The voting wasn’t even close. Daniel Day-Lewis by a milkshake landslide.

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The first Muriel Award was handed out today (for best film of the decade: David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive) along with the sad news that Muriel’s cage mate Charlotte passed away during the night. RIP Charlotte. This year’s awards are dedicated to you.

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I tentatively ventured out to the multiplex this weekend for the first time in a few weeks. I had big plans to catch a number of movies, but the scheduling monkey blew it and I could only swing From Paris With Love. All I wanted was an unassuming and uncomplicated bit of action with a fun, scenery chewing performance from John Travolta, but I had the same expectations with Tony Scott’s awful remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 last summer and they were hopelessly dashed. Luckily, Pierre Morel and Luc Besson came through. Paris isn’t ground breaking action, but it’s a solid 95 minutes that doesn’t try too hard to cover up its B picture roots.

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It’s funny that last year the International Animated Film Society snubbed one of the best Pixar films, WALL-E,  in favor of the entertaining but middle-of-the-road Kung Fu Panda while this year they overlooked the superior Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox for Pixar’s second-string Up.

Up was fine, but if you take away the first 10 minutes (on its own a worthy animated short candidate), you have a very ordinary cartoon.

Up also won Best Director for Pete Docter. Meanwhile, Henry Selick’s Coraline and Disney’s The Princess and the Frog took three individual awards each: music, character design and production design for Coraline and voice acting, animated effects and character animation for Princess.

Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox too a well-deserved writing award.

Check out all the winners including television at the Annie Awards website.

Also last night, Up in the Air beat Crazy Heart, An Education, District 9 and Precious for the USC Libraries Scripter Award given to the best screenplay adaptation and its original source.

Source: THR and THR

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The 4th Annual Muriel Awards: February 7 – 28, 2010

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New DVDs coming Tuesday, February 9

(Next Week: Hunger and Revanche on Criterion plus Audrey Tautou in Coco Before Chanel and Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler in Law Abiding Citizen.)

(recommended movies underlined. All ratings out of 5 stars)

A Serious Man (**** 1/2). Joel and Ethan Coen return to their roots (a Jewish family living in a Minnesota suburb in the 1960s) for this jet black comedy about a professor and family man plunged into a theological crisis when his ordinary world inexplicably begins to crumble around him. The dialogue is as sharp, deliberate and as clearly rendered as any Coen film, though it’s more naturalistic and less exaggerated. As put-upon professor Larry Gopnik, Michael Stuhlbarg takes the Coen verbal stylization and makes it feel real. With line readings that are unforced, natural and full of pathos, he might be one of the most unambiguously sympathetic Coen characters to come along outside of Carla Jean Moss. And then there’s that unsettling ending… well you’ll just have to see it for yourself.
(Opened: 10/2/09) Trailer / Review
Buy: DVD Blu-ray
Rent

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A friend of mine, the multi-talented Hilliard Guess, will be showing his new short film Troublesome in Hollywood on February 17, 2010.

Hilliard wrote, produced and directed the film which tells the story of a hip-hop superstar (Kareem Grimes) trapped on a subway car with his celebrity therapist (Dynasty’s Gordon Thomson). As the oxygen level drops, tensions increase…

Click here for location and RSVP details and click here to watch the trailer and get more info about the film.

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Ordinarily I’d say “better late than never” when it comes to the Weekend Forecast, but a quick glance at the new wide releases for the first weekend of February reveals a lineup that is probably just as well forgotten. If you live in New York, I recommend you check out The Red Riding Trilogy. If you don’t, stay home and watch it on VOD.

Opening in wide release:

• From Paris with Love. Johnathan Rhys-Meyers (Match Point) is a low-level CIA guy eager for more excitement. He gets more than he can handle when he’s teamed up with loose canon John Travolta to foil a terrorist plot in Paris. Former cinematographer and Luc Besson protégé Pierre Morel (District B13, Taken) directs from Besson’s screen story. Is it too much to ask for some basic action thrills in the dead of winter? I hope not. Trailer / Showtimes

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2/7/10

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