Top 50 Movies of the 2010's

Top 50 Movies of the 2010's

2014 Oscar Nominations Predictions

Best Picture

• Boyhood

• Birdman

• The Imitation Game

• The Grand Budapest Hotel

• The Theory of Everything

• Whiplash

• Selma

• American Sniper

• Nightcrawler

Best Director

• Richard Linklater for Boyhood

• Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman

• Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Damien Chazelle for Whiplash

• Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game

Best Actor

• Michael Keaton for Birdman

• Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything

• Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler

• David Oyelowo for Selma

• Bradley Cooper for American Sniper

Best Actress

• Julianne Moore for Still Alice

• Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything

• Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl

• Reese Witherspoon for Wild

• Jennifer Aniston for Cake

Best Supporting Actor

• J.K. Simmons for Whiplash

• Edward Norton for Birdman

• Ethan Hawke for Boyhood

• Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher

• Steve Carell for Foxcatcher

Best Supporting Actress

• Patricia Arquette for Boyhood

• Emma Stone for Birdman

• Kiera Knightley for The Imitation Game

• Rene Russo for Nightcrawler

• Meryl Streep for Into the Woods

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Graham Moore for The Imitation Game

• Gillian Flynn for Gone Girl

• Nick Hornby for Wild

• Anthony McCarten for The Theory of Everything

• Jason Hall for American Sniper

Best Original Screenplay

• Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo for Birdman

• Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness for The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Richard Linklater for Boyhood

• Dan Gilroy for Nightcrawler

• E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman for Foxcatcher

Best Cinematography

• Birdman

• The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Mr. Turner

• Interstellar

• Unbroken

Best Costume Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Into the Woods

• The Imitation Game

• Maleficent

• Mr. Turner

Best Film Editing

• Boyhood

• Birdman

• The Imitation Game

• Whiplash

• American Sniper

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• Guardians of the Galaxy

• The Grand Budapest Hotel

• The Theory of Everything

Best Original Score

• The Grand Budapest Hotel

• The Imitation Game

• The Theory of Everything

• Interstellar

• Unbroken

Best Original Song

• Glory from Selma

• Lost Stars from Begin Again

• I'm Not Gonna Miss You from Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

• Land Ho! from Land Ho!

• Opportunity from Annie

Best Production Design

• The Grand Budapest Hotel

• Interstellar

• Birdman

• The Imitation Game

• Into the Woods

Best Sound Editing

• Guardians of the Galaxy

• Interstellar

• Unbroken

• American Sniper

• Fury

Best Sound Mixing

• Guardians of the Galaxy

• Unbroken

• American Sniper

• Whiplash

• The Imitation Game

Best Visual Effects

• Guardians of the Galaxy

• Interstellar

• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

• X-Men: Days of Future Past

• Maleficent

Best Animated Film

• The LEGO Movie

• Big Hero 6

• How to Train Your Dragon 2

• The Tales of Princess Kaguya

• The Boxtrolls

Best Documentary Feature

• CITIZENFOUR

• The Overnighters

• Last Days in Vietnam

• The Salt of the Earth

• The Case Against 8

Best Foreign Film

• Ida

• Wild Tales

• Timbuktu

• Tangerines

• Force Majuere 

2012 Oscar Predictions

My Oscar Predictions

Best Picture

"Argo"

 

Best Director

David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook"

 

Best Actor

Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln"

 

Best Actress

Jennifer Lawrence in "Silver Linings Playbook"

 

Best Supporting Actor

Christoph Waltz in "Django Unchained"

 

Best Supporting Actress

Anne Hathaway in "Les Miserables"

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Chris Terrio for "Argo"

 

Best Original Screenplay

Quintin Tarantino for "Django Unchained"

Top Ten Movies of 2012

It's common in these year end retrospectives to try to find some sort of narrative through-line  a nice little bow to succinctly wrap around the year, in order to sum up just what this year was all about. In terms of cinema, 2012, for me, was a year of surprises.

