Cheesy.

Filed under: Trailers

2 Comments »

Click to enlarge… you know in case you really need to see the details

Perhaps eager to shake up Oscar predictions that even in this new 10 BP nominee year are already calcifying around the same group of boring choices, a number of prognosticator types have seized upon Fox Searchlight’s late entrant Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges as a… wait for it… down-on-his luck country singer. I don’t think anyone is predicting this one as a best picture candidate, but one guy is already predicting Jeff Bridges for the win and Maggie Gyllenhaal as a possible invitee.

The film will get an Oscar qualifying run in mid-December in New York and Los Angeles.

This poster hearkens back to the old-school ’70s and ’80s style of anatomical reality being eschewed in favor of compositional necessity. Doesn’t it look like that’s someone else’s hand holding the guitar?

Source: The Big Picture

Filed under: Marketing

3 Comments »

From France, here’s another look at one of the last few Oscar unknowns: Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. It’s a more dramatic and ethereal take than the first US trailer and better I think.

Stream it after the jump.

Continued »

Filed under: Trailers

6 Comments »

The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band)
Directed by Michael Haneke

What to make of the latest from Michael Haneke? A more than cursory dissection of the plot of this Palme d’Or winner is fruitless because, as usual, Haneke is more interested in character and behavior than he is in story. Narrative is just a means to get his characters to expose their true natures and the results aren’t pretty.

In this case we’re talking about the seemingly peaceful citizens of a pastoral German town on the eve of World War I. Haneke’s focus bounces from one character or group of characters to another as a series of mysterious self-inflicted traumas occur that slowly erode the village’s placid façade and reveal the dark currents of hatred, mistrust, selfishness and genuine villainy in everyone from the most respected of citizens to the most apparently innocent. Imagine Cluzot’s Le Corbeau with elements of The Bad Seed mixed in.

Continued »

Filed under: Film Festivals, Reviews

1 Comment »

Here’s an amusing clip of Nicolas Cage in fine scenery chewing form for Werner Herzog’s The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. You have to put in your age before you watch it to prove that you’re old enough to hear the word “fuck.”

I love when Cage really lets loose and Bad Lieutenant was high on my list of films to catch at AFI, but I didn’t make it.

I’ll be in line November 20 when it opens in NY and LA. It opens wider on December 4.

Filed under: Clips

4 Comments »

IDA nominee Anvil! The Story of Anvil

indieWIRE has the IDA Documentary Award nominees with Afghan Star, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Diary of a Times Square Thief, Food Inc. and Mugabe and the White African all vying for the top prize that will be awarded at the Directors Guild of America on December 4.

A notable omission is The Cove, though that film will compete for the Pare Lorentz Award along with other films including Food, Inc., Mugabe and the White African and Earth Days.

Last year, James Marsh’s Man on Wire and Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir split the top honor.

Check out indieWIRE for a full list of nominees in all categories.

Filed under: Awards

1 Comment »

He really is a quote unquote fantastic fox

Behold the weekend forecast. Though it’s only opening in 4 theaters this weekend, LiC’s pick of the week is Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. It’s cussing great.

Opening wide:

• 2012. It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine. Sure I’ll probably regret it, but I’m tempted to see Roland Emmerich wreck the world one more time. Then again, I imagine we’ve seen all the money shots in the trailer. If it blows, I have no one to blame but myself.

Continued »

Filed under: Weekend Forecast

2 Comments »

Jerry Mundy, Joan Gaudet and Bill Knight

The excellent PBS documentary program POV is screening The Way We Get By for Veterans Day tonight and I recommend you check it out. It tells the moving story of a group of Bangor Maine senior citizens who have taken it upon themselves to greet soldiers coming in from or shipping out to Iraq and Afghanistan. No dolphins get stabbed in the head so it didn’t get the press of certain other sensationalistic documentaries, but it sticks with you.

Read the LiC review here.

Filed under: Documentaries, TV

1 Comment »

Wretched.

Titans. Will. Clash. That’s all you’ve got?

Jesus.

Filed under: Trailers

5 Comments »

Another month, another trailer for Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air courtesy of Apple (Update: ok, factually this is a TV spot that ran during the season finale of Mad Men, but clocking in at 2 minutes it still feels like a trailer to me). I’ve liked each successive trailer for this thing less and less – and the less I like the trailers, the more convinced I am the film is going to win the Oscar.

