2012 Oscar Analysis Post Golden Globes Nominations

Here’s the state of the 2012 Oscar race following some surprises with the Golden Globe nominations.

So I kind of forgot the Golden Globes were a thing this year.

Each year the Globes and a few bloggers at Entertainment Weekly pretend it’s the only other awards ceremony after the Oscars that means something, and yet every year the nominations come out and thoroughly embarrass themselves with their shameless glorification of A-list driven pictures (I’m looking at you “The Tourist”) and moneymakers.

Instead, I’ve been greatly invested in the 2012 Oscar race but have not yet gotten an opportunity to write about them. Simply put, in a year that has been mediocre to weak to plain bad for movies, it has surprisingly led to the most interesting Oscar race in years in which no front runners, or even clear nominees for each category have truly presented themselves. And with the rule change in the Best Picture category from 10 nominees to God-knows-how-many, anything can happen.

And in looking at this year’s Golden Globes nominations that were announced Thursday morning, a few unexpected wrenches have been thrown into the race that have made everything that much more intriguing.

The real reason for this is that the Globes did not completely vomit in their own faces with their nominations this year. They awarded “The Artist,” a modern silent movie, with six nominations, the most of any film in the race. People assumed that even the Oscars might not get behind such a movie, and this says a lot.

In fact, “The Artist’s” nomination, amongst other nods, illustrates what sort of indicator the Golden Globes are for the Oscar nominees. Movies expected to be nominated for GGs that do doesn’t mean a thing in the Oscar race, and it only sometimes matters when movies expected to be nominated for GGs don’t. But Golden Globe surprises revitalize an Oscar campaign. It says, if this group of geniuses in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association look like they know what they’re talking about, what’s the Academy missing?

Best Picture Continue reading “2012 Oscar Analysis Post Golden Globes Nominations”

Fall Movie Preview (November and December)

2011 is such a promising year for film, I devoted a film preview to all the movies of just November and December.

Don’t think I forgot about you November and December. Just because you don’t have two Oscar bait movies starring Fuck Yeah Ryan Gosling doesn’t mean I’m not excited for all the pedigree films you have to offer.

Here are the end-of-year movies that can now demand my attention since the quite strong September/October I wrote about last time is over.

November 11

J. Edgar (11/9)

Leo working with Clint on the political biopic of J. Edgar Hoover is enough of a sale for me, but “J. Edgar” is also penned by the Oscar winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (“Milk”) and co-stars Armie Hammer, the breakout star from “The Social Network” who was so memorable as both of the Winklevi.

Melancholia

Lars von Trier’s unfortunate Nazi comments have practically erased “Melancholia’s” positive buzz from Cannes. Kirsten Dunst is supposed to be brilliant in a pessimistic but elegant sci-fi about a wedding on the day a planet is set to collide with the Earth and end mankind.

Into the Abyss

The state of Texas executed Michael Perry on July 1, 2010. After “Grizzly Man” and “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” Werner Herzog has immortalized Perry in his latest documentary that explores death and why we kill. Continue reading “Fall Movie Preview (November and December)”

Steve Jobs’ influence on the movies

The iPod. The Mac. The iPhone. The iPad. The Apple TV.

Steve Jobs did it all, and with his passing Wednesday at the all too young age of 56 after what now makes sense as an abrupt departure from his CEO job at Apple, he changed technology, home computing, telecommunications and music.

But lesser known is his major hand in pioneering the 21st Century in film.

In 1986, Jobs bought and formed Pixar out of The Graphics Group from Lucasfilm, and with his encouragement and insight turned Pixar into the innovative minds and kings that now rule over animation and digital film.

Jobs was an executive producer on 1995’s “Toy Story,” the first fully digital film ever made and arguably one of the most influential films of the last century of movie making.

Pixar has thanked him on 10 of their features and shorts (he was given “very very special thanks” on Pixar’s first short “Tin Toy” from 1988), and now they thank him one last time.

“He saw the potential of what Pixar could be before the rest of us, and beyond what anyone ever imagined.” This was a statement by John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, who began Pixar along with Jobs. The full statement by the current Pixar execs as reported by the Huffington Post can be found here.

And this is true of everything Jobs did. The Washington Post said in a video dedicated to him and a Tweet, “Steve Jobs knew what we wanted before we knew it ourselves.”

He knew what the potential of digital film could be, he knew what the potential of digital music could be, and he knew what the potential of a digital world could be.

Could we say that the thriving instant streaming services that Netflix, Hulu and even iTunes offer would still be possible were it not for the pioneering Jobs had in radicalizing the music industry?

We know Steve Jobs changed the world, but we only now realize how widespread his impact truly was.

Image courtesy of The Huffington Post

The Netflix and Qwikster debacle

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It’s not because I myself potentially jeopardized and certainly embarrassed a media entity that single-handedly revolutionized the way people in the 21st Century watch movies and TV.

It’s because I didn’t write about this mess sooner.

The opening statement comes verbatim from an email that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sent to all subscribers apologizing for first raising Netflix’s prices, sweeping this news under the radar until it hit everyone by surprise, and then spin it in press releases that this was actually a good thing.

That was a mistake Netflix made, and now they’re back in the news again two months later with Phase 2 of their “frustrate everyone who has already sold their souls to us” campaign.

