-up is DiCaprio's presence, despite J. Edgar being, well, a fairly awful movie-going experience, despite his careful mugging. Perhaps this helped:

L. DiCaprio (J. Edgar Parody) - watch more funny videos

BEST ACTRESS

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis, The Help
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Those who doubted that Close was out should have known better, as how could actors resist the temptation of pitting Close vs. Streep, as both are nominated. I keep half expecting the other shoe to drop for Tilda Swinton, based on the fact that her film is small, disturbing, and critically divisive, but she keep showing up everywhere...I suppose the past two years of stellar work that was universally ignored has helped. Missing in this competitive year are: Elizabeth Olsen (for Martha Marcy May Marlene), Kristin Wiig (for Bridesmaids), Kirsten Dunst (for Melancholia) and Charlize Theron, miraculous in Young Adult...more on that soon.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Armie Hammer, J. Edgar
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Christopher Plummer, Beginners

This had better be an easy get for Plummer in this strange young vs. old line-up. The rest aside from his graceful performance in Beginners must be a prank on the actors part I assume, as great performances like Ben Kingsley's in Hugo and Albert Brooks' in Drive are snubbed in favor of Branagh's easy as cake take on Laurence Olivier and Armie Hammer ridding DiCaprio's ill-advised coattails. Hill and Nolte were just fine in their respective parts, but still. On the case of Brooks, I remain hesitant on his Oscar chances, because (and critics awards be damned) I doubt Drive will seriously be their thing.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help

Another very comedy friendly line-up, and whilst I have yet to view Albert Nobbs, it's just fine I suppose...however I adamantly stand up that Chastain was best in Take Shelter of her ten 2011 films. Dramatic roles missing include Carey Mulligan in Shame, Shailene Woodley in The Descendants and Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus.

Toronto Film Critics Association

2011-12-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Houston Film Critics Awards

2011-12-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, Shame
ACTRESS: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: Project Nim
FOREIGN FILM: I Saw the Devil
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
SCORE: The Artist- Ludivoc Bource
SONG: "Life's a Happy Song, " The Muppets
WORST FILM OF THE YEAR: Your Highness

Las Vegas Film Critics Society

2011-12-14T11:29:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist

Top Ten of 2011:

Hugo
Moneyball
The Descendants
Drive
The Help
50/50
Midnight in Paris
Shame
Warrior

DIRECTOR: Nicholas Winding Refn, Drive
ACTOR: Jean Dujardin, The Artist
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: Project Nim
FOREIGN FILM: 13 Assassins
ART DIRECTION: The Artist- George S. Hooper
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
COSTUME DESIGN: The Artist- Mark Bridges
FILM EDITING: Hugo- Thelma Schoonmaker
SCORE: The Artist- Ludovic Bource
SONG: "Man or Muppet," The Muppets
VISUAL EFFECTS: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
FAMILY FILM: Hugo
YOUTH IN FILM: Asa Butterfield, Hugo

Critics Choice Award Nominations

2011-12-13T04:43:00.000-08:00

The nominees for the Broadcast Film Critics Association-- they are typically a solid (if often irritating) predictor of the Academy Awards:

BEST PICTURE

The Artist
The Descendants
Drive
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

DIRECTOR

Stephen Daldry, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Nicolas Welding Refn, Drive
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Steven Spielberg, War Horse

ACTOR

George Clooney, The Descendants
Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Michael Fassbender, Shame
Ryan Gosling, Drive
Brad Pitt, Moneyball

ACTRESS

Viola Davis, The Help
Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Charlize Theron, Young Adult
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Albert Brooks, Drive
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Andy Serkis, Rise of the Planet of the Apes

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Berenice Bujo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Carey Mulligan, Shame
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

50/50- Will Reiser
The Artist- Michel Hazanavicius
Midnight in Paris- Woody Allen
Win Win- Tom McCarthy
Young Adult- Diablo Cody

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close- Eric Roth
The Help- Tate Taylor
Hugo- John Logan
Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin

ANIMATED FEATURE

The Adventures of Tintin
Arthur Christmas
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

FOREIGN FILM

In Darkness
Le Havre
A Separation
The Skin I Live In
Where Do We Go Now?