Coming off what I felt was a relatively lackluster 2011, 2012 was one of highly anticipated releases. With new films from some of my favorite directors like Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, and Paul Thomas Anderson on the horizon, you could say I had my hopes up for a strong year on the silver screen. Interestingly though, out of the four directors I have just cited, only one of their films made my list for the ten best movies of the year.

It's not to say that I disliked any one of the movies made by these fine directors, they all turned in solid work (if somewhat subpar compared only to their ridiculously high standards they have set on their previous cinematic excursions), but personally, I felt most of them were surpassed by people I have always considered "second-tier" directors. These are auteurs whose films I usually like and respect, but directors whose films I've never loved with the passion I have felt for the films from the quartet of directors mentioned above. This is why I say then 2012 was a year of "surprises".

Overall, I felt it was a pretty solid year at the movies. If I was to give it a grade, I would mostly likely give it a B+. While no film blew me away to the extent that The Tree of Life did last year, or even The Social Network the year before that, there were a plethora of really smart, concise films in 2012. I had no problem filling out a list of ten movies this year, and there were even a handful or so of films I had to leave off the list that I could easily see making my "top ten" in a weaker cinematic year.

It was also a special year for me in the fact that I attended the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time. In fact, four of the films that made my list I first laid eyes on in one of the beautiful theaters of Ontario's capital city. The festival was a wonderful experience and one that I highly recommend to any film fans considering making the trip north of the border.

Finally, before I get to the list, I must issue a disclaimer of sorts. Not living in either New York or Los Angeles, I do not have the benefit of seeing as many films as I would like to in a timely manner (although this year has been much better than usual). This means that some films, especially foreign films, I was not able to see before the writing of this article. In particular, Michael Haneke's Oscar-nominated Best Picture hopeful, Amour (which doesn't reach my part of the world until February 8), is one I would have liked to have seen before compiling this list (it ranked all the way up to #2 on RU's own Marc Eastman's top ten list). I would have also liked to have seen the much ballyhooed Cannes film festival entry, Holy Motors, but I suspect it will be some time before I will be able to see that surrealist treat.

I was also put in the peculiar position, because of my Toronto attendance, of having seen a few films that won't be released to wider audiences until 2013. In order to make my list as relatable to the general movie-going public as possible, I decided to disqualify these films from my list. I will say though, that one film in particular, Noah Baumbach's Francis Ha, would have made it very high on my list (maybe even at the top spot), so when it does make it to a theater near you, take the time to check it out. Undoubtedly, unless 2013 is the greatest year in the history of film, it will feature on my top ten list next year.

2012 Oscar Predictions

From about the age of ten, I have been inexplicably fascinated with the Academy Awards. If pressed to explain the foundation of this obsession with an awards show from what is ultimately just an arbitrary body of members with vastly varying tastes across the many different disciplines it requires to put a competent movie up on the silver screen, I'm not sure I could muster up a satisfactory response.

I suspect at the time my Oscar obsession grew from what seemed like the perfect marriage between the art of cinema and the competition of sports, but even now, these many years later after hours of voluntary studying of countless Oscar books (to the point where I can name every Best Picture winner chronologically from memory), I still can't explain it in any way that doesn't make me sound like some freakish Oscar junkie. Nevertheless, between the Oscar season and the NFL playoffs, you can guess this is one of my favorite times of the year, and one of my favorite past times of the awards season is predicting the Academy Award nominees.

While I may not be at the level of some of the top Oscar prognosticators out there in the blogosphere, I usually bat a fairly good percentage. After so many years of anticipating the early morning announcements, and all the disappointments and jubilation that come with it, you get an almost sixth sense to the Academy's quirks and hang-ups. Of course, looking at precursor award announcements such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Golden Globes gives you a rough idea of what the nominees will look like, but the fun is predicting the deviations, such as last year's Max Von Sydow Best Supporting Actor nomination for his turn as a deaf-mute man in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It's in predicting these surprises that you really earn your bones as an Oscar prognosticator and gain gloating rights for your "insight" into the Academy.

