OSCAR RANT 2013

(Honoring the films of 2012)

Rant by Paul Preston

Not a great year.

I really had trouble putting together a top ten.

That being said, there were many good films, but I saw too many flaws in the “upper tier” of 2012’s well-regarded films to take ten and put them leagues above the rest. Unlike in past years where I really labored over whether “Inglourious Basterds” was better than “Up”, my 2012 top ten is a #1 that I LOVE, and #2-10 that are good. The commercial successes that really took off were pretty impressive, and the art films that could have overwhelmed ended up leaving me wanting more.

Again, not a great year.

Here we go:

10. INTOUCHABLES – This French box office sensation translated quite well to this overseas viewer. The story of an unusual relationship between a wealthy invalid and his street-smart caretaker nimbly straddles the line between authenticity and schmaltz…..some would tell you. I bought it all. The two lead performers, Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet, have a palpable chemistry, they are the authenticity, but the script puts them in some “movie” situations that might be considered cheesy. Not this guy. Funny, touching, and at times powerful, “Intouchables” (which means ‘untouchable’) is entertaining as hell with a great payoff.

9. FLIGHT – Thank god Robert Zemeckis made a real movie again. He’s cut with shit with that motion capture stuff that only he championed, and just like that, he’s back in my top ten. “Flight” is a story of addiction, and it’s told with a fascinating backdrop: the main character and addict is a commercial airline pilot. The film begins by showing, back to back, scenes of heinous drug use, then incredible skill behind the wheel of a jet. Denzel Washington, still a wizard at making it look easy, nails the charm and weakness required to make us want to see the story of this man who is both horribly flawed and yet always interesting. A lesser actor and I might’ve stopped caring about an asshole addict early on. Or a lesser director and I might’ve stopped watching, too. Zemeckis’ really seems to have rallied against his animated films here by making a hard R drama that is challenging and surprising and keeps you wondering if this is a redemption story right until the end.

8. DJANGO UNCHAINED – If you’re wondering if director Quentin Tarantino has put out a new film any given year, just look in my top ten list and you’ll know. He did, in fact, make a new film this year, and here he is once again. “Django” isn’t quite the film “Inglourious Basterds” was (which made my #1 in 2009), I thought “Django” had a couple of endings. But when “Django” is moving, it is it’s own beast. Which is to say that this movie doesn’t give a FUCK what you want, what you expect and I doesn’t care about you at all. It’s rolling out its story, doing it’s thing and it don’t give a FUCK. And MAN, is that refreshing. You know what? I’m gonna put Rick Ross’s “100 Black Coffins” in the middle of my western. Suck on that. Oh, and ‘80s icons Tom Wopat, Lee Horsley and Don Johnson will be cast in substantial roles. So blow me. Tarantino breaks rules all over the damn place, and where I’ve crapped on some directors for shifting TONE slightly in a movie, I just can’t fight against what Quentin is dishing out. Ever. It’s best to just give over. And when you do, you open yourself up to a master who consistently makes the most unique quality movies today.

7. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES – “The Dark Knight” (my #1 film of 2008) was so universally lauded by critics, people wondered why it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar (YEAH, I wondered, too). So the next year, in one of those “Hey, let’s make the MLB All-Star game mean something” kind of moves, the Academy ‘fixed’ what wasn’t broke, by expanding the number of nominees from five to “up to ten”. This was a blatant attempt to include popular movies in the nominee mix and expand the number of people who give a damn about the Oscars. I get that when they nominated “The Reader” instead of “The Dark Knight”, they won over NO viewers, but then they opened themselves up to nominating the pedestrian “The Blind Side”, which knocks their cred quite a bit. POINT – if “The Dark Knight” deserved an Oscar nomination, where’s the love for “The Dark Knight Rises”? If I had TEN slots to put Best Pic nominees in, there’s definitely room for Christopher Nolan’s sprawling, epic, DARK story of the final challenges of a legendary hero. Upon first viewing, I definitely had issues with Bane. Despite a menacing performance by Tom Hardy, there were major issues with the sound recording (and re-recording) of his voice that were distracting. His voice sounded removed from location, laid over top all the other audio, but this is mended somehow in the home video setting. Upon second viewing, I could settle in more for a thorough UNsettling. This film just got under my skin. Gotham has become really, really unpleasant by the third film in this series, and it made for a complex story thick with character and mood. Plus, this trilogy has been blessed with good actors, and the usual quality of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman was on display, and is now coupled now with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the surprising talents of the she-annoys-me-in-real-life Anne Hathaway. There wasn’t as much humor here as when The Joker ran Gotham, but it’s nevertheless as compelling as the other films in this remarkable trilogy. Good luck to the poor bastard who takes over this franchise.

6. THE INVISIBLE WAR – Kirby Dick’s documentary does what all good documentaries should do – it gets you really fired up! And really pissed off. Dick set out to expose the military’s dirty little secret – an epidemic of rape cases amongst the soldiers. Mostly women, but there are stories of men being raped by other heterosexual men documented as well. Regardless, it is a violent act that is being treated by the military the same way the church is handling the molestation of young boys – by handling it internally and under-punishing perpetrators with as little press as possible. This doc wins in who it’s participants are. There are many brave women who tell their stories in the film, and each of them is fascinating and strong and you want to root for them, and just the right things happen to them, for better or worse, to make the doc vastly compelling. Outside of a score being a bit too ambitious at times, Dick has paced this film expertly, compiled intriguing archival footage and gets the occasional moment every doc filmmaker loves when the right person being interviewed puts their foot in their mouth. It’s one of those making-the-world-better-‘cause-it-exists films.

5. ARBITRAGE – Richard Gere was made for this part. The majority of his career’s success has come from playing white collar guys, especially in his later career, from “Pretty Woman” to the lawyer in “Primal Fear” to Billy Flynn in “Chicago”. Nowadays most white collar guys are considered assholes. So it’s only right that now Gere is totally convincing here as a white collar ASSHOLE! And with that being said, he also makes him human, making this thriller compulsively watchable. As the film starts, Gere’s character is trying to close a big corporate deal and have it all, like these greedy bastards often do. But his greed has mortal consequences and he spends the rest of the movie trying to cover everything up. Tim Roth shows up to look like a seedy cop and crawl up his ass, and he looks like he’s having a blast being shlubby. So it’s shlubby vs. asshole. You don’t get any more current that that. This is the first big feature for Nicholas Jarecki, yet it’s directed with impressive confidence, and he builds real suspense as Gere tries to hold his career together. Once again, as with “Chicago”, Gere’s been Oscar-snubbed for one of the best performances of his career. Shame.

4. LOOPER – Rian Johnson, would you mind telling me why you thought you could even make this film? Having never touched this genre before, writer-director Johnson fashioned a distinctive sci-fi effort worth multiple views. Loopers, in our near future, are assassins who line themselves up at stations and wait for people to appear from the future. Upon their appearance, they are shot and disposed of, thus creating a murder in the future that will leave no traces or body. Follow? It might be tough to follow some of this film, but the film itself has a very cavalier attitude about its adherence to time travel philosophy. It sets up some rules, follows them best it can and then just makes with the action. And the film is better for it. Remember the “Back to the Future” sequels, with all their schematic diagrams and whatnot trying to explain how time travel works? Then they went and broke their own rules anyway (but not in a good way). In short, the “Back to the Future” films say that events can spark new timelines that are followed and people can end up on two different timelines even if they started in the same place. However, when old Biff steals the DeLorean to deliver the sports almanac to young Biff, he returns the DeLorean to the same timeline. He shouldn’t have. His action should’ve propelled him forward to a new timeline where he would NOT have reunited with Marty and Doc and Marty and Doc would’ve been stranded in their future Hill Valley. Follow? See how little you want to listen to all that shit? Wouldn’t you rather just see JGL and Bruce Willis kick ass? Plus, there are moral dilemmas to deal with, too, as Levitt and Bruce Willis, who plays Levitt’s older self, fight to make different futures, and both bring valid ideas tot he table. So, it’s littered with cool sci-fi, great dialogue, unique action sequences AND it’s smart? Sign me up.

3. THE AVENGERS – WHERE IS THIS FILM ON ALL THE CRITICS’S LISTS? So back in May it’s OK to sit in your shorts and T-shirt and give “The Avengers” a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but when December rolls around it’s time put on a tux and start hailing the virtues of “Les Miserables” and “Amour”? PUH-LEEZE. “The Avengers” is a towering achievement, a mass-audience entertainment that is heavy on humanity and wit. And if “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” (one of the worst Best Picture statues ever given out) is an award for the trilogy, then can we get some kind of special award for the feat pulled off by Marvel here? “The Avengers”, as a capstone to a series of superhero films, is faithful to those movies and improves on the whole string of adventures in the process. Joss Whedon manages, oh, sixty or seventy ICONIC shots in this movie, and he makes all the characters interesting. There’s no wading through a Jar-Jar to get to the good stuff. Plus, the casting goes a long way. It’s been reported that Robert Downey, Jr. is fully aware of where his bread is buttered and will play Tony Stark as long as they’ll have him. This is good for all of us. Plus, Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo are Oscar-nominated actors bringing solid work to their parts and this is easily the best work of Chris Evans’ career. “The Avengers” avoids melodrama and camp, and everywhere you think it will fail, it gets better.

2. SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS – Oh Martin McDonagh, TWO films into your career and you’re already one of my heroes. The writer/director of the not-enough-people-have-seen-it “In Bruges” returns with another exercise in idiosyncratic dialogue and characters. With a parallel career as a Tony-nominated playwright, I was hoping for great dialogue, he delivered, but “In Bruges” showed he could sculpt an artful film, too. But “Seven Psychopaths” also proves that he can think big. This film has a more expansive landscape and he deftly moves from story to the stories within the story smoothly. And the ride is so much goddamn fun. Colin Farrell, continuing his best work in indie films, plays a struggling screenwriter who gets embroiled in a dog-napping ring. This story of lunatics involving time-tested psychopaths Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell & Woody Harrelson sidetracks to the stories of the screenplays Farrell and Rockwell are working on, and eventually the worlds collide, not in a “Purple Rose of Cairo” fantasy way, but in an ingenious, “Adaptation”-but-more-fulfilling-for-me kind of way. Wildly gory, wickedly profane and the most original of the year’s films, “Seven Psychopaths” is awesome.

1. ARGO – I’ve had “Argo”’s back since it was released in September. I kinda feel like that guy who, when ‘The Joshua Tree’ came out, said, “Sure, now all of America’s in love with U2, I’ve liked them for four albums now!”. So after singing its praises for three months, the rest of the awards’ season kudos are getting in line with me: “Argo” is the year’s best film. It’s time to put the “Did Ben Affleck really write ‘Good Will hunting’?” rumors to rest. He’s an immense talent. Just a second, please, myself from the year 2002 is freaking out at the last sentence I just typed. After impressive turns with “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Town”, Affleck earned the right to take a swing at this unique script about a detailed attempt to extract American hostages from Iran in 1979 by pretending they’re part of a film crew making a Sci-Fi movie. This story benefits from a finale that isn’t universally known (seriously, did you really know the details of this event before you sat down to watch “Argo”?). More good casting here (it’s about time we had an Oscar for this) in that the cast is filled with stalwart supporting actors doing great work – John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston – and in many other supporting roles (the hostages), actors who are not household names don horrendous ‘70s hair and clothes, delivering authentic performances laced with fear, anger and bewilderment. Affleck is great here on screen, too, showing a subtlety and confidence we haven’t seen yet, to the point where, when I saw John Krasinski in “Promised Land”, I thought, man, BEN AFFLECK would be better in that part. BEN AFFLECK?!?! There’s first-rate re-creation of place and time in the costume and production design as well as a skillful combination of suspense and humor, as the events unfold in Iran alongside the CIA’s attempt to work with Hollywood (where the humor comes in) to withdraw the hostages. The whole creation from scratch of the bogus film campaign is hilarious. But the film wins in creating palpable tension out of URGENT events being done at EVERYDAY pace. It’s fascinating.

RUNNERS-UP:
LINCOLN – Spielberg avoids most of the oversentimentality of some of his previous works like “Amistad”, and comes into this project with a great script and a tour-de-force lead performance. A little long and sometimes ploddy, but a real smart, adult work overall.
ZERO DARK THIRTY – Despite knowing the outcome, there’s real tension in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The investigation gets a little analytic and methodical to always be exciting, but Kathryn Bigelow can make a hell of a movie.
THE IMPOSSIBLE – A lovely family reunion movie. Oh, and it’s coupled with some of the most horrifying storm footage ever to explode on the big screen.
MAGIC MIKE – Charming as all hell and a movie that just looks EASY. Soderbergh, please don’t retire.

THE WORST
These were easier to put together than the best:
AMOUR – I get that the pace was supposed to be indicative of the slow torture an old couple went through as one of it’s members dies. But it’s patience-testing to stick to that pace when you’re really offering NOTHING to watch. NOTHING really happens here, and then characters will write or describe to others the nothing that just happened. It’s horrible. The worst film of the year, and the worst Best Picture nominee since “Ghost”.
RED DAWN – This movie is just horrible all ‘round, but mostly it sucks ‘cause of Josh Peck, who looks like he’s falling asleep WHILE he’s saying his lines and making Chris Hemsworth look like Daniel Day-Lewis.
THE WATCH – Somebody tell the generally enjoyable lead actors in this film that they shouldn’t have to work so hard. New material, please.
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING – Moms puke, babies puke, there’s a car race with someone in labor who is screaming for drugs. If these scenarios are fresh to you, you’ll love it.
THE HOBBIT – Shit, there are two more movies of this slow-moving nonsense?
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON – Great performance from Bill Murray in an awkward, cheese-fest of a flim
THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN – Pedestrian on every level, and, hey, there’s one of those scenes where the family is all dancing together in the living room! E-mail movieguysla@aol.com if that has EVER happened to your family.

SPECIAL CATEGORY
JOHN CARTER – Look around. This “massive failure”, “total bomb” and “egregious flop” isn’t on many ten worst lists. It’s not that bad.

THE OSCARS:

BEST PICTURE
“Amour”
“Argo”
“Beasts of the Southern Wild”
“Django Unchained”
“Les Misérables”
“Life of Pi”
“Lincoln”
“Silver Linings Playbook”
“Zero Dark Thirty”

Glaring Omission: I thought “Moonrise Kingdom” had a shot here. It won early award in the season like Best Picture at the Gotham Awards, but then it kind of faded out. But “Les Miz” won no Best Picture awards anywhere, yet here it is. I also thought “The Sessions” might benefit from the large number of nominees and be the indie choide, but there was only room for one indie, and “Beasts” took that spot. Other than that, you saw my top ten, I’d keep two and switch out seven of the nominees.
Runners-up: “Seven Psychopaths”. I bring his name up here – Martin McDonagh – ‘cause you will hear it again.
Great Inclusion: “Django Unchained”. What an unconventional Best Picture. What if it wins? Has anyone thought for a second how much of a revolutionary move that’d be?
Will Win: “Argo” – it’s sweeping the Guild Awards, not to mention the Globes, Critics’ Choice and BAFTA awards. People will also be looking to reward the Best Director-snubbed Affleck in other ways.
Should Win: “Argo” – see my #1 film of the year.