DOCUMENTARY

Buck
Cave of Forgotten Dreams
George Harrison: Living in a Material World
Page One: Inside the New York Times
Project Nim
Undefeated

ART DIRECTION

The Artist
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
The Tree of Life
War Horse

CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Artist
Drive
Hugo
The Tree of Life
War Horse

COSTUME DESIGN

The Artist
The Help
Hugo
Jane Eyre
My Week With Marilyn

FILM EDITING

The Artist
Drive
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
War Horse

SCORE

The Artist
Drive
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
War Horse

SONG

"Hello Hello," Gnomeo & Juliet
"The Living Proof," The Help
"Life's a Happy Song," The Muppets
"Man or Muppet," The Muppets
"Pictures in My Head," The Muppets

MAKE-UP

Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Iron Lady
J. Edgar
My Week With Marilyn

SOUND

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Super 8
The Tree of Life
War Horse

VISUAL EFFECTS

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8
The Tree of Life

YOUNG ACTOR\ACTRESS

Asa Butterfield, Hugo
Elle Fanning, Super 8
Thomas Horn, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Ezra Miller, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Saoirse Ronan, Hanna
Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

ACTING ENSEMBLE

The Artist
Bridesmaids
The Descendants
The Help
The Ides of March

ACTION FILM

Drive
Fast Five
Hanna
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Super 8

COMEDY FILM

Bridesmaids
Crazy, Stupid, Love
Horrible Bosses
Midnight in Paris
The Muppets

African-American Film Critics Awards

2011-12-13T02:22:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Tree of Life

runners-up:

Drive
Pariah
Rampart
Shame
Moneyball
The Descendants
A Better Life
My Week With Marilyn
The Help

DIRECTOR: Steven McQueen, Shame
ACTOR: Woody Harrelson, Rampart
ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer, The Help
SCREENPLAY: I Will Follow
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE: Adepero Oduye, Pariah
INDEPENDENT FEATURE: Pariah
FOREIGN FILM: Kinyarwanda

Indiana Film Critics Awards

2011-12-13T02:18:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist

Top Ten of 2011:

The Descendants
Coriolanus
Drive
Hugo
Martha Marcy May Marlene
The Muppets
The Skin I Live In
Super 8
The Tree of Life

DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
runner-up: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
ACTOR: Paul Giamatti, Win Win
runner-up: Ralph Fiennes, Coriolanus
ACTRESS: Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene
runner-up: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
runner-up: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Viola Davis, The Help
runner-up: Amy Ryan, Win Win
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Win Win- Tom McCarthy
runner-up: Margin Call- J.C. Chandor
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
runner-up: Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
runner-up: Winnie the Pooh
FOREIGN FILM: The Skin I Live In
runner-up: 13 Assassins
DOCUMENTARY: Project Nim
runner-up: Into the Abyss
SCORE: The Artist
runner-up: Hugo
ORIGINAL VISION AWARD: The Tree of Life
runner-up: The Artist

San Francisco Film Critics Awards

2011-12-13T02:08:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Tree of Life
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
ACTOR: Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
ACTRESS: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Margin Call- J.C. Chandor
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
FOREIGN FILM: Certified Copy
DOCUMENTARY: Tabloid
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
SPECIAL CITATION (for unrecognized independent cinema): The Mill & the Cross

The inevitable eventual critics prize for The Tree of Life finally occurred (aside from the Gothams)...as well as mentions for Oldman and Redgrave. Kudos however for the recognition of Tabloid!

Los Angeles Film Critics Association

2011-12-13T02:02:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Descendants
runner-up: The Tree of Life
DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
runner-up: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
ACTOR: Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method, Shame, Jane Eyre, X-Men: First Class
runner-up: Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
ACTRESS: Yun Jung-hee, Poetry
runner-up: Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer, Beginners
runner-up: Patton Oswalt, Young Adult
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain, Coriolanus, The Debt, The Help, Take Shelter, Texas Killing Fields
runner-up: Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
SCREENPLAY: A Separation- Asghar Farhadi
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
runner-up: The Adventures of Tintin
FOREIGN FILM: City of Life & Death
runner-up: A Separation
DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
runner-up: The Arbor
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmnanuel Lubezki
runner-up: City of Life & Death
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Hugo
runner-up: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
SCORE: Hanna
runner-up: Drive
NEW GENERATION AWARD: the creative team of Martha Marcy May Marlene

LA gave it's nod to The Descendants (some day, I'll get around to posting a review of it; I wasn't as fond as some)...I suppose The Artist is a New York thing. However, that's all it won, as the Los Angeles film critics spread their love to The Tree of Life, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain, and even Hanna.

