For Your Anticipation: Good. That's Good.

Can we assume that this is more of an obligatory post than one I wish to write? We are at that point where the wheels are turning on more interesting things than the flock from the dog days of summer. "The Debt" does seem to be a little more than just that, and it's worth noting for being yet another film in Jessica Chastain's freshman year. I have to say, when actors like Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson are overshadowed by a relative newbie, it's worth at least mention. This is probably the most interesting thing out there this weekend. It also releases on Wednesday, for whatever reason I can't quite comprehend.

For Your Anticipation: As Scheduled

Warner Bros. is really not having a good year so far. They've only released Unknown, Red Riding Hood, and Sucker Punch so far this year, and somehow that hasn't drawn people to the theaters. It surprised me, because suddenly people care about the quality of the films they are seeing. That would be fine if the film industry had caught up on that idea before the box office took such a dive. This weekend brings around Arthur, which I kind of hoped would turn into something entertaining, but Russell Brand is honestly only entertaining as himself. He doesn't really care about the quality of the scripts he's given. Last weekend gave us Hop, and this is it's live action counterpart.

Oscar 2010: Presenters Go In Pairs

From the way this looks, I'd say we're looking at a decent stab that the shortest Oscar telecast in a while. Perhaps it won't actually put people to sleep. On the other hand, this is an odd bunch, completely devoid of Tina Fey or Steve Martin. Such a shame, but there's that open space for Best Supporting Actress. Maybe they'll make a surprise appearance, but nothing is set. I just know that this will be a difficult ceremony to sit through if The King's Speech sweeps as many believe it will. I'm praying for an upset.

1. Art Direction (Tom Hanks)
2. Cinematography (ditto)
3. Supporting Actress (?)
4. Animated Feature (Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis)
5. Animated Short Film (ditto)
6. Adapted Screenplay (Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin)
7. Original Screenplay (ditto)
8. Foreign Language Film (Russell Brand, Dame Helen Mirren)
9. Supporting Actor (Reese Witherspoon)
10. Original Score (Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman)
11. Sound Mixing (Matthew McConaughey, Scarlett Johansson)
12. Sound Editing (ditto)
13. Makeup (Cate Blanchett)
14. Costume Design (ditto)
15. Dcumentary Short Subject (Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams)
16. Live Action Short Film (ditto)
17. Documentary (Oprah)
18. Visual Effects (Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law)
19. Editing (ditto)
20. Original Song (Jennifer Hudson)
21. Director (Hilary Swank, Kathryn Bigelow)
22. Actress (Jeff Bridges)
23. Actor (Sandra Bullock)
24. Picture (Steven Spielberg)

Theatrical Trailer: Arthur

One of the natural comedic talents that still has yet to run dry is Russell Brand. I doubt that there was ever a time when he did not steal the show from his co-stars. His work in and the subsequent followupForgetting Sarah Marshall Get Him to the Greek may not have been too deep, but it was welcome entertainment. Arthur might be the beginning of his descent, but only because of cliche nature of the narrative. Other than that, hilarious stuff going on here. Helen Mirren is also a pretty good sign, if that's worth anything. Check out the trailer below and comment on your thoughts.

Film Review: Red

I always wanted a nice and perfectly agreeable film as this every week, and we very rarely get it. It's just nice to see people who know how to make good entertainment, and I can't help but think how stupid you have to be to not pull that off. Red comes from a DC Comics series of the same name, so it already has a solid backbone to work off of. However, that's hardly the selling point for this film. So rarely do you get an all star cast for such a small film as this. Then again, most of the films that Bruce Willis deals with these days are short budget mediocre action films. On top of that, Morgan Freeman does a fair deal of unobserved straight-to-DVD work these days. And John Malkovich... well, he's John Malkovich.

The film follows retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Willis), who is being inexplicably and aggresively hunted down by the FBI, along with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), a customer service agent that Frank is attracted to, but has never met before. It's actually a rather sweet and unorthodox love story, which is hardly the point of a film such as this. He gets in touch with his old team members, his mentor Joe Matheson (Freeman), wetwork agent Victoria (Helen Mirren), and an LSD infused whatever Marvin Boggs (Malkovich), and together they decide to track down the man responsible for calling the hits on them.

The cast for the film is spectacular all around. When Bruce Willis walks out of a moving cop car, you know you've made the right choice. Mary-Louise Parker is such an awkwardly funny personality, and I enjoy how her character takes everything in stride with a grain of salt. Malkovich is crazy, and that's probably the only character he was ever born to play. Morgan Freeman adds class to any film, and Helen Mirren fulfills our lifelong dreams with the way she possesses the weaponry she is afforded. Karl Urban adds a hardcore quality to his CIA agent character, who you just know will end up turning into a hero by the end. Ernest Borgnine has a cute and hilarious cameo, and Brian Cox shows up unexpectedly.

The cinematography always feels extremely close to taking that extra leap into an amazing shot, but falls just short of that. It's not bad, but it could've easily been more. The original score by Christophe Beck is exactly what you'd expect it to be. Nothing more. Nothing less. The action in this film is pretty sweet, offering us extreme gun fights (with Helen Mirren) and explosions. What good is an action film without explosions? I'm pointing at you Twilight. The film starts out a bit slow, and takes a while to find it's stride, but when Red does reach that important moment when things take off at full speed, it's a hilarious action-comedy that's actually worthy of the price of a ticket.

B+

For Your Acknowledgement: I Was Hoping You'd Have Hair

To start off this week of release, we have two clips from Red for you, because we don't quite get across the reason why this one is worth seeing in one. I know that this film has an all star cast, but when I first saw the trailer, I just assumed I was probably in for another Bruce Willis action flop. However, the footage I've seen has actually been nicely witty in both the dialogue scenes and the action scenes. It's definitely worth a look.