For Your Anticipation: I'm Her Best Friend

I'm currently in the process of getting through the next month so we can really get to the point in which I'm truly enjoying movies again. As of now, I'm merely surviving them, and it's never supposed to be that way. However, I have resolved to willingly go to see movies I expect to be bad, and The Roommate is my film for the month. I don't have a creepy roommate who wants to replace me, so I think we can count out relatable from the feature's vocabulary. On the other hand, it has two actors from Easy A, so maybe I'll be wrong about it. Oh, who am I kidding? This is going to suck.

The Cinematography of "True Grit"

If there's one quality I most admire about the Coen brothers' latest film, it's probably the cinematography. I love films that have a warm and authentic visual feel to them, which is one of the reasons I was so taken with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The visuals in that piece had such a layered and painterly feel to them, and I always find myself disappointed that Bruno Delbonnel didn't take home the Oscar last year instead of the hardly deserving Avatar. True Grit has that same look about it, like each frame had such detail put into it, and Deakins deserves the win for his work.

Film Review: No Strings Attached

In another sad statement about how low the film industry has sunk in this past month, a romantic-comedy starring Ashton Kutcher turns out to be the best of the year thus far. That's not to say that I loved No Strings Attached, because there's only so far adoration can go for a merely good film. If you haven't already heard the story, then you're lurking in a globe of films like Avatar. Ashton Kutcher plays an up-and-coming writer on a Glee ripoff show, and Natalie Portman plays a resident at the local hospital. The two have come in contact three times in the past, and on the fourth time, they have sex. From there on, they use each other as Fuckbuddies, which is what the film was called before all the naming rights situation with Friends with Benefits.

Right from the beginning, you should know that this isn't going to take any turns that you don't really expect. It's not going to break the shell between clean-cut comedy to Apatow emulating raunch-fest. It's simply an entertaining, if still mildly cliched, rom-com. You shouldn't really be expecting much more, or else you deserve to be disappointed. The one thing exasperating this from other films like it is Portman's depiction of Emma. Everything else in the film ranges from one-dimensional to two-dimensional, but Emma is a fully formed and actively complex character.

Adam is the exact sort of good-hearted idiot that you'd expect Ashton Kutcher to play, but Emma has a secret emotion behind her eyes. She's emotionally closed off to a legitimately emotional relationship, so she doesn't really understand what the history between her and Adam means. She's not an idiot, but there's both loneliness and fear of commitment that make up her defining characteristics. It's as good a follow-up performance to Black Swan as Portman could've given. She's got a long palette between now and June, so if she manages mild successes like this consistently, then I'll be contented.

Ashton Kutcher is still an awful actor, and I can only wonder if somebody else could've taken the role he received. In all seriousness, Paul Rudd can't be in enough movies these days. Chris "Ludacris" Bridges is the best of Kutcher's two sidekicks, and he's the one you'll remember well past the end. Greta Gerwig is my favorite supporting actress of the film, and it wonderfully complements the main arc. Olivia Thirlby had a surprise appearance that I didn't anticipate in the least, and it made the experience so much more fulfilling. The real gem is Portman, and Kutcher is the wall that is keeping No Strings Attached from reaching B status.

B-

Awards 2010: Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) Winners

It's amazing how the entire Oscar race can take a complete U-turn in the matter of only six days, not to mention how it could so totally head for calamity. The King's Speech woefully won Best Ensemble at last night's Screen Actor's Guild Awards, and I am just as despondent as I was when it was the DGA on Friday. That was the sole suprise and upset of the night, and I'm only happy about in the slightest way possible. Firth, Rush, Pierce, and Gambon deserve it, but there were so many better ensemble casts this year. It just feels like nobody is thinking logically about who deserves these awards, and they're just handing them out to The King's Speech for no reason. I didn't actually watch the telecast, so I can't really comment on it at all.

Best Ensemble: The King's Speech
Best Actor: Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
Best Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Box Office Update: In the Depths of Hell

As grim as the outlook may be for the next month, take solace in the fact that it could never be as underwhelming as January 2011 was. We have some heavy catching up to do for the rest of the year. I know that many perceive the weekend of Season of the Witch to be the lowest our year has ever sunk, but I beg to differ, offering this weekend as a substitute. I'm just so underwhelmed by the box office performances that we've endured. Obviously the Oscar prevalent contenders are doing as well as always, with Black Swan looking to be the next film to break the $100 million barrier. The new releases of this year could use some improvement.