One can always count on Los Angeles to have their sort of personality with Best Actress; rarely is a frontrunner (or an American) on their roster, for instance:

2010: Kim Hye-Ja, Mother
2009: Yolande Moreau, Seraphine
2008: Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
2007: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
2006: Helen Mirren, The Queen
2005: Vera Farmiga, Down to the Bone
2004: Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake

Sure two of these were eventual winners...one other was a nominee, and another a just-missed nominee...the rest however...

AFI Top Ten of 2011

2011-12-13T01:41:00.001-08:00

The American Film Institute has announced its ten best of the year:

Bridesmaids
The Descendants
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Help
Hugo
J. Edgar
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

J. Edgar, really? I mean that has to be a joke, right?

New York Film Critics Online

2011-12-13T01:39:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: Michael Shannon, Take Shelter
runners-up: Michael Fassbender, Shame; Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Solder Spy
ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
ANIMATED FEATURE: The Adventures of Tintin
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
MUSIC: The Artist- Ludovic Bource
DEBUT DIRECTOR: Joe Cornish, Attack the Block
ENSEMBLE: Bridesmaids
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMER: Jessica Chastain (everything)

Boston Film Critics Society

2011-12-13T01:29:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
runners-up: Hugo; Margaret
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
runner-up: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
ACTOR: Brad Pitt, Moneyball
runners-up: George Clooney, The Descendants; Michael Fassbender, Shame
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
runner-up: Jeannie Berlin, Margaret
SCREENPLAY: Moneyball- Steven Zailian & Aaron Sorkin
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life- Emmanuel Lubezki
runner-up: Hugo- Ralph Richardson
EDITING: The Clock
runner-up: Hugo
DOCUMENTARY: Project Nim
runner-up: Bill Cunningham New York
FOREIGN FILM: Incendies
runners-up: Poetry; A Separation
BEST USE OF MUSIC: (tie) Drive; The Artist
runner-up: The Descendants
BEST NEW FILMMAKER: Sean Durkin, Martha Marcy May Marlene
runner-up: J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
ENSEMBLE: Carnage
runner-up: Margaret

Another win for The Artist, and some usual suspects-- however some personality must be paid to the win for Melissa McCarthy's performance in Bridesmaids, and the overall affection for the Kenneth Lonergan long-delayed (and dumped) opus Margaret which snared three runner-up prizes, as well as a deftly worded summation from the Beantown film critics:

"The Boston Society of Film Critics expresses its regret that Fox Searchlight refused to distribute screeners of the film "Margaret" and scheduling only a last-minute screening after numerous requests. The film, which received an extremely limited release, was a favorite of many BSFC members and could have won several awards had it been made available for viewing within a reasonable timeframe. Despite this disadvantage, "Margaret" was a runner up in three of the BSFC’s award categories. We encourage Fox Searchlight not compound this oversight and to make screeners available to the voting body of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and so give the film a fair chance in the upcoming awards competition."

Best Visual Effects

2011-12-10T02:22:00.000-08:00

Here are the 15 finalists in contention for Best Visual Effects at this years Oscars. For the first time, there will be 5 nominees, instead of 3. Here are the big guns:

Captain America: The First Avenger
Cowboys & Aliens
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Hugo
Mission: Impossible- The Ghost Protocol
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sucker Punch
Super 8
Thor
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
The Tree of Life
X-Men: First Class

What's the odd fit here? Obviously the esoteric origins of the universe (complete with dinosaurs) Tree of Life feels lost in the shuffle of noisy blockbusters and franchise stuff. The victory, I'm suspecting, will likely be Rise of the Planet of the Apes in a nod at recognizing Andy Serkis. Thoughts?