BEST ACTOR
Bradley Cooper in “Silver Linings Playbook”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln”
Hugh Jackman in “Les Misérables”
Joaquin Phoenix in “The Master”
Denzel Washington in “Flight”

Glaring Omission: Before I launch into any of this acting stuff, let it be known that there’s no way to pick the “BEST” Actor unless everyone is performing the same role. That aside, wrongfully omitted here is Richard Gere in “Arbitrage”. This last decade has seen many unheralded GREAT performances from Gere, including “The Hoax”, “The Hunting Party” and “Chicago” and this is right up there. He’s PERFECT as the kind of corporate prick you could easily hate, but then the script makes him the main character, so you have to want to watch him, despite the unpleasantries. I think Gere in the role is 90% of the reason that totally works.
Runners-up: John Hawkes in “The Sessions”. Thought he had a real shot here. I might’ve put either of the above in, replacing Joaquin Phoenix, who brought truth to his role, but the role did NOTHING for me. And if you’ve read this far, you know I’m a fan of Omar Sy and Francois Cluzet from “Intouchables”, as well.
Great Inclusion: Bradley Cooper, who nailed that frantic energy of his character, and despite being the guy from “The Hangover” and “Wedding Crashers”, I bought it! Good on you, Bradley. I think he surprised all of us.
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Should Win: Daniel Day-Lewis, whose performance made thousands of struggling actors quit the business, ‘cause what’s the point if he’s out there doing THIS?

BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain in “Zero Dark Thirty”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook”
Emmanuelle Riva in “Amour”
Quvenzhané Wallis in “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
Naomi Watts in “The Impossible”

Glaring Omission: Nothing GLARING here, I hate to say it was not a great year for lead female performances. Last year I could think of three or four that got omitted, and I also felt really strong about the contentders (Streep, Close, Viola Davis, Michelle Williams, Rooney Mara). This year, I’m sort of…meh about this category. I didn’t always buy Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence’s character was a little too odd for me. “Amour” was just awful and in “The Impossible”, as good as Watts was, the film had her just playing victim a lot. The only actress left out might be Marion Cotillard, nominated for other awards this season for “Rust and Bone”. Helen Mirren in “Hitchcock” is a long-shot, but the SAG actors nominated her over Wallis, which says a lot for the prestige of her name, which could’ve carried her to a nomination in a film that was universally pretty trashed.
Runners-up: Judi Dench in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” maybe? I’m reaching, here…
Great Inclusion: Quvenzhané Wallis, who carries this movie with nothing to rest on. We don’t know her as an actress, she doesn’t bring skills we know about, like humor, she just comes out of nowhere and nails it.
Will Win: Probably Lawrence, just edging out Chastain. I think the Academy, despite admiring Chastain for her talent, is excited to make Jennifer Lawrence the Golden Girl of the evening.
Should Win: Wallis, the rawest performance, whose character risked the most.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Alan Arkin in “Argo”
Robert De Niro in “Silver Linings Playbook”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “The Master”
Tommy Lee Jones in “Lincoln”
Christoph Waltz in “Django Unchained”

Glaring Omission: Nothing glaring here, either. Lots of good performances in this category this year, and these five have been nominated in pretty much all pre-Oscar awards. The outsider’s chance included Javier Bardem in “Skyfall”, perhaps one of the first Bond films ever to be recognized for ACTING! However, maybe the best supporting actor turn I’ve seen all year, yet not recognized ANYWHERE, is Tom Holland as Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor’s son Lucas in “The Impossible”. As a young man forced to become the man of the family in the face of a tragedy, he delivers a big performance.
Runners-up: Jason Clarke in “Zero Dark Thirty”, totally believable as a soldier who is really good at torture, yet seems slightly tired of it. Matthew McConaughey in “Magic Mike”, recognized here so that he can be encouraged to stop appearing in bullshit movies and work more with Soderbergh and other quality directors. And not for nothin’, god DAMN I loved Tom Cruise in his out-of-place performance in the otherwise wretched “Rock of Ages”.
Great Inclusion: Philip Seymour Hoffman. “The Master” is a polarizing movie, but in the middle of it are two authentic performances. And Hoffman is so consistent from project to project, it’s crazy-impressive.
Will Win: Tommy Lee Jones
Should Win: Hoffman. Nowadays, if he’s nominated, he should win. He’s that good. Perhaps the best, most emotionally invested actor out there.

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Amy Adams in “The Master”
Sally Field in “Lincoln”
Anne Hathaway in “Les Misérables”
Helen Hunt in “The Sessions”
Jacki Weaver in “Silver Linings Playbook”

Glaring Omission: Apparently I need to see this movie “Compliance” and see if Ann Dowd is truly amazing in it. She’s gotten a lot of pre-Oscar buzz to where she had a shot to be nominated here. I also thought Maggie Smith might squeak through with a nod for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”.
Runners-up: Judi Dench in “Skyfall”, maybe? I’m reaching here…
Great Inclusion: Sally Field in “Lincoln”. Once an actor goes to TV (“Brothers and Sisters”), it’s never a done deal that they can return to the big screen triumphantly. Field’s turn in “Lincoln” is just that.
Will Win: Hathaway, she’s on a roll.
Should Win: Hathaway. And let me go on record for a couple of things. First, it’s NOT a big deal that she sang a whole song without cutaways. Actors (perhaps MORE talented) do that every night on stage in a production of “Les Miserables” somewhere in the world. Secondly, every giggling live appearance I see of Hathaway pretty much annoys me, capped off by her “please like me” hosting gig on The Oscars. Based on those appearances, there’s no way she should’ve pulled off Catwoman, but she did. And there’s no reason she should’ve had the gravitas required to play Fantine, but she did. She continues to surprise me.

BEST DIRECTOR
“Amour,” Michael Haneke
“Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Benh Zeitlin
“Life of Pi,” Ang Lee
“Lincoln,” Steven Spielberg
“Silver Linings Playbook,” David O. Russell

Glaring Omission: This sounds like a broken record if you’ve read my Oscar rants before, but missing here are four more nominees! A movie doesn’t achieve a Best Picture nomination by the producer’s vision alone. Ever since Rob Reiner said (when he wasn’t nominated in this category for Best Picture nominee “A Few Good Men”) that a Best Picture winner should mean Oscars for the producer AND director, I’ve agreed with that. Who’s behind the masterful vision of “Django Unchained”? Harvey Weinstein? Yet, if it wins, people like Reginald Hudlin and Michael Shamberg will get statues. Doesn’t seem right. But let’s get to the real injustice here. Ben Affleck, winner of the Director’s Guild Award, the BAFTA, Critic’s Choice and Golden Globe Awards, wasn’t NOMINATED? Michael Haneke, whose first screw-up as a director was to fail to hire an editor, gets nominated? Travesty.
Runners-up: Tarantino and Kathryn Bigelow, from another Best Picture nominee, “Zero Dark Thirty”, that apparently directed itself. Bigelow brought fierce authenticity to “The Hurt Locker”, and does so again here.
Great Inclusion: David O. Russell. While Lily Tomlin has faded into obscurity, Russell continues to swing for the fences with every project. And as impressive as it is to make an epic or a period piece or an effects-laden film, it’s just as admirable to draw great performances out of your actors, to where they’re nominated in every acting category this year.
Will Win: Spielberg. With Affleck incapable of a write-in, I think the race is between Spielberg and Lee, who already both have Oscars.
Should Win: Russell. Spielberg still fell into the mildest of cheeses here and there, so Russell squeaks out a win in my book.

“Amour,” Austria
“Kon-Tiki,” Norway
“No,” Chile
“A Royal Affair,” Denmark
“War Witch,” Canada

Glaring Omission: “Rust and Bone”, “Intouchables”
Runners-up: I gotta go with “Intouchables” here. It seems like this year’s nominees are all ‘meaningful’ films. It’s be nice to see a comedy-drama sneak up and steal a spot amongst all this importance.
Great Inclusion: “No”
Will Win: “Amour”, sadly. It’s been WINNING PREVIOUS AWARDS LIKE THE LA FILM CRITICS and the PALME D’OR WHICH MAKES MY HEAD EXPLODE!! WTF??!?!?!
Should Win: “No”, if for no other reason, to say “No” to “Amour”.

BEST ANIMATED FILM
“Brave,” Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman
“Frankenweenie,” Tim Burton
“ParaNorman,” Sam Fell and Chris Butler
“The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” Peter Lord
“Wreck-It Ralph,” Rich Moore

Glaring Omission: Pretty good year for animated films. The only nominee I wasn’t too impressed with was “ParaNorman”. The jokes landed flat, the tone was just too odd to enjoy and the kid-who-sees-the-dead-in-order-to-help-them thing was done better in “The Sixth Sense”.
Runners-up: Well, the best animated film I saw all year was “Finding Nemo 3D”. Does that count?
Great Inclusion: “The Pirates! Band of Misfits”. Did you see this movie? No? You should have. HILARIOUS. Great voice acting and a loose sense of humor that Aardman Animation is known for. And although I liked “Arthur Christmas”, it’s good to see Aardman back to stop-motion animation here. They are so ridiculously impressive with it, they deserve some kind of award for finishing these movies in the first place.
Will Win: “Wreck-It Ralph”. I’m picking “Ralph” ‘cause it won a ton of Annie Awards, even though “Brave” won big at the Visual Effects Society Awards.
Should Win: “Wreck-It Ralph”. I saw “Brave” twice, but that’s because I’m a huge Pixar fanatic. But “Brave” starts out really generic, the ‘ol oppressed-by-my-parents princess tale, but then becomes original halfway through when a spell takes hold of one of the parents. The typical wit and glorious action Pixar is known for is all on display. But “Wreck-It Ralph” is original from the get-go. And although not Pixar, the whole thing, as with all projects now at Disney, is supervised by Pixar legend John Lasseter, so when the film hits you with some heart at the end, “Wreck-It Ralph” hits the heart/laughs/action trifecta, coupled with outrageous animation and loads of inside jokes about video games.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
“Argo,” Chris Terrio
“Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
“Life of Pi,” David Magee
“Lincoln,” Tony Kushner
“Silver Linings Playbook,” David O. Russell

Glaring Omission: Nothing really glaring here. More interesting is the inclusion of “Beasts of the Southern Wild”. It seems that something like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” racked up more nominations for other awards leading up to Oscar.
Runners-up: “The Avengers”. Making the scope of that plot understandable, even to The Avengers uninitiated, and filling it with great dialogue while being true to the themes of heroes and Marvel lineage was quite a feat. Also “The Dark Knight Rises” script was a sprawling epic that held everything together nicely and wrapped up everything together cleanly.
Great Inclusion: “Lincoln”. Tony Kushner’s script was the co-star of that movie, and with a lesser actor in the lead, it might’ve been the star itself.
Will Win: “Lincoln”
Should Win: “Lincoln”, as much as I want to give it to “Argo”, the pontificating of “Lincoln” and the smooth-handed way in which a lot of information is relayed by the President is just cool.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
“Amour,” Michael Haneke
“Django Unchained,” Quentin Tarantino
“Flight,” John Gatins
“Moonrise Kingdom,” Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
“Zero Dark Thirty,” Mark Boal

Glaring Omission: Speaking of “Wreck-It Ralph”, no animated movies were nominated. “Ralph” is wall-to-wall originality, successfully setting up an entire world, populating it with interesting characters and a never-seen before plot. PLUS great dialogue.
Runners-up: “Amour”? Seriously”? That script is about ten pages long because NOTHING HAPPENS. So if you discard that festering sore of a script, you could replace it with the wildly creative “Seven Psychopaths”, and the Academy wouldn’t even have to feel like they’re pandering to a popular project. Martin McDonagh already has an Oscar for Best Short Film and his script for “In Bruges” was nominated. I would love to have seen the great story-within-a-story creativity of this film in the mix.
Great Inclusion: “Django Unchained”, ‘cause it don’t give a fuck.
Will Win: “Zero Dark Thirty”. I think it barely beats out “Django Unchained”, but a Golden Globes win could mean a “Django” upset
Should Win: “Django Unchained”. When “Zero Dark Thirty” gets a little bogged down in the procedural aspects of its plot, it reminds you that “Django” has no time for that. ‘Cause “Django” don’t give a fuck.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
“5 Broken Cameras”
“The Gatekeepers”
“How to Survive a Plague”
“The Invisible War”
“Searching for Sugar Man”

Glaring Omission: I will admit to failing to do due diligence and not getting out to see all of these films this year. But I also didn’t see anything that wasn’t nominated, so at least I’m consistent…. But maybe “Bully”? I thought that was an annoyingly-made, yet effective, film.
Runners-up: See above.
Great Inclusion: “The Invisible War”. Hey, I saw that one!
Will Win: “Searching for Sugar Man”, it’s been winning many of the lead-up to Oscar awards
Should Win: “The Invisible War”. ‘Cause I saw it, and ‘cause it was excellent.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
“Inocente,” Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
“Kings Point,” Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
“Mondays at Racine,” Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
“Open Heart,” Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
“Redemption,” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill

OK, now I don’t feel too bad now. NO ONE’S seen these.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
“Anna Karenina,” Seamus McGarvey
“Django Unchained,” Robert Richardson
“Life of Pi,” Claudio Miranda
“Lincoln,” Janusz Kaminski
“Skyfall,” Roger Deakins

Glaring Omission: Maybe “Les Miserables”? I didn’t see all that 48fps nonsense that might’ve made me root for “The Hobbit”, so I’m not left to think anything’s missing here. And certainly, with Richardson, Kaminski and Deakins, you’ve included possibly three of the best EVER shooters that have ever worked.
Runners-up: “The Impossible”, just for the mere task of coupling all the photography with the brilliant visual effects. And any year Wally Pfister shoots a film, you have to take him into account, and “The Dark Knight Rises” looked as good as anything he’s ever shot. Also, “The Master”’s 70MM look was elegant.
Great Inclusion: Roger Deakins. I left “Skyfall” thinking to myself that that was the best shot James Bond movie ever made. It was GORGEOUS.
Will Win: “Life of Pi”. I think this film sneaks past “Lincoln” to win here,
Should Win: “Skyfall”. Deakins DID win the American Society of Cinematographers Award, so he’s got a shot to break the long streak of being nominated and never winning, but that damn “Life of Pi” has been in the mix every time…

