Thursday
Jan172013
What's on your (cinematic) mind?
Thursday, January 17, 2013 at 8:12PM It's an open thread whilst I work on that top ten list, the new podcast, and more.
P.S. Our celebration of The Hours for its 10th anniversary begins tomorrow!
Reader Comments (27)
Warm Bodies. If it's really good, might Nicholas Hoult be a Lead Actor contender?
YAY!!
Who were you rooting for in 99? Reese? Cecilia Roth?
Volvagia,
Even if it was good, I don't think awards bodies would touch it. hehe, bodies.
Afraid of the Before Midnight premiere in Sundance. Another masterpiece? Another Godfather III? Oooooh my...
Zero Dark Thirty, because of
1. Best Ensemble Hot Guys
2. Jessica Chastain by herself
3. Jason Clark
4. Jessica Chastain against a bunch of hot guys
Just watched Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and The Impossible in a row at the theater...I don't recommend this. What's interesting (Spoiler Alert I guess) is that all three movies end with the main character(s) on airplanes in some form of celebration / assessing their lives emotionally. Can college humor's "honest movie title" for Zero Dark Thirty be "The Hurt Locker 2: We Got More Money To Make This Movie Bitches"? I mean stylistically the movies are so similar it looks like Bigelow is forming a trilogy around contemporary warfare. Plus Chastain and Renner both play conflicted and obsessed individuals at the heart who stir up morality/honor debates. Zero Dark Thirty makes Argo look like Hollywood Lite in a vintage can. No offense to Argo, I really liked it, it just seems so simplistic, polished, formulaic and fun in comparison.
Excited that all five Oscar Best Documentary nominees are available on Netflix this year. I watched The Invisible War yesterday and while the soundtrack and establishing shots were somewhat reminiscent of a CNN/MSNBC documentary, it was powerful nonetheless.
Also finally seeing ZDT this weekend.
I'm bracing myself for Mama tomorrow. It's apparently quite polarizing but I have faith. The feral child angle is really intriguing to my would-be linguist mind. My non-lit electives in college were linguistics courses. Plus, Jessica Chastain in something completely off the wall.
Which leads me to think about Stoker and Nicole Kidman's (hopefully) triumphant return to horror.
---I wish Winslet and Campion would team up again. I wish Kidman and Campion would team up again as well. And I'm not even a huge Campion fan (sorry Nick).
---Can someone like Hooper or Bigelow win the DGA this year, for shits and giggles?
---I borrowed Santantago from the library, and it's so long I haven't put it in the player yet.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is on my cinematic mind... it usually is.
ELIZABETH OLSEN IN MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE is all I think about, ever.
I'll echo Suzanne's point about the Best Documentary nominees. I just watched 5 Broken Cameras and found it fantastic. Three down, two more (Sugar Man, Gatekeepers) to go...
Tonight I rewatched 2010's True Grit, and dearly hope I enjoy this year's Inside Llewyn Davis as much.
Maggie Smith in 1982's Evil Under the Sun. A stand-out in a truly mediocre flick. I may have to hire Lacuna, Inc. to erase any trace of memory I have of her performances because I'm not sure I can take if she ever stops acting.
BTW, The Hours is finally available for instant view on Netflix! Yay, just in time. I haven't seen it since it was in theaters.
I'm just so happy that there's a blog celebrating "The Hours".
I think I'm going to pop it in the ps3 tomorrow to celebrate.
God, I wish it was on Bluray.
I also wish the score had won.
Just watched Rust and Bone. LOVED the costumes! Especially Marion Cotillard's badass look at me I've got metal legs ensembles.
Tyrannosaur and especially Olivia Colman in it. She won practically all the little british film awards but couldn't get nominated for the bafta? Should've been up for the Oscar!
In just one hour I'm going to see the Les Miz italian press premiere. I'm THRILLED.