My Week With Marilyn

2011-12-08T23:56:00.000-08:00

There's two movies inside My Week With Marilyn, the latest frothy confection sewn with an ultra tidy bow by Harvey Weinstein made for optimal awards bait potential. The first one is a rote, easy to swallow revisit to the set of the lightweight Laurence Olivier-Marilyn Monroe comedy The Prince & the Showgirl, reveling in Old Hollywood mirth and the best production design a meager budget could provide. The second film, and the juicier, more complicated is that of the iconic actress at odds with herself, the public and her ever-more-weary movie making team-- this film, the better of the two is provided in an ace solo effort by the wondrous Michelle Williams, who tackles the iconography and legacy, the very Marilyn of Monroe with such a fragile grace, it's a shame that director Simon Curtis (TV's Cranford) and writer Adrian Hodges didn't have more confidence to make that same feature. Instead, what's left is a fairly routine, vaguely inside-Hollywood lightweight with the same simple observations and lazy commentary that's been regurgitated for decades.

The problem from the start is the My part of the title, which belongs to Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a privileged young man with an aspiration to contribute to the cinema. He gets his chance, thanks to family acquaintances and that old hedgehog gumption, as the third assistant director on Olivier's latest project, set to star the already infamously troubled glamor girl. Whatever significance the relationship between Colin and Marilyn may have been in real life, it's a bit of snooze on screen, and hard to fathom that it would make a great book (in which Clark wrote, and is the basis of the film), but here it is. There's the typical notes of Monroe's famed tardiness on set, a beleaguered Olivier (played in an amusing bit of Shakespearean symmetry by Kenneth Branagh) agitated by his leading lady's lack of professionalism and endless need to be coddled, while famed spouses Vivien Leigh and Arthur Miller get name-checked. There's a slight nod of heft, that's sadly never fully developed, in the flip side of the same coin that Monroe and Olivier may have felt-- she a movie star forever longing, yet fearful of being a great dramatic actor; he a great dramatic actor, but not quite a movie star. The dynamic would have changed (and certainly Branagh might have had more to chew on) had the film choose to examine something significant about these fascinating creatures.

However as checked by master publicist Weinstein, My Week With Marilyn chugs along with the false mirth and facile tacks at heft, keeping it's train humming along with amusing, if innocuous charm-- Judi Dench plays Dame Sybil Thorndike with such efflorescence, one might assume she was slipped pills similar to Monroe back in the day, while Emma Watson pops up as a simple costumer in perhaps a silly attempt to woo tweens to this prestige trifle. That leaves Williams to do all the heavy lifting herself, and while it appears disjointed that such a prime, detailed and substantial performance centers an increasingly silly film, she's more than capable. Never relying on pure mimicry, and determined not to wither her Marilyn as a cartoon, she inhabits the soul of this sad woman, her hopeless need to be reassured, by her co-stars, her acting coach (Paula Strasberg is played by Zoe Wanamaker), her neglectful husband (a cameo by Dougray Scott) and Colin. Afraid, but vivacious, joyous, but tormented. What Williams may lack physically as Marilyn, she embodies in spirit, presenting the only spark of anything the least bit messy, titillating or interesting in My Week With Marilyn.

Had the film taken a cue from its leading lady, and grown a pair, this might perhaps be one of the best films of the year... C+

Immortals

2011-12-08T23:23:00.000-08:00

Old news for sure, but here goes anyways...Immortals, presented in gold saturated 3-D is the latest in the the trashy gods and generals swords and sandals collection. Directed by Tarsem, the visual stylist of such flicks as The Cell and The Fall, one would expect at the very least some delightful eye candy. Instead, what's there is a half cooked warrior tale with little dimension, despite the plentiful bespectacled things thrown our way. Our hero, Theseus (played with grave nonchalance by Henry Cavill, who proves he might be a fetching Superman when the Zach Synder flick arrives, however has little presence or humor in the warrior role), is a peasant, a bastard child, but shined so greatly by the gods he at first believes not in. He's an outsider, as a war looms, led by a scene-stealing Mickey Rourke, as King Hypernon, who wants something, or is mad at something...well it's a bit hard to tell, and I suppose it hardly matters anyway. A few mighty talents (including Rourke, John Hurt and Stephen Dorff) slum it admirably, grabbing the paychecks they seek, but there's little to rouse and holler about, as the events are all slogged and earthbound. Neither pitched as high camp or hot-boiler, this humorless, hum-drum, mortal affair leaves a sad, but urgent case for the delights of trash like the original Clash of the Titans, which was fully aware of it's own quasi-Greek inspired nonsense. Zeus makes an appearance, as well he would, and is played by the handsome but expressionless Luke Evans, but again, where's Laurence Olivier's hamming when you really need it. D

