Oscar snubs don’t last a lifetime
Before the days of the competitive foreign film Oscar, no film in 1953 was honored with the annual honorary Oscar for foreign film released in the U.S. It was the first time since 1947, when the Academy started presenting an Oscar to foreign films, that no such award was given. It was also the year Ozu’s Tokyo Story was released in Japan. The film didn’t get a U.S. release until 1972, which meant it didn’t technically qualify for an Oscar the year it was created. Had today’s foreign film rules been instituted in 1953, where a country selects and submits one film to the Academy for consideration in the category, maybe Tokyo Story would have made the cut in a competitive race. Maybe not. Regardless, Tokyo Story is considered the fifth best film of all-time by those surveyed in...
Read MoreEarly Oscar Contenders: Slumdog Millionaire V. Milk?
During the 2008 presidential election, the underdog story Rocky was referenced over and over again. Sen. Hillary Clinton compared herself to the Best Picture winner’s central character as she tried to win the Democratic nomination. Sen. John McCain briefly used Rocky III‘s “Eye of the Tiger” as a campaign theme, only to have a member from the band Survivor request that he stop using the song. Both candidates may have lost to Barack Obama, just as Rocky lost to Apollo Creed, but we may yet have use for the Rocky comparison. When Rocky won Best Picture, it beat films like Network, Taxi Driver and All the King’s Men. They were better films. Much better, in fact. But in a year that saw the end of the Nixon era and the election of Jimmy Carter the mood of the country may well have contributed to Rocky‘s sweeping...
Read More2008’s Creative Dearth
As someone who fancies himself a bit of a film critic, I try to manage my own expectations despite my genuine love of cinema. (That sound pretentious, but bear with me.) Before this year, I would generally see anything that was thrown in front of me because I would rather watch a bad movie than no movie at all. Lucky for me, from 2005 to 2007, I was able to sit down in front of movies that were great beyond all expectations or at least interesting in spite of their flaws. The three years prior to 2008 were amazing years for cinema. We saw great filmmakers working at the peak of their powers. From Spielberg with Munich to the Coens with No Country for Old Men, filmmakers were responding to the world in a way that audiences haven’t seen...
Read MoreQuick Note On Indiana Jones 4
So I did it. I finally watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tonight on DVD. My reaction may not be as venomous as some, but the lack of an emotional response to the film says more about Indy 4 than any series of expletives. Indy 4 is a simply movie that no one seemed to want to make. It was as if Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg just said to George Lucas, “Fine, George. We’ll make the damn thing. But we’re not going to enjoy it.” If Spielberg was really interested in making the film, he wouldn’t have chosen Janusz Kaminski as the director of photography, a man who can’t shoot a blockbuster for his life. Give Kaminski something with teeth, a Munich or a Schindler’s List, and he’s a damn fine cinematographer. But we know what his War...
Read MoreIs Ryan Gosling the Green Lantern?
The amazingly accurate Latino Review is reporting that Warner Bros. wants Ryan Gosling to be their Hal Jordan. Let the fanboy revolt commence. Gosling doesn’t look like the guy you’d cast as the Green Lantern, but he fits Warner’s grand vision for their superhero franchises. He’s a deeply emotional actor, whose turn in Half Nelson established him as one of the best actors of his generation. And remember, the last time Warner made this bold a choice, they cast Heath Ledger as the Joker. A Gosling Lantern shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the project, though. The film was going to go in a slightly different direction after Greg Berlanti (Everwood, Brothers & Sisters) was brought on to direct. With Gosling under the direction of Berlanti, The Green Lantern may be the first superhero movie...
Read MoreWill Smith as Captain America? Not buying that one
MTV.com posted the most ridiculous casting rumors since folks started throwing out Johnny Depp as The Riddler in the next Batman movie. According to Miracle at St. Anna star Derek Luke, Will Smith has been offered Captain America. Always the skeptic, I am not buying this one until I see an official announcement from Marvel Studios. The MTV article addresses the first problem, which is Hancock. It’s not the first Smith movie to make $500 million worldwide, but that kind of money makes a sequel close to inevitable. The bigger issue, however, may be Marvel’s master plan. The Avengers movie is going to have a steep price tag. By adding the biggest movie star in the world to the roster ( Can you imagine the back end deals that will come with his casting?!), you have to imagine Marvel’s...
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