"Oz: The Great and Powerful" Teaser Trailer

I really haven't a clue what to do with this "Oz: The Great and Powerful" trailer, except to shrug it off. I was tempted to do that the moment Sam Raimi even signed on for the film. For the most part, Raimi's poppy and colourful style grates on me, and this film looks devastatingly similar to Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland". The colour palette is, admittedly, more lush, and there's a slight bit of intrigue at where it's all going, but I can't help but wonder, why? Why are Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz in this movie, or even James Franco and Mila Kunis for that matter. It's a trailer that makes me sink with dread at its obviously sentimental motivations, so much so that I already feel it as a retread of "Alice in Wonderland".

THE LISTS: Best performances of 2012 thus far

At this point I have a tendency of wondering if we're really at the halfway point of this year already. It's true that often times this period of the year is marked by a stunt of intellectual cinematic properties and an abundance of blockbuster diversions. This year, however, it seems like things are just heating up exponentially with a rush of quality cinema. The past two weeks alone have offered not just one, but two films that may qualify the best of the year. But if I'm to be perfectly honest, the last thing I feel like doing at this point is putting the films to task in an effort to rank them. I leave the placing of favorites as a year end routine.

What's more, we're still waiting on plenty of films that seem ever so slightly outside our reach and prove to dramatically change the order of anyone's lists at this time. In just two weeks time we'll finally be able to take in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises", putting an end to suffocating fanboy hype and finally giving us a chance to judge it on its own humble merits. I'm waiting in eager anticipation to see how Yorgos Lanthimos' "Alps" turns out, since that's the real ticket premiere of this month, at least from where I'm looking. And we know that Venice, Telluride, and Toronto are just around the corner with more to bring to the table.

Film Review: "Take This Waltz" (****)

Putting aside notions of cinematic greatness briefly, it's rare for a truly delectable film to find its way to the surface, and even rarer for such a film to have a genuine kick to it. The last film I recall under similar circumstances was "Certified Copy", which went a long way with reviewers around my corner of the net. Before that, "White Material" is a film that got such a spectator's joy out of me. Both manage to deal with rather difficult emotional or social issues, but they're visually worthy of glorious visual consumption. "Take This Waltz" also finds its way along that path, be it with a much more scrumptious palette.

The film follows sweet Margot, played with childlike simplicity by the ever-lovable Michelle Williams, living in Toronto, Canada with her cookbook writer husband Lou, performed with equal, though not as fragile, simplicity by Seth Rogen. The unexpected power-couple is having a recent boom in mainstream cinema, with pairings like Steve Carell and Keira Knightley or Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum gaining much favor for their singularly unexpected chemistry. Rogen and Williams can be brought into that circle now, since both have such a warm mesh with each other. Amongst other things, it makes portions of this film seem like a big bear hug.

OSCAR 2011 PREDICTIONS: Lead Actress

I am usually much more enthusiastic regarding this particular race, because the women so often transcend the talent of their male counterparts in the top categories. Not so much this year, which only really yields two good performances. Does that mean that I count Michelle Williams, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close as bad performances in their respective films? Absolutely, yes. "Albert Nobbs" contains nothing appealing to an entertainment or quality seeking audience, and it ultimately serves to give Glenn Close this nomination. Same goes for "The Iron Lady", and it seems like these films are only created now to give Meryl Streep these catapults towards awards.

And amongst the two films Michelle Williams has done this year, it's her more obvious performance that is getting the massive portion of the heat. Something as dry as the work she does in "Meek's Cutoff" isn't likely to gain many supporters in the Academy. So that leaves Viola Davis and Rooney Mara, and I'll admit that I won't be too ornery about Viola Davis winning. She gave a strong performance that had me invested from the start of "The Help", even if the film didn't match up. Although, her endurance throughout her career doesn't change that I'd be absolutely ecstatic if Rooney Mara won for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". It was a performance that solidified her place in this business, as I know it would when I was already a fan of her a year previous for "The Social Network".