Cahiers du Cinema's Top Ten of 2011

2011-12-06T18:52:00.000-08:00

1. Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope)- Nanni Moretti
2. L'etrange affaire Angelica (The Strange Case of Angelica)- Manoel de Oliviera
-- The Tree of Life- Terrence Malick
4. Hors Satan (Outside Satan)- Bruno Dumont
-- Essential Killing- Jerzy Skolimowski
6. Melancholia- Lars von Trier
-- Un ete brulant (A Burning Hot Summer)- Philippe Garrel
8. Super 8- J.J. Abrams
-- L'Apollonide (House of Tolerance)- Bertrand Bonello
-- Meek's Cutoff- Kelly Reichardt

Any recurring theme?

British Independent Film Awards

2011-12-06T17:32:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: Tyrannosaur
DIRECTOR: Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin
ACTOR: Michael Fassbander, Shame
ACTRESS: Olivia Coleman, Tyrannosaur
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Michael Smiley, Kill List
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus
SCREENPLAY: Submarine- Richard Ayoade
FOREIGN FILM: A Separation
DOCUMENTARY: Senna
DEBUT DIRECTOR: Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur
TECH ACHIEVEMENT: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (production design)
ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION: Weekend
PROMISING NEWCOMER: Tom Cullen, Weekend

Washington D.C. Film Critics Awards

2011-12-06T17:25:00.000-08:00

PICTURE: The Artist
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, Hugo
ACTOR: George Clooney, The Descendants
ACTRESS: Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks, Drive
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer, The Help
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: 50/50- Will Reiser
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Descendants- Alexander Payne, Nate Faxon & Jim Rash
ENSEMBLE: Bridesmaids
ANIMATED FEATURE: Rango
DOCUMENTARY: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
FOREIGN FILM: The Skin I Live In
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Hugo
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Tree of Life
ORIGINAL SCORE: The Artist

Remember the glee when the NY Film Critics and the National Board of Review made their choices and neither of them matched...well the smoke has cleared and now I fear (the third critics group mention at that) that the age of monotony might settle in, as The Artist tops Washington (just as it did NY), Scorsese wins direction (just as he did at the NBR), Clooney for leading actor (NBR again), and Brooks wins supporting actor (NY), however at least there appears some personality on the part of the ladies as the first end of the year props are given to Michelle Williams and Octavia Spencer, respectively.

The WGA Rejects

2011-12-03T23:50:00.000-08:00

On the biggest things that grates me personally come awards season is the endlessly convoluted and confusing eligibility requirements set forth by the Academy and its various guilds. The music branch of the Academy is likely the easiest target, as submissions are vetoed and scratched for nearly anything; so much so I feel sometimes the categories themselves should be stricken from the record. The foreign film and documentary races are also heavily contented and need adjusting. However, the one guild that's the most guilty of sending out rejection letters has to be unequivocally, the Writer's Guild of America. Tossing out dozens of scripts year after year for lapses in paperwork or signatory guidelines...whatever the case, it muddles the Screenplay races up year after after, and I feel hurts many films (several of which that are smaller and need the added lift of prestige) but also makes the annual guild announcements somewhat irrelevant. Films that won't be in contention for Writer's Guild Awards this year include:

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Artist
Arthur Christmas
Beginners
The Iron Lady
The Lady
Like Crazy
Margin Call
Martha Marcy Mall Marlene
Melancholia
Rango
Shame
Take Shelter

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Albert Nobbs
Carnage
Drive
Jane Eyre
My Week With Marilyn
Sarah's Key
The Skin I Live In
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

