On Tuesday, the WGA finally put their new contract with the AMPTP to an official vote and it was approved by 93.6% of the membership. This is great news, but unfortunately there are still storm clouds on the horizon and they spell: SAG.
After the WGA pact was a done deal but before it had been made [...]

Filed under: Movies, News | 8 Comments »

First check out the Best Picture Also-Rans, movies that didn’t make the cut but which had vocal support from one of the voters (Mine’s at the bottom).
And finally we come to the Golden Muriel for Best Film. Each of the top 5 get their own moment in the spotlight:
5th place…
4th place…
3rd place…
2nd place…
And the winner [...]

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 56 Comments »

 
After 40 years as an independent film studio, New Line Cinema is now little more than a carbuncle on the ass of multimedia behemoth Time Warner.
Over time, while other large indies like Orion, Carolco and Cannon all folded,  New Line survived to be purchased by Ted Turner in 1994. When Turner Broadcasting was absorbed by [...]

Filed under: Movies, News | 21 Comments »

We take a passive approach to pimping and whoring here at Living in Cinema, however letting the content speak for itself will only get you so far. The LiC monkeys keep telling me they want to turn it up to eleven and, since things run more smoothly when the monkeys are happy, I’m letting them have their [...]

Filed under: Blog Admin | 4 Comments »

Click through for the latest Muriel Award.
Also check out some of the voters chiming in on performances they felt were unfairly overlooked.

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 19 Comments »

Chop Shop: This week’s best bet, but only if you live in NY 
Open wide and say…ZzzzZZzzZzzzz

Semi-Pro. Tired of watching Will Farrell playing clods yet? No? Then this might be the movie for you. This time he’s a player on a basketball team in the soon-to-be defunct ABA in the 70s. I’m guessing lots of leisure [...]

Filed under: Movies, Upcoming | 18 Comments »

Melonie Diaz and Jack Black on the set of King Kong in Be Kind Rewind 
Imagine a world where it is accepted fact that legendary Jazz pianist Fats Waller was born in Passaic, New Jersey instead of Greenwich Village and that a video store operating in the tenement where Waller supposedly lived could survive well into the [...]

Filed under: Current, Movies, Reviews | 39 Comments »

50th Anniversary Award: The Seventh Seal
25th Anniversary Award: Blade Runner
10th Anniversary Award: Boogie Nights 
Cinematic Breakthrough: Ben Affleck - Director, Gone Baby Gone 
Best Body of Work: Josh Brolin - Actor,  No Country for Old Men / Grindhouse / American Gangster / In the Valley of Elah
Ensemble: No Country for Old Men 
Music: Jonny Greenwood, There Will Be Blood 
Cinematography: [...]

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 68 Comments »

We’re back from Portland and Muriel keeps on trucking with the Best Director award.

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 51 Comments »

Mr. Nicholas Plowman correctly predicted 17 of 24 Oscar winners in the informal LiC Oscar Pick ‘Em contest so if he ever finds himself in the same city as me, I owe him a movie.
You may recall that Nick also won the Oscar nominees contest of a month ago. Congratulations Nick! Next year I’m copying [...]

Filed under: Games, Movies | 22 Comments »

Here’s an interesting category and a fun way to revisit an all around terrific year at the movies: Best Cinematic Moment

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 15 Comments »

I’m sure the main thing on everyone’s minds this morning is the Oscars. I give the broadcast a solid B+. Jon Stewart did a nice job, though once again the insistence on playing people off before they can finish their speeches is highly annoying. It’s a once in a lifetime moment for most of these [...]

Filed under: Movies | 25 Comments »

Coen fans said it, critics seconded it, audiences supported it and now the Academy has ratified it: Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men is the best movie of the year. In addition to best picture, No Country earned statues for the Coen’s directing and adapted screenplay plus Javier Bardem’s supporting performance; 4 [...]

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 148 Comments »

Best supporting performance (male)…

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 22 Comments »

Juno cleaned house at the Independent Spirit Awards this evening taking home hardware for Diablo Cody’s best first screenplay, best actress Ellen Page and the big prize: best picture.
Julien Schnabel won best director for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Once took best foreign film, Philip Seymour Hoffman was chosen best actor for The Savages [...]