With that in mind, below is my best guess on how 2012's Oscar nominations will play out. For the bigger categories (Picture, Director, Acting categories, and Writing categories) I have provided in depth analysis of the races as I currently see them. For the below the line categories, I have simply listed my predictions. If you want to skip the analysis altogether and just glance over my predictions, at the bottom of this article is the list of all my predictions in total, so feel free to check it out.
I have also included an alternative choice for each category (as a cheap way to get in one extra prediction) and also a possible pleasant surprise, as well as a possible unpleasant surprise. The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards will be announced this Thursday morning, so if you want to come back and rag on how wrong I was, or praise my brilliant forecasting (I hope the latter) in the comment section below, feel free to do so. Here goes nothing!

Review: Killing Them Softly

 



"A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges."

This quote, from founding father Benjamin Franklin, doesn't appear anywhere in Killing Them Softly, but I think it sums up the movie fairly succinctly.

From all outward appearances and marketing, Killing Them Softly is yet another entry in the never out of style gangster genre, a genre which is one of the most well-established perennials of American cinema. Don't fool yourself though, this film ain't Heat. It's not Donnie Brasco either, or The Untouchables, or even Goodfellas. In terms of accessibility, Killing Them Softly is a much pricklier pear than these relatively straightforward films.

By way of plot, there is very little. Not much actually happens in the movie when you break it down step by step (which may partly be due to its brisk run time of 97 minutes). There's a lot of dialogue, all superbly written and acted, but it doesn't necessarily lead to any plot revelations or narrative expansion. Instead, what we get from all this conversational back and forth is mostly tangential chatter, tangential chatter which is used in service of the film's true goal: an allegory on the current state of the good ol' US of A.

Review: Life of Pi



Even though many are proclaiming the demise of the written word, and in some cases such as print media this consternation appears to be warranted, there is still a sizable market of people who are only too eager to read the latest smash novel from the latest flavor of the month author. Particularly in the young-adult fantasy genre, with series like Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games, there are more than enough adolescent eyes scavenging the literary landscape to fulfill publishers' monetary wants and desires.

Somewhat surprisingly though, this trend has not been limited strictly to the youths of the world, with their abundance of free time just looking to be filled with a book, but has also extended to their busy parents, who manage to squeeze in some reading in between their numerous daily obligations that make up their lives. Adult fiction, using every connotation of the word when it comes to the Fifty Shades of Grey series, is a growing market, and one of the first books to cash in on this trend at the turn of the new millennium was Life of Pi.

Winner of multiple literary awards and a New York Times Bestseller, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would adapt author Yann Martel's allegorical survival tale into 2-hour length cinematic adventure. As can be seen by the trio of aforementioned fantasy series in the opening paragraph of this review, Hollywood studio execs, being the unimaginative, risk-adverse buggers that they are, are always very ready and willing to adopt established intellectual property into silver screen gold. In fact, given the box office returns on best-selling literary adaptations, the biggest mystery is why this film stayed in development purgatory for such a long time, but the day has come and its time has finally arrived.

Review: Lincoln

 



For years now I've heard about Spielberg's "Lincoln project," and for years now I have been glad every time he has past it up to move on to some other movie. Why is this you ask?

It is not because of the all too chic pasttime among cinephiles to disparage the super-director of his just due. In my book, Spielberg is unarguably one of the all time greatest directors in the history of the medium, and this is one of the few arguments in film that I believe can be made on an objective level. My lack of enthusiasm then was caused by what I percieve to be the man's strenghs and weaknesses, for as great as an auteur may be, they all have things they excel at and they all have aspects they struggle with.

In skimming his filmography, delineating between his hits, misses, and in-betweens, it is clear (at least to me) that what Spielberg does best is a kind of sentimental humanism (most akin to the work of Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa). Often ensconced in fantasy settings such as in films like E.T., Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the Indiana Jones trilogy (I'm still in denial over Crystal Skull), what most often comes through in Spielberg's work is a joy of people and life, as well as film. Try as he might at times, Spielberg is just not a cynical person. There is too much genuine excitement and energy in the man's essence to pick up on the subtler nuances of life which are only acquired through the jaded eyes of weary travelers.

