Archive: December 2009 (1-10 of 70)

Dec 31 2009 08:00 AM ET

Oscars: Dave Karger predicts the nominees

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Categories: Best Actor Oscar, Best Actress Oscar, Best Director Oscar, Best Picture Oscar, Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Best Supporting Actress Oscar

Here are my latest predictions for who’ll get nominated in the eight main Oscar races on Feb. 2. My Best Picture picks are immediately below; the other seven categories are after the jump.

Best Picture
Avatar
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Invictus
Precious
Star Trek
Up
Up in the Air

Oh, how much easier this would be if there were only five Best Picture nominees this year: It’d be Up in the Air (which won the National Board of Review prize), The Hurt Locker (winner of the Producers Guild, Directors Guild, and Broadcast Film Critics awards), Golden Globe and box-office champ Avatar, film-festival winner Precious, and SAG Award victor Inglourious Basterds and we’d call it a day. It’s those other five slots that are tougher to suss out. An Education has strong support from actors (witness its SAG nod for best cast) and across-the-pond voters. Invictus has the necessary prestige to make the cut, while Best Animated Feature front-runner Up should manage to break out of the cartoon ghetto. If voters want to go the populist route, the top contender is the adult romance It’s Complicated. But since it’s the No. 1 and No. 2 votes on the Academy’s ranked ballots that truly count, films with a smaller cult of enthusiastic followers—think District 9 and Star Trek—is poised to become a spoiler. Which means the flashy, filled-with-Oscar-faves musical Nine may fall victim to its nasty reviews and lackluster box office. I’m also increasingly worried for the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man, which seems to be fading a bit. As for Golden Globe winner The Hangover, it’s now an outside contender for one of the 10 slots but by no means a sure thing.

Check out the rest of my predictions after the jump.

READ FULL STORY »

Dec 30 2009 02:49 PM ET

Lisa Schwarzbaum's 10 best movies of the decade

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Categories: Awards Season, Best Movies of the Decade, Commentary, Sideways, There Will Be Blood

It’s almost New Year’s Eve. I’m ready. Let’s party!

1. There Will Be Blood (2007), Paul Thomas Anderson. The entire decade, summed up in a singular American masterpiece.

2. Sideways (2004), Alexander Payne. The decade’s most adult film about men and women.

3. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Peter Jackson. The grand conclusion to the decade’s best epic.

4. Yi Yi (2000), Edward Yang. The decade’s most beautiful family story.

5. The New World (2005), Terrence Malick. The decade’s most imaginative history lesson.

6. Zodiac (2007), David Fincher. The decade’s most unnerving crime story.

7. The Dark Knight (2008), Christopher Nolan. The decade’s best comic-book adaptation.

8. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), Cristi Puiu. The decade’s most profound expression of the personal as political.

9. Moolaade (2005),  Ousmane Sembene. The decade’s most potent handling of terrifying material.

10. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005), Park Chan-wook. The decade’s most thrilling tale of revenge.

Image credit: Melinda Sue Gordon

Dec 30 2009 11:45 AM ET

What if there were 5 Best Picture nominees?

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Categories: Best Picture Oscar

When the Academy announced back in June that it’s including 10 Best Picture nominees this year, one of the things I thought about was whether, once the nominees were announced, it would be obvious which five films would have been nominated in a typical year and which five were the “extra” nominees. Well, now that I’ve worked up my Oscar-nomination predictions (which will appear in this week’s issue of EW as well as on this blog tomorrow morning), I’m thinking the answer to that question is a resounding yes. If there were only five Best Picture slots, wouldn’t they go to Avatar, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air? Those five seem way ahead of the competition at the moment, while there are probably nine or so films (District 9, An Education, Invictus, It’s Complicated, The Messenger, Nine, A Serious Man, Star Trek, and Up) that are jockeying for the other five slots but would have had a hard time bumping out any of my “top five.” 

What do you think? Am I overestimating or underestimating any of these contenders? Which five films would you predict if the Academy were using last year’s rules? And isn’t it a bit ironic, given that the super-size race was meant to include more audience-friendly films in the mix, that Avatar would easily be nominated even with half the slots?

Please follow me on Twitter (@davekarger) for more Oscar news and updates. 

