London: "Like Crazy", A Conversation

Editor's Note: As a special treat for our London Film Festival coverage, I asked our correspondents Craig and David to share conversations about the movies that they happen to see together. Today, LIKE CRAZY and the Oscar buzz baffles them...

Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are lovers in and out of it in "Like Crazy"

David: I think the first thing we should probably note about Like Crazy is how, well, un-crazy it is. 'Like Cute' would be a more fitting, if rather more nauseating, title. Perhaps I've just grown too cynical, but I don't think that's it. A piece of furniture tells us they love each other 'like crazy', but they don't. One of the few scenes I'd pick out was just after Anna (Felicity Jones) has introduced Jacob (Anton Yelchin) to her parents - they start kissing like mad, and for those few seconds I felt the heat between them, the flush of a youthful romance. But there wasn't nearly enough of that to establish the connection we're supposed to feel throughout the whole film.

Craig: I think the cuteness of the pairing was the thing director Drake Doremus seemed to want to eagerly translate the most, what with all the chair inscriptions and diary notes. (Clearly that chair wanted to be Like Crazy’s “Rosebud”.) Haven’t we seen this kind of meet-cute cinematic dalliance before, in things like Garden State, Elizabethtown etc? I was over quirk-filled romanticised moping the moment it began. Here it comes with a slightly dourer and artfully managed sense of itself – like a mini-me Blue Valentine... The Formative Years, yet without that film’s tender baggage.

Humor, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar buzz, after the jump...

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Curio: Costume Dramas

Alexa here.  Every year my desire to arrive at the perfect Halloween costume sees me trolling the internet for ideas.  Unlike my husband, who can throw together the perfect Carl Spackler costume in 10 minutes, I need to plan ahead, and I can't sew well enough to get really creative.  Someday I'll create the perfect Maude Lebowski Valkyrie look, but this year, on my daughter's orders, I'm going as a chicken.  Here are some looks I'd rather be wearing for Halloween.

A Black Swan Rodarte replica, $700, from this shop.

Take a flowered house dress, some duct tape, and this book, and you'd have the perfect Geena Davis Beetlejuice look.

Click for more including Marilyn, Catwoman, and Mattie Ross...

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Oscar Horrors: "The Tell Tale Heart"

BOO! In this 17 episode miniseries, suggested by Robert Gannon, Team Film Experience will be exploring Oscar nominated or Oscar winning contributions from or related to the Horror Film genre. Happy Halloween Season! 

HERE LIES... The Tell Tale Heart. Its insistent beating was drowned to death by the cacophony of musical noise coming from the instruments of Walt Disney's Toot Whistle Plunk and Bloom which won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar for 1953.

What is more horrifying than a madman who thinks himself sane, like the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's legendary horror story The Tell Tale Heart? I can actually name four.

1. That an Oscar nomination by no means makes your film easy to find for future generations. This is especially true of any nominations outside of Picture, and Acting. Have you ever tried to find all the nominated short films to watch from any given calender year? SHUDDER. (YouTube has reanimated some of their corpses but otherwise, they're tough to dig up!)

2. That animation is still synonomous with children's entertainment despite all the disparate moods the medium is capable of. This short proves that animation is just as suitable for the macabre as it is the goofy slapstick. Note how the animator's makes creepy visual associations between a harmless old man's blind eye and mundane objects... and that director Ted Parmalee and his animators know as much about shadows as good noir filmmakers.

3. That the great James Mason never won an Oscar. CHILLING!, right? Not even for The Verdict or A Star is Born! He can do more with a few line readings than some actors can do in whole films. 

See how calmy and precisely I can tell this story to you? Listen.

The eye was always closed. For seven days I waited -- You think me mad? What madman could wait so patiently, so long -- in the old house, with the Old Man, and the eye that... 

4. That this short was rated X (X!) by the British censors in 1953... ...and now you can see things 100,000 times as grotesque and violent every night on television without parental guidance and with 100,000 times less humanizing guilt. 

Had you ever seen this short before?
What do you make of the new fictional Edgar Allen Poe themed thriller "The Raven" starring John Cusack?

Box Office: Everybody Cut, Everybody Cut... Your Budgets

In this battle of the 80s remakes weekend, Footloose vs. The Thing, it was actually a 1960s derivative, the rock-em sock-em'ish robot movie Real Steel that triumphed.

Box Office (U.S.) Baker's Dozen -Actual Grosses
01 REAL STEEL $16.2  (cum. $51.7)
02 FOOTLOOSE new-ish $15.5 
03 THE THING new-ish $8.4 
04 IDES OF MARCH [capsule] $7.1 (cum. $21.7)
05 DOLPHIN TALE  $6.2 (cum. $58.5)
06 MONEYBALL [review] $5.4 (cum $57.6)
07 50/50 [review]  $4.2 (cum $24.2)
08 COURAGEOUS  $3.3 (cum $21.2)
09 THE BIG YEAR new $3.2 
10 THE LION KING 3D [review] re-release $2.7 (cum. $90.5 for the rerelease)
11 DREAMHOUSE  $2.4 (cum $18.3)
12 CONTAGION $1.8 (cum $71.9)
13 ABDUCTION [review] $1.4 (cum $25.7)

Talking Points
• Footloose's gross is far from spectacular but given the likelihood of solid word of mouth (I keep hearing "surprisingly good!" proving that basement level expectations can totally be a plus!) and considering they kept its budget down, it should turn a profit before it even leaves theaters. So don't expect the 80s remakes to stop.

• Speaking of turning a profit, 50/50 has already tripled its wisely wee budget. Well done.

• Pedro Almodóvar is the most dependable of foreign auteurs on the US box office charts, again opening with a fine per screen average; The Skin I Live In earned nearly a quarter million on just six screens. Whether or not it will hold well is another issue since it seems more divisive than recent Almodóvars. Skin... has alread earned over $19 million overseas. Pedro's biggest post Women on the Verge hit by a significant margin is Volver which earned over $85 million worldwide. 

• Moneyball just entered the top 40 of the year, stealing past Midnight in Paris (which is incredibly STILL on over 100 screens). Don't you think both of them will be Best Picture nominated?

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND?
As usual, we love to hear what you thought of the new releases. Especially on days when you're suspicously quiet (speak up!)  And given the ever crucial budgets to profit equations, which movie have you seen recently that showed you every penny onscreen?

'Little Climber'

As a child I loved to climb everywhere. I'll let the psychiatrists decide why. Maybe I wanted to escape my time? Maybe I wanted to see the world from a different perspective? I was an explorer at heart? Who knows and who cares."