Here we’ve got the same Iggy Pop musical cue from the last trailer, plus the Sad Brad Smith song that I wish was a person so I could punch it in the kidneys until it pees blood. Thankfully we’ll be spared Sad Brad’s soulful yearnings at the Oscars because the song has been disqualified.

This version of the trailer has lots of breathless pull quotes, though oddly the publications are named and not the critic.

Up in the Air starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick opens in limited release on December 4 with an expansion on December 11. It goes wide on Christmas. Stream it after the jump.

Continued »

Filed under: Trailers

1 Comment »

Soledad Villamil and Ricardo Darin in The Secret in Their Eyes

I quickly got backed up on coverage of the recently concluded AFI Fest this year, but I’m determined to work through it. I’ll jump ahead to The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos) because it was picked up for US distribution this afternoon by Sony Pictures Classics, a company seemingly determined to corner the market on foreign Oscar entrants with Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon (Germany) and Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet (France) already in the stable.

Argentian director Juan Jose Campanella’s film deftly straddles a fine line between murder mystery, thriller and haunting romance without ever skipping a beat. In the end, though it delivers the rough genre beats it promises, this is a resonant film as much about memory and characters haunted by their pasts – about the paths taken and not taken – as it is about clever narrative.

Continued »

Filed under: Acquistions, Film Festivals

1 Comment »

Marketers often tailor trailers to play to specific audiences, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the line drawn so clearly and distinctly as in these two recent Avatar TV spots. One of them played during The World Series and the other one played on kids’ network Nickelodeon. See if you can tell which one is which after the jump:

Continued »

Filed under: Trailers

2 Comments »

The Cove: propaganda or documentary?

At England’s just-concluded Sheffield Doc/Fest, the old questions of when a film is a documentary, when it is propaganda and why it matters were given a new workout in a debate entitled Campaigning Documentaries: The Thin Line Between Passion and Propaganda. At issue are films billed as documentaries that seek to change the world rather than simply document it. Are such films really documentaries and does it really matter?

Continued »

Filed under: Opinion

3 Comments »

Last week I passed along news that Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) was being lined up to replace Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others) as the director of The Tourist and that Johnny Depp might replace Sam Worthington as Angelina Jolie’s costar in the film.

Alas, don’t always believe what you read in the trades. On the red carpet of last night’s Behind the Camera Awards, Movieline’s Kyle Buchanan asked the director what happened with the film and von Donnersmarck claimed he was still attached to it. As for the trade reports, Buchanan quotes the director as saying, “It’s just a way of talking about the business, and sometimes things get out about heated points of discussion. We’ll see how it plays out with that one.”

Was the Cuaron rumor leaked by someone at the studio hoping to pressure von Donnersmarck over whatever speed bumps they’re having in negotiations or has the guy really been sacked without having been told? Since Cuaron wasn’t officially on board in last week’s reports, I’m guessing it’s the former…with emphasis on the word “guessing.”

If the Cuaron part of the story proves to be false, what about the Johnny Depp part of the story? I was quietly hoping it would throw a monkey wrench in Jerry Bruckheimer’s plans for a 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie, delaying it if not negating it altogether.

We’ll see what happens. In the mean time, no matter what his status with The Tourist, von Donnersmarck says he’s nearly finished writing a “political action drama.” One assumes it will be his next project if the current one really falls through.

Filed under: Rumors

1 Comment »

Throw a stick on (in?) the internet and the Oscar prognosticator you hit is likely predicting that Precious is a sure thing for multiple Oscar nominations. The film has been on everyone’s lips since it won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the clamor only grew louder when it took the People’s Choice Award at Toronto. I have to admit I was skeptical about how the film about an illiterate, abused, pregnant black teenager growing up in Harlem in the 1980s would play to audiences outside the festival circuit and by extension how it would play to Oscar voters.

Well, Precious grabbed an estimated $1.8 million in a mere 18 theaters between Friday and Sunday. For you math challenged, that’s an eye-popping $100,000 per theater – a record opening weekend feat for the year by a long shot. It remains to be seen how the film plays to audiences outside of major cities when it expands next weekend and goes wide the weekend after that, but at this point I’m forced to concede my skepticism about the film’s Oscar prospects might have been misplaced.