Review: Flight

If you are a rabid consumer of news in the cine-osphere, following all the latest tidbits and op-eds on all things film, then you'll likely know of the increasingly precarious state of the mid-budget drama. 

What use to be the bulk of any given year's film slate has recently become a more endangered species than the Siberian Tiger. In absence of a wide array of choices for adult cineastes, the movie going public has been left with two radically contrasting options: either see a vapid, glorified pinball machine with a bunch of guys running around in capes saving the world from its ever-present impending doom, or see a post-grad's treatise on the injustice of the current socio-economic system where the emotions are SO REAL, and the issues are SO IMPORTANT. If you feel like anything in between, such as a movie in which its characters have a semblance of real human emotions but isn't too pretentious to realize that works of cinema should engage the audience in an entertaining way, then Hollywood has basically given you the metaphorical middle-finger.

This frustration with the studio system's obstinance towards funding anything outside its narrowly imagined view of what moviegoers are willing to see is felt just as passionately (if not more so) on the creative side of things. Directors with fairly big names (people such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Charlie Kaufman, and David Croenberg just to name a few) have found it exceedingly difficult to find funding for their original projects, even in instances when big name actors have been attached to their work and forgo their typical star salaries. In Hollywood's mind, the demand is just not there and the risks are just not worth it, which has made cable television the last bastion of adult-oriented drama.

Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

As the movies have shown us, if not life itself, growing up is hard. In particular, that awkward pre-teen/teenager transition from middle school to high school can be especially difficult. Children, being the relative newcomers to existence that they are, tend to be socially untrained and unrefined (i.e. themselves). It doesn't take many years of communal education though before the "normalization" process begins to occur, putting extreme pressure on any personalities deemed too unique to conform, or suffer the consequences.

This awesome terror put upon the fragile psyches of blooming adolescents can have a number of different effects, but for introverted among us, the all too common occurrence is a detachment from the world that surrounds us. Like a war correspondent reporting from some exotic, savaged landscape, the name of the game becomes observation and survival. Keep your head down, keep your eyes open, and stick to the sidelines, hoping that when the day is done, you'll come out unscathed.

Review: End of Watch

 



Have you ever watched an episode of Cops and thought to yourself, "Gee, they should really turn this into a movie! That would be awesome!" Well, if these words, or somwething approximate, have flown through your television-saturated brain at somepoint, then your wait is over and your wish has been granted.

End of Watch follows the lives of two blue-collar, street-level LAPD cops, Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena). Using the conceit that Brian is filming his daily life as an assignment for a film class, we watch through the lens of an "amatuer" handheld video as the two cops patrol the streets, bust some baddies, shoot the breeze, uncover the nefarious dealings of a Mexican drug cartel, and live the typical lives of LAPD beat cops working in the grimy sections of the "City of Angels".

If this summation is giving you an odd sense of deja vu, that's no coincidence, because "typical" seemed to be the governing philosophy behind pretty much every aspect of this movie.

Toronto Film Festival 2012

If you have been disappointed with 2012's cinematic output thus far, keep the faith, because I come bearing good news.

The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 6-16, and with it came premieres and sneak peaks of some of the mostly highly anticipated films releasing in the latter half of 2012. This was my first time at the festival and I have to say, it was an absolute blast. For any cinephiles who have considered attending the festival, I can't recommend it highly enough. It may have been due to the overall high quality of the film crop, but I can think of few events that would be as enjoyable for film lovers as this year's Toronto Film Festival was.

