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7/27- Personal News: I finally got a great job!
The trailer for The Town can be seen here. Gone Baby Gone proved that Ben Affleck is actually a pretty talented director. That's why I think this film will actually be pretty good. As far as acting acclaim goes, looks like it might be Rebecca Hall who steals the show. The new trailer for Tron: Legacy can be seen here. I don't know about this. I haven't seen the original so I have no idea what's so great about Tron. Sure Jeff Bridges is great, but I don't know about this concept. The trailer for Get Low can be seen here. So far a few reviews have come out on this one that they're all positive. If it gets wide enough of a release, I could see Robert Duvall and Bill Murray getting nominated for it. The trailer for Howl can be seen here. James Franco looks really good taking on a completely new character for him. I bet he'll get his first nomination this year, but it could be either for this or 127 Hours. The trailer for Let Me In can be seen here. This might be the only opportunity that the string of vampire films has to get an Oscar nomination. Also I said last year that Chloe Moretz is an up and rising star. Here's her chance. The trailer for The Company Men can be seen here. This could be this year's Up in the Air. I mean that in that it's successful because it relates to what people are going through in this recession. I think it could work. The trailer for The Debt can be seen here. Despite the Oscar nominated director and cast, and despite having a formula similar to Munich, I see this as more of a popcorn picture than a serious Oscar contender. The trailer for Miral can be seen here. I think this might follow the same path as The Kite Runner and pick up a couple of tech nominations, but fail to get anything significant since it can't click with mainstream audiences. The trailer for Biutiful can be seen here. It's the kind of trailer that really tells you nothing about what the film is about. I hate those. So I can't tell you much about it's Oscar odds now.
Review: Inception A few months ago, I named Christopher Nolan one of the top five directors of the decade because of his original storytelling ability, and for making films for the thinking man. Inception continues that trend with his most imaginative film yet.
I suppose the film's greatest strength is its originality. Some might argue it's too similar to The Matrix, which is somewhat true, but at least it's a lot better. It proves that Christopher Nolan is one of the few writer/directors left with some truly original ideas. The concept of entering multiple layers of dreams is inspired. Though about the first hour of the film is spent just explaining how the concept works, I realize it's pretty much necessary if you're going to understand how the rest of the film (the much better half) works. Though the first half lingers a bit, the second really takes off with dynamic action sequences involving explosions, crazy stunts and anti-gravity. Plus there was one particular shot that really just blew me away. The shot involves a "walking on walls" special effect pioneered over 40 years ago for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but taken to a thrilling extreme with a fast-paced fight going on during it (see picture above). Just that one shot was the single greatest part of the film. I wouldn't say the performances were that strong, especially compared to the performances Nolan has gotten out of actors before. But it's understandable since unlike his last few films, this one is more about the world than about the characters. And even though I like films that make the audience think, maybe Nolan tried a little too hard since there are a couple of lingering details that I didn't quite understand. But I plan on seeing it a second time so hopefully I'll catch them then. Christopher Nolan is a genius. Though I still hold his brilliant perfection of The Dark Knight in higher regard than this, Inception still has the aspects of a Nolan film which is inventive, complex and has something mesmerizing about it. Like the plot itself, the film was like a dream and I was afraid to wake up from it. Stars: 3.5 (out of 4) Oscar Contention: Picture, Director, Actor Leonardo Dicaprio, Supporting Actress Marion Cotillard, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Editing, Makeup, Sound, Score
The new trailer for The Social Network can be seen here. This synopsis is quite intrigueing, and I believe it will do at least modestly well at the box-office because it's about something so many people are familiar with. Strange to think that just when I was getting into facebook five or six years ago that there was so much drama going on behind it. I'm also thinking Jesse Eisenberg could be in the running for a lead actor nomination here.
Brief Review: Shutter Island Martin Scorsese's latest much-delayed thriller, does its share of thrilling and twisting but doesn't quite have the same intensity as Scorsese's previous work.