THEN & NOW: Lead Actor & Actress

Continuing to seek our teeth into the flaws that exist in this low-point for the Academy Awards, I was starting to wonder if there was even a point of doing this. I mean, sure the nominees this year aren't great, but are they really a massive departure from previous years? Actually, yes. This isn't an overreaction. Previous years have rendered much greater and more deserving performances and films in the categories given. Maybe last year went a bit wild with the winners, but it did the nominees pretty well. I think that the Best Actor race was the worst last year, as it didn't really seem to have its heart in it. Colin Firth was the frontrunner the year after he should have won.

I am still of the belief that Jeff Bridges should have came to a win last year, rather than the year before, but he isn't the most deserving performance here either. James Franco was always a bit on the mild side, and I can't quite believe that he really needed to be there. I'm very glad that Javier Bardem made it in for a performance that was admittedly quite strong, and that was worth it simply for the rage it ensued amongst ignorant YouTube reviewers. But I think that Jesse Eisenberg was the real gem of the group last year, with a skillfully internalized performance in a very internalized film, but it was still a case of a relative newcomer sweeping in to steal the glory from somebody who was overdue.

AWARDS 2011: "Artist" & "Moneyball" take Boston critics

Boston may have been the first of today's critics awards to start voting, but they certainly have taken the longest of the three. The winners have been predictable to say the least, but it is worth mentioning that they were the first to get it right as far as Best New Filmmaker is concerned. Take a look at the whole list of winners below.

BEST PICTURE: "The Artist"

BEST DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese ("Hugo")

BEST SCREENPLAY: "Moneyball"

BEST ACTRESS: Michele Williams ("My Week with Marilyn")

BEST ACTOR: Brad Pitt ("Moneyball")

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa McCarthy ("Bridesmaids")

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Albert Brooks ("Drive")

BEST ENSEMBLE: "Carnage"

BEST NEW FILMMAKER: Sean Durkin ("Martha Marcy May Marlene")

BEST USE OF MUSIC: "The Artist"/"Drive"

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: "The Tree of Life"

BEST DOCUMENTARY: "Project Nim"
BEST FOREIGN FILM: "Incendies" 

Carpet-Bagging: Actress Heavyweights Steal the Focus

I'm getting severely sick of the lack of activity on this site, mostly on my own part. It's just that nothing's been happening enough to talk about. It's not until November that things are truly set in motion, though I admit that things seemed to get going a lot sooner last year than they are currently. I guess it's a contrast that's telling of this year, at least in my own opinion. So I decided to get back in the game of guessing, though I've still neglected posting up a full predictions page. There's just so little confidence in the pot, it feels too facetious to make locked in guesses, especially with so much still likely to change, as candidates fall in and out of the race.

However, at least the way things are stacking up currently, the Best Actress race seems to be banal and dismal. One of the new writers at Film Misery, Casey Chapman, recently did his own sizing up of the field, which really drowned my spirits. The field is dominated by performances in films I have little to no interest in seeing. I admit to being delightfully surprised by "The Help", but I hardly feel like Viola Davis is either the strongest performance of the piece or the main focus. She'd have a stronger campaign for Supp. Actress, but it looks like they're pushing the far less likely Octavia Spencer for that field. Don't get me wrong, as I like both performances really well, but they do not belong in shortlist.

And then there's those who don't need to show anything necessarily strong in their films to be considered candidates, those being Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. I think I've earned the right to be more than just skeptical of their films' merits and strengths, not just in terms of their performances. In the first trailer for "The Iron Lady", I was frankly annoyed by Steep's overly fantastical impersonation of Margaret Thatcher. On any given year, I'm railing against her automatic nomination. And Glenn Close has been away for a while now, taking great confidence in this "Albert Nobbs" of hers. Yet her work just seems cold, uninteresting, plain, and dull.

