AWARDS 2011: LA Critics skew towards Malick

And finally ending the day of hasty awards recognizance, the Los Angeles critics managed to differ in a few slight ways from the rest of the general pot. Examples? "The Artist" isn't even in sight. In its place isn't so much as the rising "Hugo", but the still present "Tree of Life". Malick's film caught quite a few wins this time around. Other notable surprises. The Chemical Brothers won best original score for "Hanna", which is a no-brainer now that it's been brought back to our attention thanks to the wonderful LA critics. Also surprising? Yun Jung-hee won Best Actress for "Poetry". Certainly an obscure won, but who isn't happy about that? Take a look at the full list of winners and runners up after the jump!

BEST PICTURE: "The Descendants"

-Runner-up: "The Tree of Life"

BEST DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick ("The Tree of Life")

-Runner-up: Martin Scorsese ("Hugo")

Midpoint 2011: What's worth remembering?

To get yet another pet peeve out of the way, it is never appropriate to write in a review of any film, no matter how great it is, that it's the best film of the year thus far. After a time, it becomes far too redundant and honestly irritating. I don't like revealing my cards before they're played, and for that reason it seem ridiculous to remark on the best films of the year thus far. We're six months in and we haven't really gotten much to show for it. The first three months were a depressing slog through the gutters, and April was only refreshing in the most carnal of fashion.

How do I believe that? Well, you look at the standouts of the month, such as Hanna and Source Code, and while they are entertaining mainstream efforts, they offer little more than basic thrills and stylish conceits. Then May came along and the onslaught of fire, explosions, and death began, but not without a few small achievements. Thor proved to be a solid fantasy blockbuster adventure, Bridesmaids was a fascinating introspective comedy that succeeded where most failed, and Kung Fu Panda 2 is commendable for bringing us another fantastic performance from Gary Oldman.

June is where things got decidedly dicey, with anticipated films like X-Men: First Class, Super 8, and Cars 2 leaving this viewers infinitely disappointed. Even Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a film I was honestly ready to enjoy for what it was, managed to fail on a few levels that Revenge of the Fallen just didn't. I know! I really need to stop being so dead inside. I'll get my review for the film up by tomorrow, but the fact of the matter is that this year has thus far been largely a disappointment. I'd write it off as irrelevant when it comes to what I remember at the close of the year, but there are things worthy of mention.

Box Office Update: Vacation Cut Short

At this point, I'm sick and tired of people making excuses for not heading out to the theaters this weekend. It's no longer a fitting excuse to say that there's nothing worth watching out there, because that's a lie. Hanna proved to be something brilliant, Source Code was an intriguing and emotional journey, and Scre4m is an enjoyable enough romp if you're not looking for brilliance. So how is it that these films are being criminally under-appreciated at the box office? It probably has to do with the unreasonable boost in ticket prices. It is getting to the point in which it is not a weekly escape so much as an occasional luxury.

I admit that I did not get around to seeing Rio this weekend, mostly because I didn't have such an urge to rush out to the theater. It appears I was the only one, as families flocked (no pun intended) to the 3D animated adventure. I hope I'll get around to it sometime this week, but it's not an immediate priority. Scre4m underperformed at the box office, falling back on Saturday and Sunday grosses after a somewhat promising Friday. It's highly characteristic of how Sucker Punch performed a few weeks ago. Hop fell just as much as expected, which isn't at all surprising. Hanna fell being Soul Surfer, dropping 40.8% and 30.2% respectively. The Conspirator fared about as well as Scre4m did, at least in terms of per theater averages. The box office this weekend was actually 4.5% higher than it was the same weekend last year, when Kick-Ass also disappointed at the opening spot. How to Train Your Dragon picked up the slack in hold overs.

1. Rio (First Weekend; $40 million)
2. Scre4m (First Weekend; $19.3 million)
3. Hop (Third Weekend; $11.2 million)
4. Soul Surfer (Second Weekend; $7.4 million)
5. Hanna (Second Weekend; $7.3 million)
6. Arthur (Second Weekend; $6.9 million)
7. Insidious (Third Weekend; $6.8 million)
8. Source Code (Third Weekend; $6.3 million)
9. The Conspirator (First Weekend; $3.9 million)
10. Your Highness (Second Weekend; $3.9 million)

Open Thread: Children, Wake Up!

If things have been generally subdued here at the site for the past two weeks, that's probably a byproduct of the sluggish trend the film industry has fallen into this year. Everything about this year thus far screams of a sort of sedation and lack of enthusiasm, so much that it makes me question the overall happiness of people these days. No film this year has opened higher than $40 million over the weekend, something that should be remedied this weekend by either the child skewing Rio or the horror genre parody Scream 4. Are audiences really just tired with the theatrical experience, or is it just that there's nothing worth seeing out there? I'd very much like to believe the latter, but seeing as Hop is getting higher numbers than Source Code, we could throw that idea out the window.

