Category: External Movies (Page 174 of 336)

“The Hurt Locker” sweeps the National Society of Film Critics Awards

January 3, 2010 / Bob Westal

The National Society of Film Critics has bestowed another big awards win on the Iraq war thriller, “The Hurt Locker,” which won’t hurt its Oscar possibilities. As with the two other most prestigious critics groups — the Los Angeles and New York film critics — the highly praised tale about a bomb disposal unit during the chaotic early days of the U.S. invasion won the group’s best picture award scroll.

Ironically, according to Peter Knegt of Indiewire, the last time a single film swept the best picture prize from all three groups was when Curtis Hanson’s outstanding “L.A. Confidential” managed the coup in 1997. It lost the Oscar to James Cameron‘s sentimental and spectacular romantic melodrama, “Titanic” — one of the most widely disagreed with Best Picture winners in recent history. With “Avatar” becoming a wide popular favorite and a gigantic hit, a repeat of this scenario is not outside the realm of possibility.

“The Hurt Locker” also won major prizes for director Kathryn Bigelow and star Jeremy Renner, who edged out Jeff Bridges, currently a favorite the win the Best Actor Oscar for “Crazy Heart,” as well as Nicolas Cage for “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.” For Best Supporting Actor, once again “Inglourious Basterds” break out bad guy Christoph Waltz took the top prize, with another former unknown, Christian McKay, getting the second largest number of votes from critics for “Me and Orson Welles.” The best screenplay nod went to the Coen Brothers’ ultra-dark black comedy, “A Serious Man.”

In something of an upset that, I’m guessing, might not be repeated at the Oscars, Yolande Moreau, of the French language biopic “Seraphine,” beat Meryl Streep in “Julie and Julia” by one vote for Best Actress. Once again, however, talk show host and comedian Mo’Nique added to a truly impressive number of wins with her work in “Precious,” taking yet another Best Supporting Actress prize.

You can see the complete list of winners at bottom of the Indiewire article I linked to above.

Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

A Serious Man Avatar Bad Lieutanent: Port of Call New Orleans Crazy Heart Headlines Inglourious Basterds James Cameron Jeff Bridges Jeremy Renner Julie and Julia Kathryn Bigelow L.A. Confidential Me and Orson Welles Mo'Nique National Society of Film Critics Nicolas Cage Precious Séraphine The Hurt Locker Titanic Yolande Moreau

Okay, I think we can agree that “Avatar” is a success now

January 3, 2010 / Bob Westal

If anyone out there is still hoping for a publicly humbler James Cameron, maybe it’s time to set your sites elsewhere. Despite what you might have read on geek comment threads a few months back, the box office for “Avatar” is only going to bolster the filmmaker’s not entirely unearned overconfidence. Indeed, Cameron’s boot is likely to be mighty wet for a might long time with the pug-like slobber of worshipful suits. Nikki Finke, quoted a Fox executive, thusly:

“Mr. Cameron was king of the world but now has dominion over the universe. And he will own the top two slots on the worldwide all-time box office list!

In its third weekend, “Avatar” raised an estimated $68.3 million, with an outlandishly small 9.7% drop from its take of $75.6 million last week, as calculated by Box Office Mojo. The cumulative domestic box office take for the ecological/human rights themed action fable is now roughly $352.1 million, which I suppose might be a complete recoup of the film’s budget and at least some of the marketing expenses.

That also means it’s already the 15th top grossing domestic film of all time, with an awful lot of commercial life left in it, as the film will almost certainly linger in theaters through Oscar time and beyond. It seems that there is every chance it will overtake the $533.3 million of “The Dark Knight” and I certainly wouldn’t rule out it taking the #1 spot from Cameron’s $600.78 million grossing “Titanic.”

Remember, that mega-melodrama was released in 1997, when the most anyone paid to see a movie was, if memory serves, maybe $7 or $8. I saw “Avatar” over the weekend at Hollywood’s top-of-the-line Arclight complex, where the ticket price on Friday night was $18.50. That’s unusually expensive, but only a few bucks more than a lot of folks are paying nationwide, particularly on Imax screens. Adjusted for inflation, no movie has yet to sell more tickets than the periodically re-released “Gone With the Wind, which was shrewdly withheld from TV screens until the mid-seventies.