"My Week with Marilyn" Trailer

Oh, poor Michelle Williams. She deserves so much more than she gets. It's easy to forget its British period heritage amongst the buzz and hype, but "My Week with Marilyn" looks exactly like what I feared it would be. Your typical never-gonna-happen romantic story, all decked out with British talent. Kenneth Branagh, Emma Watson, Judi Dench, and Toby Jones. But the main attraction is Michelle Williams, who is focused on embodying Marilyn, and she looks to be doing a fine job of it. But is the film gonna be worth it?

Film Review: "Meek's Cutoff" (****)

"We're all playing our parts now. This was written long before we got here."

Do not expect "Meek's Cutoff" to get anything from the Academy at the end of the year, because I doubt many will be passionate enough about it to give it the light of day. It has already been pegged as the "boring film of 2011", and that is surely something of an apt description of it. After all, by unadvanced moviegoer standards, not all that much really happens. It starts with them already on their journey, and it ends with them having not finished their journey. In between them an entirety of one new character is introduced. The fascination about this film isn't these massive events, but about the intimate exchanges between person and person.

The film follows a group of settlers on the Oregon Trail, all being led by one Stephen Meek who hasn't been doing the best job thus far. Only minutes into the film, the families are debating on whether or not to hang the man. Meanwhile Meek remains rather ambiguous in character and intent, agreeing on the courses his employers choose, be it a bit reluctantly. Things really start igniting when they gain hold of a Native American resident whom Meek assumes means to brutally murder them. One of the wives, Emily Tetherow, is cautious of either character, but knows which one of them has led her more astray thus far.

Oscar Red Carpet Fashion 2011

Suppressed deep down inside me, I believe there's a bit of a fashionista in me, and that part of me just goes crazy on Oscar night. It truly sucks being a guy, because you're forced into the stereotypical suit and tie, whereas the women get such a dramatic variation of what they can wear. Mila Kunis was amongst the most impressive of the night, and made the best of not snagging a nomination. Michelle Williams was just so pretty and petite in a way, and I just kept floating my eyes back her way. Natalie Portman was as beautiful as a pregnant girl could possibly be, with her dress amplifying her natural glow.

Anne Hathaway had so many looks throughout the night, but the one she rocked the best was quite honestly the royal blue one. The most overrated dress of the night was Jennifer Hudson's, because that orange thing she wore just rubbed the wrong way, and seeing the underside of her breast didn't help in the slightest. The most underrated was Scarlett Johansson, who also rocked the purple dress, and the cutoff nature of it really struck me in the perfect way. However, the best of the night, regardless of her simple her dress was, was Jennifer Lawrence who I guarantee had every man in the audience ogling her at everyone opportunity. You can see all of the major outfits at Entertainment Weekly following this link.

Theatrical Trailer: Meek's Cutoff

We've got a few western recreations on our way this year, with the half-assed attempt that is Rango or the intriguing action-thriller Cowboys and Aliens. My interests actually skew most towards this western from Kelly Reichardt, director of Wendy and Lucy. I'm not so much astounded by flair, but deep textured style catches me eye immediately. I doubt there's a single shot from this trailer for Meek's Cutoff that wasn't interesting to my eyes. The tone of this trailer actually strikes me in a similar way to There Will Be Blood, but I doubt a similar outcome based on the PG rating. Check out the trailer below, and comment on your own thoughts from it.

Oscar 2010 Predictions: Lead Actress

I don't really think in a way that can be deemed as rational, as my brother keeps telling me of my fascination with Cougar Town. Of the nominees for Best Actress, the one I think is least deserving of recognition is Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole, and this is for a few reasons. The least important reason is that she's been pretty much absent from awards contention for the past few years, and her return feels a little awkward. There's a coldness to her performance, and it comes off as a bit forced if you ask me. It's still great, but less so than the other nominees. That's the critical perspective, and somehow that perspective can't take apart Emma Stone's performance in Easy A. Somehow her mannerisms in the film came off to me so radically that they brought me to tears with her. Don't call me pathetic!