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 19 Comments »

The Muriel for best supporting performance (female) goes to…

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 5 Comments »

If I was in charge of handing out the Oscars, here’s how it would all go down in the major categories:
Screenplay - Adapted
This is one of the strongest categories and I have no complaint about any of the nominees. Having said that, I’m hoping for a giant No Country sweep and that the award for [...]

Filed under: Awards, Movies, Opinion | 47 Comments »

And the winner of the Muriel for Best Screenplay of 2007 is…

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 8 Comments »

Me and the crack staff of Living in Cinema monkeys are going to be making sweet sweet love to the city of Portland this weekend. I’ve trained one of them to play the zither and another one to mix the perfect Manhattan so hopefully there will be all manner of monkey related shenanigans.
What does all this [...]

Filed under: Blog Admin | 8 Comments »

Because all the cool kids are doing it, here are my Oscar picks. I know what you’re thinking. If all the cool kids were jumping off a cliff, would I do it to? Hell yeah. There might be something good down there. Scarlett Johansson maybe. Or a chicken pot pie.
Anyway, If you’d like to play [...]

Filed under: Awards, Games, Movies | 41 Comments »

Muriel pauses in her celebration of the triumph of Blu-Ray (actually, she probably couldn’t care less) just long enough to recognize the Best DVD Release of 2007.

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 32 Comments »

 
Mos Def and Jack Black re-enact Driving Miss Daisy
in Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind
If it’s Thursday, it must be time for another Weekend Forecast. Here are the wide releases:

Be Kind Rewind. Written and directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), this one stars Jack Black who accidentally erases all the tapes in a video [...]

Filed under: Movies, Upcoming | 19 Comments »

Variety reported this afternoon that David Fincher has signed on to direct Black Hole, the adaptation of Charles Burns‘ graphic novel about a sexually transmitted disease which leads to physical mutations as it  spreads among teens in a suburb of Seattle in the 1970s.
Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension) had previously been reported as the director on the film [...]

Filed under: Movies, News | 20 Comments »

Here’s the Muriel tally so far along with the newest winner:

50th Anniversary Award: The Seventh Seal
25th Anniversary Award: Blade Runner
10th Anniversary Award: Boogie Nights
Cinematic Breakthrough: Ben Affleck (Director - Gone Baby Gone)
Body of Work 2007: Josh Brolin (Actor - No Country for Old Men, Grindhouse, American Gangster, In the Valley of Elah)
Ensemble Performance: No Country [...]

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 35 Comments »

 
The Costume Designer’s Guild had its say last night, awarding Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’s Colleen Atwood for best costumes in a period film, The Golden Compass’ Ruth Myers for best fantasy costumes and Blades of Glory’s Julie Weiss for best contemporary costumes.

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 17 Comments »

Ronit Elkabetz and Sasson Gabai warm up to each other in The Band’s Visit
Israel’s The Band’s Visit opens quietly, like a Jim Jarmusch film. In it, eight Egyptian men who comprise the Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra find themselves standing in the hot sun, lined up outside the airport in Tel Aviv, looking uncomfortable in their [...]

Filed under: Current, Movies, Reviews | 16 Comments »

Here’s the winner for Best Music (original, adapted or compiled).

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 49 Comments »

Colin Farrell finds something to do In Bruges
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are a pair of British hit men who are, after a particularly messy job, sent off to the Belgian tourist mecca Bruges to cool down and await instructions for their next assignment. It sounds simple, but Farrell, the antsy troublemaker of this Laurel and [...]

Filed under: Current, Movies, Reviews | 32 Comments »

And the Muriel for Best Ensemble Performance goes to…

Filed under: Awards, Movies | 33 Comments »

Hey boys and girls, it’s the 2nd installment of The Watercooler. Let’s see if it goes as well as it did last week. 
It was a fairly quiet movie-going weekend here at LiC. Motivation to catch either Jumper or Definitely, Maybe never materialized, but I did head into Hollywood on Saturday to catch André Téchiné’s The [...]

Filed under: Movies | 64 Comments »