Category: News (Page 127 of 401)

Monday movie stuff

December 14, 2009 /

Peter Jackson and friend* With “The Lovely Bones” starting to look like a disappointment — and that’s definitely true so far in terms of award nominations and reviews, Peter Jackson may be starting to look ahead to his other projects. Among them, via the Playlist, is WWI and the devastating Battle of Gallipoli. The 1915 battle was the subject of a terrific Peter Weir film from 1981 that starred the young Mel Gibson, but Jackson adds that it only covered a few days of the battle, so there’s plenty of story left to tell. Weir wants to get the film ready in time for 100-year anniversary of the bloody episode, which helped define the national identities of both New Zealand, Australia, and Turkey. If you’re counting, I guess that gives him four or five years to ready the film

* Speaking of upcoming projects involving Peter Jackson (and Steven Spielberg), it’s time to start boning up on your Tintin knowledge before 2011, and if you live in L.A. and have time to get over to West Hollywood’s Meltdown Comics over the next day or so, here’s one cool opportunity to do just that.

* It’s not just superhero and adventure comics that are becoming movies. Behold, a rom-com comics adaptation.

* A suddenly agent-less Shia LaBeouf has decided a manager and a lawyer is enough. Nikki Finke deems this a “SHOCKER!”

* Adrian Curry selects the decades greatest posters over at the Auteurs. Personally, I think poster making is a lost art. Things are usually way too literal these days, but Curry’s choices are strong.

* Would you want to face Alec Baldwin in a real-life court of law? How about prosecuting? “ABC…Always be convicting.” Still, it’s possible he might need a seasonal gig at some point to help him work his way through law school…

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More awards news

December 14, 2009 /

Yesterday’s critics’ awards were (relatively) big news, but the statue and plaque beat goes on.

Brad Pitt and Eli Roth in

*  The nominees are in for the Broadcast Film Critics Awards, which also includes some online writers as well, I understand. The event is better known as the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, which airs annually on VH-1. The most nominations went to “Inglourious Basterds” and “Nine,” with few other surprises. “Avatar,” “The Hurt Locker,” and “Up in the Air” all got their share. Anne Thompson has the complete list and some good context.

* The Best Foreign Film Oscar is usually fairly unpredictable, and also has a somewhat screwed up eligibility process that I’m still figuring out after I don’t know how many years. (Individual nations get to submit exactly one film, a process that, as you might guess, is often highly politicized and sometimes eliminates highly charged films from consideration.) Nevertheless, Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” is really starting to look like an early favorite. However, Haneke isn’t exactly the most audience friendly director.

Ed Helms and friend in * The American Film Institute (AFI) has put out their top 10 film and TV show list. It’s a bit different from some of the others. The most un-awardy inclusion is “The Hangover.” It might not be the most beautifully made example of the cinematic art I’ve ever seen, but it certainly provides exactly the movie you (or I, anyway) want to see when you/I want to see a movie about a bachelor party gone awry, so why not?

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NBC continues the dumbing-down of America in earnest with…”A Very Gilly Christmas”

December 14, 2009 /

First, David Medsker sent a public memo to “Saturday Night Live,” pleading with them to stop Kristen Wiig from playing the most annoying characters imaginable, and although the show’s producers ignored him, the posting has received 76 comments to date, many of them completely behind Mr. Medsker’s position, so it clearly struck a nerve with readers. Then, two months later, John Paulsen got specific and called out Wiig’s then-new character, Gilly, as the unfunniest returning character ever. No word from the Wiig camp yet, but 65 readers have responded to it thus far, and while many of them are in full-on defense mode, it takes no more than a cursory glance at the comments to see that Mr. Paulsen is onto something with his premise.

* “Gilly should be put in juvenile detention.”
* “OMG, I want to break the TV when I see that stupid skit!”
* “Gilly keeps coming back for more and more and more and more and more. And it gets worse every time.”
* “The Gilly skits – and indeed, pretty much all the characters that Wiig does – are appealing to those lowbrow people who find catch-phrases funny.”
* “I know ‘to each his own’ and everybody’s taste is different, but I’m shocked that people are defending this really, really bad, really, really unfunny recurring character.”

And, of course, there’s my personal favorite:

“Like a fool, I kept watching, hoping the sketch could redeem itself somehow, that a punchline or a line delivery would come in making it somewhat funny. I mean, this is a comedy show, right? Right? But, alas, it was just painful. I have no idea what the audience was laughing at or why. Maybe SNL installed a live laugh track, or maybe they do pump in laughing gas. But what I saw no one could honestly find funny. NO ONE. Stock footage of starving children has equal comedic value as the Gilly sketch.”

To these discerning individuals, NBC is offering up the comedic equivalent of a lump of coal in their stocking on December 17th from 8 – 10 PM EST, when “Saturday Night Live” presents…wait for it…“A Very Gilly Christmas”!

The good news is that the two-hour special will include brand-new material with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, along with favorite holiday-themed sketches from the 35-year history of “SNL,” including “NPR’s Delicious Dish and the Schweddy Balls,” Martin’ famous “Holiday Wish,” and Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg’s “D**k in a Box.”