Having said all that, I still haven’t seen it. How about you?

Filed under: Watercooler

11 Comments »

Louie Psihoyos’ button-pushing anti-dolphin slaughter documentary The Cove walked away with 7 nominations for the Cinema Eye Honors Thursday afternoon including the top award, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking.

Burma VJ and Food, Inc. received 5 nominations each also including the top prize.

Outstanding Achievement In Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking

• Burma VJ, Anders Ostergaard
• The Cove, Louie Psihoyos
• Food, Inc., Robert Kenner
• Loot, Darius Marder
• October Country, Michael Palmieri And Donal Mosher

Outstanding Achievement In Direction

• Agnes Varda, The Beaches Of Agnes
• John Maringouin, Big River Man
• Anders Ostergaard, Burma Vj,
• Darius Marder, Loot
• Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher, October Country
• Terence Davies, Of Time And The City

It sucks that No Impact Man failed to register a single nomination, while a film that allows you to feel like a concerned citizen without actually asking you to do anything nets 7 nominations, but whatever. Everyone loves dolphins and I can’t argue with that. Having said that, I hope Burma VJ wins.

This year’s ceremony was held in March with Man on Wire taking the top honor. The 2010 edition will be held on January 15, 2010.

Check out indieWIRE for a complete list of nominees.

Filed under: Awards, Miscellaneous

1 Comment »

The innaugural AFI New Lights competition prize awarded to first and second time filmmakers went to Andrea Arnold’s terrific Fish Tank and Javier Rebello’s strange but fascinating Woman Without a Piano.

Arnold’s film which won the Prix du Jury at Cannes is a stark and grim portrait of a 15-year-old girl growing up fatherless in a housing project in Essex England. First timer Katie Jarvis grabs your attention as Mia and never lets it go. It’s a gritty, natural and layered performance at once determined, but also full of humor. In a way, Fish Tank is a dark shadow of critical darling An Education, but it’s a deeper more satisfying film.

Javier Rebello’s Woman Without a Piano is a dry, absurdist, thinly plotted observation of 24 hours in the life of a lonely middle-aged woman looking to escape. It’s been compared to Tati and Chaplin, but it’s much more laid back than that. It’s is more a leisurely paced sketch that brings to mind Jim Jarmusch.

Source: Screen Daily

Filed under: Awards, Film Festivals

Start the conversation »

Opening in wide release:

• The Men Who Stare at Goats. Mixed festival reviews and a tepid trailer that looked like Coen light cooled my interest in this otherwise promising sounding comedy about real US military experiments in psychic warfare, but the most recent trailer was something of an improvement. Even without it, the cast including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey is something to stop and take notice of.

Continued »

Filed under: Weekend Forecast

5 Comments »

I haven’t given much thought to The Tourist since it was still a Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) project with Tom Cruise interested. Since then, star Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation, Avatar) and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others) expressed interest while Angelina Jolie remained attached.

Tonight however, Jay A. Fernandez and Borys Kit report in THR that Johnny Depp is now in negotiations along with director Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men).

The Tourist is a remake of the 2005 French flick Anthony Zimmer, a thriller about a female agent who uses an unsuspecting tourist as bait in the hunt for a criminal who also happens to be her former lover.

With production on the film scheduled to begin next year, would a Depp signing really mean he’s not going to do Pirates of the Caribbean 4? The sequel is also supposed to begin in 2010 and Depp’s interest has reportedly cooled following the ouster of his pal Dick Cook from Disney.

Recent non-answers on the subject from Jerry Bruckheimer have been interpreted as optimism that Depp would return.

I’m trying to think of a single reason to see another Pirates movie without Depp and I’m drawing a big blank.

Filed under: Development, Rumors

Start the conversation »

No.

Filed under: Development

4 Comments »

Angelina Jolie in Salt

Remember this one? Tom Cruise was originally rumored to be lined up as a CIA agent accused of being a Russian sleeper spy in Phillip Noyce’s Salt, but the role got a sex change and Angelina Jolie stepped in.

I didn’t bother to watch the Russian language trailer that made the rounds yesterday and it’s been taken down so I have no idea how it compares to this official version in English. I don’t much care.

