Santa's Helpers!

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmahanakkwanzukkah to all of you out there who make up The Film Experience's sexy, smart, diverse, magical, actress-loving, Oscar-obsessed cinephiliac community of readers. The site literally wouldn't still exist without you, whether that's through your blogging-fuel comments, e-mails of gratitude, cup o' joe donations (see right hand sidebar), and just general sharing and retweeting and emailing and the engaged fandom that has increased TFE's profile over the years enough to snag us the occassional ad buy, festival gig, BFCA membership, and audiences with and greetings from various goddesses. 

Thanks for being there over the years and thanks for still being there. If I had a magical sleigh and flying reindeers I'd drop gifts down each of your chimneys, but I only have this blog to give. More interviews, final Oscar nomination predictions, and Year-End goodies to come in the final two weeks before Oscar Nominations. 

May your holiday week be filled with...

Randy celebrations with regulation hotties...

Singing...

and dancing...

Renewed faith and life-affirming friendships...

Unforgettably festive surprises...

And, above all else for our purposes... Wonderful wonderful movies.

Now, go open your prezzies and see Les Miz and Django. 

XOXOXO

-Nathaniel R

Worst of the Year (Pt 2). My Eyes... My Eyes... My Very Soul!

Previously in the Year in Review we visited Snow White and the Overrated, Misjudged, Miscast Tomorrow the joyous positivity starts but until then, we purge. Let's rush through this final bout of negativity.

WORST FOREVER-TREND: BAD MOVIE POSTERS

Now I know how the vampires of True Blood feel whey they cry... My eyes! My eyes!

These three posters for To Rome With Love, Quartet and Marvel's The Avengers probably do not represent the absolute worst movie advertisements of the year but they are indicative of three subspecies of Horribilus Posterus: To Rome With Love shoves its cast into  multiple little boxes, a common technique that is nearly always hideous on posters but that never stops designers from trying. To make matters worse they've selected color palette so bland that it seems to be advertising air-conditioned nap time, oatmeal breakfast at a theater near you, and A Film By Nancy Meyers all at the same time; Quartet represents the Indecisive Nonsensical brand of bad poster since its retro 80s color blocking suggests period comedy romp (No, sort of, and no) and then it's like oh "every diva deserves an encore" but the movie actually fights against this (I shan't spoil it if you're inclined to suffer through); The Avengers is appropriately colorful but belongs to the most populated subspecies of bad poster, the No One on This Poster Was Ever in The Same Room Together disconnect. Photoshop has become such a crutch for everyone that marketing departments seem to believe that no one values authentic connection in imagery anymore and I absolutely don't believe that's the case. You're paying stars millions of dollars to appear in a movie but you can't require in their contract that they pose together for promotional materials? 

Worst Miscellania and 5 Worst Movies of the Year after the jump

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Holy Christmas Eve. It's More Critics Prizes

Argo is still soaring as precursors go...Tis the Season to Hear from Film Critics Circles and Orgs and Societies. The big news today – if you can call anything Off-Christmas news on Christmas Eve -- is that the Online Film Critics Society have announced their annual nominations with a parade of accordion accompanists on the streets of Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Or at least that’s what I wish they’d done since they nominated Holy Motors for four prizes instead of the typical requisite runner up position here or there or nowhere. Instead of an accordion parade they just posted their nominations online…as societies are prone to do.

But they’re definitely worth mentioning this year as they seem to be sort-of-maybe a-little-bit-kind-of thinking for themselves beyond the standard pet-peevish traps -- there's plentiful category fraud (even though it doesn't really make sense for critics groups to do that unless they think of themselves as oscar pundits first in which case they might want to check their purpose and/ormission statements!) and the dismissals of Hugh Jackman and Matthew McConaughey, awardage impulses which tend to strike me as genre and gender-norms bias, respectively.

BEST PICTURE

• Argo
• Holy Motors
• The Master
• Moonrise Kingdom
• Zero Dark Thirty

lots more after the jump including weirdly formatted lists (i can't deal today. it's christmas eve) and three more regional critics prizes.

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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.