Unfortunately, Emma Stone isn't nominated this year, which leaves a field of mistresses to sleep with deal with. Michelle Williams is an actress I have been observing rather closely, because I feel she's got the sort of talent that could explode across the screen in spectacular fashion. Somehow, and this has been nagging on me, she doesn't quite do that in Blue Valentine. She comes extremely close, and the raw intensity of her performance does warrant a nomination, but I can't really go any further for her yet. Her and Kidman are in something of the same boat, albeit in completely different ways.

The rest of the actresses here deserve to be here 100%, and it'd be so difficult to pick one out of the bunch if it hadn't been made so obvious already. Natalie Portman's iconic performance in Black Swan topped of the tragic tale of fragility and duality in a way that never once feels forced or exaggerated. She manages the transition from innocent child to sensual being of destruction so flawlessly, and that's not even to speak of the subtle nuances to the performance aspect of it. The physical brutality of the ballet world pushes the actress to emphasize every move in a way she wasn't capable of before. Any performance she gives from here on out will be better because of what she learned here. That's definitely worthy of reward.

The only actress with any hope or chance of beating Portman, though I pray that doesn't happen, is Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right. She's definitely at the point in which she's just waiting for the day she gets her award. I would've said this was her year before I saw Black Swan, and it's still worthy of note how she manages to make the character so believable in a way Julianne Moore didn't quite achieve. Perhaps that was just the way the characters were formatted, but you're definitely put on Bening's side by the end of the film, and there has to be a reason for that. Topping everything off, Jennifer Lawrence is the breakout star of the year, no matter what case you make for Hailee Steinfeld or Andrew Garfield. Lawrence shows a maturity beyond her years in this role, and if there's a film with such a solid ensemble this year, I'd say it was Winter's Bone.

1. Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
2. Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
3. Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
4. Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine)
5. Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)

Will & Should Win: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Potential Upset: Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Should Have Been Nominated: Emma Stone (Easy A)

What's Next?: Best Actress

It is so easy to talk about what the nominations for Best Actress, because most of them have plans for the oncoming year. The one who doesn't, Annette Bening, is currently in pre-production on Hemingway & Fuentes, a film I am absolutely uninformed about. Nicole Kidman of Rabbit Hole has an even more unfortunate lineup for the following year. She has a mysterious role in the Adam Sandler comedy Just Go With It, and later this year's shes going to be in Trespass. I don't know much about the film other than the fact that it's directed by Joel Schumacher. Why do they still allow him to make films?

Jennifer Lawrence has a lineup of pretty outstanding bounce-back performances. She's slated to play Mystique in the upcoming period superhero film X-Men: First Class, a romantic interest for Anton Yelchin's character in The Beaver, and a supporting role in the recent winner at Sundance, Like Crazy. I doubt she'll be securing another nod for next year's awards, but she'll definitely be around. Natalie Portman has probably the most packed schedule for this year, having already released No Strings Attached and The Other Woman. The rest of her year includes the fantasy-comedy Your Highness and the superhero film Thor. No awards potential in the near future, but enough entertaining offerings to keep you going until after her pregnancy period. The only one amongst these women who has a potent chance of returning here next year is Michelle Williams. She's not only got the release of the western Meek's Cutoff to look forward to, but also her rendition of Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn. She's definitely one to watch for the following year.

Image: Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn

"Blue Valentine" Poster

Whenever I see any piece of publicity or marketing for this film, I find it difficult to believe that it's been minimalized in regards to the Oscar race. Things remain alive for Ryan Gosling in the Best Actor race, but it really will depend on the reception of the film when it comes out. It may reenter the race if it's successful, but it's very much in waiting right now. If it doesn't get the whole NC-17 rating worked out, it will have a tougher time getting recognized, but I still have faith in it. The new poster is very raw, passionate, and sensual, and that should work in favor of Blue Valentine if anything.