News: Detroit Weighs In

     The almost totally inconsequential (in terms of its effect on the Oscars) Detroit Film Critics Society came out with the year-end nominations today. While they won't have any significant effect on any other awards, I do have to say they had some interesting nominations. In particular, I really liked the two nominations for "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (Best Director for Edgar Wright and a Best Ensemble nomination), which I consider to be one of the most underrated films of the year, and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for John Hawkes in "Winter's Bone", who did a spectacular job as Jennifer Lawrence's gruff uncle in the drama about life in the Missouri Ozarks. If you want to see the full list of their nominees, click here.

Top 100: 70-61

      Amazingly, this is already the fourth week of my "Top 100 Movies" countdown. It's been going by fast, as we are now approaching the half-way point (if you missed the previous three weeks, catch up by clicking the following links: 100-91, 90-81, 80-71). Much like last week's ten, this week's list does not have any strong theme to it, other than there being a lot of Oscar contending films. Eight out of the ten films this week were nominees for Best Picture, including four movies that won Oscar's most prestigious prize, so this week will showcase some films where I am in total agreement with the Academy. In terms of genres, there isn't one that sticks out, although most of the films I guess would fall under the very generic "drama" category (which explains the correlation between the Oscar nominations and this week's list). There is no real dominant decade either, with the 1980's and 1960's tied for the most this week with 3 apiece. On the director front, there is no director that appears more than once, but there are some great auteurs on the list, including the first appearances of two of my all-time favorites. Well, I think that's enough for the tease, so now on to the countdown!

News: Academy Countdown to Oscars

     I thought I would pass along the news that the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences (the official name of for the organization that runs the Oscars), is starting a countdown to the Oscars tomorrow. This year will be the 83rd edition of the annual awards show, and tomorrow will mark 83 days until the show's premiers, so in honor of this year's show, the Academy is going to post some photos and interesting trivia about each year, from the beginning in 1927 until last year's 2009 show. If you don't know much about Oscar history, it sounds like a fun way to learn. I will definitely be checking it out myself, so maybe I will post an update giving you my opinion on it sometime. In the meantime, here is the official press release from the Academy.

    On December 7 (tomorrow!), we will be 83 days away from the 83rd Academy Awards. Beginning tomorrow, we will be counting down to the February 27 ceremony by revisiting all of the Academy Awards ceremonies that have come before. You’re invited to visit Oscars.org on December 7 – and every day thereafter – to experience highlights from throughout the history of one of the world’s most anticipated annual events. We’ll be showcasing photos, audio clips, video segments and interesting facts (from the year’s awards winners and ceremony, as well as around the world in general) and all of the content featured will be shareable.

    We hope you’ll spend a few minutes each day venturing back in time as we continue on our journey forward to the 83rd Oscars. You can sign up for our RSS feed of the Countdown, follow us on Facebook (Facebook.com/The Academy) or Twitter (twitter.com/TheAcademy), or just check oscars.org each day.

News: Washington D.C Critics Announce Their Favorites of 2010

     As part of the oncoming onslaught of awards announcements, the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association announced there yearly nominations and winners. Like the NBR Awards, the big winner was "The Social Network", winning Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay. Another successful film in the D.C. Critics awards was "The Fighter", which won both Best Supporting Actor (Christian Bale) and Best Supporting Actress (Melissa Leo). The other two big acting awards went to Colin Firth for "The King's Speech" and Jennifer Lawrence for "Winter's Bone". Like the NBR, "The Town" also won a Best Acting Ensemble award from the D.C. Critics, which is just another data point in the upward-swinging momentum of the Ben Affleck film. To check out a full list of the nominees and winners, click here.

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.