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« September 2007 | Main | November 2007 »
Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 09:49:56
For all of you that want to start handicapping the Oscar race now, there are two interesting sites to follow from now until February. The first is the Gurus o'Gold compiled by Movie City News' honcho David Poland. The other is Buzzmeter, managed by The Envelope's Tom O'Neil.Give me a few more weeks, and I'll start analyzing these predictions, but (for what it's worth) I'm a big fan of George Clooney and Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton," Hal Holbrook, Emile Hirsch and Catherine Keener in "Into the Wild," Amy Ryan and Casey Affleck in "Gone Baby Gone," Julie Christie in "Away from Her," Angelina Jolie in "A Mighty Heart," Benicio del Toro and Halle Berry in "The Things We Lost in the Fire," Don Cheadle and Taraji P. Henson in "Talk to Me," Christian Bale in "Rescue Dawn," Andy Griffith in "Waitress," Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in "Superbad," Ben Foster in "3:10 to Yuma," "Zodiac," "Once," "3:10 to Yuma," "The Kite Runner," "Into the Wild," "Eastern Promises," "Gone Baby Gone" and "Michael Clayton."
Still left to see: "Atonement," "No Country for Old Men," "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," "Sweeney Todd," "Juno," "The Savages," "Charlie Wilson's War," "American Gangster," "There Will Be Blood," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days," "The Great Debaters," "Margot at the Wedding," "Lions for Lambs" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." UPDATE . . .
As predicted the candle in the pumpkin on whysoserious.com, the marketing site for "The Dark Knight," burned out. Now there is a collection of icons which contain directions to places in cities all across the United States with a note that reads, "Hey clowns! Ready to do what you're told? First, don't start before daylight. With a police force this corrupt, it's not safe to be out at night, and anyway, you won't be able to see the things you want to find. Follow all of my directions to the letter and send photos of what you find. I'll make it worth your while - I promise. For what that's worth . . ."
The crazy (and genius) marketing efforts for Chris Nolan's follow up to "Batman Begins" continue.
UPDATE: It turns out that it was a message after all. "The only sensible way to live in the world is without rules." They've added a new site to the marketing arsenal with a new message and task. Check it out.
Monday, October 29, 2007 - 15:16:37
MOVIEGOER REVIEW: THE DARJEELING LIMITEDWes Anderson has become a fixture in American pop culture. Appreciate his work or not, it's hard to say that Anderson hasn't had a measurable impact on modern American cinema. After all, before him, I can't name a director that did so much with the little things to accentuate their films. I'm always drawn to the scene in the game closet in "The Royal Tenenbaums" with board games stacked from floor to ceiling. "Twister" and "Operation" never looked so pretty. To me, this is what makes Wes Anderson, well, Wes Anderson.
Which is why I couldn't be more disappointed in "The Darjeeling Limited." Granted, Anderson's moody characters, tormented in some fashion by their past or their present (usually involving girls and sex), are well developed in the film, but it's his lack of attention to the finer, more memorable things that made me wonder if "Darjeeling" was just a lazy trip through the motions.
And that would explain my overwhelming appreciation for "Hotel Chevalier," also known as "Part 1" of "Darjeeling". I watched it on iTunes (as, I suppose, Anderson and Apple meant for me too) and loved it then. Watching it on the big screen didn't make me feel any different. "Hotel Chevalier" is everything right and good about Wes Anderson's style.
Saturday, October 27, 2007 - 09:30:53
MOVIEGOER REVIEW: DAN IN REAL LIFE
About this time every year a film about a single father trying to raise his children and find love comes to the screen. This year that film is "Dan in Real Life" starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche. Like 2005's "The Family Stone," Dan has a wonderfully engaged and large family that loves him. They all come together (all 300 of them, it seems) for a weekend in a secluded New England town. While he's out picking up the papers one morning, Dan stumbles upon a beautiful woman in a bookstore (Binoche) and he's immediately taken to her. So he's incredibly surprised when she shows up at the house, the girlfriend of his brother played with a mountain of cheese by Dane Cook. It's awkward, of course, and Dan starts acting childish to the point that even his youngest daughter takes notice. But because this is a feel-good film, Dan eventually gets the girl. Yay!
Carell, a fine and funny actor, is more immature "40 Year Old Virgin" than tormented, heartbroken man - a role he finely played in last year's "Little Miss Sunshine." And that doesn't make any sense. His fellow cast members, including Dianne Weist (a two-time Oscar winner), John Mahoney, Alison Pill, Amy Ryan (who kills in "Gone Baby Gone") and Emily Blunt (a delight in "The Jane Austen Book Club") all seem to be unused and out of place. It's a shame, because in 2003 director Peter Hedges made a fine, small film called "Pieces of April" with a similarly impressive cast. I wish that effort had been replicated here.
Friday, October 26, 2007 - 07:16:58
"The Darjeeling Limited" opens today in Little Rock at Market Street Cinema. A.O. Scott of The New York Times writes, "'The Darjeeling Limited' amounts finally to a high-end, high-toned tourist adventure. I don’t mean this dismissively; it would be hypocritical of me to deny the delights of luxury travel to faraway lands. And Mr. Anderson’s eye for local color — the red-orange-yellow end of the spectrum in particular — is meticulous and admiring." Pete Travers of Rolling Stone has the big love for the film, "The magically compelling Darjeeling Limited strikes me as the fullest blossoming yet of Anderson's talents as a total filmmaker." Philip Martin of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette isn't as positive. He writes, "The Darjeeling Limited, which is in some ways the least of his films and in some ways the least stilted. Usually it’s hard to identify the problems with Anderson’s films, but in this case it’s easy: Darjeeling isn’t as funny or wise as it needs to be."Thursday, October 25, 2007 - 15:06:47
Best Feature
Great World of Sound
Craig Zobel, director; Melissa Palmer, David Gordon Green, Richard Wright,
Craig Zobel, producers (Magnolia Pictures)
I'm Not There
Todd Haynes, director; Christine Vachon, James D. Stern, John Sloss, John
Goldwyn, producers (The Weinstein Company)
Into the Wild
Sean Penn, director; Sean Penn, Art Linson, Bill Pohlad, producers (Paramount
Vantage & River Road Entertainment)
Margot at the Wedding
Noah Baumbach, director; Scott Rudin, producer (Paramount Vantage)
The Namesake
Mira Nair, director; Lydia Dean Pilcher, Mira Nair, producers (Fox Searchlight
Pictures)
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