cinemaphile_john

Kathryn Bigelow rocks! If a woman ever gets a shot at winning the best director Oscar, it will be her.

Good, simple review. However I'll pass on this one. David Yates did such a lame job on the last installment that he bored me with the franchise. I was hoping he'd get replaced; no luck.

I had mixed feelings towards this one. The performances are great (I particularly dug Crudup, Ribisi, Graham, and Lang) and Mann gets some great scenes in there, including some that go to great lengths to be accurate, e.g. the Indiana trial and prison escape. And as you said, there are masterful shoot-outs and great production values. But what annoyed me was that almost everything about Melvin Purvis was pure fiction, particularly the raid at Little Bohemia (the movie has it as a spectacularly successful raid, when in fact it was a famous failure). Purvis bungled one detail after another, as did the FBI as a whole. If Mann wouldn't have re-written the script and stuck to the source, there would have been a far smarter movie that would have explained how the modern American crime-fighting came to be, not to mention a very darkly humorous one that would have resonated with today's terrorist-hunting. By excising these details, "Public Enemies" often feels empty and directionless. I strongly recommend Brian Burrough's book to fill in the gaps.

Brian Dennehy in film again! Yayyy!

Donnie Wahlberg will have to re-work his acting image after those laughable re-launch New Kids on the Block performances on live TV.

My favorite tacky redcarpetwalkers:

http://entimg.msn.com/i/gal/Undressed... http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2006... http://shelovestoknit.typepad.com/she... http://img.timeinc.net/people/i/2006/... http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2006... http://blog.canoe.ca/mediam/GwynethSm... http://blog.canoe.ca/mediam/Dolly.jpg http://blog.canoe.ca/mediam/WhoopiSma...

It's a week early, but here go my predictions for the nominees:

-Best Picture: "There Will Be Blood", "No Country for Old Men", "Atonement", "Juno", "Into the Wild". Alternate pick: "Michael Clayton". Dark horses: "Sweeney Todd", "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (which has a strong shot).

-Director: The Coens, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sean Penn, Julian Schnabel, Joe Wright. Alt: Tony Gilroy. Dark horses: the Academy may choose to honor a cult director by including him in the list instead of one of the above: Tim Burton or David Cronenberg. Sidney Lumet is a long shot.

-Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Viggo Mortensen, Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Emile Hirsch. Alt: Denzel Washington. Dark horses: Ryan Gosling, Frank Langella, Mathieu Amalric, Don Cheadle ("Talk to Me"), Josh Brolin.

-Actress: Marion Cotillard, Angelina Jolie, Ellen Page, Julie Christie, Cate Blanchett ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age"). Alt: Kiera Knightley. Dark horses: Laura Linney ("The Savages"), Helena Bonham Carter.

-Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, Casey Affleck, Tom Wilkinson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman ("Charlie Wilson's War"), Hal Holbrook ("Into the Wild"). Alt: Tommy Lee Jones ("No Country for Old Men"). Dark horses: Paul Dano ("There Will Be Blood") Jeff Daniels ("The Lookout"), Homayoun Ershadi ("The Kite Runner"), Armin Mueller-Stahl ("Eastern Promises"). I only feel the first three listed are shoe-ins, the rest are anyone's guess.

-Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett ("I'm Not There"), Amy Ryan, Tilda Swinton, Saoirse Ronan, Catherine Keener ("Into the Wild"). Alt: Ruby Dee ("American Gangster").

-Original Screenplay: "Juno", "Michael Clayton", "The Savages", "Eastern Promises", "Lars and the Real Girl". Alt: "Knocked Up". Dark horse: "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead".

-Adapted Screenplay: "No Country for Old Men", "There Will Be Blood", "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "Atonement", "Into the Wild". Alt: "Charlie Wilson's War" . Dark horses: "Zodiac", "Lust, Caution".

-Foreign: "The Counterfeiters" (Austria), “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation,” (Brazil), “Days of Darkness,” (Canada; Denys Arcand), “The Unknown Woman,” (Italy; Giuseppe Tornatore), “Katyn” (Poland; Andrzej Wajda). I will note that I am very shocked that the initial favorites were ommitted from the final shortlist of nine: "Persepolis", "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days", "XXY", and "The Orphanage".