Interestingly enough, Hanna seems to be playing better with audiences than I expected it would. The theater I went to see Joe Wright's art house feature in was skewing more towards the younger demographic than one would expect. I'm not just talking about teens and such, but there were young children in the audience, of course accompanied by their parents. It's almost as if they were begging to be observed for their reactions in this really frightening action piece. It actually reminded me an awful lot of Coraline in 2009, filled with kids who weren't expecting a terrifying experience when they initially sat down.

The older demographic's response to Hanna was one of unmitigated shock, and it's something that's completely understandable. I'm not sure if you noticed, but Hanna is an absolutely terrible role model for children. She murders people at the drop of the hat, showing little remorse for her actions afterwords. Obviously, I understand that there's more to Saoirse Ronan's character and performance than that narrow description allows for. It's one of the many things that makes the film brilliant, how varying she is in her emotions of love, happiness, fear, anger, ambition, and apathy. All the same, you could excuse the parents for dragging their kids screaming out of the theater some time before the end.

Film Review: Hanna

It looks like the powers that be have been holding off on the truly great films of this year until the unnecessary fever of the Oscars has worn off. Last week gave us a taste of something entertaining with Source Code, a thriller with similar vibes to the works of J.J. Abrams. This weekend finally gives us something fully rewarding in the way we always hope for. I was surprised by Joe Wright's latest feature, even if I didn't expect to be. I went in with high expectations, which weren't exceeded or diminished. I kept the idea in the back of my head constantly that Hanna might not be a great film, and that it could fail on the promises of the trailer. Rest assured that it didn't.

The film is set along the infinite canvas of Europe and Asia, with a young girl named Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) being trained in the frozen wilderness by her father, former CIA agent Erik Heller (Eric Bana). When she decides that she wants to see the world, Erik puts her ambition to the test, tasking her with killing the woman that murdered her mother, Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). This leads us on a grand scale cat and mouse chase, as Eric evades agents on his way to keep Hanna safe, Wiegler hires a group of nasty thugs to find the girl, and Hanna stows away with a vacationing English family.

This really brings us into the heart of the film, because while most people complain that Hanna slows down while Hanna is traveling with the family, that's really what the film is about. It's about her adventures in the real world, finding out who she is as a person, and overcoming the ugly world that created her in the first place. As said before, it's a modern day set fairy tale, but while it draws inspiration from various sources, it is completely its own story. There are such wild bursts of originality and ambition, which you can tell from the first shot of the film. The text used in subtitles is unique in design and execution, and you can tell that Joe Wright slaved over each of these various aspects to make the film the way it is.

The film may not be necessarily about the performances, but such performances the cast gives us. Saoirse Ronan gives a more texture, frightening, and stimulating performance than I've seen from any other actress in recent memory. She carries us through wild progression of the film and her character, lulling us into believing her sweet and amusing, along with a bizarre yet appealing bit of sexiness, but occasionally flashing a darkly inhuman stare. You are always on edge, wondering who she is or who she wants to be, and the ending to the film doesn't necessarily give us an answer. It is an abrupt ending, but one that pays off in full as you think back over what you've experienced.

Eric Bana gives the most down-to-earth performance of the film, doling out some insanely gratifying action beats, but always holding onto the humanity of the situation. This isn't just murder and insanity for no reason and with no consequences. Blanchett is a real wild card in this film, playing the villain in a way that recalls the great Disney animated witches and devils, all the while bringing it to reality. You'll be fascinated with her as long as you don't mind a moment of camp at the end of the film. The cinematography in this film is absolutely gorgeous, offering several shots worthy of mention, but too many to acknowledge. The film does have an abrupt and somewhat unfinished nature to it, but it's supposed to. There are things that spit in the face of convention and clean closing, leaving some of our favorite characters in limbo without revealing their ultimate fates. I'm convinced that Hanna is the start of the next great era in film, offering something new and binding to hold onto for the following year. If this is merely a sign of things to come, which I feel like it is, it's a marvelous sign.


B+/A-

Box Office Update: Branded on Both Ends

We're getting very close to actually being ahead of where we were in 2010, and I can't quite pick up why we have been failing so much this year. Audiences still aren't being intelligent with their choices, but they just aren't going to the theater as much as they used to. I admit that I visited the theater more often last year than I have this year, but I'd never wait for a film I'm truly excited to see to release on DVD. The theatrical experience is one of the things that makes this medium of art and entertainment so powerful. I do hope that this year's box office slump has more to do with the quality of the films playing, and less to do with people having grown tired of the big screen experience.