This week's new releases were The Rite and The Mechanic, but I honestly didn't notice until I had to comment on my expectations for them this weekend. Based on reviews, you'd expect the Jason Statham vehicle to do better in the box office, but that doesn't seem to be the way the world works. Instead, Anthony Hopkins garnered a short opening of $15 million, which should be easily overtaken next weekend. At this point, I still need to see No Strings Attached, but it's been doing fine enough for itself in the paltry competition it's had thus far. The only real question I have is why Yogi Bear is still in the top ten. Is the world really that pathetic?

1. The Rite (First Weekend; $15 million)
2. No Strings Attached (Second Weekend; $13.7 million)
3. The Mechanic (First Weekend; $11.5 million)
4. The Green Hornet (Third Weekend; $11.5 million)
5. The King's Speech (Tenth Weekend; $11.1 million)
6. True Grit (Sixth Weekend; $7.6 million)
7. The Dilemma (Third Weekend; $5.5 million)
8. Black Swan (Ninth Weekend; $5.1 million)
9. The Fighter (Eighth Weekend; $4.1 million)
10. Yogi Bear (Seventh Weekend; $3.2 million)

Awards 2010: Director's Guild of America (DGA) Winner

I don't know why, but the world is just collapsing all around me right now. I am so confused by the awards season right now, because it doesn't make even the slightest bit of sense to me. The DGA Award winners were announced last night, and to everyone's surprise, Tom Hooper ended up winning for directing The King's Speech. I am about to go on a bit of an enraged tangent, so if you just wanted to know who won, then you've been satisfied by now. However, if you want to read me going into how ridiculous this recent turn of events is, by all means continue on.

What is behind the fascination that the Academy and the Guilds have for The King's Speech? Before the Oscar nominations were announced on Tuesday, I was in genuine favor with Tom Hooper's film, and I appreciated it for the inspirational musings of a not necessarily original work. Then the nominations came out, and all that I could be thinking about was how it was unworthy. Twelve nominations is far more than anybody expected, and far more than it deserves. I could've pegged better supporting actresses this year than Helena Bonham Carter's performance. The cinematography is the film was occasionally so plainly straightforward that it a bit distracting. I haven't the slightest clue why it garnered a nod for sound mixing. As much as I love Alexandre Desplat's scores, his least impressive work this year, besides Tamara Drewe, was with The King's Speech.

Even the directing race seems like a bit of a stretch. If asking the overwhelming majority if Tom Hooper's direction defined the film, most would say no. It barely had an impact on how I felt, and certainly not as much as Colin Firth or Geoffrey Rush. I always expected that David Fincher would win Best Director for The Social Network, and now that's going to be a bit of a struggle. If you were to ask me who most deserved to win the category, I would say Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan. He's never quite astounded with his directorial work until now. Still, this is a fight between Hooper and Fincher, and I can't help but believe that the wrong person will win.

Television Breakdown: The Big Reveal

Fringe: Reciprocity

Last week's Fringe had a certain feeling of dread about it, and that lingered over the entirety of the episode. Right from the start, we felt that something terrible was going to happen, or some major reveal was on its way. The latter turned out to be right, and while I had already suspected it, having a mild piece of confirmation made it so much more impacting. If you didn't pick up on the revelation, you should in an episode or two. Every episode since we got back from break has been leading up to a big reveal at the end, and that adds some enticing confusion to everything up until that point. It makes repeat viewing even more necessary than before.

It helps that this was a particularly exciting episode, and it didn't have to do with any case-of-the-week scenario. Right from the beginning, this episode was about Walternate's machine and its relationship to Peter. The device itself has such a menacing look to it, borrowing most prominently from the device Mewtwo was hooked up to towards the beginning of the first Pokemon movie. It's ridiculous parallel, but it's a fascinating one as well. This episode was another analysis of the state of the situation, much like 6955 kHz. Suddenly it felt as if a completely new case was butting heads with the initial conflict of the episode, as somebody has been hunting down and killing shapeshifters.