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
“Anna Karenina,” Jacqueline Durran
“Les Misérables,” Paco Delgado
“Lincoln,” Joanna Johnston
“Mirror Mirror,” Eiko Ishioka
“Snow White and the Huntsman,” Colleen Atwood

Glaring Omission: Did anyone else make a Snow White movie? No? Then, OK, no glaring omissions. I’m also always put off by having all the nominees be fantasy films or period pieces. How ‘bout “Magic Mike”, huh? GREAT costumes…you gotta admit…
Runners-up: “Moonrise Kingdom”. Once again, Wes Anderson movies defy all place and time and simply exist in Andersonville, where everyone dresses….like they’re in a Wes Anderson movie. His look is so distinct, maybe we throw it an Oscar nod? Also, if we’re gonna go period piece, go “Argo”, those guys were horribly ‘70s.
Great Inclusion: “Lincoln”. The old statehouses of America were filled with guys who looked just like they do in those old paintings. You know the ones.
Will Win: This one’s pretty wide open. I’m gonna go with “Snow White and the Huntsman” ‘cause they loooooooove Colleen Atwood.
Should Win: “Lincoln”, ‘cause Lincoln looked more like I know Lincoln looks than Snow White looked like I know Snow White looks (editor’s note: that is a stupid reason)

BEST FILM EDITING
“Argo,” William Goldenberg
“Life of Pi,” Tim Squyres
“Lincoln,” Michael Kahn
“Silver Linings Playbook,” Jay Cassidy and Crispin Struthers
“Zero Dark Thirty,” Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg

Glaring Omission: Outside of the latter half of “Zero Dark Thirty”, where are the action movies? Films like “The French Connection” set the standard for how modern-day, fast-paced films can be expertly edited, but there’s no “Skyfall”, no “Looper”, which edited not only action, but time-jumping, with ease
Runners-up: “Cloud Atlas”. I didn’t like it so much, but it was one of those films that didn’t work for me, but I did admire the effort, and film that jumps many locations and six time periods asked a lot of the editor. I was never lost and the film kept a tight pace.
Great Inclusion: “Argo”, for doing the exact opposite of an action film, and finding a pace that coaxed a real tension out of the movie, without having to move at Jason Bourne-like speed. Plus, there was constant continent-jumping and sharp ability to support a film that can jump tone from tense to light.
Will Win: “Argo”
Should Win: “Argo”

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
“Hitchcock,” Howard Berger, Peter Montagna and Martin Samuel
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” Peter Swords King, Rick Findlater and Tami Lane
“Les Misérables,” Westcott and Julie Dartnell

Glaring Omission: “Cloud Atlas”? Nobody’s been singing its praises, but perhaps they should. ‘Cause not only is there a good makeup design here that decorates different worlds and time periods, but the makeup often has to modify the same actor in each of those time periods.
Runners-up: “Looper”, for making JGL look like a young Bruce Willis.
Great Inclusion: “Les Miserables”, for achievement in muck-making
Will Win: “The Hobbit”, probably for the mere AMOUNT of makeup and wigging.
Should Win: “Les Miserables”

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
“Anna Karenina,” Dario Marianelli
“Argo,” Alexandre Desplat
“Life of Pi,” Mychael Danna
“Lincoln,” John Williams
“Skyfall,” Thomas Newman

Glaring Omission: I expected animated scores to be represented here. They’re usually pretty lively and you can whistle ‘em. The “Brave” score, especially, did a fine job of incorporating Scottish musicality into its melodies. And outside of Bond, no real action movies represented, either. I left the theater humming the theme from “The Avengers”. The only composer whose work sticks with me anymore is Michael Giacchino, so to be humming someone ELSE’s music was a big deal (thanks, Alan Silvestri). By the way, Giacchino’s animated score won an Oscar (“Up”).
Runners-up: Well, the best score I heard all year was “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in IMAX. Does that count? Also, “Beasts of the Southern Wild” had a cool score that didn’t entirely mimic the music of Louisiana. It found its own style, often dreamy, and still worked. And is “The Dark Knight Rises” score “original” since it incorporates themes from the previous Batman films? I loved it, and it might be one of the more mimicked scores of the year.
Great Inclusion: “Lincoln”. Is this even a category without John Williams?
Will Win: “Skyfall”. I think it’s got a real chance. And I love all those Bond scores that incorporate old Bond scores AND the theme song into the music.
Should Win: “Skyfall”

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Before My Time” from “Chasing Ice,” Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
“Everybody Needs A Best Friend” from “Ted,” Music by Walter Murphy; Lyric by Seth MacFarlane
“Pi’s Lullaby” from “Life of Pi,” Music by Mychael Danna; Lyric by Bombay Jayashri
“Skyfall” from “Skyfall,” Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth
“Suddenly” from “Les Misérables,” Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg; Lyric by Herbert Kretzmer and Alain Boublil

Glaring Omission: Once again, no animated films! Not too long ago, animated movies DOMINATED this category, with Alan Menken bleeding gold out of the Academy for nearly a decade. But these aren’t the old days, and even Will Smith put out a “Men in Black” movie and didn’t record a song. We were instead served up a Pitbull tune that’s impossible to listen to.
Runners-up: In fact, there’s only one song outside of one that’s nominated that I even remember hearing, let alone remembering how it goes, and that’s “Live to Rise” by Soundgarden from “The Avengers”. And even that is unremarkable by Soundgarden standards.
Great Inclusion: “Skyfall”, an improvement on whatever the song from “Quantum of Solace” was.
Will Win: “Skyfall”
Should Win: “Skyfall”,

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
“Anna Karenina” (Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer)
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (Production Design: Dan Hennah; Set Decoration: Ra Vincent and Simon Bright)
“Les Misérables” (Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Anna Lynch-Robinson)
“Life of Pi” (Production Design: David Gropman; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock)
“Lincoln” (Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Jim Erickson)

Glaring Omission: Much like the costume category, there’s a distinct lack of contemporary design. “Skyfall” won the Art Director’s Guild Award, so I thought they might be represented here.
Runners-up: But for my money, the real winner is “Zero Dark Thirty” for the authenticity of not only the bin Laden compound, but all the war zones and foreign locations. “Argo”’s place and time were also expertly recreated in the Hollywood, Washington and Iran locations.
Great Inclusion: “Lincoln”. Spielberg’s team, outside of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, has been on top of their game for years now.
Will Win: “Anna Karenina”, my guess is they’ll award ‘fancy’, just edging out “Life of Pi”, which is mostly visual effects.
Should Win: “Lincoln”

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
“Adam and Dog” (Minkyu Lee)
“Fresh Guacamole” (PES)
“Head over Heels” (Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly)
“Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”” (David Silverman)
“Paperman” (John Kahrs)

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
“Asad” (Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura)
“Buzkashi Boys” (Sam French and Ariel Nasr)
“Curfew” (Shawn Christensen)
“Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)” (Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele)
“Henry” (Yan England)

One of the great misfortunes of this year was that I missed all the short nominees, except “Paperman”, which got a welcome theatrical run, playing with “Wreck-It Ralph”. “Paperman” is outstanding, a real valentine to love in the big city, with nods to old-school animation and Disney storytelling. Usually, I can make the LA screenings of all the shorts, the Academy itself screens them in their theater with Q&As with the filmmakers, but not this year, sadly. I believe they all show up on iTunes this week, so we all have some homework to do in this category.

BEST SOUND EDITING
“Argo” (Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn)
“Django Unchained” (Wylie Stateman)
“Life of Pi” (Eugene Gearty and Philip Stockton)
“Skyfall” (Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers)
“Zero Dark Thirty” (Paul N.J. Ottosson)

Glaring Omission: I’m harping on it at this point, but straight-up action and animation are missing again. This category is all about the creation of sounds and sound effects and huge, green screen adventures or animated tales have thousands of visuals that aren’t real that are MADE real by the audio effects. I thought “The Avengers” would be nominated here, as well as maybe “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” or “Wreck-It Ralph”
Runners-up: The best use of audio I heard all year was in “The Impossible”. The re-creation of the 2004 tsunami was horrifying and made most horrifying by the sound effects of breaking, smashing, water, drowning, relentless, smothering – it was palpable. If it’s not too late, see that one in the theater.
Great Inclusion: “Django Unchained”. I saw “Reservoir Dogs” recently, and wasn’t aware just how 1992 that movie was. Tarantino’s technical elements have gone from “that indie feel” to top notch. He’s got a great crew, and the team that built all the western and gunfire FX are no exception.
Will Win: “Life of Pi”. For the Academy, this is like awarding an effects-laden action film, except they can feel smart about it.
Should Win: “Skyfall”. The Bond film with the best production value in the history of the franchise.

BEST SOUND MIXING
“Argo” (John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia)
“Les Misérables” (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes)
“Life of Pi” (Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin)
“Lincoln” (Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins)
“Skyfall” (Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson)

Glaring Omission: Again “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”, again “Wreck-It Ralph”
Runners-up: “Les Miz” wasn’t the only musical out there. What about “Joyful Noise”, man? “Rock of Ages”? Something like “Pirates!: Band of Misfits” would do well to be nominated here because of the life the sound mix gave to CLAY!!!
Great Inclusion: “Les Miserables”. The whole let’s-record-the-actors-on-set thing and mix it with the music later was rather ingenious, and brought out the best (and worst) in the actors, so I think for that experiment…
Will Win: …”Les Miz” will win.
Should Win: Sticking by “Skyfall”, ‘cause “Les Miz” did bring out the worst in some of the actors!

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White)
“Life of Pi” (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott)
“Marvel’s The Avengers” (Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick)
“Prometheus” (Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill)
“Snow White and the Huntsman” (Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson)

Glaring Omission: “THE IMPOSSIBLE”! That tsunami, if I may gush again, was so horrifying, and I gotta believe that very, very little of it was actual water crushing people and buildings. Those long shots of Naomi Watts and Tom Holland floating on a mattress in the middle of a giant wave of water filled with debris and cars and buildings and trees – HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT? And anytime you ask that question – Oscar.
Runners-up: “Cloud Atlas”. Looked great! Not really sure what it was about, but it looked great. “Total Recall” was also super-slick and sharp about its integrated effects. Bought every inch of that weird future world, from minute details in the living spaces to the giant train that roared through the center of the Earth. “The Amazing Spider-Man” benefited from being released in 2012. The effects were noticeably improved from 2002, allowing the director to craft really exciting action sequences that trumped what’s been done in the past with this franchise. And “Wrath of the Titans” LOOKED great. Too bad it really, really sucked.
Great Inclusion: “Prometheus”, if for no other reason than the ‘abortion’ scene.
Will Win: “Life of Pi”
Should Win: “The Avengers”. I was just in New York City recently, and it looked nothing like it did at the end of this movie. That VFX in action.

That’s it! Tune in Sunday, Feb. 24th for the awards, and let’s rejoice that it’s less than three months until “Star Trek: In Darkness” and “Iron Man 3” are in theaters!

NEWS 92FM – HOUSTON
July 20, 2012
Movie Guy Paul Preston talks with afternoon anchors Bonnie Petrie and Mike Barajas about what’s new in theaters. This was Paul’s appearance the day after the shootings in Colorado that marred “The Dark Knight Rises”‘ midnight screenings. Paul discusses the fallout and gives a quick review with Bonnie & Mike.

TED:

(5 min., 9 sec.)

BATBOY EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU

THE SUMMER OF THE CLOWN

Article by Jason Ellsworth

I am standing in the bathroom of a Loews movie theatre, washing my hands. I have just finished seeing ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ for the third time in theatres. Getting to this particular one was not easy – my brother and I were already rushed for time, driving through the incredibly odd occurrence of a downpour in the middle of a sunny, August, Los Angeles day, when we were rear-ended. We had no concern for our car – only concern for missing the chance to once again see our beloved Batman on the big screen for what would probably be the last time (or at least until they inevitably re-release it in theatres).

My excitement had peaked after the second viewing, either because I finally saw it in IMAX that time, or because Christopher Nolan tends to make incredibly dense films that certainly don’t mesh with casual viewing. You could study them as much as you do college courses, and with ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, much like with ‘The Dark Knight’, I gleefully noted that my comprehension of the story made leaps and bounds the second time around. Because of this fact, I have spent the hours leading up to the third viewing exhaustively arguing about the film on Facebook, reading biographies of the characters on Wikipedia, and digging in even deeper to one of my most horrific and geek-tastic obsessions, reading reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

But why?

Well, back in the summer of 2008, I, like almost everyone else in the USA, became obsessed with Heath Ledger’s take on The Joker. I perhaps took it a bit further, as can be evidenced by a look through my bedroom: two movie posters with The Joker, a painting my brother did for my birthday of The Joker, a t-shirt bearing his image, an action figure adorning the top of my book shelf, and Joker Chuck Taylor All-Stars (OK, in fairness, those have the image of the old comic book Joker on them, not Heath’s, but you get the idea).

Like everyone else, I thought ‘The Dark Knight’ was the greatest thing since sliced bread. So when it was announced that a third one would be happening (essentially inevitable, as fans and Mr. Nolan alike would no doubt be haunted for years that the series wasn’t made into a full on trilogy), I had a stronger purpose. There was a question, as a movie geek, that I desperately wanted to know: would Mr. Nolan be able to do what up to this point seemed to be impossible with movie trilogies, that is, make a good, better, best series of films, with each one topping the last?

Everyone with half a geek brain knows that what is arguably THE trilogy (bring it, Lord of the Rings fans), the original ‘Star Wars’ (let’s not talk about the new ones, which after a few years to marinade seem like digital crap with dialogue so bad that I have to believe Lucas has a future writing teen soap operas), has a clear stand out when it comes to popular consensus, which, with art, is the closest thing we have to truth. ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ is the crowning achievement of the trilogy and woe is the person who tries to dispute that fact.

Now, sidetrack with me for a second if you will and let’s quickly break down the art of trilogies and why the second one may always have an unfair advantage. The first movie comes out and has novelty on its side – you’re creating an entirely new world (or in the case of ‘Batman Begins’, re-envisioning) and introducing the audience to something they haven’t seen before. At this point, you might not even have a thought in your mind about creating other movies after this, you’re just eager to get your vision out to the world. So it hits and boom! They’ve never seen anything like this before (or once again, they’ve never seen this take on this world before, if you’re working with a pre-existing character) and so they have the joy of something new.

So it’s a success and you decide to do a second one. Now you need to apply the sequel-itis formula, something that is responsible whether the sequel is horrific or soars. Bigger. Badder. Better. The first movie, but MORE SO! We have to top it! So with some learning experience under your belt from the first one, and a better understanding of your world and characters, you set out to outdo yourself. Now, if you’re planning on, or even flirting a bit, with the idea of a third movie, you have a unique opportunity to end your movie without having to truly end it. You can leave things unresolved or leave people with a bit of a cliffhanger. This perhaps, is why ‘Empire’ is so adored. How often do you get to see a movie end with everything in darkness? Hollywood execs pop boners for happy, crowd-pleasing endings. Actually, more so than that, they demand them, so a dark ending comes across as different and perhaps a bit ballsy. You may remember Kevin Smith’s dissection of this in the first ‘Clerks’, when Dante says that ‘Empire’ has a down ending and that’s what life is – a serious of down endings.