The bad news: it will also include new Gilly material.

Actresses, External Entertainment, External TV, News, Saturday Night Live, TV, TV Comedies

“Princess and the Frog” leaps as expected; “Invictus” is a bit short of the goal line

December 13, 2009 /

The Princess and the FrogIf you compare tonight’s post to what I said on Thursday, you’ll see there were no gigantic surprises this week. Disney’s return to traditional cell animation with “”The Princess and the Frog” performed pretty much completely in line with expectations and earned a very nice, though not gigantic, $25 million over its opening weekend. So says ever jolly Carl DiOrio and also the handy dandy Box Office Mojo chart.

Clint Eastwood‘s “Invictus,” on  the other hand, came in third behind the $15.4 million performance of the mega-sleeper “The Blind Side,” to earn a slightly short-of-the-mark $9.1 million. It’s worth noting that the politically-tinged Eastwood film was in a smaller number of theaters and had a very respectable average of $4,275 per screen. That is just a wee bit short of the more commercially successful Sandra Bullock vehicle, which is also a racially themed, fact-based, inspirational sports tale.

Otherwise, recent releases held on in more or less typical ways and there really wasn’t anything too exciting happening. In particular, there where no big break-outs among limited release films. The latest new entry into the late-year Oscar sweepstakes, the festival hit, “A Single Man,” did fine on its opening week in nine theaters earning $216,000, but the directorial debut of clothes designer Tom Ford, based on a book by Christopher Isherwood, will probably need some bigger awards buzz than its currently getting if it’s going to break out of the arthouse ghetto even a little bit.

“The Lovely Bones,” however, managed the week’s biggest per-screen average of $38,000. However, that was only at three theaters. Considering the film’s very disappointing critical performance and its dark subject matter, its commercial prospects still seem even dimmer than it’s awards prospects. Indeed, it looks to be eclipsed in every way by the violent little sci-fi flick film co-writer-director Peter Jackson produced earlier this year for award-winning first-timer Neil Blomkamp, “District 9.” Still, a technical nomination or two might help “Bones” to be a less gigantic come down for Peter Jackson.

Saoirse Ronan in

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New York and L.A. Film Critics make their choices

December 13, 2009 /

The two most noted critics groups both gave their awards today and the results are pretty interesting. Just released, we have the winners from New York. Somewhat to my surprise, even though it’s received very positive reviews so far, “Avatar” won for best picture.  Last year’s winner was not “The Dark Knight,” which however did make it into the top 10, but the politically-themed biopic, “Milk.” Genre movies and blockbusters rarely win critics awards.

Avatar

Also, the suddenly more geek-friendly critics group actually gave the most awards to “Inglourious Basterds” which picked up a cinematography award for the always superb Robert Richardson, a best screenplay nod for Quentin Tarantino and, of course, a Best Supporting Actor award and also a Best Breakthrough Performance award for Christoph Waltz’s movie-stealing work as the evil but magnetic “Jew hunter,” Colonel Hans Landa. Another unusual war film, “The Hurt Locker,” picked up the Best Director award for Kathryn Bigelow and, not at all surprising, “Up” won the award for best animation.

Meryl Streep won for Best Actress for “Julie and Julia” and Jeff Bridges won for the not yet released country music drama, “Crazy Heart.” Mo’Nique from “Precious” picked up the Best Supporting Actress award. “The Cove” won Best documentary. ComingSoon.net has the complete list of winners. It’s a pretty interesting group.

The Hurt Locker

Just a bit earlier, the Los Angeles Film Critics, on the other hand, gave the top prize to “The Hurt Locker” (“Up in the Air” was the runner up) and Kathryn Bigelow took another Best Director prize for the thriller. Jeff Bridges, Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique once again got the Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress prizes respectively. The L.A. crickets took a different path entirely, however, on the Best Actress category and gave it to Yolande Moreau for the French-language biopic, “Séraphine.” (The runner up was Carey Mulligan, whose work in “An Education” has been generating a great deal of buzz.)

They also, interestingly, diverted from the New Yorkers in the area of animation, giving the top prize to “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” another succès d’estime for Wes Anderson. However, they followed the NYC reviewers in giving the nod to “The Cove” for Best Documentary. In a nod to genre, “District 9” got a “New Generation” award for writer-director Neill Blomkamp as well as a production design award. Eugene Hernandez of Indiewire has the complete list.

Oscar-buzz fans take note, critics’ awards are not super-reliable indicators of Academy Awards, which tend to be less genre-friendly but also more prone to award big commercial hits. On the other hand, I think it’s safe to say that Kathryn Bigelow, Jeff Bridges, Mo’Nique, Christoph Waltz, as well as “The Hurt Locker”, “Inglourious Basterds,” and perhaps “The Cove” got a big boost today. (The documentary category is notoriously fraught.) Also, I haven’t mentioned its awards, but the little seen black political comedy and festival hit, “In the Loop,” picked up awards from both groups and could, I imagine, get a very helpful nomination or two in possibly the writing and the newly expanded “Best Picture” category.

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