They’ve announced that the two components of Netflix that has made the company what it is is now splitting into two separate entities. The site that manages the streaming will still be called Netflix, and the completely different site that handles only DVD streaming will be called Qwikster. Continue reading “The Netflix and Qwikster debacle”

Rapid Response: The Truman Show

“The Truman Show” doesn’t seem to really be about the philosophical ideas of fate vs. choice or the conflicting concepts of reality vs. artificiality. It’s also a weak jab at Hollywood and reality TV obsessions and becomes almost exclusively about itself, an elaborate exploration of its “what if” scenario.

I watched the critically acclaimed cult film for the first time last night, despite how often it’s on TBS, and found it to be somewhat overrated. It was cute in its tongue-in-cheek, sitcom-y sort of way that included product placement and continuity sight gags, but all the questions that it left me with were more problematic than they were intriguing. Continue reading “Rapid Response: The Truman Show”

Oscars Best Picture nominees will range from 5-10

AMPAS announced a rule change to the Best Picture prize today, nominating anywhere from five to 10 films.

Photo courtesy of The New York Times and Associated Press

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences dropped a bombshell of Oscar news two years ago when the Best Picture field doubled from five to 10 films.

In a press release on Wednesday, AMPAS dropped yet another with the changed rule that the Best Picture field will now range anywhere from five to 10 films. This is based on the criteria that a movie must receive at least five percent of a first place vote to qualify for a nomination.

The Academy justified this decision by explaining that from 2000 to 2008, prior to the switch to 10 films, votes tabulated through this new method would have resulted in six, seven, eight or nine films. The idea is to find the middle ground of praising all of the highly loved films of the year without snubbing some and without padding out the field to include ones that aren’t worthy.

One other rule change affected the Best Animated Feature category. Originally, unless the list of eligible movies was 16 or above, nominees were limited to three films. Now if the list falls in between 13-16, there will be four nominees. Continue reading “Oscars Best Picture nominees will range from 5-10”

‘Tree of Life’ wins Palme D’Or: Cannes 2011 Recap

I’ve been following the events at this year’s Cannes film festival diligently for the last 12-ish days, and the news of how many great films, controversy and surprise has come out of France this year has been staggering.

But the biggest news of all was announced today when Terrence Malick’s highly anticipated family drama/sci-fi “The Tree of Life” was awarded the festival’s top prize, the Palme D’Or, by a jury led by Robert De Niro.

Malick, who previously won the Best Director award for “Days of Heaven,” is a notorious recluse and did not attend the festival, allowing his producers and star Brad Pitt to speak in his place. This marks the first time an American film has won the Palme since 2004 with Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” and the first time an English language film has won since 2006 with Ken Loach’s “The Wind that Shakes the Barley.”

As for other American winners, Kirsten Dunst won Best Actress for her film “Melancholia.” In the film, she plays a woman about to get married as another planet is set on a collision course with the Earth. This is a real surprise following the outrage over the comments of the film’s director, Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier. Von Trier made some distasteful jokes in which he declared himself a Nazi and claimed he sympathized with Hitler. He also made derogatory comments about Jewish and fellow Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier (“In A Better World”) and said, “Israel is a pain in the ass.” Following everything he said (and Dunst’s real performance was not losing it during the press conference as she sat next to him), Cannes declared Von Trier a “persona non grata” and banned him from the festival.  Continue reading “‘Tree of Life’ wins Palme D’Or: Cannes 2011 Recap”

Cannes 2011 Preview

“Drive,” “Melancholia” and “The Tree of Life” are amongst the most anticipated films at Cannes 2011.

No, I’m not going to Cannes this year. The competition starts on Wednesday and runs through the 22nd. But if I was, I’d have my work cut out for me with what looks to be such a strong list of 20 films competing for the Palme D’Or. I wish the best of luck to Jury President Robert De Niro in selecting from such a field.

He’ll be assisted by the likes of Jude Law, Uma Thurman, Olivier Assayas (“Summer Hours,” “Carlos”) and several more film experts to choose the winner in the main competition. This year’s opening film is Woody Allen’s latest, “Midnight in Paris.” It is being shown out of competition, along with Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver” and the Rob Marshall directed “Pirates” sequel (thank god), and Allen is just one of many notable directors premiering films. Interestingly enough, 22 women are showing films at the festival this year, a record for Cannes and possibly film festivals everywhere.

So there’s a lot to be excited for. And I’ll do my best to recreate the experience of being there with this preview rundown of the competition’s front runners and a few more worth mentioning. Continue reading “Cannes 2011 Preview”

Why Marvel is starting to piss me off

Marvel’s extended universe and Easter Eggs are getting out of hand.

When Lou Piniella was managing the Cubs, a journalist asked him why he didn’t switch pitchers following a bad loss under the pretense that they could’ve performed better in the next game of the series. Piniella said, “I’m focused on winning THIS game, not the next one.”

Marvel Studios, since 2008 and their separation as an individual studio, has always been focused on the next game.

I bring this up because “Thor” bothered me quite a bit. As the first movie of what will now be a llllooooonnng summer, it signaled to me the same crap Marvel pulled with “Iron Man 2.”

They are making an “Avengers” movie in 2012, and in both “Thor” and “Iron Man 2,” it has been heavily marketed within the movie as a prominent side plot to the main one.

The upcoming film has an all-star cast, is directed by cult TV favorite Joss Whedon, and they damn well want you to know to be excited for it. Continue reading “Why Marvel is starting to piss me off”