From that moment on, the episode is an intense hunt for whatever mole has infiltrated Massive Dynamic or Fringe Division. I was so worried for most of the episode that Astrid was the mole, seeing as everything started going down after she started tackling Fauxlivia's computer files. Instead, the truth turned out to be far simpler, yet unexpected. I think that everybody picked up on the doctor being more than what he seemed, but even though I knew that Peter was going out at night for some mysterious reason, I could never have guessed that he was the one killing off those shapeshifters.

Olivia continued to recover from the emotional trauma of returning home, but it was such a meaningful episode for her because she started to see the humanity in her doppelganger. The two think in similar manners, so it allows for Olivia to in some ways empathize with the woman who stole her life. It's horrible, but that was the job that Fauxlivia was meant to fulfill, and she reacted as emotionally to it as we would expect our Olivia to. There are differences between the two, one having not been subject to Walter and William Bell's drug trials, but they're just alternate versions of the same person. However, this episode was far more about Peter than anyone else. The reveal at the end that the machine had "weaponized" him was equal in shock to when Olivia became convinced that she was Fauxlivia. It's frightening to think that he might be changing for the worst, and it's some strange foreshadowing of the events still to come. As for what I didn't like, Josh Singer remains my least favorite writer on the show in terms of dialogue, and that showed a bit this week. However, the execution of the story along with the outstanding performance from Joshua Jackson made it a powerful experience. That final scene is absolutely to die for, not in terms of revelation, but in terms of execution. Ultimately, this episode managed more impact and thrills than last week's Observer piece.

9.5 out of 10

Cougar Town: Lost Children

I've tried not to take up writing on half hour shows, but just because they don't have the same amount of content doesn't mean they deserve to be ignored. I'm not going to lie and say that I don't absolutely love Cougar Town, because the moment I got started on it, I was hooked. It has such a wonderful flavor to it, and I just hope that it someday earns Courtney Cox the Emmy nomination she never got from her work on Friends. The show never indulges in mythological arcs, but it's just as necessary and enjoyable as a good modern comedy like Easy A.

The episode really focused around an adult version of hide and seek, which was mostly just Jules looking desperately around for Ellie, and everyone else doing their own thing. On top of that, Grayson's friendship with Andy had a bit of trouble this week, which grew rather funny when Grayson decided to tie Andy to a tree. However, the hilarity of the episode mostly came from the search for Ellie, and was mostly concerning Travis. Why isn't he at college? There's also a wonderful shout-out to Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. "Give me back my son!"

9.2 out of 10

Sundance 2011: Best of the Fest

I guess my attempts at keeping up with the Sundance Film Festival have been something of a failure, but this has been a very busy week, and nobody is in the same place at the same time. It's rather difficult to get much done, but I've already gotten around to the bulk of really quality films like Martha Marcy May Marlene, Win Win, Like Crazy, Rebirth, and Pariah. So if the rest of the films feel like we're simply going through the rounds, then it's because we are. I display some kind of confidence that a great deal of the films on the first list could be nominated for next year's Academy Awards, because some of my favorite films of 2010 came from Sundance. I absolutely loved Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right, and the further we go into this year, the more my original Best of 2010 list continues to shift. It serves as a bit of a lesson not to announce my list so quickly.

Moving on to the here and the now, let me start off with the only film of the festival that I did have the opportunity to see, and that was the YouTube sponsored documentary Life in a Day. This is certainly something that's never been tried before, and that's an intriguing notion in and of itself. What struck me, and probably struck most people who watched it, was how it didn't feel too much like a bunch of people dorking around with their cameras, as well as how it never had any narrative string to it. It was a digital preservation of that one day, and not only the positive aspects of it, but the negative and occasionally disgusting aspects. It includes some of the most beautiful images this year, but also one of the most disturbing things ever caught on camera. A man opens up the egg of a mostly developed baby chick that died, sprinkles some salt on it, and puts it in his mouth. The fact that there's actually somebody who did that shocks me, and that's one of the images I couldn't get out of my head. It's not meant to be a critical masterpiece, but it's a lovely piece of work nonetheless.