I know you don't care about my own personal experiences though and would rather hear about the movies, so let's get down to business.
Below is my ranking, from least favorite to favorite, of the ten films I saw at TIFF 2012. As you will see from my ratings, even the lowest ranks films of the lot had aspects to admire, which just speaks to the high level of talent on display at this year's festival. There were a few films, such as The Master, Seven Psychopaths, A Place Beyond the Pines, and Amour, that I had really wanted to see but was unable to. For the most part though I heard great things about all four of these films, and when you add these in conjunction with the films I saw, plus the highly anticipated films not at the festival (Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Lincoln, Life of Pi, and Zero Dark Thirty just to name a few), and regardless of your opinion on 2012's slate of movies up to this point, you can't help but feel things are shaping up nicely for the back half of the year.
Anyway, without further ado, my 2012 TIFF experience:

Oscar Predictions: A Shot in the Dark

     

      I can hardly believe it, as it seems that we just wrapped up last year's awards season not all that long ago, but the start of the 2011 awards season is almost upon us. In less than a month's time, buzz from this and that festival will start to shape the landscape for the long trek of the moviedom awards rat race that culminates (usually in a pretty anti-climatic fashion) with the Academy Awards ceremony in late-February. Like the beginning of every sports season, now is the time when hope reigns supreme. Every film with an actor who, at least at one time, meant something, with a director who has shown signs of promise either now or in the past, with a writer who has contributed to some significant films, or even with a synopsis that sounds sufficiently "awards-baity", clings to the idea that they will be the breakout sensation of the year, and frankly, as far as we're concerned, why not. With the exception of the privileged few who have had the opportunity to see some the year's end films before the rest of us, we have no idea which films will be this year's "The King's Speech", and which films will be this year's "Hereafter". Obviously, for would-be Oscar prognosticators such as myself, this makes the task of predicting the Academy's taste nearly impossible at this point, but that's kind of fun of making guesses this far out. If something actually pans out, you look like a sooth-saying genius, and if you miss almost everything, no one thinks to hold you responsible. Only upside!

     In terms of film's that already released this year, so far there are only two that have received any significant Oscar buzz: Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" and Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris". For frequent readers of this blog, you'll know my extreme adoration for Malick's "The Tree of Life", as the only articles I have written as of late have been nothing but excuses to gush over the film. Having given it a perfect 10 in my review of the film, I have a hard time imagining any film released later in the year topping it, but even, so I am somewhat doubtful of the film successfully navigating the rough waters of the Oscar season and taking home the Academy's top prize. The film is too esoteric, too experimental, too untraditional to win the Oscar for Best Picture, no matter how deserving it is. The only way the film has any chance in hell of having a successful awards season is with heaps and heaps of critical praise, which so far it is mounting, receiving the Cannes film festival's Palme d'Or back in May and more recently, earning FIPRESCI's (an international film critics body) film of the year (calendar running from September-to-September, meaning it beat out film's such as "The Social Network"), but as David Fincher's excellent "The Social Network" proved last year, often times even all the praise in the world from the highest sources of film criticism aren't enough to budge the Academy's stubborn affection for traditional sentimentalist filmmaking.

     As for the other film, Woody Allen's most popular film in years (and I believe his highest-grossing film ever, not adjusting for inflation), "Midnight in Paris", I would bet strongly on it receiving a writing award (Allen has been nominated many times for this award even when the film itself did not receive support in other categories), but outside of this I'm skeptical of it's chances. It's a good film (probably my favorite Woody Allen film since 1999's "Sweet and Lowdown"), and I could very well see it ending up in my top ten list at the end of the year, but with the Academy's new rules in the Best Picture category, where the number of nominees in the category is variable and depends on how many film's receive over 5% first place votes, I have a hard time picturing the film getting an enormous amount of 1st place ballots, given the light and fun nature of the story.

Filmography: Terrence Malick

    

    As some of you may have noticed (if anyone is still out there), the frequency of posts on this blog has dropped significantly over the last few weeks. My weekly retrospective Oscar article "If I Picked the Winners" has ceased and with the exception of some new trailers and one or two reviews of some of the summer's newest films, I haven't been on the ball in terms of updating this blog. The reason for scarcity of new articles is due to some work I am doing on side projects, and in all honesty, the sparse posting rate will likely continue for a few more weeks. I've missed writing articles for this blog though, so I thought I would take a breather from some of the other things I'm working on to introduce a new feature for auteurfan: Filmography. The idea behind Filmography is to review the entire body of work from an auteur (and maybe some actors too). It won't be a weekly article like "If I Picked the Winners" was (which I do plan to pick up again at some point), but I will periodically pick an auteur, discussing his style and imprint on cinema, and than rank his (or theoretically her) entire filmography, from my least favorite film in their repertoire to their absolute best.