To end the wonderful Oscar Nomination day, I decided to finally get around to watching a long-neglected important Oscar-winner: SOPHIE'S CHOICE. Apart from realising that knowing what Sophie's choice was is just as much a spoiler as knowing that Bruce Willis is dead, I think that my favourite Strep movies are when she has a great director behind her - Spike Jonze, Clint Eastwood, Alan J Pakula, Karel Reisz. In contrast, I still think her best performance ever is in last year's THE IRON LADY, but that was in spite of the rest of the movie, and in particular the direction (in fact, I think I give her extra kudos for giving such an extraordinary performance despite the lack of directing skills involved!). Trouble is, most of her recent award-winning roles have been with (at best) perfunctory directors (and, yes, this does include Nora Ephron, but I don't think I will ever forgive her for the one-two horror punch of SLEEPLESS and YOU'VE GOT MAIL, even in death).
Peggy Sue... in '99 my Best Actress was Kate Winslet in "Holy Smoke!" a film no one saw due to a shoddy one week qualifier. But Reese W was BRILLIANT in Election and better than most of the Oscar nominees.
volvagia ...what Sean said. Oscar don't do that young or that genre. Hell, they don't even do genre when the guy is in the right age bracket and gets 'another revelatory performance!' reviews (think Fassbender in Prometheus)
SVG -- which reminds me. need to talk costumes soon.
I'm mostly wondering because, though it's "genre", it seems like the degree of difficulty on that part is INSANE. He needs to come across as just emotional enough to buy the idea of a love story, but not so emotional that you don't buy he's a zombie.
I saw "Amour" on Tuesday, and I just can't get it out of my mind. I can't remember the last time I've been as overwhelmed after seeing a film! I definitely think Riva should win the Best Actress Oscar.
The last scene of Zero Dark Thirty. One of the most powerful of the film. [spoiler]Finally that release of pent up emotion, and it's so conflicted. You'd expect her to be happy for succeeding, but really, she doesn't know who she is - she was recruited out of high school for this and this is all she knows. In a way, she feels like her life is over. It was powerful. I'd sit through the whole movie again just to see that moment. [/spoiler] I really hope she can win the Oscar because, as I posted on tumblr recently ...
"if anyone genuinely thinks jennifer lawrence gave an oscar-worthy performance in silver linings playbook i will judge the shit out of you
that was the definition of “act-y” and anything but genuine, and pretty much offensive to people with mental illness. at first i thought it was the way the character was written, but not really … i’ve seen the same character played 10x better (i.e. kirsten dunst in crazy/beautiful). i mean, jennifer lawrence was miscast like a motherfucker, but still, like no. it was charismatic, i’ll give it that.
bradley cooper on the other hand was phenomenal; a nuanced and real performance"
That's how I feel about JLaw, though she's a cool person.
I've also been trying to watch Amour but none of the torrents are actually working. :( I need english subs!!!
Also excited for the film bitch awards. :D Hope some of my favs get recognition.
(I loved Zero Dark Thirty though, don't get me wrong. It was just a LONG movie haha)
Also, speaking of Reese, could 2013 be a return to real movies/acting for her???
She has Mud and Devil's Knot. I might be one of the only ones, but, even if she's not one of my favorite actresses, I am such an actressexual that I always enjoy actresses doing good work. And I loved her in Walk the Line tbh.
Okay, sorry for the third comment, but ... just saw the SNL promos for Jennifer Lawrence, and god dammit she's such a natural at comedy. So good. She should really do some comedies.
Is it just me or did anyone else feel that an inordinate amount of the good movies this year had somewhat weak endings, or at least hiccups in the final act.
Anna Karenina kind of fizzled in the final act, Argo had an odd disembodied Jimmy Carter V.O. over the credits, The Deep Blue Sea ended on a longshot that didn't really add anything, Django devolved in big booms and dressage, plenty of people have already talked about Life of Pi's third act, Lincoln had a good, powerful ending (the last shot of TJL) but then tacked on a so-so epilogue, the raid in Zero Dark Thirty was immaculate film making but the few final minutes after didn't really click the way they should have, and I have to admit that Perks of Being a Wallflower (which I love so very much) hit a few snags in the last act.
Only a few of my fav's this year really stuck the landing: like Barbara, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Les Miz, Looper, and Wreck-It Ralph.