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.

If I Picked the Winners: Best Supporting Actor 1994

     Recently I have been on a tear of highlighting my favorite years in cinema. I discussed the 2007 Best Supporting Actor race (my all-time favorite cinematic 12-month period), in which Javier Bardem won for one of the most iconic villainous roles in the last decade or so with the serial-killing, air-gun aficionado, misanthrope Anton Chigurh in the Coen Brothers Best Picture-winning instant classic, "No Country for Old Men". I then went on to analyze another great year in film, 1967, where I delved into the Best Actor race (won by Rod Steiger for "In the Heat of the Night"), only to return to the extraordinary year a few weeks later with a look at the year's Best Picture race (also won by "In the Heat of the Night"). All this focus on years with outstanding cinematic output set off an atomic chain reaction in my mind, "What other years would I put up with the ranks of the 2007s and 1967s of the world". Given the large body of Oscar history (not counting the years before 1927), there is a wide variety of choice of superb years to choose from (1939 being the most commonly cited "Golden Year"), but after careful consideration, and given my current collection of viewed films (which is still frustratingly lower than I would like), the next year that I would nominate for Hall of Fame status is 1994.

     Unlike 1967, I can't really say that 1994 started a revolution or set a new language of film, but was instead the fateful aligning of planets, the blind luck of happenstance, or if you must, "the perfect storm". A group of directors, both new and old, were firing on all cylinders in 1994. Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, Tim Burton, Robert Zemeckis, Frank Darabont, and Robert Redford, for whatever reason, were all on their A-game, creating classic films that entered and stayed in our consciousness, and as always, directors on their A-game mean actors allowed to exercise their true potential. Case in point, Best Supporting Actor, which boosts a truly great lineup of amazing performances. It's the type of nominees list that you yearn for every category each year (but rarely materializes). Could it have been improved though? For once, I'm confident in answering this question in the negative. My only two possible substitutes both have questionable qualifications as "supporting" actors. The first is Bruce Willis in "Pulp Fiction" as the boxer on the run Butch. Now since one whole story line of the film is dedicated to him, I would have a hard time swallowing a nomination for him as a supporting actor, but with the Academy's awkward classification technique, I have no idea what Academy members considered the performance to be. The other case to consider is Tim Robbins in "The Shawshank Redemption". In my mind (and I feel fairly safe in saying in every sane mind in the world) Tim Robbins is the star of film, but since the Academy did nominate Morgan Freeman in leading role, we have to consider the possibility that some may have voted for Robbins as a supporting actor (which would be beyond ridiculous, but in the past, that threshold has not stopped the Academy from making unwise decisions). Finally, the one other person I would be tempted to include in the category, despite their small screen time, is Harvey Keitel as "The Wolf" in "Pulp Fiction". Like I said, it is a really small role, but it is such a memorable character, and Keitel nails it so perfectly, it would be extremely tempting to nominate him. It's a fine crop of nominees though, so let's get to it.