     For my opening edition of Filmography, I thought I'd start with the auteur who has been most on my mind this summer: Terrence Malick. The enigmatic filmmaker (he never does interviews and hasn't allowed a photo of himself to be published since the 1970's) is coming off the success of his highly praised new film "The Tree of Life", starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. The film (which is semi-autobiographical) is loosely based on a family growing up during in Waco, Texas during the 1950's, but it is more a menagerie of images contemplating and reflecting on the nature of existence. I recently reviewed film (which if you missed it, you can check out by clicking here), where I gushed over it's philosophical prowess and general brilliance, given it the highest ranking of 10. The film is easily the best film I've seen this year, and even if that isn't much of an endorsement (and so far it isn't), and encourage every filmgoer to go see it (keeping an open mind and adventurous attitude toward non-narrative filmmaking).

     "The Tree of Life" may be the culmination of what Malick has been trying to get across since his feature film debut in 1973, "Badlands" (a review for which I wrote here). Even within the confines of the film's narrative about two young lovers who go on a cross country killing spree, staples and themes are established that Malick has dealt with in every film since. In terms of raw filmmaking techniques and trademarks, the reliance on reflective narration by either the central protagonist(s) or some secondary observer (usually spoken in a hushed voice and mannered pace), revelrous shots of nature from the ground (or human's ) perspective, and measured pacing that let the film's events unfold instead of being foisted on the audience, all can be found in Malick's first film all the way through his last. In particular, in Malick's obsession with nature, I think we find the driving force behind Malick as an artist.

     Malick again and again comes back to man's relation to nature, and his love/hate relationship with his caretaker/captor, as his primary concern. A philosophy-major Rhode Scholar at Harvard who then went on to Oxford where he attempted to get a PhD in philosophy, but left after a falling out with his advisor (his thesis was unsurprisingly to be on Martin Heidegger, another man obsessed with man's place in nature), Malick's philosophical roots are always at the forefront of his films. In fact, the intellectual nature of his films are one of the hallmark signs of a Malick film. Ironically though, even though philosophy (outside of film) is one of my favorite subjects, the cerebral flavor of Malick's films has always been a barrier stopping me from embracing his work to the extent that others have. It's not that the ideas he presents are so beyond the grasp of the human mind as to make them indecipherable, even if hidden, they are usually plain (but interesting) enough to comprehend, but they exist in such a realm of the mind to almost dehumanize them. At times, his films have an almost academic feel to them, as if we were God study his creatures, like scientist watching lab mice attempting to navigate the maze we have built for them. In other words, they lack a certain subjectivity, making them feel a bit icy in their staunch objectivity. The result (for me anyway) is I end up admiring them more than loving them (although this is not the case with my favorite Malick film).

     The thing that Malick is famous (notorious) for is his slow work rate. Since his debut feature in 1973, Malick has made an astonishingly few 5 films, which includes a twenty year break between his second feature, "Days of Heaven" (1978), and his third feature, "The Thin Red Line" (1998) (most of the absence was spent teaching in France). His sparse output though has only added to his mystique and has made the release of his films eagerly anticipated epic events. Even during his long hiatus though, Malick did not abandon film altogether, as he continued to develop ideas during his cinematic fallow. In particular, through much of the 1980's he was developing a project simply referred to as "Q", which would explore the origins of life on earth. Although he eventually ended up abandoning the project, some of the ideas lasted and appeared in the wonderful "evolution" sequence in "The Tree of Life".

     Since his return to film in 1998, his work rate has steadily increased. After 1998's "The Thin Red Line", he was back with another film a mere seven years later (cut down from the previous twenty year span between "Days of Heaven" and "The Thin Red Line") with 2005's "The New World". For his next film, he managed to cut a year off of that for a six year difference between "The New World" and this year's "The Tree of Life", but now the unthinkable may occur. We may get two Malick films in two years, as he has already wrapped filming on his newest film with a release tentatively scheduled for some time next year. Nobody knows a lot about the film yet (right now it doesn't even have a title) other than the fact it supposedly fits into the "romance" genre, but it does sport an impressive cast that includes Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Javier Bardem, Jessica Chastain (from "The Tree of Life"), and Barry Pepper just to name a few. After the film's release, maybe I'll go back and place it among the rest of his work, but for now Malick has five films to his name, so lets delve into those films.

