"Unbroken" Is it Middlebrow WW II Oscar Bait or Something More?

Did you catch this preview of Angelina Jolie's Unbroken (2014) during the Olympics. The internet keeps calling it a "trailer" which it really isn't. I wish the internet would understand that words have meanings and the reason we often have multiple words for one type of thing is to illustrate the variations of meanings. Teaser, trailer, preview... these are different things. This paragraph you're reading is a "blog post" not "a blog" and so on) But I digress...

This early look at next year's Christmas movie Unbroken, which has slivers of the future trailer interspersed throughout, is like those very short historical reels meant to inspire you and tune you into some past Olympian story which illustrates the triumph of the human spirit / physical endurance right before you watch new Olympians reenact those ancient motifs again by trying to converts years of discipline, training, injuries, and personal struggles into medals for themselves and their countries.

I'm not really ready to talk 2014 Oscar race yet (geez, let's get through the 2013 festivities first!) but maybe Unbroken will be a biggie? I dunno, though. The Oscars are less susceptible to baldly straightforward 'Inspirational Triumph of the Human Spirit' narratives than they once were, right? Still, a screenplay by the Coen brothers suggests that it's maybe not as middlebrow World War II Oscar bait as it appears to be in this very traditional formula-friendly setting of Olympics coverage. Jolie isn't joking around on the below the line team either with Oscar regulars like Desplat (score), Sqyres (editing) and Deakins (cinematography) on board.

Regardless of whether it's an awards contender, though, it seems likely that this time next year it's relatively unknown stars Jack O'Connell (Skins, Eden Lake) in the lead role and Finn Witrock (the hustler on Masters of Sex) in support will be having some very happy holidays. (Domnhall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, and Jai Courtney are also in it but people already know who they are.)

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2014 Oscar predictions coming in April. Here's the current race.

Curio: Oscar Party Craftiness

Alexa here with the weekly arts and crafts curio.

Listening to Joe, Nick and Nathaniel's discussion of Oscar parties reminded me about all the Oscar games and crafts I've been ambitiously bookmarking over the years.  Maybe it's our overlong Chicago winters, but I seem to get an attack of laziness the week of the show and forgo the crafts in favor of making loads of comfort food.  But really, I want that to change this year, because, how sweet are some of these ideas?  Fun for everyone!  Even the Oscar-averse.  

Probably my favorite is the idea of spray painting Ken dolls Oscar gold.  I love the idea of going all Goldfinger on a thrift store Ken, and getting a posable Oscar statue as a result.

More craft and game ideas after the jump...

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Box Office: Everything Is (Still) Awesome!

Amir here, with the long weekend’s box office report. It was Valentine’s so romantic flicks opened, one of which didn’t do too well financially. But enough about RoboCop! How about that About Last Night? It’s been a few weeks since the last time we were collectively surprised that a “black” film did well at the box office, so let’s go at it again: can you believe that a film with a non-white cast can sell tickets too? Unbelievable, no? It turns out Hollywood doesn’t need to cast white people in every role, not even in all romantic comedies. (Perhaps not coincidentally, the last rom-com to do this well, Think Like a Man, starred three of the actors in this quartet: Kevin Hart, Regina Hall and Michael Ealy.)

oh, wait. that's not right somehow

BOX OFFICE
THE LEGO MOVIE $63.5m (cum. $143.8m)
ABOUT LAST NIGHT $28.5 new
ROBOCOP $25.6m (cum. $30.3m) new
THE MONUMENTS MEN $18m (cum. $46.1m)
ENDLESS LOVE $15m new
RIDE ALONG $10m (cum. $117.4m)
WINTER’S TALE $8.1m new
FROZEN $8m (cum. $378.2m)
LONE SURVIVOR $4.7m (cum. $119m)
THAT AWKWARD MOMENT $3.8 (cum. $21.9m)

The other new release targeted to the lovey-dovey crowd was Endless Love – three 80s remakes in one weekend is a new low for the creatively constipated Hollywood – and according to Box Office Mojo, it nearly broke a record for the absurd title of “the most front-loaded release of all time”; 56% of the film’s gross was pocketed on Friday. The LEGO Movie held on to the throne, though, and after two weeks, is already a major contender for 2014's year-end top ten. I re-watched it and it was even funnier and smarter than I’d remembered --  we already have our first solid contender in the best animated film race. I also watched Blue Jasmine a second time and this one also improved significantly upon a revisit. Later tonight, I’ll be off to see Palestine’s Oscar nominee, Omar. (You can always follow everything I see here on this page.)

What did you watch this weekend?

13 Days Til Oscar: Matthew McConaughey... And the 2000 Best Actress Race?

[The Oscar countdown continues with new contributor Matthew Eng - he wrote that popular Jennifer Lawrence piece! -- making a fascinating cross gender lines comparison to 13 years back]

Thirteen years ago, the only acting prize Matthew McConaughey seemed likely to ever win was a Razzie*. Or, you know, at least a Teen Choice Award. And yet, here we are, thirteen years later, all those Wedding Planners and Failure to Launches gone (but not forgotten), and Matthew McConaughey just so happens to be:

1. an Oscar nominee
2. the indisputable frontrunner of the Best Actor race, and
3. a presumable Oscar winner.

It’s the Second Coming of McConaughey, a shockingly successful, rule-breaking career reversal that approximately zero people saw coming. But can you really blame us, especially considering that pre-Magic Mike McConaughey seemed pretty intent on solidifying his status as a Hopeless Hollywood Himbo, continually submerging his skills behind a pair of wide-eyed peepers, a self-satisfied smirk, and a notorious, Southern-fried catchphrase that may have made for one great Matt Damon impression but which can still send even some of the more willing McConaughey converts up the wall?

It’s always nice to see a performer sizably step up their game, to start choosing roles for the challenge, rather than the check. Maybe it’s the nature of the Dallas Buyers Club role or maybe it’s the inconsistent reputation of the genre he spent the better part of the past decade residing in, but McConaughey’s performance and subsequent awards trajectory have been giving me major flashbacks to Julia Roberts and the 2000 Best Actress Race, which culminated with Roberts’ inevitable coronation nearly thirteen years ago. [More...]

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Monologue: Kate Hepburn Jabbers Away in "Alice Adams"

It's actually difficult to find speeches for our monologue series which accounts for its haphazard appearance at The Film Experience. With Anne Marie's brilliant chronological "A Year With Kate" hitting the Oscar nominated Alice Adams (1935) in two days time, I thought it was time to revive an old episode of this series.

Screenwriters generally favor single sentence utterances and the ole trusty shot / reverse shot conversation, leaving the bulk of monologue-writing to playwrights. But watching Alice Adams (1935), it's easy to think of virtually every scene as a Katharine Hepburn monologue. Occasionally her co-stars will start a sentence in response but Kate as Alice rarely lets them finish a thought. She spends the whole movie jabbering away as if she's the only character...

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