Moving on to what was probably the most talked about premiere going into the festival, Kevin Smith's religious horror film Red State had quite a bit of controversy surrounding it. However, when you make a film where the antagonistic force is a radical priest who is harsh even by Nazi standards, you're surely going to butt heads with the Vatican. When have they ever turned down an opportunity to destroy the ambitious creativity of modern filmmakers? It goes without saying that people went to see the film anyway, mostly out of curiosity, and the response was as mixed as possible. I would never go ahead and call Kevin Smith a great filmmaker, but the man certainly has balls, and that's perhaps the most that people are saying of his latest film. It's brave, but not the work of an accomplished artist. I may still check it out when it comes around, but I'll be waiting a rather long wait for that to happen, seeing as Smith is planning to distribute Red State all by himself. On the long list of kindhearted, but ultimately stupid ideas, Smith is matched by none.

Transitioning from dark to dark, one of the early hits of the festival was Brendan Gleeson showcase The Guard. I've always gotten enjoyment from Gleeson's supporting performances, so him taking the lead role in a crime drama immediately interests me. When a generally unlikable character is put in the center of a story, you need the perfect actor for the audience not to completely despise him. It worked for George Clooney in Up in the Air. It didn't work for Ben Stiller in Greenberg. Hopefully, it works for Gleeson in The Guard. Another dark treasure that caught my eye was The Details, starring Elizabeth Banks and Tobey Maguire as a married couple. I feel shy from mentioning any reviews because they reveal far too much of the story, and though it is fantastically dark, it sounds like something I'd have rather experienced for myself. All I can say is that the response has been generally favorable, and it strikes me as a companion to American Beauty, at least from the premise of it.

One of the films at the festival that struck me as potentially being this year's The Social Network was Margin Call, set on the eve of the 2008 stock market drop. It supposedly tackles the collapse of a company, and does it with some of the greatest actors out there. Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, and the wonderful Zachary Quinto are all in the film, and even though it's been made clear by reviews that this isn't a popcorn flick, that cast has me eagerly awaiting this film, no matter the quality. That's the sort of cast that so rarely comes around, and while I have my doubts that it will deliver the same emotional drama as David Fincher's recent success, it does have a certain critical weight to it.

The last film I'll talk about, and this is a very potent contender for Best Picture next year, is Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, Higher Ground. If there was any film I expected to disappoint at the festival, it was this one. It's not because I doubt the actress' wealth as an actress, but because it's rare that they can hold as much attention behind the camera as in front of it. Reviews have been fantastic, painting this religiously conscious film in a far more favorite light than Kevin Smith's more sinister look at fundamentalists. It hasn't gotten a distributor yet, but I eagerly await the moment it does. Higher Ground could earn Farmiga her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and maybe people will stop making jokes about her name being hard to pronounce. Her name is Vera Farmiga. It's as simple a name as Clint Eastwood.

So, to wrap everything up, here are the top ten films of the festival that I am most anticipating, not including Life in a Day.


10. Win Win
9. Pariah
8. Rebirth
7. Margin Call
6. Higher Ground
5. Like Crazy
4. The Details
3. The Guard
2. Tyrannosaur
1. Martha Marcy May Marlene




Images (In Order): Vera Farmiga in Higher Ground; Red State; Kevin Spacey in Margin Call; Martha Marcy May Marlene

Oscar 2010: The World vs. "King's Speech" vs. "Social Network"

Now that it's not been nominated for any Academy Awards and was completely ignored in the box office, I'm going to say that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the outcast gem of 2010. However, I'm clearly not here to discuss the several awards that Edgar Wright's action-comedy deserved by didn't get. This Tuesday morning's Oscar nominations drew quite a lot of debate and distractions, mostly from Christopher Nolan's disheartening snub from the Best Director field. It's the category Inception most deserved to snag a nomination in, and yet it didn't. It all serves to draw attention away from the real matter at hand, and that is the completely changed Best Picture race.