Scorsese's "Hugo" Gets a Trailer

     Given his amazing track record, whenever a Martin Scorsese film is released, my movie antenna is raised. Only considering his filmography over last decade, with his extensive collaborations with actor Leonardo DiCaprio on such modern classics as "The Departed", "The Aviator", and "Shutter Island",  there is plenty of reason to get into a tizzy over the newest "Scorsese". This is why I placed "Hugo" (at the time titled "Hugo Cabret", which itself was shortened from the original title of "The Invention of Hugo Cabret") as my second most anticipated film of 2011 (a list you can check out by clicking here). Part of the reason I put the film so high on the list, other than Scorsese's impeccable reputation, is because it is the filmmaker's first foray into the "family" genre. A "family-friendly Scorsese film" seemed oxymoronic, which is exactly what peeked my interest. What would be someone who typically dwells in the dark recesses of 20th Century American Crime see in the "kids" film genre? What take would an auteur who consistently deals with conflicted emotions of hate and redemption be able to do fantasy world of imagination and wonder? We'll have to wait to later in the year to answer these questions, but I have to admit that my excitement to these answers have waned somewhat after viewing the trailer. From the trailer, "Hugo" appears to pretty conventional "family film" fare (aside from above par art direction), including the obligatory "uptight adult authority chasing whimsical children" sequence, but as any veteran filmgoer knows, trailers can be misleading, so I reserve final judgement for when I actually see the film later in the year. One things for sure though, between Scorsese's "Hugo" and Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin", this is definitely a year for high-profile directors family films.

Review: The Tree of Life

     Terrence Malick is considered by many as one of the all-time great auteurs. Even with his sparse work rate (he's made five films in 38 years, which includes a twenty year break in between his second and third features), he has still managed to craft a reputation for himself as a master of the craft.  Many profess their profound love for his work, citing each of his films as influential masterpieces that deserve to be put up among the pantheon of the greatest works in the history of cinema. Unfortunately though, I've never been able to get on the Malick bandwagon. While I admire and enjoy most of his films (read everything but 2005's "The New World"), there is always something about them that keeps me back a bit, something strangely distant about them. It's hard to pin down exactly what it is about his films that keep me from embracing them as much as I would like, but if I had to hazard a guess, I think I would say the problem with his films is a lack of humanity. With endless shots of nature and the environment surrounding his characters, the lives of the protagonists have always seemed secondary to his interest in the world barring down on them, giving them a cold, almost austere feeling.

     To cure this, I would have thought the answer would be to go the traditional route and focus more on the narrative, making the stories more character driven, like the films of some of my all-time favorite auteurs such as Tarantino and Kurosawa. Apparently I would have been wrong though, because the thing Malick needed was not to go more into the traditional narrative, but less. For this is exactly what he does with "The Tree of Life", only retaining the slightest semblance of narrative but paradoxically creating the most human film of his career , one of the most human films in the history of cinema. I wouldn't have thought it going into the film, but Malick's almost experimental "The Tree of Life" gives him a film I can embrace with total sincerity, whole-heartedly. Finally, a true masterpiece that belongs with the greatest films in the history of the moving image.