Now we arrive at the third one. You did the first one, people liked it, you did the second one, and people said you actually topped yourself, now what? Now you have to make it the first AND second movie, but MORE SO! You have to top the previous two, which of course, in many cases, leads to even worse cases of sequel-itis (uh…MORE explosions?). In addition to that, you’re doing a trilogy and this is the third one, so now, in the complete antithesis of the ending of your second movie, you have to neatly and satisfyingly wrap everything up. So, after an overview, we can see that in the first one you have the irritation of having to bring the audience into this world that you, the creator, already know so well, and in the third, the irritation of having to conclude things. That second movie though? Have things go to hell for your characters! We’re right in the middle of things now, the meat of the sandwich, no boring introduction and no need for a wrap up, so go crazy! OK, remember all that, as I didn’t just go all film school on you for no reason; it will be worked into the rest of this.

So, picture all that swirling through my head and now you can see how I was waiting with baited breath to find out that answer to the original question. Could Christopher Nolan finally make the good, better, best trilogy? Well, you’re certainly obsessive enough about it, tell us the answer Batboy!

After all my viewings and ruminations, what I have come up with is this: he didn’t do it. However, what I truly believe he did do was make a trilogy of complete consistency. The crew, for the most part, was exactly the same throughout all three movies: same writers, stars, and director, and the films stand next to one another as complete equals, all emotional, tense, exciting, dark and action-packed chapters of one giant story telling the tale of a man trying to become a symbol against evil.

After reading the reviews and hearing the conversations, however, that is definitely not how the trilogy will be remembered. It will, like “Star Wars”, forever have its middle movie stick out as the best one. So, this paper is an attempt to fight that image, to break down what happened with ‘The Dark Knight’ and maybe give you a better understanding of why you’d be so quick to jump to the conclusion that it was the stand out.

‘The Dark Knight’ was such a massive success in so many ways, that it’s hard to think back to the time before it. It’s become a classic of our culture (stick that sentence in your head and let it bounce around) and would have you think that excitement has always been high surrounding Nolan’s Batman films.

But if you think back to ‘Batman Begins’, it was met with some skepticism at first. Nolan wasn’t that established yet, at least in terms of being a household name, having only ‘Memento’ and ‘Insomnia’, dark and complex thrillers, under his belt. While I remember ‘Memento’ having a buzz around it for being mind-bending, neither of these really took off. So handing him possibly the biggest comic book character of all time was met with some doubt. I myself remember seeing the first look at the new Batmobile, all military and techie, with none of the comic book stylings and wondering ‘What the hell is this?’

The movie had a $48 million opening weekend, which certainly isn’t bad, but, in terms of massive comic book adaptation blockbusters, it’s really not much (certainly even more so when you compare it to the next two films record breaking $158 and $160 opening weekends, now at numbers three and four on the all time opening weekend chart). Most of it was probably due to the strength of the Batman name. The movie was well received by critics (it seemed like Nolan got this dark entity), and it wound up with a total gross of $205 million (again, certainly not bad, but not legendary, as it’s chart position of #120 on the all time grosses list will show).

It wasn’t until the second film that things changed. The ending of ‘Begins’ baited us by promising The Joker and the casting of Heath Ledger, then most known for being a cowboy who was giving it to Jake Gyllenhaal, left people scratching their heads. It seemed like such a weird choice. Of course every hater or doubter would be violently silenced upon seeing the film and the brilliance of Heath’s interpretation. In order to understand the effect that happened, we need to really think back to that summer. What happened was much bigger than just a movie. I’d like to take you back to that Loews movie theatre bathroom I mentioned in the first sentence.

So as I’m washing my hands, I look up at the bathroom mirrors and realize that Loews has decided to show their love of the art and culture of cinema by having famous and classic movie lines printed on the top of the mirrors. There were two big mirrors side by side and one quote on each. The two quotes? “May the Force Be With You” and “Why So Serious?”

Think about that for a second, because as I took that in, I realized that I could sculpt my whole argument for this essay around just those mirrors. This bathroom scene is pivotal in understanding what actually happened with ‘The Dark Knight’ and more so than that, Heath Ledger’s Joker.

People will always have opinions and no matter how great something is perceived to be, you can always find someone who will hate or dismiss it. But what you can’t deny is cultural impact. Let’s look at the Star Wars line: EVERYONE knows “May the Force Be With You”. I don’t care if you hate Star Wars and think it’s the nerdiest thing ever: at the very least that line makes a little bell of recognition go off in your head. All types, young and old, whether they say it honestly, ironically, or just as a reference, know it. It has made a massive dent in our culture and will always be a part of it. And, as shown by it’s inclusion next to it on the mirror, “Why So Serious?” reached that level.

That is a HUGE accomplishment. Not one single line uttered by any other villain throughout The Dark Knight Trilogy, and probably not even any of The Joker’s other lines (maybe you could argue for ‘You wanna know how I got these scars’ but not really, it’s close but no cigar) have a snowball’s chance in hell of achieving the same cultural significance. Or, going back to the example, you’ll never see one of Bane or Scarecrow’s lines up on a Loews mirror.

That’s what happened with Heath’s Joker – it was a once in a lifetime occurrence, that beautiful moment when an actor takes a role out of the cinema and into the annals of pop culture legend. It’s a very special thing to be a part of, and one that can blind your vision to the equality of the three movies. Let’s look at some of the things that, for better or for worse, gave ‘The Dark Knight’ an unfair advantage.

First off is the simple inclusion of The Joker, easily, beyond a shadow of the doubt, the most popular and known of all the Batman villains. Going back to my rant about “May the Force Be With You”, EVERYONE knows The Joker. Your grandma knows about The Joker. Early on, Nolan established that he wanted to have a more realistic, darker and grittier version of Batman, and you can see this in his choice of villains for the first movie.

There’s an old joke, and you’ll have to forgive me for not knowing where I got it from, perhaps it just floats around in general, that ‘you only like Batman because he has the best villains’. It’s true. Never has there been such an awesome cornucopia of colorful, over the top, visually striking, interesting villains. Batman is the constant throughout any Batman movie (obviously) so to a degree, your enjoyment of a Batman movie is heavily dependant on the selection of the villain to go up against him (let that kick around in your mind a bit as well).

So when he brought out Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul for ‘Batman Begins’, it was a bit of a disappointment after years of things like Jack Nicholson’s Joker, Danny DeVito’s Penguin, and Jim Carrey’s Riddler. The pop wasn’t there, especially with Scarecrow being just a normal guy with a mask (albeit a mask that did look amazingly badass when he was wearing it, with just the right amount of spooky for what was a burlap sack), and Ra’s Al Ghul having almost no visual pop whatsoever (and even myself, a geek who is definitely the target audience for these movies, had to go ‘Who?’ to this much lesser-known character). This is not to down either character or the performance of the actors portraying them. Cillian Murphy and Liam Neeson are both amazing actors who did a great job with the characters. It was just a bit of culture shock, if you will, coming off of the Batman villains that we were used to.

In fact, looking at the other villains, Nolan usually went straight for the hardcore comic book geek’s heart. With the exception of Catwoman, most of these selections of villains are for the die-hard Batman fan. The kid in the comic book store was probably overcome with gawking delight upon seeing Bane emerge as the final villain, immediately wondering if he’d break Batman’s back, but the casual viewer might be left looking up info on who Bane is as I did with Ra’s Al Ghul.

So with that, right off the bat (hey, a pun!) ‘The Dark Knight’ had two things working for it: one, the most known villain of all time, and two, an extra appetite for that villain and his undeniably gaudy comic book style after the toned down approach of the first movie. We knew Nolan was trying to make a more realistic world, so how would he approach a character with a purple suit, bright green hair, and a white face? We were all waiting with baited breath, and I have a memory of a slightly quizzical, slightly doubtful and slightly excited “Hmm…” upon first seeing a picture of the new look with the now iconic scars.

The news of Heath’s casting spread, and as we were all wondering how it would turn out, something happened that was horrible in terms of real life, but would become the type of thing you couldn’t even imagine in your wildest dreams, that you couldn’t even pay for, in terms of marketing success.

I have a specific memory of being at my grandma’s house as a young kid and seeing on MTV that Tupac Shakur had just died. My first thought was shock, but shock specifically because I’d been seeing him on TV so much lately. That seems to be how death works for humans: think of the cliché response of “I just saw him/her!” upon hearing of someone’s passing. So when you’re six months away from the hotly anticipated release of a giant studio summer blockbuster about one of the most iconic characters of all time, and the actor who was helping build the anticipation by taking on another iconic character dies, it feels huge.

“What?! But he’s about to be in this big movie! It hasn’t even come out yet and HE’S DEAD???”

The tragedy of Heath’s death gave an earth-shattering sense of urgency to his performance as The Joker. However it went, THIS was going to be his last performance of all time. The swan song. Now the already building anticipation has doubled. Once the reviews started coming in and the film starting screening, and word got out that his performance was brilliant, electrifying, mesmerizing, terrifying, and other words ending with ‘fying’, the craziness tripled. Now when you were going to see the movie, you were watching a ghost up on screen, the freshly deceased shoved right front and center into your face, and a ghost giving the performance of his life, a display of acting craft so amazing and captivating to watch that it made his death seem ever harsher.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance that Heath Ledger’s death had on the cultural impact of ‘The Dark Knight’. While his performance would obviously still have been well received, his death, as The Joker said to Batman ‘changed things’. How exactly did the one-two punch of the brilliance of his performance and his death give you an experience that summer that will never leave your mind and will probably make you say ‘The Dark Knight’ is the best? Let’s see.

As I discussed, our culture in general has things that have reached a certain level and can’t be denied, and one of the ripest places to pluck these from is the cinema. Oftentimes, we come to know of these things when they have already been established. Sure, it’s commonplace now, maybe even irritatingly dated or cliché, to say “High five!” in the Borat voice, but I was there when that character was being born into the history books.

When I went to see “Borat”, the hype was reaching ridiculous levels. The theatre was packed on opening night and from the very first time that mustachioed bastard spoke, the audience was rolling (this says something about preconditioning after media hype, but that’s an essay unto itself). I’ll still never forget the experience of looking around during the naked wrestling scene and watching an entire theatre full of people just go bananas. They were flipping out and I enjoyed it more for the sociology than the scene on screen! When we left the packed theatre, we heard about Borat on the radio and went home to see him on multiple channels as we watched TV. This wasn’t just us going to a movie on a Friday night; we were part of a happening! Everyone knew that this character was going to be quoted for years to come and become a part of our cultural lexicon, and here we were witnessing the birth!

Think of the giant shark first popping out of the water as Chief Brody is chumming the waters in ‘Jaws’. Think of the alien baby bursting out of someone’s chest in the first ‘Alien’. Think of Darth Vader saying, “Luke, I am your father.” You know these moments. It seems like you’ve known them your whole life. Most of you have probably never had the surprise that was supposed to go along with them. You’ve known exactly what that shark looks like, you’re waiting for the alien to burst out, and you’ve probably quoted the father line ad nauseam for one reason or another. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE GLORIOUS SENSE OF SHOCK AND SURPRISE THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO GO WITH THEM? You missed it.

Not with ‘The Dark Knight’. Boy, wasn’t that scene with the pencil just mind-blowingly awesome? Wasn’t that the exact kind of moment we pay to go see movies for? Haven’t you quoted “How about a magic trick?” at some point? Don’t you think that years from now the surprise of the scene will be ruined for young kids who were quoting it and hearing about it before they ever saw the movie?

BUT NOT YOU! YOU WERE THERE IN THE THEATRE NOT KNOWING WHAT WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN AND BAM! “It’s gone!” AND THE WHOLE THEATRE FLIPPED OUT AND YOU WERE THERE FOR THE BIRTH, THE FIRST VIEWING OF AN ICONIC CINEMATIC AND CULTURAL MOMENT BEFORE IT WAS ROBBED OF THE SURPRISE BY ITS OWN OMNIPRESENCE!

That’s what all of us experienced that summer. The birth of an icon. If you go to Venice Beach, Hot Topic, or any other of hundreds of places, you will see people and characters who’s image has become as much of a recognizable stamp as the Pepsi logo. Jim Morrison. John Lennon. Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’. Kurt Cobain. The Dude from ‘The Big Lebowski’. And so on. They’re on t-shirts, there are paintings of them, people get tattoos of them, and they are immortal. Now Heath’s Joker is one of them. Go walk down Venice Beach; he’ll be right there next to Jim Morrison’s rock god eyes. Because of this, he spawned an obsession that was separate from ‘The Dark Knight’.

Watching the movie, you almost have to separate the two experiences. One is the actual movie, the plot and progression of it, and two is the pure thrill you get every time the Joker electrifies the screen. Not everyone can tell you all the specific plot points of the movie, the workings of the criminal underworld, what happened with all the mob’s money, Commissioner Gordon’s plot to fake his death, etc., but everyone remembers the pencil trick, the stories about the scars, the interrogation scene, the burning pile of money. It takes a real fan to list all the specific details of such a complex story, but now, as with the original version of the character, even your grandma knows about Heath Ledger’s Joker.

The movies are all consistent. As I watched ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ that last time, I noticed the same effect of a massive plot for destruction going down, and then a cut away to the villain orchestrating it. So you’re watching, realizing you’re about to see a football field blow up, and then you cut to Bane commenting on the ‘lovely voice’ of the child singing the national anthem. Same as ‘The Dark Knight’ except people were so enamored by the Joker, that when he would appear, it was an extra, more forceful ‘WHOOO!’ But the epic destruction, the emotional journey of Bruce, the themes of fighting for Gotham’s salvation, the testing of the endurance of a hero trying to rise against it, these are all constants. It’s just the extra punch of The Joker.

‘The Dark Knight Rises’ is a perfect conclusion to the trilogy. Even just dabbling into screenwriting a bit, I can see that from a technical standpoint it ends beautifully. I believe it may surpass ‘The Dark Knight’ in sheer epic-ness. The Joker wanted control of the city, and he was getting close to it as the panic spread towards the end, but there’s a ton of ‘Rises’ where the whole city actually IS under Bane’s martial law. Tom Hardy did an amazing job with Bane. He’s physically imposing and fun to look at, he’s a genuine threat (and more physically threatening this time, The Joker was all about his nutty devotion to mentally breaking Batman, but didn’t stand a chance in a real fight) and he came up with a voice for him that could almost be as iconic and fun to imitate as The Joker’s.

