Movie Muse

We often forget that the Oscars are primarily a celebration of American cinema and American opinions about other country’s cinema. Thus, we have the “Best Foreign Language Film of the Year” category. With 10 Best Picture nominees, we might not be long for a debate about whether Foreign films should count. For example, you can’t tell me that a few years back Pan’s Labyrinth wasn’t deserving of a Best Picture nod (or even the film that beat it in this category, The Lives of Others.) Read the rest of this entry »

What a year for animation. I mentioned it back when I did my 2009 Year in Review but I can’t state it enough. With the advances in CGI and some of the brightest minds in filmmaking (namely the folks at Pixar and one could argue James Cameron), the animated storytelling medium is rivaling its live action counterpart more than anyone ever expected. The expanded Best Animated Feature category (up to five films this year from three) might have a clear winner this year, but it’s truly a celebration of all things animated unlike anything the Oscars has ever seen. I truly hope next Sunday’s ceremony reflects this with a creative award presentation and/or tribute. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s easy to forget that “An Education” takes place nearly a half century ago. The coming-of- age of a 16-year-old girl is one thing, but in the context of the 1960s, it’s a whole other ordeal. The way women’s roles have changed in society over the years is staggering and “An Education” is a reminder of just how bad it was. Women had little choice: be educated at a higher level or not be educated; Be a school teacher or a housewife. As the young Jenny studies vigilantly to attend Oxford, it’s hard not to be swept away as she is by her gentleman friend when he offers her a life of art, culture and extravagance that her sheltered existence never affords. Read the rest of this entry »

I saw this back at Columbia, Missouri’s True/False film festival in February 2009. Now it’s Oscar-nominated. I wrote up a short review at the time.

The Western world concerns itself with issues like that of bias in the media. In Burma, journalism is illegal. The impact of “Burma VJ” is pretty straightforward. These VJs, living under a militaristic government, risk their lives to get footage of the crimes against humanity in their country–the killing of Buddhist monks, the extreme crowd control–and smuggle it out so the world can see (as well as back into Burma to counteract the government’s propaganda). Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of people who love movies leave out one genre in particular: documentaries. I always try to include the most compelling documentaries of each year into my steady diet of movie-watching. I usually end up watching about two every three months or so. As a journalist and cinephile, I’m obligated to like documentaries. I enjoy some subjects more than others no doubt, but visuals bring certain issues to life in ways we can’t think about them reading an article. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, already we enter the last weekend of the winter period for movies. Don’t worry, I’m fully aware winter weather isn’t going anywhere, sadly enough, but with March around the corner some slightly more interesting films are just weeks away. For now, however, we get a buddy cop comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan and a horror remake. Read the rest of this entry »

The goals of today’s reboots have been to update the originals with the special effects of the modern era and add complexity and depth to cinema’s most memorable characters. This is only half true for Universal’s long-delayed “The Wolfman” remake. The full-moon transformations of man to werewolf are enhanced with top-notch gruesome CGI, but the man behind the beast remains uncomplicated. This “Wolfman” is a classic monster horror film with a modern pulse. Clichéd suspense and generic storytelling are king, only they’re accompanied by extreme gore and curdling special effects for a more 21st Century thrill. Read the rest of this entry »

Short films are on the rise. There have always been short films and most feature filmmakers got their start by making short films since they’re easy on the pockets if you’re an amateur, but in our YouTube video society, there’s an interest in short films. You can find virtually anyone’s short film on the Internet including some of our Best Animated Short Film nominees. The live action shorts are not as accessible. I don’t know why, but I think it’s because they’re a bit bigger of a deal. Either way, closer to March 7 you should be able to download/rent on iTunes and some theaters even show all the shorts as Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International have recently began the tradition of grouping them together for a theatrical release.

Anyway, short films are perfect for the attention span of today and they usually are more clever or profound than many full-length works because they’re working with less time. They have to pick a great concept and executed it cleanly and most of these films do that. What’s more, especially the animated films, they are very similar to the classic cartoons of back in the day. Just think about all the Pixar shorts you’ve seen over the years and how clever/cute they are. Many of these (at least the animated ones) are similar.

So here’s to the short film — the part of the Academy Awards nearly everyone ignores. Join me in watching these films so that you can make the telecast a bit more meaningful. I’ve provided links to every video I could find (all animated shorts), so enjoy! For more information and some clips of everything, go to the official shorts site Read the rest of this entry »

When a film does well, it’s usually the director that gets all the credit. There are many cases where the director and writer are one in the same, but the director is the position of prestige. In a director-centric movie world, few people walk out of the theater and say “wow, that was a killer screenplay.”