In addition to Angelina Jolie, Salt has a solid supportig cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Liev Schreiber and Andre Braugher.

It opens July 23, 2010. Give the Yahoo trailer a spin after the jump.

Continued »

Filed under: Trailers

2 Comments »

Maybe it’s because I’ve been so underwhelmed by all the other marketing and my expectations have bottomed out, but somehow this latest trailer for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes stirs my interest a little bit more. There’s plenty of Robert Downey Jr. being roguishly charming and Rachel McAdams being cute which is really I want from the movie anyway. A little Jude Law never hurt either.

Source: Empty-vee

Filed under: Trailers

2 Comments »

Click to enlarge

Hot on the heels of the assorted trailer action for Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone, here’s the poster. Matt Damon barely has time to pause and scowl at the camera in this black and white image in a key of gritty and intense. The tag line is kind of buried in the column of text, but you sure notice this is from the director of two of the Bourne movies.

Enter the Green Zone on March 12, 2010.

Source: Empire

Filed under: Marketing

1 Comment »

After weeks of hand wringing and speculation, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin have been chosen to host the 82nd annual  Academy Awards on March 7.

I thought Martin did a terrific job in his two times up to the plate and would’ve done fine all by himself, but the addition of Alec Baldwin is frosting on the cake. He should add a little much needed edge to the proceedings.

Expect much awkwardness in the unlikely event Kim Basinger gets nominated for The Burning Plain.

Also, thank the movie gods they didn’t fall back on smug Billy Crystal. I know he’s beloved in the annals of Oscar hosting history, but I’ve never liked him and he would’ve been a middle-of-the-road choice.

Before he was chosen to host the Golden Globes, a number of people talked about Ricky Gervais, but I’m not convinced he would’ve been a good Oscar fit. He’ll be great at the more laid back Globes, but the ideal Oscar hosts manage to fit in with the Hollywood elite while remaining apart at the same time. It’s why David Letterman and John Stewart were not popular and why Johnny Carson was so good.

Source: Awards Daily

Filed under: Awards

7 Comments »

I laughed when Jerry Bruckheimer announced he was making a movie out of a worn out Disney ride, but I cried when Pirates of the Caribbean and its two sequels went on to gross more than $2.5 billion worldwide. It’s tempting to assume Bruckheimer can turn even the most watery of shit into lobster bisque, but let’s see how he does without Johnny Depp.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is an adaptation of an admittedly excellent video game series starring the decidedly non-Persian Jake Gyllenhaal, LiC favorite Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina. Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) directs.

If the trailer is an accurate indication of the movie itself, it’s going to be awful. You can spin the camera around Jake’s head all you want, but he’s no Jack Sparrow.

Check out the trailer at YouTube. Originally via IGN

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opens May 28, 2010.

Filed under: Trailers

Start the conversation »

Christopher Plummer and Tom Waits in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Directed by Terry Gilliam. Starring Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Andrew Garfield, Verne Troyer, Lily Cole, Tom Waits, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell.
Gala Screening

Terry Gilliam’s film, widely known as Heath Ledger’s last, gets the red carpet treatment tonight at AFI Fest. If you’re a fan of the director and in Los Angeles, I recommend you check it out. It’s “sold out” but if you show up to Grauman’s Chinese an hour or so early and get in the rush line (along Orange across Hollywood Boulevard from the theater), they’ll likely find room for you in the 2000+ seat theater. 15 – 20 minutes before showtime, they’ll start escorting small groups from the head of the line into the Chinese and, Bob’s your uncle, you’ve got Gilliam all for the low low price of FREE.

What are you going to see? Well, to say it’s Gilliam’s best film in over a decade isn’t saying much since he’s only made two films since 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and both films – The Brothers Grimm and Tideland – are pretty widely reviled, but facts are facts and this is the most enjoyable Gilliam outing in ages. I don’t want to oversell it because narratively it’s a bit of a mess (as is often the case with Gilliam unchained), but it’s also a work of pure, joyous imagination. For me, the imagination just barely trumps the problems I had with the story.