Action Movies, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

3 Idiots Alving and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel Avatar Bollywood Gone with the Wind Headlines It's Complicated James Cameron John Sayles Nine Roger Corman Sherlock Holmes The Dark Knight The Weinstein Company Titanic

Warner Brothers movie moments #4

January 2, 2010 / Bob Westal

I’m wrapping up the salute I started yesterday to the year’s most commercially successful film company with the flip side of the early Warner Brother fame. The same studio that was known for producing the most realistic and socially relevant entertainment was also the studio responsible for the funniest and, with all due respect to Walt Disney, the most on-the-money animations of the classic Hollywood era. Actually, there’s more than a little grit and grime in greatest of the WB cartoons and that’s probably one reason they’ve held up so beautifully over the decades.

It certainly doesn’t get any better than Chuck Jones’ “One Froggy Evening.” The guy at YouTube calls this a “work of art” and I cannot disagree.

Michigan J. Frog: show biz immortal.

External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movies

Chuck Jones Michigan J. Frog One Froggy Evening Warner Brothers

Warner Brothers movie moments #3

January 2, 2010 / Bob Westal

I’m still in the middle of my holiday weekend salute to the early years of the most fiscally successful movie studio for the last two years running, back when Warners was known for films which explored the grimy underside of society in highly entertaining ways. First, a pre-code muckraking classic directed by Mervyn LeRoy, produced by Hal Wallis, and starring Paul Muni — the first method actor to become a real superstar and therefore the creative descendant of Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift who together set the mold for probably most of the film stars of the last forty or fifty years or so, to some extent or another.

And here’s is maybe my favorite gangster movie of all time not involving the Corleone clan. Raoul Walsh’s hugely enjoyable “The Roaring Twenties” from 1939. The hype about that year isn’t so far wrong.

Actors, External Entertainment, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movies

Hal Wallis I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang Mervyn LeRoy Paul Muni Raoul Walsh The Roaring Twenties

10 “New” Films for a New Year

January 1, 2010 / Will Harris

It’s the end of a decade, but it’s also the beginning of a new year, which means that it’s as good an excuse as any to kick off 2010 with a list of ten enjoyable (in their own way) “new” films you might want to watch this weekend…starting with this classic:

10. New Year’s Evil (1980): Any holiday worth its salt has inspired a slasher film, and the celebration of a new year is certainly no exception to that rule. The tag line for this Cannon Films classic is just as cheesy as it ought to be – “This New Year’s, you’re invited to a killer party” – and so is the cast, which is led by Roz Kelly, best known for playing Pinky Tuscadero on “Happy Days.” Roger Ebert deigned to review it upon its original release, describing the film as “an endangered species: a plain, old-fashioned, gory thriller. It is not very good. It is sometimes unpleasantly bloody. The plot is dumb and the twist at the end has been borrowed from hundreds if not thousands of other movies. But as thrillers go these days, ‘New Year’s Evil’ is a throwback to an older and simpler tradition, one that flourished way back in the dimly remembered past, before 1978.” For a slasher flick, that’s about as much of a rave as you could hope to get, really.

9. A New Leaf (1971): This was in my original draft of this list, but I yanked it because I couldn’t find a clip to use with it. When our man Bob Westal snuck a peek at the piece and cited it as an unforgivable omission, however, I dug a little deeper and found something that I could use. This was Elaine May’s directorial debut, and she also served as the female lead of this Walter Matthau comedy. Any film that’s loved by both Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby clearly has something going for it, so I’d say it’s more than worthy of making an appearance on this list, but, my, I had no idea that carbon on the valves was such a common mechanical problem…

8. The Emperor’s New Groove (2000): David Medsker swears by this Disney animated flick, and who am I to argue with him? Plus, this gives me an excuse to drop in an anecdote from Patrick Warburton about the flick. He assured me, “I love Disney as much as any straight man in the world can love Disney,” but then he told me about meeting up with Eartha Kitt, his “co-star” in the film, at the premiere and reminding her that they’d worked together before. “When I was in my very early 20’s – I was 21 or 22 – I had done a movie with her in South Africa that was absolutely horrible,” he said. “I got the impression that she probably didn’t want to hear that anything she had ever done was not good. You didn’t even have the right to say it if you were a part of it. She just looked at me and said, ‘I’m sure we had a good time, darling.’ I looked back at her and said, ‘Well, we didn’t have that good of time, Eartha.’”