-Documentary: "Sicko", " "No End in Sight", "Lake of Fire", "The Rape of Europa", "Nanking". Alt: "The Price of Sugar".

-Cinematography: "There Will Be Blood", "No Country for Old Men", "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "Atonement", "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". Alt: "Across the Universe", "Lust, Caution".

-Editing: "No Country for Old Men", "There Will Be Blood", "Michael Clayton","Juno", "The Bourne Ultimatum". Alt: "Into the Wild". Dark horse: "Sweeney Todd".

-Score: "Atonement", "Into the Wild", "Eastern Promises", "The Kite Runner", "There Will Be Blood", "Grace is Gone". Alt: "3:10 to Yuma". Joke: "No Country for Old Men".

-Make-up: "Norbit", "300", "Sweeny Todd". Alt: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly".

-Visual FX: "300", "Transformers", "I Am Legend". Alt: "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End".

-Costume: "Elizabeth: The Golden Age", "Atonement", "300", "Hairspray", "La Vie En Rose".

-Art Direction: "Across the Universe", "Atonement", "Elizabeth: The Golden Age", "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End", "Sweeney Todd". Alt: "Sunshine".

-Sound FX: "300", "Transformers", "I Am Legend". Alt: "Pirates of the Caribbean".

-Sound: "Atonement", "Transformers", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "There Will Be Blood".

-Animated film: "Persepolis", "Ratatouille", "The Simpsons Movie", "Bee Movie".

-Song: "Into the Wild", "Love in the Time of Cholera", "Grace is Gone", "Enchanted", "Once". Alt: "Hairspray".

I'm guessing the show is still on - none of these egomaniacs (except maybe some poser) will turn down a chance to accept an Oscar on live TV and cry, thanking their momma, agent, and lawyer, and reminding us to stop clubbing baby seals.

Here's an odd connection, just for the sake of the sport: menacing role of TV sets: "The Ring" and "Ringu" involve a killer ghost girl crawling out of TVs; "Poltergeist" has a girl abducted through a TV; and one of the main characters has death-by-TV (while "Halloween" is playing). Throw in "Shocker", "Remote Control", "Twilight Zone: The Movie", "The Twonky", "Nightmare on Elm Street 3", and "Mother's Day" for full killer TV action.

What, no love for zombie movies?

I have yet to see the "Transformers" movie, but I watched the trailer at: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramou...

I am also intrigued.

Cillian Murphy was also good in Neil Jordan's "Breakfast On Pluto", but audiences may recognize him from "28 Days Later". He'll next be seen in "Sunshine". He was somewhere there in "Girl With the Pearl Earring", but I missed him.

I usually wait for thick-accented Irish, Scottish, and English films to hit DVD so I can activate the subtitles; otherwise I have to make-up the dialog myself. The only such movie I've seen that actually put subtitles in the theatre was "The Acid House".

So, was this worth the Golden Palm that it won at Cannes last year, or is it another overrated Cannes winner?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been turning in a slew of good performances... Aside from "Brick", he was also very good in Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin". However, he stank in "Havoc", although I am not sure how much the director had to do with it, given that the entire cast was overacting to play superficial teens.

Carrie-Anne Moss seems to be only taking roles of the mom of jaded teenagers... "The Chumscrubber", "Mini's First Time", this...

Sounds like "United 93" aboard an alien spaceship ("Foo Fighter 93"?). Black humor aside, sounds like fun.

It's about time we got a good monster movie. The Sci-Fi ones ("Komodo vs. Cobra" and etc) are too awful to even attempt MST3K-ing, in my not-so-humble opinion.

These awards have been going on for a while, originally honoring just horror films, sci-fi flicks, and fantasy films (hence their name). I believe they started in the early 70s. However, over the past few years they've added additional categories that attract more non-genre movies, perhaps to see if they will get their show telecast again someday.

Hey, aren't the Razzies today?