We can still expect films like Hop to succeed more than anything else, an immediate and sustainable draw for the child crowd. The Easter themed flick held onto the top spot, dropping 42.2% from its debut. Another strange draw for the kiddie crowd, Arthur, took second place with the highest of four relatively low openings. Hanna, the true spectacle of this weekend, was right behind it with a higher average per theater. Soul Surfer, which played surprisingly well with audiences this weekend, followed Hanna with an even higher average. Last weekend's horror film, Insidious, held on most impressively amongst last weekend's films, dropping only 26.6%. Your Highness skidded just below the $10 million mark, marking the lowest income of the new releases. Source Code dropped by a margin less than Hop, but greater than Insidious, falling 38.9%. Overall, this weekend was a 13.9% drop from 2010, when Date Night opened shortly behind the second weekend of Clash of the Titans.

1. Hop (Second Weekend; $21.7 million)
2. Arthur (First Weekend; $12.6 million)
3. Hanna (First Weekend; $12.3 million)
4. Soul Surfer (First Weekend; $11.1 million)
5. Insidious (Second Weekend; $9.7 million)
6. Your Highness (First Weekend; $9.5 million)
7. Source Code (Second Weekend; $9 million)
8. Limitless (Fourth Weekend; $5.7 million)
9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (Third Weekend; $4.9 million)
10. The Lincoln Lawyer (Fourth Weekend; $4.6 million)

For Your Anticipation: Thank You For Being My Friend

Last weekend proved that the film industry hasn't yet lost its potential to massively entertain us, even if Source Code wasn't exactly a masterpiece. It was emotional, involving, and surprising, but Hanna looks to be something different. Joe Wright has made some interesting work across the past few years, but I was worried that he would only consign to the British period drama films for most of his work. This time he's going with a modern setting, a more distinct story, and a chance to truly show off his elaborate directing skills. My anticipation for this film is unending, until I see it this weekend.

Films To See In 2011: April

Last month was a bit of a failure in terms of predicting what is most likely to be good, or at least entertaining, mostly because I haven't gotten around to seeing any of those films yet. I've seen a lot of truly pathetic filmmaking, but we're moving more towards some sort of quality. I'd like to say that I'm sure April will be a step in the right direction, but that hasn't been working out for me. There have been some entertaining films over the past few weeks, but only in the sense that general audiences will probably enjoy it. I have moved more towards a special niche of high quality films, and it's become harder and harder to please me.

I don't expect that we'll be getting a lot of that sort of feature this April, but most of the films that are shaping up to be the most promising are films that I had mixed reservations about before. I'd have Steven Soderbergh's upcoming film Haywire somewhere up here if we had gotten any sort of trailer or footage yet. I think Source Code and Scre4m have promise, but there are creeping doubts in the back of my mind. Hop and Rio are both animated films, and I've found it very hard in the past to peg these sorts of features. The trailers try to appeal to children, and somehow that always involves leaving out the emotional moments that make the films so great. The films I have in the upper most echelon of this month are the films I am relatively certain will end up being good. Your Highness almost made it in, but it was just barely edged out by...

3."Water for Elephants"
Directed by Francis Lawrence

The idea of simple entertainment or fun doesn't really apply to this film, which I initially knocked against for being another throwaway vehicle for Robert Pattinson. Since further trailers have come out, he's actually grown on me. Same goes for Reese Witherspoon, who was at first only shown with an annoying smile, but is now shown with deeper emotionality. Christoph Waltz was never a problem with me, but he's becoming more of a standout actor in this feature, as well as every film he's in. We honestly don't even care about his accent, as if we ever did. Obviously there are similarities to Titanic, a film I've widely called out as overrated, but there's something vibrant that just grabs me in the recent trailers. (Releases nationwide on April 22nd)

"Source Code" and "Hanna" Posters

I know today has been all about the Oscar nominations, and that's all anybody can talk about. I'm holding off my next analysis of the Best Picture race until Friday, just so we can take some time to let it sink in. In the meantime, lets head back into what films will be releasing this year, and hope to god they are actually good films. Source Code has the same tagline as 127 Hours, and I don't even know what to make of Hanna yet. Fingers crossed!

Theatrical Trailer: Hanna

This is one of the films whose plot and purpose has been somewhat evasive, and I still haven't got it figured out. I understand that it's about a girl who has been trained from birth to kill. I'm not quite sure why, but she's driven into a world of violence on her own, and it's directed by Joe Wright (Atonement). It definitely seems like a harder and less whimsical version of the Hit Girl story from Kick-Ass. I'm still not sure if I trust the film entirely, but I like the execution of this trailer. Take a look, and please comment on your thoughts.