Going back to the trilogy theory, with ‘The Dark Knight’ we didn’t have any expectations of this being the end. It was just a follow up to a movie that snuck up on us. With everything I just talked about happening, Mr. Nolan had a ton of pressure on his shoulders going into this one that it would have to not only top one of the most impactful movies of all time, but would also have to tie up all the loose ends of this story that he’d been working on for seven years. Remember, you walked out of ‘The Dark Knight’ thinking that there was more to come (the ending all but guaranteed that). You walked out of ‘Rises’ knowing that it was the absolute end, that nothing else would come and you had to be happy with what had happened.

So a very common comment is that ‘It was good, but not as good as ‘The Dark Knight’’. I’ve heard it time and time again from reviewers and fans. But it’s unfair when it was impossible to go into the situation without expectations. When you went to see ‘The Dark Knight’ you only had the good, but not legendary success of ‘Batman Begins’ hanging over your head. When you went to see ‘Rises’, it was like going to see one of the Beatles’ attempts at a new band – the past will cast a huge, unavoidable shadow over the whole thing.

While it’s important to state how perfectly ‘Rises’ ended the whole thing, this is not meant to be a movie review of it, so I won’t go into more specifics (OK, maybe one, tell me that the part where Bane says ‘Search him, then I will kill you’ in such a matter of fact voice doesn’t give any of The Joker’s lines a run for their money as the sickest line in the whole trilogy). My point here is to try to open your eyes as to why you’re actually making your statement.

As we move forward, and the years tick by, and The Dark Knight Trilogy takes its place alongside the great and classic movie trilogies, ‘The Dark Knight’ will be the stand out film in popular opinion. There is no doubt about that. It will be ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ of the trilogy now and for all time, and I’m not naïve enough to think this rambling master thesis of geek knowledge will change that in any way, shape or form.

Now please don’t misunderstand. As one of the biggest Joker-obsessed nerds EVER, I certainly don’t mean to take anything away from the accomplishment of Heath’s superior performance or the near-perfect vibe of the movie as a whole. I just want you to see, that maybe, just maybe, when you say ‘The Dark Knight’ was the best movie, or that ‘Rises’ was good, but not as good, you were a bit mislead by that magical summer a few years back, when we all were put under the spell of a homicidal clown who ended up doing just what he did on screen, descending upon our culture and forever changing it.

GANGS OF GOTHAM

The Dark Knight Raises (Questions it Can’t Answer)

Article by Steven Lewis

SPOILERS ABOUND

Coming over a month after its release, this piece should in no way be thought of as a “review” of “The Dark Knight Rises”. Everyone who’s gonna see that movie has already seen it (maybe not twice or three times yet, but seen it) and judgements have already been made. Overall, I think it would be fair to say that the popular response to this one has been a good deal more muted and less ecstatic than for “The Dark Knight” (or even for “The Avengers” earlier this summer). I’m reminded here, in fact, that seven years ago the popular response to “Batman Begins” was appreciative (and certainly profitable) but not overwhelming. Perhaps in years to come, once we’ve gotten a little more distance on it, the entire Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy will be thought of in the public mind less as an entire piece, and more along the lines of “The one with Heath Ledger in it as Joker, and the other two.”

Mr. Ledger’s presence certainly hangs over this series in a way that is more potent and powerful than any other one-off character I can think of in any other multi-part saga. Expectations were raised so high for this movie largely on the audience’s supposition that “Well, hell – if that’s the villain they came up with for the middle story of this series, think how epic the final, bring-down-the-curtains bad guy is going to be!”

Didn’t happen. I don’t think there can be any debate about that. No matter what your feelings about the latest movie are, the idea that Bane (or Ra’s al-Ghoul’s daughter for that matter) is in any way as sinister or as memorable as The Joker is just not a claim I see being made by anyone.

Personally, I enjoyed the latest movie more than I enjoyed “The Dark Knight” – but then, I was never one of TDK’s biggest supporters anyway. I found it overwrought and self-important – a movie seemingly embarrassed to be about a superhero, and so it aimed to be a re-make of “Heat” instead (during the first part), and then finally a Statement On The Human Condition. Hmmm. . . pretentious, much? Also, Mr. Ledger’s brilliantly creepy performance notwithstanding, I didn’t find The Joker to be that well-conceived a character: a bad guy who was simply bad for bad’s sake, but who the filmmakers sought to imbue with greater importance and profundity by using his random acts of badness to make some larger point about. . . I don’t know, the very notion of randomness, I guess. Something like that, anyway.

I knew, of course, that with the runaway success of that movie, Christopher Nolan was going to feel emboldened to up his game. And so indeed he has. Whereas “The Dark Knight” wanted to re-do “Heat”, “The Dark Knight Rises” attempts, finally, to be “Gangs of New York” in superhero garb. I mean really! An urban revolution plopped dead center in the middle of a caped crusader film? If it was anyone else but Nolan I wouldn’t have believed it.

But at least I was ready for it. Over the course of three movies, this particular writer-director has instructed me in his visual and thematic terrain, and I know now that a certain level of Armageddon is just how the guy rolls. Within that structure, I found the action to be much more involving and well-choreographed than the other films, with a strong and sympathetic cast of lead characters. In fact, somewhat amazingly, though the Dark Knight is the title character, the movie is truly an ensemble piece, and it’s just as much about Commisioner Gordon, and Selina Kyle (a very fun performance from Anne Hathaway), and that new character played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who was awesome, by the way – when he was introduced at the beginning I wasn’t expecting to like him or welcome his presence, but I totally did) – their struggles and catharses, just as much as it is about our boy Bruce Wayne. I thought that was a very brave conception, and very adroitly handled.

[Oh and, almost incidentally, I think the movie definitely represents the best use of the "Our hero's missing, where has he gone to?" trope. Yes, Batman seemingly abandons Gotham in its hour of greatest need. But why? Is he canoodling with Lois Lane in the Fortress of Solitude? Does he give up his powers so that he can be with Mary Jane? No. HE'S STUCK IN A FUCKING HELLHOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT WITH HIS GODDAMNED BACK BROKEN!! So take a chill, citizenry - he's making his way back to you just as quickly as he can. And of course those sequences of Bruce struggling to "rise" out of his place of captivity are among the most stirring in the film. Exceptionally well done.]

What isn’t so well done – and which frankly threatens to sink this film into insignificance once the initial appreciation of its technical virtues wears off – are the revelations housed in the final act. I’m thinking of two major things here, and they both strike me as being deeply discordant:

1) The film really muffles its villain(s)’s Master Plan – and to the point of clouding and watering down whatever dramatic resonance it has. Think about it: if the intention from the beginning is simply to blow up Gotham – then why the hell don’t they just BLOW UP GOTHAM?! Why stage this bogus “uprising” of the criminals and the lower classes in order to do it? (I mean really, decimating a football stadium where a whole bunch of Gotham’s inhabitants are, only to tell them “Hey, we’re giving the city back to YOU!” – that’s not exactly the most hospitable way of getting their attention, is it?)

But the bigger question is this: at what point in their story conception did the filmmakers cop out and make the class warfare uprising NOT what the whole plan was about? What a different movie it would be (would it not?) if Bane really was a social revolutionary, and wanted the 99%-ers of Gotham to rise up against their overlords? What a fascinating rock and a hard place to put Batman between – and not just Batman, but all the “good guys” of our tale (Gordon, Lucius Fox, the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character, etc.). To be on the side of “law and order” they’d have to come to the rescue of the greedy fat cats, and work to quash the people’s uprising. Maybe in such a scenario, one of the “good” guys would even wind up defecting to the other side (maybe the Gordon-Levitt character – hell, maybe Commissioner Gordon himself, who has reached critical mass in his disgust at the hypocrisy of holding up Harvey Dent as a model of law and order). Moral gray areas would abound all over the place! Which is supposedly what Christopher Nolan wants for this entire series. It’s how he’s staking his claim to be different from all those other simplistic, one-dimensional superhero tales out there. Guess not, huh?

I mean, I have no idea how you’d satisfactorily resolve such a dilemma for our friendly neighborhood Dark Knight, but by raising the spectre of justified urban rebellion, then backing off into a pose of “no, the villains are really pure bad guys who are only using the rhetoric of class warfare to further their aims” – well, you’ve pretty much pegged yourself as someone who likes to play with big themes, but who actually has no true thoughts on the matter.

2) The “death” of Batman is handled very poorly. A considerable degree of frisson coming into this movie was generated by the knowledge that this was indeed “it” – the final installment. No new chapters in this particular saga would follow. This left room for the contemplation that truly ultimate and terminal things could happen – to anyone! . . . Yes, even our hero.

Well, they sure muffed that one.

Oh sure, we got to see that oh so poignant final shot of Michael Caine espying Bruce Wayne from afar across the open-air cafe in Italy and say to ourselves “Hey – look, it’s like that image they showed us at the beginning of the movie. You know, when they were detailing Alfred’s dream of ultimate happiness for his beloved Master Bruce? Well it came true! And we’ve got the matching shot to prove it. I’ll be damned! Those genius filmmakers and their impressive use of visual foreshadowing – what ever will they think up next?!”

Unfortunately, that “beautiful” shot totally cuts the balls off of Bruce Wayne as a character – and makes us retroactively not care about his entire story.

I mean, if Bruce has always been about fixing up Gotham and being there for his city, why would he fake his death so that he can run away with Selina to cavort in the Mediterranean in perpetuity? By so doing, he becomes precisely the type of idle rich (that we were always on his side because) he resolutely wasn’t (and the type, incidentally, who Bane would have had it in for – that is, if his character had actually had any credibility!) And how exactly is Bruce Wayne living now – what’s he living on? It was established earlier in the movie that his life savings were totally wiped out in the Bane-influenced crash of Wall Street. Are he and Selina simply robbing and fencing their way through Europe? (An interesting idea for a separate movie, of course – but not one about Bruce FUCKING Wayne!)

Wouldn’t the obvious thing to have done be to either: A) Have Bruce/Batman really and truly die transporting that nuke over Gotham River [and then maybe have the Alfred scene still be there, but make it clear that he only has a hallucination or dream vision of seeing Bruce -- he rubs his eyes, looks again, and realizes it is a completely different person] . . . or else B) Have it so that Bruce successfully ejected himself from the plane, but keep that a secret and maintain the illusion that “Batman” died in saving the city. So then it’s no more Batman, that identity gets permanently retired – but Bruce Wayne himself is still alive and kicking (further throwing anyone off the scent that he was ever Batman in the first place) and is now set to do all he can AS HIMSELF to help Gotham in its rebuilding.

Either option would have been a better way to resolve it than they did. Instead they opted for the “having their cake and eating it too” approach of making the audience experience and expect tragedy, only to reveal triumph in the end – and a promise too (through the final shot of the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character) of the continuation of the Batman and his mythology. I thought your superhero trilogy was supposed to be above that kind of cliche crap, Christopher. Guess not, huh?

But hey – that Heath Ledger was really something as The Joker! Right?

JULY 22, 2012
After having the ridiculous asked of him here and there on the internet, Christian Bale has weighed in on the Colorado shootings, wisely keeping it simple. Read his statement HERE.
-PP

JULY 21, 2012

As ever, Christopher Nolan is eloquent concerning the Aurora, Colorado shootings. Click HERE to read his statement.
-PP

JULY 20, 2012

-PP

JULY 19, 2012

Oh, I see. Bill Murray plays a president (FDR), now Robin Williams plays a president (Eisenhower). Nice. I can’t wait for Louis Anderson to play William Howard Taft.
-PP

JULY 18, 2012
A short film starring Thomas Jane and Ron Perlman. That’s all you need to know. Now give yourself ten minutes and watch:

-PP

JULY 17, 2012
Great observation by ToplessRobot.com. The Indiana Jones quadrilogy comes out on Blu-Ray this fall, and the trailer shows lots of great footage. However, it’s a two minute and thirty-eight second trailer, only EIGHT seconds are devoted to INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. Eight seconds too many, if you ask me…

-PP

JULY 16, 2012

If you build it, they will come. Paramount is building Noah’s Ark for Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming film starring Russell Crowe.
-PP

The Movie Guys bring you original videos about nothing but movies, movies, movies. View away, go nuts, and don’t hesitate to check out our YouTube page where you can subscribe to our channel, find embedding info and get more lowdown about the videos.

INCEPTION RISES

Christopher Nolan doesn’t make bad movies. Ever. Even this one looks great. Two bits of awesomeness stitched together.

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Excited about upcoming movies? You will be. Or, you’ll be frustrated by how much trailers give away. Either way, they’re all here for your enjoyment.

As ever, we recommend our WEEKLY MOVIE PREVIEW to tell you the real deal about every weekend’s releases. Plus, we’re funnier.

ALEX CROSS (opening 10/19/12)

ANNA KARENINA (opening 11/9/12)

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (opening 7/20/12)

DJANGO UNCHAINED (opening 12/25/12)

DREDD (opening 9/21/12)

JACK REACHER (opening 12/21/12)

LES MISERABLES (opening Christmas 2012)

ON THE ROAD (opening TBA 2012)

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER (opening 9/14/12)

THE PROTOTYPE (opening TBA)

RED HOOK SUMMER (opening 8/10/12)

ROBOT & FRANK (opening 8/24/12)

TAKEN 2 (opening 10/5/12)

MAY 16, 2012
Haven’t seen Nick Stahl in a movie lately? Well, Stahl hasn’t been seen ANYWHERE lately, to where his wife has filed a missing persons report. Stahl’s been gone from her sight for a week. But the worst part of this story is that we’re linking you to TMZ to read more.
-PP

MAY 15, 2012

Good friend of The Movie Guys Mike, The Edit Doctor, has put together a cool blog post to remember his friend, actor Larry Holden, who died too young last year. Holden appeared in “Batman Begins” and “Memento” to where director Christopher Nolan included Larry in an Easter Egg on special editions of “Memento”, figuring fans, already scouring the film for flaws and discrepancies, would notice the egg. Thing is, nobody has. But you can’t get anything past The Edit Doctor. He offers a nice tribute to Larry’s own filmmaking career, and a look into the Easter Egg at his BLOG. Enjoy.
-PP

MAY 14, 2012

Actor Channing Tatum has been considered for a role in the upcoming Roland Emmerich film “White House Down”. We bring this up ’cause we here at The Movie Guys think he hasn’t been in enough movies lately…
-PP

MAY 13, 2012

In case you haven’t been following, “The Avengers” is making a shit-load of money…
-PP

MAY 12, 2012

Movie fans get excited! There’s a new app that you can give all your personal information to. It’s called YEAH, and it’s like watching DVD extras without the DVD.
-PP

MAY 11, 2012

Slow news day. Here’s a 16th Century painting with the image of Sylvester Stallone in it. This dopey shit squeezed a whole article out of YAHOO! MOVIES.
-PP

Excited about upcoming movies? You will be. Or, you’ll be frustrated by how much trailers give away. Either way, they’re all here for your enjoyment.

