40 Guilt Trips on Jack Reacher's Unexpected Journey

(Why do I like stringing movie titles together in blog post titles? I know not!) The box office charts were exceptionally boring this weekend so I shan't regurgitate them. Let it suffice to say that moviegoers weren't enthused.  The weekend was weak for all of the new releases from Tom Cruise's Jack Reacher, to Babs & Seth's The Guilt Trip and the one where Paul Rudd stands in for Judd Apatow in his plotless interminably long home movies. This is 40 is not without laughs but good lord it is indulgent... the 134 minute comedy has so many continuous subplots and so little in the way of a central plot that it plays exactly like a tv series marathon with the credits removed. TV is free to watch and Apatow was better at it (Freaks & Geeks > than all Apatow movies combined. Discuss) so one wishes he'd return.

The most exciting titles are waiting for Christmas Day openings (Django, Les Miz) or have opened in less than 20 theaters  (Amour, The Impossible, Zero Dark Thirty, On the Road)  to taunt you with their elusivity. 

I'd ask you what you went to this weekend but you probably rented a movie, right?

But never mind all that.

Look at this cute teaser poster for Pedro Almodóvar's airplane-set comedy  I'm So Excited! (thx to Txus for showing me). Makes me want to fly right to 2013 and skip all this Oscar crap. 

Time for an impromptu pol!

poll by twiigs.com

Lump of Coal, Anyone? Cinematic Shame (Pt 1)

YEAR IN REVIEW

I plan to get all joyously positive from Christmas Eve through January 9th as I share my take on the Best of the Film Year That Was. But I make no promise about my mood come January 10th...  That's the fateful morning when 6,000 Academy voters play puppet master and yank my fragile psyche about with abandon. But until then... And before the Year End Best of hits, we purge.

MOST "OVERRATED" ANYTHING

I know that people quibble with this word and wish it dead and buried. But that's only because they take it far too seriously. It's a silly adjective but silly is fun. One should always take things for what they're worth. No matter who is using the word "overrated" it only ever means:

Other people are under the mistaken impression that this thing I think is merely okay is really great! They are quite wrong."

Unsatisfying performances, miscasting, bad moves in good films and more after the jump...

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Tonight's Celebrity Endorsement Fantasy

She came to check her rank on the Best Actress page but got totally sidetracked by the Kidman interview. It happens.

Awards and Advocacy. How Should We Choose "The Best"?

As the critics awards and precursors have piled up this past month, I've begun to realize that I'm having one of my off-consensus years. Some of the frontrunners I'm very fond of (Tommy Lee Jones & Daniel Day-Lewis are both brilliant in Lincoln; I'm not going to pretend otherwise for the sake of shaking up the status quo) but I doubt my final five-wide shortlists in my own Film Bitch Awards will line up with Oscar ...or the general consensus.

The closest my own tastes will align with the masses will surely be within Best Actor. It's one of those years, like 2003, in which nearly all the men with any kind of Oscar buzz deserve to have it. That's such a rarity! Otherwise consensus just isn't happening. I can't see much likelihood of even 60% agreement in any other category. Some of that is due to my stubborn views on Category Fraud but a lot of it is just a matter of taste and refusing to be hemmed in by what is acceptably prestigious; Magic Mike is a way better movie than Argo !

A week ago when I charted the latest development in the critics prizes, I heard the usual round of complaints about my complaint which is, simply put, this: critics groups are just rubber stamping Oscar frontrunners rather than advocating for the unbuzzy but brilliant.

Shouldn't they vote on what they think is best even if that's already obviously what's going to win the gold?

...goes the question from readers. It's a valid one.

[More including my Supporting Actress Longlist after the jump]

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Screenplays of '12. Pg 12. "The Dark Knight Rises"

New daily! I'll be sharing page 12 of every screenplay I've received for 2012 Films. With commentary! Until you get bored. Which maybe you already are? I thought y'all would love the last entry on Zero Dark Thirty but there be crickets.

The following scene is our introduction to the sole bright spot in Chris Nolan's final Batman film. That'd be Anne Hathaway as Catwoman if you were momentarily confused. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I gave the film a positive if unenthused review. It did not age well within the summer, let alone the year. I'd easily name it Chris Nolan's worst film (though I have not seen Insomnia). But anyway... PAGE 12. 

INT. SITTING ROOM. EAST WING, WAYNE MANOR - CONTINUOUS

The Maid looks at FRAMED PHOTOGRAPHS OF RACHEL, THOMAS, and MARTHA WAYNE. Some are half-burned. She notices an ARCHERY TARGET, ARROWS stuck in it. She reaches out - WHAM! AN ARROW STICKS IN THE TARGET - the Maid spins around, FLUSTERED. Wayne, at the other end of the long room lowers a COMPOSITE BOW. Picks up his cane.

                    MAID
I'm, I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Wayne.
It is Mr. Wayne, isn't it? 

Wayne nods, gently. Limps toward her.

                    MAID (CONT'D)
Although you don't have the long
nails...
(nervous laugh)
Or facial scars...

She trails off, embarrassed. Coy. She seems very young. 

                   WAYNE
Is that what they say about me?

                     MAID
It's just that... nobody sees you...

Wayne approaches, slowly. He nods at her PEARL NECKLACE...

Aren't you glad I didn't bore you with the first half of the page which is a scene with Marion Cotillard? Good Chris(t) but Nolan didn't do her any favors by casting her in that picture.

So let's all just focus on Awesome Annie (VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP)

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