News: NBR Announces 2010 Awards

     The National Board of Review (NBR) announced its annual film awards yesterday. If you're asking yourself, "Who is the NBR?", don't worry about it, nobody really knows who the NRB is exactly. There not film critics, there not really industry professionals, and they even include bankers, but regardless of this fact, there annual awards mark the unofficial start of the awards season. This year's big winner was "The Social Network", which won Best Film, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Jessie Eisenberg), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin). NBR also lists an additional Top Ten, which I was happy to see included one of my favorite films of the year, "Shutter Island". Historically, the NBR's awards haven't had much effect on the Oscars, but it's still part of the fun tracking the rising and falling hopes of different films along the awards season. This has also reminded me that I need to update my Oscar predictions some time in the next week or two. I have been waiting to see another one of the huge contenders before I updated my predictions, and now that "127 Hours" has finally come to my area, I'm hoping to see it before making the update, but I may just do the update anyway if I can't see the film soon. In the meantime, if you want to see all the NBR's awards, click here.

Top 100: 80-71

     Another week and another ten movies on my countdown (check out 100-91 and 90-81). This week I will countdown 80-71, but unlike the previous two weeks, there is no real theme that stands out with this group. This is the first (and one of the few) weeks to include a sequel (as well as the original), there are three movies that at least indirectly deal with World War II, three (and one-halfish) foreign language films, and this is also the first and only week to include a western (sorry western fans, but it is just not my genre). No director has more than one film in this week's list, and a few of the directors are not very famous with the exceptions of the films listed. Overall though, one very famous director makes his third appearance on my list, which is the most so far. Now on to the countdown!

News: TV Shows

     I know this is a blog dedicated to film, but a lot of people who enjoy cinema also enjoy the occasional television show, so I thought I would mention some great television shows I have been watching on DVD (which has been cutting into my movie viewing time). First off are two HBO comedies. "Eastbound and Down", starring Danny McBride as a "John Rocker-like" baseball player who had it all until he went on a racist and homophobic rant, ruining his reputation and along with diminishing skills, ended his career as a professional baseball player. This forces him to come back to his home town and live with his brother while teaching P.E. classes at the local middle school. Being a delusional self-conceited narcissist, instead of focusing on his job he focuses on winning back his now-married high school sweet heart (who also happens to teach at the middle school), and work on getting his career back in the Majors. The show is produced by Will Ferrell (who has a small part in the show) and it does have a little of that "Look at how funny I am" style that Ferrel has made a career out of, but unlike Farrell's work, after a few episodes you actually begin to sympathize with the characters despite all their flaws. It is a really good show (that just wrapped-up its second season), so if you have HBO I would definitely check it out, and if you don't have HBO, try renting it somewhere. This is one of the best current shows on television.

     The other HBO comedy is "Bored To Death". The show has a great reoccurring cast of Jason Schwartzman (the show's star), Zach Galifianakis, and Ted Danson. The show is a semi-autobiographical show about the life of writer Jonathan Ames (Schwartzman), who also moonlights as "a non-licensed private detective". The show's comedy style is worlds apart from "Eastbound and Down", but it incredibly funny nonetheless. The show relies on situational comedy and is much more subtle than "Eastbound and Down" and many of your typical television shows. It fits in with the type of comedy that Jason Schwartzman has been attracted to, not quite comparable to Wes Anderson's films, but calling them "distant cousins" would not be a stretch by any means. It I had to chose between the two shows, I would probably go with "Eastbound and Down" by a little bit, but both shows are more than worthy of your viewership. I am also about to start watching the HBO show "Flight of the Concords", so maybe I will let you know my verdict on that after I finish watching all the episodes.

     In the non-fiction departments, there are two shows I would like to mention as well. The first is a seven part series on TCM about the history of early Hollywood titled "Moguls and Movie Stars". Unfortunately, I found out about the show a little late, so I missed the first three episodes, but if you want to check out the last few episodes, watch new episodes at 8 p.m. on Mondays and reruns at 10 p.m. on Thursdays. The two episodes I have watched are pretty good, but it disappoints me that the series is going to stop in the 60's. I know TCM is all about classic Hollywood, but there is so much interesting history in cinema that occurs after the 1960's, so it saddens me to see the series is going to stop just as the auteurs really began to take over the filmmaking process.

     Finally, I would like to mention the real "mythbusting" by magician/comedian/libertarian duo Penn and Teller. The show is called "Bullsh*t" and airs on Showtime. The show looks at mistakenly believed "truths" that are perpetrated by scam artists and scallywags, such as new age healing and environmentalism. The show is strictly libertarian and uses and lot of swear words and nudity (somewhat randomly), so if you take offense to these sort of things easily, or if you can't stand listening to rational arguments against something you believe in, you probably won't enjoy the show. The thing I love about the show is it really tries to get to the heart of the motivations behind the people pushing the scam and the people who want to believe in the scam, but there usually very careful not to overstate their arguments, pointing out in weaknesses in their arguments and clarifying what they can and can not prove. If you're interested in debates in a wide variety of issues, ranging from the political to the spiritual, I highly recommend this show.

News: James Franco and Anne Hathaway to Host 83rd Oscars

     Official word came in today that this year's Oscar ceremonies are going to be hosted by the tag-team duo of Anne Hathaway and James Franco. This seems like an obvious ploy to attract the Holy Grail of television ratings: the 18-44 audience. The Academy Award's ratings have been trending downward (for the most part) for about a decade or so and this is largely due to an evaporating younger audience that has lost interest in the once prestigious Oscars. I'm not sure if Franco and Hathaway are big enough names to draw in the "youngin's", but I guess this is the Academy's compromise between maintaining a certain level of professionalism and prestige, and appealing to the "chic and hip" crowd. The other interesting aspect of this choice is that it is almost a certainty at this point that James Franco will be nominated as Best Actor for "127 Hours", which creates an odd sort of conflict of interest situation. To my memory, there has never been a nominated actor that simultaneously hosted the Oscars, so whether Franco wins or loses I guess it should be interested (if not awkward). The main thing that bothers me about the decision is nether of these actors strike me as great comedians. It's true that Franco was funny in the stoner comedy "Pineapple Express", but that's because he was playing a character, not hosting an awards show. No matter how good a comedian is, the nature of the job is going to make it hard to pull off something memorably funny, but it would help if they actually used talented stand-up comedians. For instance, someone like the Golden Globe's host Ricky Gervais would be good, but I guess they don't want to look at copy cats. I would also be excited to see a pairing Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. How about you? Who is your idea as a perfect Oscar host?

News: Leslie Nelson Dies at Age 84

     I'm sure you know this by now, but I thought I would acknowledge the death of Leslie Nelson on Sunday. He died at the age of 84 due to complications from pneumonia. He is most famous for his career as a comedian later in life for roles in parody films such as "Airplane" and "The Naked Gun" and its sequels. I haven't seen this movies for many years, and even though I have the feeling they wouldn't quite live up to my memory if I watched them today, but I loved them as a kid. No matter what, these films stand miles ahead of the poor excuse for parodies films today like "Meet the Spartans" and his performances had a lot to do with that. Before his career as a comedian, Leslie Nelson was actually a serious dramatic actor appearing in films like "The Poseidon Adventure". It is sad news whenever a beloved film figure dies, and with the ever expanding impact of media on American culture, there are only going to be more and more of these sad announcements. I think though the best way to honor any person's memory is to discuss what stuck out about them in your mind, so if you have any cinematic  moments in Mr. Nelson's career that you would like to share, feel free to leave your memory in the comment section.