European Film Award Winners

2011-12-03T23:36:00.000-08:00

EUROPEAN FILM: Melancholia
EUROPEAN DIRECTOR: Suzanne Bier, In a Better World
EUROPEAN ACTOR: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
EUROPEAN ACTRES: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER: Jean Pierre & Luc Dardenne, The Kid With the Bike
EUROPEAN CINEMATOGRAPHER: Manuel Alberto Claro, Melancholia
EUROPEAN EDITOR: Tariq Anwar, The King's Speech
EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Jette Lehmann, Melancholia
EUROPEAN COMPOSER: Ludovic Bource, The Artist
DOCUMENTARY: Pina
ANIMATED FEATURE: Chico & Rita

Melancholia, Lars von Trier's rapturously beautiful end of the world take won top honors at the European Film Awards, scooping up three prizes, despite being snubbed for director and leading lady Kirsten Dunst. Tilda Swinton appears, possibly a formidable contender, following her leading actress victory from the National Board of Review two days ago, while leftovers from last year made an impression with In a Better World (last years Foreign Film Oscar winner) winning the director's prize, and that old menace The King's Speech winning leading actor and film editing, in a hopeful nod that this will be the very last time this is mentioned by an awards governing body ever again!

Hugo

2011-12-03T02:13:00.000-08:00

There's odd mixture of elements in Hugo, Martin Scorsese's latest, part Dickensian fable, part cinemaphile fan piece. The question turns to who is this oddity truly intended for, a beautiful and meticulously crafted piece of work made with the sturdiest of precision-- is it a family tale (perhaps, but the wee ones might grow tired of references and literate dialogue and pacing that may extend their respective heads) or movie buffs and historians (who will certainly rejoice the tone and style, but will likely not add too much to the ticket sales of this costly affair.) That divide, I suppose, is merely for the distributors to sort out, for the pleasures of Scorsese's latest, an unabashed and lovingly crafted ode to cinema, far outweigh the deficiencies, so much so that will dark themes run unbridled throughout, the most meaningful and resonant purpose of Hugo is it's heart on it's sleeve for that of film preservation. And conjured by the medium's strongest supporter, here's a film that preserves that the art of filmmaking touches upon everything. And that's the take away from Hugo, that movies are the grandest of all, projected moving pictures that connect the world viscerally, emotionally and historically. That the filmmaker, at the point where he could surely call it a day, has amassed his greatest respect with such an ambitious scope (and in beautiful 3-D, now less), shows that his sense of play is as alive and well as ever.

Hugo begins with a sweeping prologue of a young boy and his daily adventures at a Paris train station in the 1930s. He fixes and sets the clock (later exposition will explain how he got there), but there's a sweeping and majestic magic as our young hero darts through the walls of that station he calls home. The clanks and cranks and gadgets all larger than life, darting through and through, with the train engine steam seems to come close enough to smell. He's a fixer of things, the son of an inventor, with an appropriately dramatic name, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield.) There's little dialogue in the bristling first sequence, but swift and wondrous tracking shots, of a bustling train station and picturesque, only in the movies, views of Paris. And while at first, and through large chunks of Hugo, it may appear to be mere window dressing, the immaculate production design (courtesy of Dante Ferretti) provides itself not just another character in the piece, but another loving nod to the possibilities of movie making.

We learn that Hugo has had a rough go at things. His father, an inventor and clock builder (played by Jude Law is flashbacks) passed some time ago. His uncle, a drunken oaf and clocks-man at the train station (played by Ray Winstone) became his unrequested guardian. And he wiles away, tinkering with the clocks, while trying to discover a path to connect his father's past (an unfinished robotic automotion) to a happier future. All along the way, trying to keep out of sight from the station engineer (a slapsticky menace played by Sasha Baron Cohen) and his pit bull and stealthily pilfering supplies from an old toy maker (played by Ben Kingsley.) The first half of Hugo is somewhat a labor, due to exacting and elongated backstories and multiple characters coming and going and a momentum that pendulums back and forth between manic and hay wired and cold and chilly. What offsets every over the kilt climax is a burst of pure cinematic ambition, either visually or emotionally-- no spoilers, but Kingsley's the heartbreaker of the story, perhaps slightly by default as the orphaned Hugo as played by Butterfield is a bit bland and inexpressive, when he should be spirited and brimming from his impassioned quests. It takes an unlikely friendship between a local young girl Isabelle (played by Chloe Moretz, of Kick-Ass and Let Me In fame) to slightly crack him; she's an adventure seeking bookworm, longing for a sense of play and abandon she's only read about. The preternaturally precocious Moretz is engaging, but seems a bit more proficient in fine tuning her British accent moreso than playing a character. One of the many cinematic asides that must quickly be gotten over is that this a film set around French characters with British accents...or perhaps that just another comment on the filmmaking process.

