Tag: Hugo

2012 Oscars Recap

Image courtesy of guardian.co.uk and Getty Images

We love the movies. That’s why we watch the Oscars.

Did I mention that we love the movies? And did I mention that Billy Crystal loves the movies? Oh yeah, we love the movies, the old classic ones that aren’t all really classics, but some new ones too that definitely aren’t classics but people might actually recognize.

But rather than show you how much we love the movies with actual funny jokes or parodies, we’ll just tell you how much we love the movies and play it real safe all night. That way you’ll watch next year so long as you didn’t completely hate us, right? And how could you hate us when we all love the movies so much?

Sunday night’s Oscars were eye-rollingly mediocre, and part of the reason for that was an adamant position on not doing anything that might be too risky, too offensive or even too gaudily awful of a joke or skit that might alienate people from changing the channel. Continue reading “2012 Oscars Recap”

Oscars 2012: Will Win (Part 1)

See my remaining picks in the major categories here.

Movies are an art, not a science. And yet The Academy, save for a few eye rolling hiccups each year, operates like clockwork. Predicting the winners at the Oscars is as simple as playing the horses at the track, so here’s your betting form for the big race on Sunday night.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants: 40%

“The Descendants” is bound to win something, and because it’s a screenplay that greatly differs from the source material and comes from a director and screenwriter who hasn’t put out a movie in six years, it’s looking more and more certain.

Moneyball: 30%

“Moneyball” is a serious contender in this category for the way in which it adapts a fact based, nonfiction book into a story with likeable and pathos filled characters. It also comes from last year’s winner, Aaron Sorkin and other Oscar fave Steven Zallian.

Hugo: 20%

“Hugo” isn’t exactly a writer’s movie, but Brian Selznick’s children’s book is surprisingly rich and colorful, and somehow John Logan tops it.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: 5%

The Ides of March: 5% Continue reading “Oscars 2012: Will Win (Part 1)”

Oscars 2012: Should Win

“The Tree of Life” leads my picks for who should win at the 2012 Oscars.

When critics write columns detailing who should win at the Oscars, they can be very self-serving.

Mostly, the articles act as a way for bloggers to draw a line in the sand and pick a side, rallying readers who will stand behind them. And in the process we weave an increasingly complex narrative for what a win at the Oscars will mean for our favorite.

It wasn’t enough to have a favorite; we had to be on Team Sandra or Team Meryl. It wasn’t enough to call “The Hurt Locker” the best movie of the year; it had to be a benchmark for 21st Century war films and a victory for female directors.

But none of that matters because the Oscars will act the way they always do and disappoint someone in the way they always have and always will.

My better column on the Oscars focused on the films and actors that were completely forgotten and lost in the shuffle of the Oscar madness. Those Anti-Oscars served as a reminder that there were other good movies this year.

The Oscars themselves are a reminder too, and even if I default to some of the clichés I’ve already mentioned, I plant my flag to recognize quality where it’s due. Most of the nominees are quite good (although some aren’t) and to pick just one is harder than you know.

Best Picture – The Tree of Life

It took seeing “The Tree of Life” only once to recognize it was an important film but twice to see it as a masterpiece. And rarely is a film, least of all an American film this significant, cemented in cinematic history, hotly debated and with this magnificent of a theme, this close to being recognized as such. “The Tree of Life” is not just a work of art that innovates on what cinema can be and make you feel, but it challenged those norms to a wide audience that both embraced and rejected it. Such controversy is always a sign of greatness. Continue reading “Oscars 2012: Should Win”

2012 Oscar Nominations Announced

“Hugo” and “The Artist” lead a field of nine films for the Best Picture Oscar after being announced by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Tuesday morning.

New rules for Best Picture voting indicated that anywhere from five to 10 films could be nominated, leaving the exact number uncertain until this morning when Academy President Tom Sherak and former nominee Jennifer Lawrence announced the full list of nominees.

The other Best Picture nominees included “The Descendants,” “Midnight in Paris,” “The Help,” “Moneyball,” “War Horse,” “The Tree of Life” and the long thought dead in the water “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”

The current Oscar frontrunner, the silent, black and white movie “The Artist,” took home 10 nominations, including for Best Director Michel Hazanivicius, Best Actor Jean Dujardin and Best Supporting Actress Berenice Bejo. Martin Scorsese’s children’s fantasy “Hugo” however made the race interesting by leading the pack with 11 nominations.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt found their long presumed spots in the Best Actor category, but fellow A-lister Leonardo DiCaprio was left out altogether in favor of Jean Dujardin, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s” Gary Oldman and “A Better Life’s” Demian Bichir. DiCaprio’s film “J. Edgar” was forgotten as well.