Continued »

Filed under: Film Festivals, Reviews

5 Comments »

I finally caught up with Mother from Bong Joon-ho (The Host) last night at AFI Fest. It’s only been 2 days, but it’s in the running for the best of the festival.  Tonight I’ll be sampling Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner and Foreign Language Oscar hopeful The White Ribbon plus Israel’s Oscar entry Ajami. I’m also tempted to see if all the fuss behind Precious is really deserved when it plays tonight at the Chinese, but I’m thinking I can just wait until Friday to see it with everyone else.

Depending on how they pan out, stay tuned for interviews with Terry Gilliam whose The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is an AFI Fest centerpiece, Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Inglourious Basterds) who is in town with Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (loved it), and Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu who is presenting his Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner and Oscar entrant Police, Adjective at the festival.

In other movie news, I tuned into Fox NFL Sunday this morning to see how big of a fuss they made out of the Avatar trailer. It was pretty pathetic. The funniest part was when they quickly panned over to an orchestrated section of about 10 people who belatedly stood up and cheered in faux spontaneity as though they’d just had their eyeballs fucked by James Cameron. Forget for a minute that the stadium itself was half full at best and no one really seemed to care.

Also, the more I see the improved trailer, the less interesting it is.

That’s all I’ve got. Your turn.

Filed under: Watercooler

24 Comments »

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Directed by Wes Anderson. Featuring the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe, Eric Anderson and Wallace Wolodarsky.
Gala Screening

Full disclosure: I’m pretty much in the tank for Wes Anderson so it shouldn’t come as a shock that I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox. Not everyone is as enamored of Anderson’s insular, detailed cinematic universe, but stop motion animation might just be the perfect medium for it. It allows him to have complete control over every detail and here he takes advantage of it to great effect. Plus, being animated, it diffuses the arguments of those who dismiss Anderson’s shtick as hipster style over substance.  It’s a cartoon based on a children’s story. You can only get so uptight about it before you start sounding like an asshole.

Continued »

Filed under: Film Festivals, Reviews

6 Comments »

The internet got all excited a couple of days ago when Robert Zemeckis mentioned to MTV that he was bringing aboard original screenwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman to write the sequel to the 1988 hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit he’s been threatening to make.

Let’s forget for a minute how irritating Hollywood’s remake/sequel addiction is.

Let’s also forget how far Robert Zemeckis has his head up the ass of technology and how the more lifelike his animation becomes, the more lifeless.

Finally, let’s forget Zemeckis has lined up to ruin The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.

Any one of those things would be enough to kill my interest in a Rabbit sequel, but I have a better one: the original is a crappy movie. Take away the groundbreaking technology that seamlessly fused the plastic world of classic animation with live action and you’re left with a busy, shrill and irritating piece of work filled with obnoxious toons and lifeless human beings.

Maybe if the sequel is called Who Beats the Living Shit Out of Roger Rabbit and Leaves His Rotting Carcass in the Sun Where the Birds Can Get It I might be curious. Maybe.

And what about Price and Seaman? These are the same assholes who helped foist Ron Howard’s wretched Why… I mean How The Grinch Stole Christmas upon the world. Before they did that, they did Caddyshack II, Doc Hollywood, Mr. Baseball and Wild Wild West for chrissakes.

Now let’s go back to Zemeckis’ obsession with technology for a minute. The best thing about Roger Rabbit was the fusion of toon and human. The wide gulf between the old school, hand drawn cartoons and the live action humans made it all the more interesting, but what about this creepy 3D motion capture business Zemeckis has been trafficking in the last half-decade or so? If he goes that route, he’ll just be minimizing the one thing that made the original interesting.

Does Zemeckis have the stones to tell a story where old-fashioned toons rise up and take the animation world back from their 3D mocap offspring? I doubt it, but that might be a movie I’d be interested in.

Filed under: Development

4 Comments »

Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray on the red carpet
outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater for the North American premiere
of Fantastic Mr. Fox at 2009 AFI Fest. (REUTERS/Fred Prouser)

Before introducing filmmaker Wes Anderson last night to kick off the 23rd Annual AFI Fest, AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzale evoked the intertwined history of Hollywood and of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, home of this year’s festival.  Calling the 82-year-old theater hallowed ground, Gazzale reminded the audience of the 1944 Oscar ceremony that was held there wherein a little film called Casablanca won for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay. It was a fitting start to a festival celebrating an art form in the city where that art became an industry.

Continued »

Filed under: Film Festivals

Start the conversation »