Shutter Island is strong in terms of its suspenseful style through great cinematography and editing work. And like all Scorsese films, there are great performances from the entire cast. But I was expecting more on the edge tense sequences like in The Departed. These sequences felt much mellower. Also, like most films that have a big twist at the end, I went back and watched it a second time hoping to see the clues. But to somewhat my disappointment, though some clues are there, there's a lot more that contributes to making less sense of the twist than more. Alas, it still serves as a fine addition to Scorsese's impressive body of work, and could still end up in the top ten picture nominees this year if they wish to include a thriller. Stars: 3 (out of 4) Oscar Contention: Picture, Director, Actor Leonardo Dicaprio, Supporting Actress Michelle Williams, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Editing, Costumes, Sound
The Academy has just come out with a new set of rules regarding the Oscars, and the most notable change is that now there will be FIVE nominees for the visual effects category. See the full press release here. It seemed like it was only four years ago that the sound editing category expanded from three to five nominees. Maybe the same will happen to the makeup category some day as well. I have three thoughts about this bit of news. First, they're about one year too late. 2009 is when we really could have used five nominees to have helped 2012 and Transformers 2 get nominated. 2010 doesn't look like it will need five nominees since the only strong visual effects films so far this year were Iron Man 2 and Alice in Wonderland, neither of which was that impressive. My second thought is that this will seem unncesessary in the near future. Visual effects has always been a category that depended on the technology, and the improvement upon the technology has allowed effects to look increasingly real and do things that could never have been done before. However, as I've said the last couple of years, I think we've reached the peak of visual effects. Recent films like Avatar, Benjamin Button and Transformers have broken down the final barriers, and it seems that there is nothing visual effects can't do now, and therefore there is no way for them to ever be impressive again. Remember, when people saw a visual effects shot and said, "How did they do that?" Nobody says that anymore because the answer is always the same: CGI. Sure there are more films than ever every year that feature visual effects, but few are revolutionary enough to deserve nominations. And with this plateauing of the impressiveness of visual effects, it seems like in future years the Academy will struggle to find five films that are revolutionary enough in their effects to deserve nominations. And my final thought is that this is just clearly another case of the Academy trying to find a way to nominate more mainstream films, thus improving the Oscar telecast ratings. Same reason they expanded the best picture category to ten. So I say bad reasoning all around.
As I said earlier, this will be my last year hosting this site (email me if you are interested in taking it over). Though this website started in 2004, I had been making Oscar predictions for years before that. In my first year of Oscar predicting, I accurately predicted this film to win best picture. ANSWER
Review: Toy Story 3 In my fifth straight review of a Pixar film, I find myself saying the same thing: How can this studio create masterpiece after masterpiece without a single flop? I honestly don't know how they do it, but apparently they can even turn something old into gold.
You may have read news stories about this film bringing grown men to tears. I'll openly admit that I'm no exception to that. In fact, I believe it's the first scene that I've cried at that isn't a death scene or a scene from a Lord of the Rings film. I won't give away what scene that is, but it is simply heart-breaking. But don't think that this is a tear-jerker all the way through. The first two Toy Story films were the funniest of Pixar's films, and number three is just the same. The funniest part is a sequence I call "Tortilla-head" that proves that comedy is not just in the writing, but also accomplished by skilled animators. If there are flaws, they're slight. The film made me feel guilty for giving away and "ebaying" all of my childhood toys. And it's sort of redundant how throughout the series, the toys' frequent coming and going never causes story problems thanks to a lack of good communication between Andy and his mom. But I see no problems that would give this film less than 3.5 stars, and because it exceeded expectations, I see no reason to give it less than 4. I don't know if I said it publicly on this site, but several years ago when I learned Pixar was making another Toy Story, I was opposed. My reasons included too much time passing since the last one, the impossibility of improving upon perfection, and the untimely death of Jim Varney (the original voice of Slink who is replaced in part three with a pretty fair imitation by Blake Clark). But having now seen the film, I'm biting my tongue. You may not be able to improve upon perfection, but you can surely match it. Toy Story 3 is just as perfect as parts one and two, and maybe even slightly better. This also makes it in my opinion the best Pixar film ever. And I renew my belief not to doubt Pixar. No matter what they do, I'm sure it will be great. And no matter who you are, you'll love Toy Story 3, the best film of the year. Stars: 4 (out of 4) Oscar Contention: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Sound, Sound Editing, Score, Animated Film
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