As ever, we recommend our WEEKLY MOVIE PREVIEW to tell you the real deal about every weekend’s releases. Plus, we’re funnier.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (opening 7/3/12)

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (opening 7/20/12)

THE EXPENDABLES 2 (opening 8/17/12)

FDR: AMERICAN BADASS (opening 9/24/12)

GIRL IN PROGRESS (opening 5/11/12)

MAGIC MIKE (opening 6/29/12)

RUBY SPARKS (opening 7/25/12)

YOUR SISTER’S SISTER (opening 6/15/12)

JOSS DO IT

The Avengers

****

Review by Paul Preston

“The Avengers” kicks ass.

This movie is the huge, sprawling, massive summer entertainment you want it to be. A funny, action-packed, smart, clever mix that gets everything right. The word “Epic” gets thrown around a little too much today. It’s used to describe parties and tweets, but this movie in the true sense, is epic. There have to be fifty to sixty ICONIC shots in this film.

The lofty idea to pull this off seemed improbable. Back in 2008, you make “Iron Man”, with the promise of movies for Hulk, Thor and Captain America that will lead to The Avengers movie. For Marvel, a brand once on the verge of bankruptcy, to make this happen is an amazing achievement.

Some plot for ya – Thor’s brother Loki, none too happy being tossed in a black hole-y thing at the end of the Movie “Thor”, finds a space portal that brings him to Earth, and he wants to bring an army here so he can rule over us. That’s his thing, as a god, he just wants people to kneel before him. He’s one of the more needy bad guys in a while. But Tom Hiddleston plays him just right. He’s a nice mix of power and sniveling. The only way to fight him is to put together this supergroup of heroes.

All of the characters are interesting. It probably speaks a lot to the fact that they all had their own movies, something those Batman movies of the ‘90s could learn from where they jammed seven or eight characters into one film, but the whole thing seemed bogged down. Here, everyone gets equal time and attention paid. Even Hawkeye and Black Widow, who never had their own movies, are interesting. I kept waiting for the moment where, OK, now we have to deal with this or that character instead of someone I care about. Never happened. You care about them all. They even made The Hulk interesting, and they’ve been trying that for three movies.

It doesn’t hurt that there are good actors all over this film.

Mark Ruffalo is the best yet at playing Bruce Banner. Not lapsing into dullness or overdoing it. The Hulk has a moment towards the end that is a stand up out of your chair applause moment – the last character who I thought would prompt that.

Robert Downey, Jr. stars as Tony Stark, the role of his lifetime. And you can tell he LOVES playing it. That goes a long way.

After watching him play youthful wiseass Johnny Storm, Chris Evans is a really improbable choice to play Captain America, but he nails it. His early work makes him look like the kind of actor that might wanna be jokey and pull focus, but he plays Steve Rogers as straight, square, righteous and order-barking as he needs to be. In fact, it’s HIS movie that I want to go back and see after watching this.

And Thor has some great lines. You think he’s gonna be all pomposity and grandeur, but he’s got charm and wit. Can you tell I liked it?

I never watched Joss Whedon’s TV shows that he’s famous for, so as a Movie Guy, I only know his movie work as the dude who wrote TOY STORY and directed the cult hit SERENITY, I never thought he’d have the chops to hit a home run quite like this. And there’s a special effects team working overtime to deliver every wide-eyed action scene right on target. Knowing what a pop culture geek Whedon is, he has ended up making a movie he himself would see from the front row on opening night, then hit the internet to praise.

The 3D does what 3D does a lot lately. It’s both not annoying and not necessary. They bypass a trap that movies like “Wrath of the Titans” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” fell in. “The Avengers” is a movie first, theme park ride second, so they don’t SHOOT for 3D, with excessive scenes where the filmmakers spend time reaching out at you or throwing stuff in your lap. It just so happens that there’s a third dimension to this world that’s already very, very cool.

Alan Silvestri provides a quality score, and I actually left the theater humming the theme. When you think about it, outside of Michael Giacchino, there aren’t many composers out there making scores that stick with you. Maybe Hans Zimmer, but the days of John Williams and Danny Elfman crapping out winners you leave the theater whistling routinely aren’t as frequent as they used to be.

“The Avengers” never sets out to grapple the emotional intensity of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but what themes they do cover, they cover well – teamwork (obviously), sacrifice, conflict and loss.

There are a bunch of key moments this movie gets perfect. When it could have delved into melodrama or camp, it never does. To go into further details would provide spoilers, but just know that every moment a lesser film would’ve faltered, this movie gets better.

The summer movies may have peaked early.

Directed by: Joss Whedon
Release Date: May 4, 2012
Run Time: 142 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: PG-13
Distributor: Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures/The Walt Disney Company

OFFICIAL TRAILER

APRIL 23, 2012
How do you follow “Black Swan”? Make a movie about the end of the world…and the beginning. Lemmee ‘splain. Russell Crowe has been tapped to play Noah (yes, that Noah) in a Darren Aronofsky’s film about the famous ark-builder. My favorite ark movies usually involve the Ten Commandments, but this should kick ass. Read more HERE.
-PP

APRIL 22, 2012

An actor performing as Judas in “The Passion of the Christ” HUNG HIMSELF in Brazil earlier this week. He hung for four minutes before other cast and crew members noticed. Normally it’s Christs who get hurt in this production, getting accidentally stabbed by failing collapsable spears or ascents into Heaven that go awry. No divine intervention, though, I suppose, when you play Judas. Read more HERE.
-PP

APRIL 21, 2012

It’s been announced that Christopher Nolan has shot over AN HOUR of “The Dark Knight Rises” in IMAX. That’s the most IMAX footage for a feature ever. Read about IMAX’s big comeback, it’s presence in numerous summer features this year and dominance at the box office in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
-PP

FACT-O-RAMA

Movies From 0 to 50 in Less Than 5 Minutes

Article by Matteo Molinari

0: Lines of dialogue of Christopher Lee as the title role in DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (UK 1966).

1: Movies where Walter Matthau is billed with his real name, Walter Matushanskayasky. The movie is EARTHQUAKE (USA 1974).

2: Scenes where Sharon Stone appears in her movie debut, Woody Allen’s STARDUST MEMORIES (USA 1980): she’s blowing a kiss from a “happy” train, and she’s at a UFO picnic sequence.

3: Days needed by John Hughes to write THE BREAKFAST CLUB (USA 1984) script.

4: Real cockroaches Nicolas Cage ate during the shooting of VAMPIRE’S KISS (USA 1989).

5: Words said by Joe Pesci as acceptance speech for his Oscar for Martin Scorsese’s GOODFELLAS (USA 1990). He simply said, “It’s my privilege. Thank you.”

6: Women in the cast of SEVEN WOMEN FROM HELL (USA 1961).

7: Age difference between Sean Connery and Dustin Hoffman, yet they were paired as father and son in FAMILY BUSINESS (USA 1989).

8: Hours needed to apply Ralph Fiennes’ back tattoo for his “Tooth Fairy” role in RED DRAGON (USA 2002).

9: Different coats – all black – Samuel L. Jackson wears in SHAFT (USA 2000).

10: Wolverine’s costumes made for X-MEN (USA 2000). They were all destroyed (to different extents) during stunt sequences.

11: Monsters in DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (KAIJÛ SÔSHINGEKI, Jap 1968): they are Angilas, Baragon, Godzilla, Gorosaurus, King Ghidirah, Manda, Minya, Mothra, Rodan, Spiega (a.k.a. Kumonga) and Varan.

12: Shooting days of Colin Farrell’s PHONE BOOTH (USA 2002).

13: Years James Cameron’s TITANIC (USA 1997) held onto the record of highest-grossing movie of all time until James Cameron’s AVATAR (USA / UK 2009) came along and took the honor away from the sinking ship.

14: Directors of photography used during the three-year production of Jacques Perrin’s documentary WINGED MIGRATION (LE PEUPLE MIGRATEUR, Fra / Ita / Ger / Spa / Switz 2001).

15: Years William Shatner portrayed Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek movies, from STAR TREK – THE MOTION PICTURE (USA 1979) to STAR TREK: GENERATIONS (USA 1994).

16: Puppeteers who controlled the four tentacles of Doc Ock in SPIDER-MAN 2 (USA 2004).

17: Minutes (and a half) of Michael Keaton’s screen time in the title role of BEETLEJUICE (USA 1988).

18: Film formats used to shoot NATURAL BORN KILLERS (USA 1994), from regular 35 mm to HI8.

19: Movie titles quoted in Wes Craven’s SCREAM (USA 1996).

20: Severe injuries occurred on the set of PATHFINDER (Canada/USA 2007) in one single day.

21: Original body count in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (USA 1935), trimmed down to 10 after censorship request.

22: Days it took one computer to render an explosion shot used in JASON X (USA 2002), according to director James Isaac’s recollection.

23: Seconds of zero gravity the crew of Ron Howard’s APOLLO 13 (USA 1995) experienced every time the NASA KC-135 airplane, where they were shooting a few sequences, executed its parabolic arc toward the ground; the aforementioned arc would allow the passengers of the plane to achieve weightlessness.

24: Hundreds of feet along which a special spydercam would slide to shoot breathtaking images in New York for SPIDER-MAN 2 (USA 2004).

25: Days it took Christopher Nolan to shoot his MEMENTO (USA 2000).

26: Actors who were turned by make-up artist Stuart Freeborn into fully articulated ape-like creatures for the “Dawn of Man” sequence in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (UK 1968).

27: VCRs used in the operation room of the Nebuchadnezzar “Neb” craft in THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS (USA 2003).

28: Words actor Angus Scrimm (The Tall Man) says in his five lines of dialogue in PHANTASMS (USA 1979). They are, “The funeral is about to begin, sir!” “I’ve been waiting for you.” “(wicked laugh)… Baaaaall!!” “You play a good game, boy, but the game is finished. Now you die!” “Baaaaaall!!”

29: Minutes Jack Nicholson is in EASY RIDER (USA 1969).

30: Dollars (yes, dollars) grossed by John Penney’s ZYZZYX RD (USA 2006). The movie ran for six days in just one theater, the Highland Village Park Theater in Dallas, Texas.

31: Countries which banned Umberto Lenzi’s MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY (CANNIBAL FEROX, Ita 1981), a movie billed as “The Most Violent Ever.”

32: Fishes the star of A FISH CALLED WANDA (UK 1988) ate to get the part. [NOTE: She got the part mainly because she was the only fish left in the tank]

33: Dustin Hoffman’s age when he portrayed the LITTLE BIG MAN (USA 1970) in the age span from 17 to 121.

34: Years between Charlton Heston’s first time as God in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (USA 1956) and his second, in Paul Hogan’s ALMOST AN ANGEL (Aus 1990).

35: Moving parts that Ray Harryhausen had to change position of every frame to film his wonderful army of seven skeletons featured in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (USA 1963).

36: Years between Walt Disney’s JUNGLE BOOK (USA 1967) and its sequel, JUNGLE BOOK 2 (USA 2003).

37: Days Danny Elfman had to write the score to Ang Lee’s HULK (USA 2003) after original composer Mychael Danna got fired from the project.

38: Days needed by Tom Hanks to perform his five roles in the animated THE POLAR EXPRESS (USA 2004).

39: Hats worn by Madonna in EVITA (USA 1996).

40: Characters played by the six members of Monty Python in LIFE OF BRIAN (UK 1979).

41: Years between Lewis Milestone’s OCEAN’S 11 (USA 1960) and its remake, Steven Soderbergh’s OCEAN’S ELEVEN (USA 2001). Actors Henry Silva and Angie Dickinson appear in both movies.

42: Photos of the original Club 54 during the closing credits of 54 (USA 1998).

43: Distinct infected humans created in CGI for Will Smith’s I AM LEGEND (USA 2007).

44: Actual members of the Crazy 88 gang who face the Bride (Uma Thurman) in KILL BILL: VOL. 1 (USA 2003). Only one will survive – after getting spanked.

45: 100th of a second that Clint Eastwood needs to draw.

46: Years between A GUY NAMED JOE (USA 1943) and its remake, ALWAYS (USA 1989). Victor Fleming directed Spencer Tracy in the first one, Steven Spielberg directed Richard Dreyfuss in the second.

47: Mistakes in a row made by Sterling Hayden while shooting a scene in DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (UK 1964) before Stanley Kubrick finally yelled, “cut and print!”

48: Year laps between Katharine Hepburn’s first Oscar and her fourth one.

49: Yorkshire pigs which portrayed BABE (Australia/USA 1995). They were all real except for an animatronic one.

50: Hydraulic jacks, operated by seven technicians, that moved the full-scale KING KONG (USA 1976) built by Carlo Rambaldi.

[…it can go on…]

DECEMBER 2, 2011
As if you don’t know already, “The Dark Knight Rises” is doing a preview of sorts, showing six minutes or so in front of one of the big holiday releases. “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” will premiere December 21st, originally thought to be the movie to host the preview clips. However, the date seems to the 16th, so what film will now sport Batman’s preview remains to be seen.

Another wrinkle is that it’s only happening in select cities! No surprise, L.A. is on the list…! The entire list is HERE at HDRoom.com.

Remember, don’t get in line yet, okay? We don’t know what film you need to buy a ticket to in order to watch the preview…
-PP

DECEMBER 1, 2011

Benicio del Toro is in line to play the villain in the next “Star Trek” movie. So, naturally the internets and Googles are abuzz with talk of him playing Khan. That would probably kick ass, but look at him. I’m sorry, but he’s The Werewolf in everything from here on out…
-PP

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

Your first look at Daniel Day-Lewis on the set of Spielberg’s “Lincoln”.

This is not a production photo with a re-imagining where Lincoln suddenly sports jeans and a turtleneck. But just look at this picture. How is Day-Lewis not going to be completely f-ing AWESOME.

Don’t screw it up, Spielberg…
-PP

OSCAR RANT 2011

(Honoring the films of 2010)

Rant by Paul Preston

I think I can safely say that despite the quality of some of the year’s best movies, it was not a great year. The strangest trait all the major Hollywood releases share is that the worst movies of the year were some of the biggest blockbusters. This is not a good sign because it sends a signal to filmmakers that they can keep shooting low and underwhelming and we’ll keep going. Sadly, I don’t think it’s in the best interest of my personal health to hold my breath for the day the biggest money-makers are also the year’s best.

Some kudos to the ticket-buying public, however, because in the middle of the wreckage, “Inception” and “Toy Story 3” were blockbusters, and even “The Social Network” made a bundle.