To be fair, the script is the source material for which the rest of the movie is made. It is interpreted and imagined, cast often times after the fact. What’s on the page could be done hundreds of different ways in the hands of any variety of directors, producers, actors, crew, etc. But as is often said, no great film comes from a bad screenplay. Maybe from an okay screenplay, but never a bad screenplay. It is the foundation and as such it receives a place of honor on the list of Academy Awards categories. Still beneath director, but high up there no less. Read the rest of this entry »

Many people questioned acclaimed director Martin Scorsese choosing to helm a pure genre film in the psychological thriller “Shutter Island,” but the marriage of one of the masters of crime drama and a Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River,” “Gone Baby Gone”) novel is as close to an ideal match as it sounds. Although Scorsese is capable of applying his skills to more meaningful work than a mystery, he’s able to play around a lot more with technique, style, light and color to turn a somewhat predictable mystery into a captivating thriller. Read the rest of this entry »

Anticipation is a powerful tool. Released six months after it was scheduled and millions of TV spots and trailers later, Shutter Island finally opened this weekend and to the tune of an impressive $41 million. Despite an R rating and opening in fewer theaters than most of last week’s big films, it defied my box office prediction by more than a lot.

After The Departed, it appears everyone’s into the Scorsese-DiCaprio collaboration. Many people I talked to expressed concern over how scary the film looked, but no less, people turned out in solid numbers to see the great director’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning film. It was certainly warranted. Read my review here.

1. Shutter Island – $41 M (weekend) … $41 M (gross)
2. Valentine’s Day – $16.6 M … $86.9 M
3. Avatar – $16.2 M … $687.9 M
4. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – $15.2 M … $58.7 M
5. The Wolfman – $9.9 M … $50.3 M
6. Dear John – $7.1 M … $65.8 M
7. The Tooth Fairy - $4.3 M … $49.7 M
8. Crazy Heart – $2.9 M … $21.5 M
9. From Paris With Love - $2.6 M … $21.3 M
10. Edge of Darkness – $2.2 M … $40.3 M

I suspected that Valentine’s Day would see a steeper-than-usual drop with the holiday it was named for being over, but it was incredibly steep. The romantic comedy, which I wrongly predicted would finish No. 1 again, dropped 70 percent from nearly $60 million to $16 million. In fact, nearly all of last weekend’s films suffered a major hangover despite a lack of competition.

I expected The Wolfman would suffer a lot with competition from an R-rated thriller and as such it fell nearly 70 percent too, earning less than $10 M in its second week, which will make it very hard to catch its $150 million budget – not that Universal expected to make its money back on this film anyway by releasing it in February.

Last week’s films plummeting made it easy for Avatar to move back up to third. Other strong performers were Crazy Heart, proving the power of a Best Actor in a Leading Role nomination. Even The Tooth Fairy has continued to stay strong, earning back its production budget over the weekend.

Acclaimed writer/director Billy Wilder strikes again with another humorous and romantic comedy in “The Apartment.” But more important than another triangular love story from the “Some Like It Hot” creator is the actor he brought along with him: Jack Lemmon. Though “Hot” was his breaking out party, “The Apartment” really boasts the range of the funny, neurotic and charismatic Lemmon. Read the rest of this entry »

When you watch “Braveheart” you can’t help but feel like you’ve seen it before. That’s because “Braveheart” did it first. James Horner’s thematic bagpipe music that could make a grown man cry is nearly replicated in his score for “Titanic” (although “Titanic” won him the Oscar). The highly skilled love and revenge-fueled hero is all that is Maximus in “Gladiator.” The list goes on, but the point is that “Braveheart” set formula for the modern day historical fiction war film. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend’s miraculous performance at the box office is a tough act to follow, even if you’re Martin Scorsese. With a combo of Valentine’s and President’s Day in one weekend, records were simply destroyed. Only one film vies to compete with those films in week two and that’s the long-awaited Shutter Island, a period thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

It’s about time. I’ve really gotten sick of seeing the trailer for the last eight months because of the delay from October ’09 until tomorrow. If I have to hear Leo say “we are duly appointed U.S. marshals” one more time out of the context of seeing the whole movie, I might throw myself off a cliff. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s probably some great quote about music in film, but I’m too lazy to Google it. Simply put, even the silent movie era films were accompanied by music. That tells you how essential a score is to a film. Silence is bad and awkward in a film. That’s why every movie has a score, soundtrack or both. Next time you watch a film, pay attention to what it uses and when there’s music versus when there isn’t and you’ll have a totally new understanding of the importance of music.

I’m not going to toot the horn of the original song. That’s just a perk category and apparently the producers have said this year that there will not be live performances. Since every original song nominee must appear in the film itself, I think they plan on showing the numbers straight from the movie so you get a sense of how they connect to the film, which is just as if not more important than the quality of the song itself.

To keep you abreast of some of the conflict with the Oscars, there’s a great deal of subjectivity when it comes to what constitutes original work that’s Oscar-eligible. For one thing, it must not be based on anything previously published and it must have been written for purposes of use in the film, not written beforehand and then chosen to be in the movie (even if the movie is the first time the song is heard). I’ll give some examples later on. Read the rest of this entry »