Also performing strongly was the comedy “Bridesmaids,” scoring a nomination for Melissa McCarthy for Best Supporting Actress and for Best Original Screenplay, despite not receiving a Best Picture nomination.

Meryl Streep received her record 17th Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady,” and she’ll be up against Michelle Williams, Viola Davis, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s” Rooney Mara and “Albert Nobbs’” Glenn Close.

The Academy surprised in many of the smaller categories as well, only nominating two songs from “The Muppets” and “Rio” for Best Original Song. What’s more, the Academy removed the Oscar powerhouse Pixar from contention by not nominating the poorly reviewed “Cars 2” for Best Animated Feature.

Iran’s “A Separation,” which is not only the front runner in the Best Foreign Language film category, is now also a serious contender in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

The Academy Awards Ceremony will be held on Sunday February 26.

A full list of nominees is below: Continue reading “2012 Oscar Nominations Announced”

The Best Movies of 2011

“Drive” tops the list of my best movies of 2011.

I had to be convinced in just the last few weeks 2011 was a decent year for movies.

Catching up on some high profile winter titles made list making extra difficult this year.

Perhaps because of style over substance in some cases, no one movie jumped out as the year defining movie that no other could touch.

And although critics uniformly rallied behind “The Tree of Life” as the consensus favorite of the year, this year found critics getting behind just about anything as their number one choice, and they could often find at least someone to back them up.

It’s even made for an interesting Oscar race with no clear frontrunners.

But 2011 was a year for looking back. Veteran directors trumped newbies with nostalgia projects (“Hugo,” “Midnight in Paris,” “War Horse”) and grandiose epics (“Melancholia,” “The Tree of Life”). A few indies and up-and-comers stepped forward, but they made timeless statements (“Weekend,” “Beginners,” “Super 8,” “The Descendants”) rather than 21st Century relics, with a few exceptions (“Margin Call,” “Moneyball,” “50/50”).

Last year I assigned titles to each movie for what they stood for in the year, and there was one clear winner. This year no such labels exist, and just about any could be my favorite.

I’ve done my best to mention films that need mentioning and forgotten the rest. (Most titles are linked to subsequent reviews on my website.)

1. Drive

The Driver is in a plain silver sedan parked underneath a bridge as a helicopter passes overhead. He sits silently and does not make a bold getaway, and yet this is one of the more exciting scenes in the most invigorating and intense motion picture of the year. Continue reading “The Best Movies of 2011”

2011 Recap: Seeing film’s future in 3-D

Reflecting on the year in film in 2011.

2011 was a backwards looking year for film, and only in recent weeks have we begun to climb out of our nostalgic holes and emerge rejuvenated.

Hollywood is historically bad at correcting former mistakes, and at the dawn of each new technological advancement in film, we forget how to run or even walk and start by crawling once again.

2011’s culprit was 3-D, which bombarded us in more movies than any year in history. The words “Shot in 3-D” nearly lost their meaning, and the technology was almost considered dead, written off as another rising and falling fad in the cycle of Hollywood gimmickry.

But as films like “Hugo” finally emerge, we get a good sense not just of how 3-D can improve the visual aesthetic of a film but how it can actually be incorporated to tell stories differently. And interestingly enough, this growth is part of a Hollywood cycle all its own. Continue reading “2011 Recap: Seeing film’s future in 3-D”

Hugo

Who other than Martin Scorsese could make a kids movie about the first pioneer of cinema and make it the most visionary, lovely and wondrous film of the year?

Scorsese’s “Hugo” is certainly a departure for the legendary director, and Brian Selznick’s equally imaginative children’s book would likewise be a hot commodity to many other directors, but few people other than Scorsese could wholly embody his love of cinema and general nerddom for silent films and trick artists like Georges Melies and get away with it.

That’s the selling point for me and other adults speculative about how Scorsese would handle a children’s film. “Hugo” could actually double as the biopic of Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley), the story of how as an adult the magician turned filmmaker who made the masterpiece “A Trip to the Moon” (1902) became a quiet recluse who never spoke of his films after nearly all of them had been forgotten and destroyed.

Scorsese worships the man, arguably the first auteur of film, and he honors Melies by literally recreating his films in stunning color and 3-D cinematography.

For all the movies being re-released and up converted into 3-D today, the last one I thought would get the treatment would be “A Trip to the Moon.” Yet I’m giddy at watching this fantastical mystery story for children simply dripping with film history, and there is something wonderfully fulfilling about seeing a moon with a rocket poking out of its eye floating mystically above the screen. Continue reading “Hugo”