First off, I'd like to take the time to comment on something that I did not comment on when the nominations were announced on Tuesday, and that is my predictions from a year ago. There more than a few that I obviously got wrong, because some films just failed to deliver on their promise. I thought that The American would add another nomination to George Clooney's resume, How Do You Know would be a return to form for James L. Brooks, and Hereafter would be Clint Eastwood's most widely adored film since Million Dollar Baby. I don't have to say it for everyone to know I was wrong, because I even expected Iron Man 2 to be nominated. The first one was so surprising in a great way, but the second proved to be surprising in a negative fashion. I'm not going to blame myself for supporting Harry Potter and Blue Valentine, because in an ideal world they would've been nominated this year. However, I was right about Inception, True Grit, Toy Story 3, and The Social Network, so four out of ten isn't anything to wine about.

Back to the present, or rather the more recent past, months ago we thought that there was no excitement left in this year's Oscar race. It seems we were wrong, and painfully so. The King's Speech came out with 12 Oscar nominations this Tuesday, a rather astounding total for a British period drama. I'm not going to start pretending that it deserved all those nominations, because it didn't. The cinematography for the film, well done as it may have been, wasn't as good as other contenders like Let Me In and Deathly Hallows: Part 1. I don't even know what to say about Sound Mixing, but even though Tom Hooper did an honest job of directing, he lacked the unique creative vision of some of the other contenders. This is coming from somebody who absolutely adored the film, so don't lose sight of that.

For Your Anticipation: I've Conned People

Last week might've been a mild success for Fringe in terms of writing, but it was an outstanding success in terms of ratings. It looks like the gamble that FOX has taken in placing their best show on Friday nights has ultimately payed off. Keep in mind, the numbers are still nowhere near the tally of shows like Glee or American Idol, but they are surely on the rise. Tonight's episode is a promising one, with two major problems for the Fringe team to deal with. First, Massive Dynamic has constructed Walternate's device, and we may start to learn more about its relationship to Peter. Second, there may be a mole in the Fringe Division, and that is a frightening notion to think over. Though Fringe may have done well last Friday, I still suggest that if you haven't tuned in yet, tonight is as good a time as any to start!

Theatrical Trailer: Beginners

The blank splotches on the chart of films releasing in 2011 are beginning to fill in, some less favorably than others. Beginners, from director Mike Mills, is one of the others, and it's amongst my most anticipated films of the year. The first six months of this year are so brimming with quality films lying below the surface, and we can't be sure what will be nominated for Best Picture this time next year. However, at this current moment, the dramedy starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, and Melanie Laurent has a spot reserved on my year-in-advance list. It looks like a sweet romance, an emotional story of father and son, and a deep tale of the choices we make in life and love. On top of that, that dog is just so cutely off-kilter and oddly realistic. I can't wait to see Beginners. Checkout the trailer, and let me know if you feel the same.

Potter-Watch (36-43 of 77): Spoken Like A True Politician

It has been some time hasn't it. It just becomes so damn hard to keep up with the news on the final film in the epic saga of Harry Potter, and we've had so few of these posts in the past two months that it only seems right to cram the many notable events in one post. Of course, this could just be me trying to justify poor planning and neglecting my self-set requirements, but so what? Let's get right into it.

36. David Yates and Tom Felton on Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Very high emphasis on the fact that this is the last film, and I think we're all in agreement that we want them to do it right.

37. Tale of the Three Brothers Concept Art
One of the most visually striking scenes of the film, and probably part of the reason the film was nominated for Art Direction.

38. Notable Death Scene from Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Changed
I feel too shy about giving away whose it is, but if you don't care about spoilers than continue on.

39. Deathly Hallows: Part 1 DVD Releasing April 11th
It always seems a bit soon for them to release the DVD, but the film didn't really stay in theaters too long.

40. 10 Minutes of Deleted Scenes on Part 1 DVD
This should surely satiate a few fans who were so ravenous they weren't even pleased with the scenes that made it into the film.

41. Kelly Macdonald cast as Grey Lady
I can't begin to explain how excited I am about about Yates reuniting with one of his collaborators in the past...

42. Kelly Macdonald Originally Supposed to Play Tonks
...and I can't even start to describe how disappointed I am that she wasn't able to play Tonks instead of the dreadful actress they eventually went with.

43. First Image from Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Eduardo Serra wasn't nominated for his stunning cinematography on Part 1, but he does have another shot with the epic finale of the epic finale. The image can be seen at the top of the page.