Now that I’m talking good films, let’s begin there, shall we? My list of the Top 10 Films of 2010:

10. SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD – If you’ve read my rants before, you know I always include the funniest movie of the year in my Top 10. The jokes, gags, and references flew fast and furious out of the screen creating a cacophony of freakitude unlike anything I’ve ever seen. In the capable hands of Edgar Wright, this was a wonderfully modern hipster-fest that never slowed down for you to catch up. You either stayed with it or fell behind and for those who stayed, it was quite a trip.
Click here for a full-length review.

9. INSIDE JOB – Charles Ferguson’s dynamic look at the cause of the current recession angered the shit out of me. But please don’t say, “I have no desire to go to a movie and leave angry”. The truth is, you leave smarter, because Ferguson, as he did in the also-great “No End in Sight”, delivers the facts without pretension in an easy-to-digest manner, singling out the culprits whose greed has run the country’s economy into the crapper. But I should say the facts will make you angry…

8. GET LOW – Forgotten by most year-end lists, this wonderful comic fable has an extraordinary heart and smooth direction by Aaron Schneider that keeps it floating above cheese. Always helping to keep any project from slipping into cheesedom is the presence of the great Bill Murray, who manages to walk the fine line of being authentically period and authentically hilarious. Robert Duvall only gets a lead role once in a while anymore (it’s been seven years since “Secondhand Lions” and “Open Range”), but it’s always worth taking notice, as he underplays his character of the town hermit to perfection, delivering a finale that is soaked in history and emotion.

7. WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN” – Davis Guggenheim looks at the failing American school system, and not only delivers the goods any doc should exposing the foibles of incompetence in the government, but he stumbles upon very effective subjects to follow. The young girl who wants to be a doctor, the boy in a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood, the student caught in the tracking system, they all can upgrade their educations to charter and private schools if the public lottery chooses them. This provides more drama than “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” ever could, which made a hundred bazillion more dollars than “Waiting for ‘Superman’”.

6. THE KING’S SPEECH – A solid effort from all involved, “The King’s Speech” is anchored by a fantastic script from David Seidler, that not only chronicles a large expanse of British history, but effectively personalizes it and litters it with whip-smart, crackling dialogue. Just like they told me in acting class, whether the country needs uniting or the monarchy is in chaos, it all comes down to relationships, and it doesn’t hurt to have a very-well seasoned and accomplished cast, led by Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter.

5. THE FIGHTER – This movie wins for straight-up most entertaining flick of the year. ‘Cause I thought, “What’s the guy who made ‘Spanking the Monkey’ going to do to make me care about the very well-trod realm of the boxing picture?” By the end, I was totally invested and really rooting for Mickey Ward, even though I disagreed with some of the dumb decisions he made on his path to success! I also know the people portrayed in Lowell. Even though I grew up five hours west of there, in Upstate NY, the power that a group of people like Mickey’s family can wield, the power to stunt growth, to pull you down, to keep you at their level of mediocrity was familiar. It’s refreshing to see it portrayed so authentically.

4. SHUTTER ISLAND – Lest you forget, MARTIN SCORSESE released a film in 2010, and lest you forget, HE’S COMPLETELY AWESOME. Marty doesn’t disappoint with this hyper-kinetic asylum story. More controlled than any commercial thriller he’s ever made (“Cape Fear” was a little much, no?), the final half hour packs a huge punch. Always up for exploring the dark side, Leonardo DiCaprio once again steps it up and exceeds what’s asked of him as the tone shifts from out and out thriller to heartbreaking mystery, with a final scene that kicked my ass.

3. TOY STORY 3 – Well, surprise, surprise, Pixar made my Top 10 again (he said sarcastically). It’s getting ri-goddamm-diculous how successfully Pixar is maintaining their winning streak, but they prove their greatness again by not coasting for a second with what seemed like a easy return to a popular franchise, after challenging audiences with the likes of “WALL-E” and “Up”. Instead, “Toy Story 3” feels as fresh as the original film, with a storytelling skill that allows the introduction of a whole bunch of new characters that never seems as crowded as a “Shrek” movie. I know more sequels are in the works (“Cars 2” isn’t surprising, since the first film has not made EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS worldwide in sales and merchandising), but I hope the high standards for the studio stay intact.
Click here for the full-length review.

2. THE SOCIAL NETWORK – The script for “The Social Network” by Aaron Sorkin is a thing of beauty. The film moves with lightning speed through moments of procedure, audacity and humor, driving the film to the point where if you can’t hang on, it’s best to just get out of the way. Up to the task of jumping through time and place at ludicrous speed is director David Fincher, who has crafted an of-the-moment masterpiece exceeding other films that will define the last ten years like “Crash” and “The Hurt Locker”. Every element of filmmaking here is of the highest quality. It’s full of drama, suspense, backstabbing and wit, just like Facebook.

1. INCEPTION – My choice for number one in a tough year to choose, but if cons against some of the other options included “Toy Story 3”’s revisiting of familiar themes or “The King’s Speech”’s material not being too edgy or challenging, “Inception” triumphs with a story that’s so insane to think up, that the only thing more insane is conjuring up the balls to pull it off. “Inception” is wildly original, challenging, bold, and emotionally galvanizing. You know a review is serious when it uses “galvanizing”, but seriously, many people dismissed “Inception” as impressive, but not involving. I disagree. The Cobb/Mal relationship is at the core of everything, and it runs the gamut of deep emotion – lovely one moment, painful the next, with an ending that calls out the complexities of Cobb’s character that any lesser film wouldn’t even have written. Plus, “Inception” is ground-breakingly cinematic, imagining and PULLING OFF scenes that will make your head spin with exceptional visual effects that serve the story and amaze at the same time. An action movie, a drama, a sci-fi mindbender, it’s everything for everybody in glorious 2D.

RUNNERS-UP:
THE COMPANY MEN – A criminally underappreciated human drama from John Wells that expertly conveys the effects of the 2008 economic downturn.
BLUE VALENTINE – The fireworks in the end credits of this film are the last of two hours worth of acting pyrotechnics from Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams
GREEN ZONE – Probably number eleven on my list, Paul Greengrass makes another crazy-exciting action movie that made me frustrated as hell over the misuse of our troops in the Middle East.
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON – DreamWorks Animation’s best story and best movie yet!

THE WORST
THE LAST AIRBENDER – M. Night Shyamalan’s filmmaking skills have gotten so bad, it’s time to forget, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”-style, that he ever made “The Sixth Sense”
PREDATORS – Adrien Brody is a man-whore.
THE EXPENDABLES – Never has a man done so little with so little.
LITTLE FOCKERS – This movie is absolutely wretched. Poop, vomit, erections, it’s all here, except humor.
SOMEWHERE – Dull self-indulgence of the highest order.
JONAH HEX – The Megan Fox era is over. Rejoice.
CLASH OF THE TITANS – Sound and fury signifying nothing.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME – This movie is completely ridiculous, and I know you’re not expecting serious and sensible from a “Prince of Persia” movie, but this movie makes NO SENSE, in our world, in their world, in the world of filmmaking and storytelling, it’s baffling. This film, from the usually great Mike Newell, is bad in every facet of filmmaking.

THE OSCARS:

BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech”
James Franco in “127 Hours”

Glaring Omission: Ryan Gosling, for a brazenly authentic performance in “Blue Valentine”. Bridges, although creating an indelible character, doesn’t deal with a character arc as impressive and excitable as Gosling’s. Actually, Gosling’s complicated performance is better than everyone in this category.
Runners-up: Robert Duvall in ‘Get Low”. He brings his decades of experience as an actor to the pathos and mystery of this character to great effect. Leonardo DiCaprio was outstanding in both “Inception” and “Shutter Island”, mining tragic and sad corners of his personality and was grossly overlooked. Kevin Spacey was funny in “Casino Jack”, but the film lacked gravitas. If they had a comedy award, like the Globes, he could be considered.
Great Inclusion: Eisenberg. A lot of people are writing this off as “playing himself”. I doubt Eisenberg is anything like the way he played Mark Zuckerberg. And he’s built a memorable performance the way Hannibal Lecter and Anton Chigurh can be imitated. That counts for something in the world of character development.
Will Win: Colin Firth, front-running in most every pre-Oscar award.
Should Win: Firth, it’s a great leading-man performance that has all the class and style of the Oscar-winning greats.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
John Hawkes in “Winter’s Bone”
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
Geoffrey Rush in “The King’s Speech”

Glaring Omission: Ben Mendelsohn in “Animal Kingdom”. Our site’s review by Mary Gent summed up Mendelsohn’s performance well, saying that after the movie, you have to read an article, find a video, SOMETHING to prove to yourself that Mendelsohn’s stay-in-your-bones creepy performance was, in fact, just acting. If the Academy went so far as to recognize the little-seen “Animal Kingdom” for Jacki Weaver’s performance, than Mendelsohn deserved a nod, too. It’s more memorable than Ruffalo, who was solid, but Mendelsohn’s part was career-peaking.
Runners-up: Tommy Lee Jones in “The Company Men”. For an actor who built a career as a tough guy, he now embodies sadness better than any actor his age. I think Matt Damon is one of our finest actors, always delivering solid performances. But he does it without the Day-Lewisy transformations, so notice is not always given. But take notice of his great role in “True Grit”. He’s a true western original, even in a remake. And how do you not nominate Armie Hammer as the Winklevai? In “The Social Network”, Hammer nailed the pomposity of the privileged brothers and somehow found a way to make them empathetic, not to mention his skill at pulling off playing twins. Sam Rockwell will get an Oscar someday, if there’s any justice in the world, but “Conviction” was such a modest film, his GREAT performance in the middle of it somehow sidestepped awards contention. And I have to shout out to Richard Jenkins in “Eat Pray Love”, who broke my heart with one monologue. Perhaps not worthy of a nomination, but certainly worthy of a shout out.
Great Inclusion: Geoffrey Rush. He commands the screen just as much as Firth and lobs the tennis ball back with great skill. I’m just happy to see him come out from under the shadow of those horrible pirate sequels to appear in another prestige project.
Will Win: Christian Bale
Should Win: Bale. And the timing’s perfect. He’ll put that embarrassing on-set tirade behing him, he’ll get the Oscar now, while he’s young instead of waiting for some career-achievement award (‘cause he’s always good), and he DESERVES it. Every time he was on screen, he did something surprising, and so nailed the final scene, he brought a real humanism back to what was otherwise a standard boxing movie finale.

BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone”
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”

Glaring Omission: Hilary Swank in “Conviction”. I thought maybe there’d be a nod here ‘cause The Academy loves her (as they love Nicole Kidman) and she had some pre-Oscar nominations. Wisely, they went with Michelle Williams.
Runners-up: Swank, plus Julianne Moore, equally as good as Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”.
Great Inclusion: Kidman. If you can stop looking at her jacked-up botox face for two seconds, there’s a very impassioned, complicated performance there.
Will Win: Natalie Portman. Oscar wants to anoint here.
Should Win: Williams. Portman was certainly game for a complex series of whatever-that-was that happened in “Black Swan”, but Williams broke my heart with a painfully truthful performance as a wife and mother in a downward spiral of a relationship.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King’s Speech”
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”

Glaring Omission: Mila Kunis, quite good in “Black Swan”, was a FRONTRUNNER! Now, she’ll be staying home on Sunday. I was a little shocked by that.
Runners-up: Marion Cotillard provides the emotional core of “Inception”, and her character’s gamut-running of feeling is superbly portrayed. I’d probably pull Adams out here (despite my crush) and give Cotillard the nod. Just ‘cause it’s action and special-effects-packed, don’t discount the high level of acting in “Inception”!
Great Inclusion: I thought I’d mention Jacki Weaver here, for being noticed for such a small film. But awards tracking shows that she’s been recognized quite a bit in pre-Oscar awards. So, I’m happy Hailee Steinfeld is nominated here. It’s an odd category for a story that was ABOUT HER, but even in the wrong category, she was a force to be reckoned with at the front of “True Grit”.
Will Win: Melissa Leo, who was brilliant.
Should Win: This is the year’s toughest category, with a ton of great performances. I think I have to give it Steinfeld.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

Glaring Omission: Two more nominees. Last year broke a trend and gave us five nominees in this category. I thought this year was exceptional in terms of animation: “Despicable Me”, although copying Pixar directly (and perhaps because of copying Pixar directly), was thoroughly enjoyable; “Tangled”’s animation was not as spectacular as some of the other nominees, but many of the great Disney animation elements were present and the overall project was a success; And even “Shrek Forever After” was a better “Shrek” film than the previous sequels. I could’ve easily found room for five nominees.
Runners-up: See above, plus the hilarious and imaginatively good-looking “Megamind”
Great Inclusion: “How to Train Your Dragon” is DreamWorks best film to date. It’s a shame it’s nominated in the same year as “Toy Story 3”.
Will Win: “Toy Story 3”
Should Win: “Toy Story 3”

ART DIRECTION
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Inception
The King’s Speech
True Grit

Glaring Omission: “Black Swan”. I think Harry Potter put a spell of stolen nomination on Production Designer Therese DePrez.
Runners-Up: Here’s another slew on nominees who’ve achieved greatness in the field of either fantasy or a period piece. Someone should be recognized for crafting modern-day locations in a film, and for that achievement, I’d nominate “Winter’s Bone” for capturing a Missouri locale that feeds to the desperation and depression surrounding the lead character. I also liked the creepy look of “Shutter Island”, too. The jails, the lighthouse, the barracks, all had a hopelessness to them that doesn’t help the inmates. But if we’re talking period pieces, “Get Low” had a genuine look to it.
Great Inclusion: “Inception”, ‘cause it should win.
Will Win: Did somebody say “Inception”?
Should Win: “Inception”. The look design of the film blended seamlessly with the visual effects in creating a very demanding list of places required by the complex script.

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
True Grit

Glaring Omission: “127 Hours”. Recent winner for “Slumdog Millionaire” Anthony Dod Mantle did a great job of helping director Danny Boyle keep “127 Hours” as dyamic as possible, serving up great visual treats with little in the way of multiple locations and large casts to help.
Runners-Up: “Rabbit Hole”. The preview for this film made it look like the artsy-est of art house art films, but the experience of watching the film was more the result of a cinematographer working creatively than a DP showing off. The film, for not having a garish story, had a gorgeous look. Combined with the art direction, I thought “Get Low” told a simple story simply to the story’s benefit. Also, when does Robert Richardson do bad work? He doesn’t. And “Shutter Island” is another example of that. I also liked the
Great Inclusion: “Black Swan”. First of all, I don’t know how you design the photography of a film where the majority of the scenes take place in a rehearsal hall full of mirrors?!! When Matthew Libatique’s camera spins around and around the dancers in “Black Swan”, the result is as dizzying as the day is for Nina Sayers.
Will Win: “True Grit”’s Roger Deakins desperately needs an Oscar. His body of work is among the finest cinematography ever shot. Even the American Society of Cinematographers gave him a career achievement award this year. But he was beat out for this year’s ASC award by Wally Pfister, and that will happen at the Oscars, too. Perhaps as gorgeous as it was, the world of “True Grit” was a landscape previously covered by “No Country for Old Men”.
Should Win: “Inception”. The world of “Inception” was all new to me, and Pfister’s capturing of it helped make it palatable for everyone. Creative work that was just what the script needed.