Review: Super 8

     Have you ever anxiously taken a bite out of your favorite food, say pizza, cake, ice cream, buffalo wings, or whatever floats your boat (and if it's not one of the aforementioned foods, you're a terrible excuse for a human being, just so you know), and half-way through chewing, stopped dead in your tracks. Your face takes on a terrible expression that would undoubtedly frighten any passersby and your heart flutters a bit, possibly skipping a beat. "What the hell did I just take a bite out of". You looked at the food before you took a bite and it looked the same as always, smelled the same as always, felt the same as always, so why doesn't it taste the same as always? It might not even necessarily taste terrible, just different, definitely not what you were expecting (which is the cause of the shock). Now, I'm about as far from a cook as humanly possible, so I'm not going to begin to pretend that I know what the difference is between the "usual" and "flawed", but presumably the ingredients are pretty much the same in both the "good" batch and the "bad" batch. It's likely just slight differences in mixture that, to the particular taste of human beings, make a world of difference. Which finally brings me around to the purpose of this article, J.J. Abrams'"Super 8".

News: First Trailer for "Moneyball"

     When I made my Top 5 Anticipated of 2011 list, I put "Moneyball" on top partly because of the people involved ("The Social Network" writer Aaron Sorkin, "Capote" director Bennet Miller, and actors such as Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jonah Hill, and Chris Pratt), but mostly because of the interesting subject matter. How do you make a movie about a typical style of general managing? It's not the most obvious subject matter to explore on screen, which is why I'm so curious to see how it is executed. Well we now have our first glimpse of how it will be done with the film's trailer. Obviously, it is always hard to pick a movie's success based on the trailer, so I don't want to put too much stock in it, but it still looks very promising. Check it out for yourself and make up your own mind down below.

News: "Django Unchained" Gets a Release Date

     Christmas 2012 folks, I'm already counting down the days (and not because I believe it will be the end of the world). If you're a reader of this blog, then you probably know I am an avid fan of everything Quentin Tarantino does. The man has yet to make a film that falls short of "masterpiece" in my book, making him without a doubt my all-time favorite director. This is why I wait with baited breath for his next release, "Django Unchained", a spaghetti "Southern" about an escaped slave who teams up with a bounty hunter to free his wife and take revenge on her slave holder. We already know that Tarantino alum Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson are singed up for the film and it looks more and more like Leonardo DiCaprio will be playing the part of the film's villain (which is extremely exciting for me, seeing as DiCaprio is my favorite working actor). The lead role of Django is still up for grabs, but it looks like original frontrunner Will Smith will not be taking on the controversial role. Right now, the three names being floated around are Jaime Foxx, Chris Tucker, and Idris Elba (who created the very memorable character Stringer Bell on the greatest dramatic television show ever, "The Wire"). Whoever Tarantino picks, at least now we know when we will get to see the finished product, Christmas 2012. While I had wished it would be coming out a little sooner than that, I just happy to get a release date. It looks like in the year 2012, Christmas will be the best day of the year for reasons that has absolutely nothing to do with the holiday.

News: Oscar Finds a Happy-Medium

     If your a close follower of the Academy Awards (or an obsessed nerd such as myself), then you'll know that the previous two Oscars the Academy has experimented with expanding the Best Picture lineup to ten nominations, after it had retained five slots for the big kahuna of awards since 1944. I have generally been a fan of the ten nominee category because I felt it has allowed the Academy to spotlight a larger array of movies and genres, but some have felt that doubling the amount of nominees has diluted the prestige of a Best Picture nomination.

     Well today, the Academy announced a compromise between these two positions. Instead of strictly have either five or ten nominated films, the number of Best Picture nominees will now be a variable number, depending on how many films receive over 5% first-place Best Picture votes from Academy member. Now the category will still retain a minimum of five nominees and a maximum of ten nominees (even if 4 or fewer, or 11 or higher, films receive over 5% first-place votes), but this means each year we could have anywhere from the old-fashioned five, to the new ten. Apparently, if this practice had been in place over the last few years, we would of had years with 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, but not 10 Best Picture nominees.

     It's an interesting idea, and though I was okay with the ten nominations, it will definitely make the announcement of the nominees much more exciting. It will also make prognosticators work much harder, for now no will can even be sure how many films will be nominated, much less which films it will be. It is also likely to make debates much more heated, because now ever attack can be seen as direct attempt to lower a film's popularity just enough to make it miss the cut. It will be very interesting to see how it all plays out. If you want to see the official announcement yourself, along with some other minor changes the Academy made in a few other categories, click here.