The connection, it turns out for not just Hugo and Isabelle, but from Scorsese to us is that power of film. Hugo regales with proud stories of going to cinema with his father; while the more closed in Isabelle has never been. There's a reason for that, and I dare not give it away, since that's the key to Hugo, and the source of it's power. The connective tissue between the glossy bits of celluloid and the personal attachments and resonances illuminates the features (from a busy screenplay by John Logan, based on the children's story by Brian Selznick) and frees Scorsese to tell his family friendly (all bet it, made for adults) tale with the passion and yearning one would expect from one of the art forms finest. It's in that technological precision, that one might grow tired of, perhaps just slightly as Hugo reaches it's ultimate, and most potent climax-- for the exhaustive shifts in tone and manic pacing certainly start to take its toll. The final trick of the master's sleeve, however, turns out to be potent and utterly charming, Kingsley's game and noble performance ultimately shepherds us through Scorsese's movie land dream, it's a connection of glee and devastating heartbreak of the power of movies themselves; that Hugo ultimately becomes his story makes it all the better.

And what it speaks of Scorsese is fairly nifty as well. The auteur and long championing historian, whose resume reads like a ridiculous best of list, has built a different sort of passion project, and an altogether unexpected one. The same giant behind Taxi Driver and Raging Bull crafting a children's movie in it of itself would mark a knee-jerk reaction; that he made one that's really a mediation on his own personal love affair with the cinema is the audiences ultimate gift. B+

Page One: Inside the New York Times

2011-12-02T04:39:00.000-08:00

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences recently released it's shortlist for the films in contention for Best Documentary Feature for this years Oscars. As is always the case, the first knee-jerk reaction is of what was left out. There was the art house hit car racing flick Senna, the sensationally fun house that was Errol Morris' Tabloid, and a team of acclaimed Werner Herzog films (Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Into the Abyss) that failed to make the cut. However, one the of the most glaring and striking omissions was Page One: Inside the New York Times, a fiercely intelligent, thoughtful and relevant tale of the machinations at play covered throughout a calendar year at perhaps the most powerful and important media powerhouses of all time. Director Andrew Rossi was given unparalleled access during a time when the newspaper industry is most vulnerable, endlessly fearing the fate of a dying industry succumbing to the new and know of modern technological way of attaining and distributing information. While the hard working men and women at the Times attest to values of responsible journalism indebted to professional accountability and old-school ethics, that fear is prevalent in every shot of this rich, absorbing film. For an institution that so easily can rest upon its laurels of being the dominant news source not just of the nation, but the world, the high days of the breakthrough of such things as the Pentagon Papers seem like a thing of the past-- the film (and seemingly the Times itself do indeed heed the facts of certain lapse in credibility recently-- both Judith Miller and Jayson Blair are earmarked.) Yet the film finds the perfect way to lapse those fears and the efforts made by The New York Times to retain not just it's integrity, but reinvent itself during times of upheaval. There's an avid, impassioned debate between the merits of the old method of receiving and delivering news, and that complicated web that appears now because of powerful online outfits-- one's with sexier tag lines and contemporary media sharks with little interest in valuable information. The real story is that The New York Times, in an age when many formerly grand newspapers are going under or merely whittling down to irrelevance, is still the most powerful and trendsetting source of news in the world. Rossi especially chooses to follow the story of David Carr, a colorful and ingratiating media columnist whose backstory consists of drug abuse and single parenting, and it proves entertaining and illuminating, for Carr came to the Times late in life, but spurred on by his verbosity, intelligence and energy proves the venerable institution hasn't lost its way in finding talent, or delivering stories better than anyone else. And while times are grim for this industry, there's a hopeful narrative in the tale of declining ad sales, sagging subscriptions and layoffs, that the most integral cog in this machine will retain its place on top. A-