COSTUME DESIGN
Alice in Wonderland
I Am Love
The King’s Speech
The Tempest
True Grit

Glaring Omission: “Black Swan”! I’ve never seen “Swan Lake”, so I’m not sure if the costumes in “Black Swan” are just the costumes you’d normally get in any “Swan Lake” show, but I thought they were amazing. I guess there’s some controversy over some of the ballet outfits being designed by a label that’s not part of the Costume Designer’s Guild, and that may have contributed to the lack of a nomination. These type of particulars kill some of the best work year after year (more of this bullshit to come in the music categories), and it killed the best costume design of the year in 2010 from getting a nod as far as I’m concerned. Should I also mention “Sex and the City 2”?
Runners-Up: “The Company Men”. The blanditude, if I may coin a phrase, of the working stiff in this movie was well exemplified by their dress-code-inspired outfits.
Great Inclusion: “True Grit”. Mary Zophres is a Coen Brothers favorite, and if there’s one thing the Coens nail every time, it’s tone, and that tone is often set visually by Zophres’ great clothes.
Will Win: “The King’s Speech”, I think they’ll choose the pretty and pristine over…
Should Win: …”True Grit”, which revels in the dusty and worn.

BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky, “Black Swan”
David O. Russell, “The Fighter”
Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech”
David Fincher, “The Social Network”
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, “True Grit”

Glaring Omission: CHRISTOPHER NOLAN!!! “Inception” is a towering achievement in direction, in that it:
- juggles a very challenging story exceptionally well
- makes a heady, formidable concept palatable for mainstream audiences (to the tune of $300 million domestically)
- with equal skill handles direction of actors, visual effects and continuity
Sure, maybe, just MAYBE he doesn’t win. But he doesn’t get NOMINATED? A travesty!!
Runners-Up: Lee Unkrich, for “Toy Story 3”. Not only is Unkrich’s helming of a Pixar feature a new thing (directing up till now had been left to only four major Pixar players, so a newer name built the studios biggest film), but it’d be nice to animated film direction get recognized. Martin Scorsese deftly handled the demands of a sprawling, emotional story, so if I had my way, I’d nominate Nolan, Unkrich, Scorsese, Fincher and Russell.
Great Inclusion: Fincher, because “The Social Network” is a true Fincher film, worthy of a nomination, as opposed to “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, which was a too-eager awards ploy.
Will Win: David Fincher. If he does win, however, it still won’t be known if “The Social Network” is making a run, or if he’s splitting the awards with “The King’s Speech”, which could go on to win Best Picture.
Should Win: With Nolan out of the race, Fincher takes it.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Exit through the Gift Shop
Gasland
Inside Job
Restrepo
Waste Land

Glaring Omission: “Waiting for ‘Superman’”. If you scour the internet, you’ll find some stories exploring some inauthentic moments from this movie, that director Davis Guggenheim re-created some scenes for dramatic effect. If that’s true, that really, really sucks and is a black mark on an otherwise great documentary. But I can only take the film at its word for now, and it’s excellent.
Runners-Up: I’m a little under-educated in the docs this year.
Great Inclusion: Most of the nominees, because they’re socially-minded. I like when a film sticks in your gut for a long time, and these films about the recession, the Afghan War, pollution and natural gas drilling do that.
Great Inclusion: “Inside Job”. Great movie.
Will Win: “Inside Job”
Should Win: “Inside Job”. Charles Ferguson SHOULD HAVE won for “No End in Sight”. He’ll win here for a film of equal quality.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Killing in the Name
Poster Girl
Strangers No More
Sun Come Up
The Warriors of Qiugang

Every year The Motion Picture Academy has a screening of the live action and animated short film nominees…they should do the same with the documentary shorts…

FILM EDITING
Black Swan
The Fighter
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network

Glaring Omission: “Inception”! “The Social Network” duly impresses for its time-and-place-jumping, but even that very good film doesn’t approach the time-and-innerspace-jumping of “Inception”, managing a crazy-complicated story.
Runner-Up: “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”. The fast pace of this comedy is pushed along by the editing.
Great Inclusion: “127 Hours”. The aggressive style of Danny Boyle is displayed by his editor’s work.
Will Win: This is a tough one with no clear front-runner. All the work in this category is exceptional, but I’ll go with “The Social Network” as the American Cinema Editor’s Guild did.
Should Win: “The Social Network”, just beating out “Black Swan”

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“Biutiful”, Mexico
“Dogtooth”, Greece
“In a Better World”, Denmark
“Incendies”, Canada
“Outside the Law (Hors-la-loi)”, Algeria

Despite my running around, watching movies like a madman, I only saw “Biutiful” in this category, so I’ll just say good luck nominees!

MAKEUP
Barney’s Version
The Way Back
The Wolfman

Glaring Omission: I thought I’d see “Alice in Wonderland” here, but maybe even the makeup was computer-generated. They plan to computer generate The Green Lantern’s outfit on top of Ryan Reynolds in the upcoming film, so, apparently, anything’s possible.
Runners-Up: “Black Swan”. Nutty ballerinas dressed up all nutty needed nutty makeup to boot, and I thought the “Black Swan” team delivered the goods.
Great Inclusion: Can this category even exist without Rick Baker?
Will Win: “The Wolfman”
Should Win: “The Wolfman”. Horrible, horrible movie, but, as ever, Baker cuts a mean monster.

ORIGINAL SCORE
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network

Glaring Omission: “True Grit”. One of my favorite parts of that film was the old-school western feel of the production design, coupled with the great music. Well, I guess there was another one of those dopey technicalities where composer Carter Burwell employed some themes from old hymns, so then they declared him ineligible for not creating EVERY piece of the score. Bullshit. That music was a first-responder for putting the audience in the correct place and time.
Runners-Up: This isn’t such a GLARING omission because NO ONE is talking about this score, but the “Tron: Legacy” score is one of the best of the last few years. How this gets passed over is beyond me. Daft Punk fashioned a real grinding, hi-tech score that seems like it would be something we not only hear as filmgoers, but I think the music just continually plays in the world of the film, providing ongoing soundtrack to the people living in “the grid”.
Great Inclusion: “The Social Network”. Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor find the perfect score that conveys sadness & loneliness when necessary, a Harvard party the next minute, and the driving beat of an impending corporate breakdown the next.
Will win: “The Social Network”
Should win: I gotta admit a “The Social Network” win here would be great, but I can’t get the “Inception” score out of my head, and it’s been parodied a thousand times online, a sign that something’s a classic, no? The pounding, Hans Zimmer musical droning punches the drama in Nolan’s masterpiece.

ORIGINAL SONG
Coming Home, “Country Strong”
I See the Light, “Tangled”
If I Rise, “127 Hours”
We Belong Together, “Toy Story 3″

Glaring Omission: This category is very confounding this year. These are just not great nominees. For example, the memorable, anthemic song from “Country Strong” is the title track. That’s what I would have nominated. It says a lot about the story and characters in the film, whereas Coming Home in the film is a routine country track, and feels like one in this category, too.
Runners-Up: The Disney run on Best Original Songs is long over and is not threatening to get back on track this year, as the “Tangled” and “Toy Story 3” offerings aren’t nearly as strong as something like “You’ll Be in My Heart” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”. So why not nominate Shine, the original John Legend tune from “Waiting for ‘Superman’”?
Great Inclusion: I really can’t think of one. And is it wrong to be happy that no songs from “Burlesque” were nominated even though I didn’t see it?
Will win: A.R. Rahman gets another Oscar for “If I Rise”
Should Win: “If I Rise”

BEST PICTURE
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Glaring Omission: With ten nominees now, they nominate everything, don’t they? I suppose the film that probably ended up on the most Top 10s that isn’t nominated is “The Town”, Ben Affleck’s superb crime drama. Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” was also critically hailed and might’ve found it’s way into a nomination, but seemed to have been squeezed out by “Winter’s Bone”.
Runners-Up: If you’ve seen my Top 10, you know what I’d love to see here – a little “Shutter Island”, a little “Get Low” and some “Scott Pilgrim”.
Great Inclusion: “Toy Story 3”. Another masterpiece from Pixar. If any company is going to break through and actually WIN the Best Picture Oscar for an animated film, it’s Pixar, so I always like to see them in the mix.
Will Win: “The Social Network”. I know “The King’s Speech” is making a run, but it may not be enough.
Should Win: “Inception”. Shooting higher, hitting higher.

ANIMATED SHORT
Day & Night
The Gruffalo
Let’s Pollute
The Lost Thing
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)

Glaring Omission: It may not be GLARING, but the new Wile E. Coyote short, “Coyote Falls” that played in front of “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore”, captured well the mayhem of the original Road Runner shorts. I enjoyed it more than the travelogue short that showcased a lot of cool animation, but never told a story or had any moments of real importance.
Runners-Up: See above.
Great inclusion: Need I go on with the Pixar lovefest?
Will Win: I think “The Gruffalo” has a shot to upset Pixar.
Should Win: “Let’s Pollute”, for being FUNNY! Could FUNNY win, for the love of god?

LIVE ACTION SHORT
The Confession
The Crush
God of Love
Na Wewe
Wish 143

Glaring Omission: Can’t come up with one.
Runners-Up: Nope, nothing’s coming to me.
Great Inclusion: “God of Love”, again in support of the comedy
Will Win: I’m probably going against tradition which would make one think that The Academy will go with the politically-charged short, in this case “Na Wewe”, and pick “Wish 143”, which I also think…
Should Win: “Wish 143”

SOUND EDITING
Inception
Toy Story 3
Tron: Legacy
True Grit
Unstoppable

Glaring Omission: Maybe another animated film? In a year with many good animated films, I thought maybe “Megamind” or “Despicable Me” might get on the board here, but it would be tough to eliminate any of the current crop of nominees.
Runners-Up: Like David Fincher, Ridley Scott always delivers films that have the highest quality tech elements, and the sound of “Robin Hood”, with the air-cutting arrows and rumbling armies was impressive.
Great Inclusion: “Toy Story 3”. Again, there’s NOTHING at the beginning of the filmmaking process with a CGI film, then the sound effects bring the majority of it to life.
Will Win: “Inception”. A sprawling epic with numerous special effects that have to meld with real-world sound F/X.
Should Win: “Inception”

SOUND MIXING
Inception
The King’s Speech
Salt
The Social Network
True Grit

Glaring Omission: Another blockbuster? It seems like there’d be more room here for a project that has to smooth out and mix sound coming from a hundred different sources instead of, say, “The King’s Speech”. Maybe “Iron Man 2”?
Runners-Up: “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”, an off-the-rails visual fest needs audio mixing to keep up with it. “Tron: Legacy”, for all it lacked in story, certainly had all its tech fundamentals in place.
Great Inclusion: The Coen Bros. team from their best films are still gettin’ it done to great results, and “True Grit” is no exception.
Will Win: “Inception”
Should Win: “Inception”, in the ongoing tech awards sweep that makes up for being shortchanged on the big awards.

VISUAL EFFECTS
Alice in Wonderland
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Hereafter
Inception
Iron Man 2

Glaring Omission: “Tron: Legacy”. I thought it would get a nomination, but I’m glad it didn’t. I never bought the computer-generated young Jeff Bridges, despite their best efforts. And if I NEVER buy him, I’m OUT on half the film. And I was. But I figured if the shitty F/X from “The Golden Compass” and its rubbery animal characters can win, anything’s possible.
Runners-Up: “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”, the only film, if it was nominated, that would’ve had real FUN with special effects. Instead, we ONLY get the F/X that deliver serious action, disaster or darkness.
Great Inclusion: “Iron Man 2”, a better than the love it got from critics action film.
Will Win: “Inception”
Should Win: “Inception”. The effects here caused wonder-filled stares in the theater in even the most jaded moviegoers.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

Glaring Omission: Nothing exactly glaring, but maybe “The Town” gets a nod here?
Runners-Up: “Rabbit Hole”. Although mired in sadness, the dialogue and arguments in this script were authentic and crackling. After I saw “Fair Game”, I was paraphrasing the Joe Wilson speeches in that film for weeks. It’s a smart story with a script that’s equally adept at developing relationships. I’m also a fan, obviously, of “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”. There’s something to be said for VOLUME of jokes. Also, the “Shutter Island” script left my head screwed up for a month.
Great inclusion: “True Grit”. One of the Coen Brothers’ best assets as writers is that they can hit a tone right on the head, but still find the space for their signature humor and dialogue, and never sacrifice time and place. “True Grit” had loads of humor, but it never winked at the audience, to the betterment of the production.
Will Win: “The Social Network”
Should Win: “The Social Network”. Aaron Sorkin’s script is a phenomenon, truly the main character of the film, with every other aspect dancing around it.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Another Year
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech

Glaring Omission: “Black Swan”. For a film so lauded with nominations in other categories, you’d think the script would get a nod. A brazenly original film.
Runners-Up: There was a LOT of good work that would fall in this category in 2010 – “The Company Men”, “Get Low”, “Blue Valentine”
Great Inclusion: “The King’s Speech”. Writer David Seidler whips up dialogue that’s as fun to watch as any crazy visuals a summer blockbuster could drum up.
Will Win: “Inception”. More often than not, what really is the year’s BEST film (in my opinion), if it’s due to get overlooked for Best Picture, will get an Oscar for writing – “Fargo”, clearly the best film of 1996. Lost to “The English Patient”, won Best Original Screenplay. “Pulp Fiction”, one of the best films of the last twenty years. Lost to “Forrest Gump”, won Best Original Screenplay. “Sideways”, “L.A. Confidential”, etc. “Inception” will lose Best Picture, and win here.
Should Win: “Inception”

So, let’s go to the board. Award numbers, by film.

MY PREDICTIONS:
INCEPTION – 6
THE SOCIAL NETWORK – 4
THE KING’S SPEECH – 2
THE FIGHTER – 2
BLACK SWAN – 1
TOY STORY 3 – 1
INSIDE JOB – 1
THE WOLFMAN – 1
127 HOURS – 1

IF I HAD MY WAY:
INCEPTION – 8
THE SOCIAL NETWORK – 3
TRUE GRIT – 2
THE KING’S SPEECH – 1
THE FIGHTER – 1
BLUE VALENTINE – 1
TOY STORY 3 – 1
INSIDE JOB – 1
THE WOLFMAN – 1
127 HOURS – 1

-PP