Image credit: François Duhamel

Dec 29 2009 12:30 PM ET

Lisa Schwarzbaum's 10 movie marvels of the decade

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Categories: Comedy, Horror Movies, Movies, Torture Porn

Notice I didn’t say best movies — that territory has been well covered by far more passionate list makers than I am. (By the way, do you agree with me that a devotion to ranking is primarily a male urge?  Tell me three good reasons why I’m right or wrong. At any rate, I don’t have the gene for it.)

As the first decade of the 21st century comes to a close, though, here’s fodder for your New Year’s Eve party: A list, in no particular order, of 10 movie developments from the past 10 years that have impressed, depressed, excited, upset, baffled, bored, or otherwise moved me.

1. Women were still mostly from Venus in Hollywood’s Mars. Don’t get me wrong, the Harvard-trained attorney Elle Woods, below, played to perfection by Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde (2001, pictured left), was one of the decade’s  great  (only-appearing-to-be) dizzy dames, as was the divine Anna Faris as Elle’s sister in subversive sexual politics in The House Bunny (2008). (Thanks go to the same smart femme screenwriters who wrote both.) Also, Mean Girls (2004) had bite, and the one-two combo of Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis was freakily great in Freaky Friday (2003). READ FULL STORY »

Dec 29 2009 11:04 AM ET

'Avatar' makes AFI's 'moments of significance' list

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Categories: Pre-Oscar Prizes

The Hangover may have snagged Avatar‘s slot on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 10 films of the year, but James Cameron’s smash has found its way onto AFI’s companion list of eight “moments of signifcance,” alongside Jay Leno’s move to 10pm, the rise of Twitter, and Michael Jackson’s death. “James Cameron’s pioneering effort to unleash the human imagination was fully realized in 2009 with the release of Avatar, a film that firmly established itself as a landmark in the way stories are told,” the AFI citation reads in part. “[W]ith Cameron’s advances in CGI (computer-generated images) and 3D, Avatar enters AFI’s almanac as an achievement that will have profound effects on the future of the art form.” Just not as profound, apparently, as The Hangover.

Dec 28 2009 05:08 PM ET

Whose Oscar hopes has 'Avatar' killed?

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Categories: Best Picture Oscar

I’ve never been a believer in the theory that Oscar voters have “slots” that they look to fill in the Best Picture race each year — the indie film, the blockbuster, the biopic, etc. That would imply that the entire voting body somehow decides on these things together, which obviously isn’t the case. But I do think the argument can be made that Avatar‘s newly-cemented status as a Best Picture frontrunner along the lines of The Hurt Locker and Up in the Air does have ramifications for other contenders that push similar buttons. For instance, Avatar‘s popularity among Academy members is likely the death knell for Star Trek and District 9‘s Best Picture hopes, since there probably won’t be room for two sci-fi films in the list of 10. Likewise, other box-office smashes like The Hangover and The Blind Side now seem quite pale by comparison to James Cameron’s visionary work.

The question everyone is now asking: Can Avatar win? Gregory Ellwood over at Hitfix.com is raking me over the coals for still having Up in the Air as my No. 1 contender on Movie City News’ Gurus o’ Gold chart. One thing’s for sure, though: With a bona fide blockbuster squarely in the hunt for the biggest Oscar of all, you can guarantee the telecast’s producers are doing cartwheels right now.

Image credit: WETA

Dec 27 2009 05:09 PM ET

Box office report: 'Avatar' makes $75 million on Hollywood's best weekend ever

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Categories: Box Office, Film, Movie Biz

Hollywood gave itself one heck of a Christmas present this year: the single best day in the history of the box office. The weekend’s slate of movies racked up a record-setting $278 million overall haul, with James Cameron’s Avatar ($75 million) leading the charge. The sci-fi epic dipped an incredibly slim two percent in its second weekend, bringing its 10-day domestic total to an impressive $212.3 million.

Not that newcomer Sherlock Holmes (no. 2, $65.4 million) had a bad weekend, either. The action-adventure pic from director Guy Ritchie scored the best-ever Christmas weekend debut, adding another notch to star Robert Downey Jr.’s box office belt. The weekend’s other new wide releases, the animated Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (no. 3, $50.2 million) and the Nancy Meyers rom-com It’s Complicated (no. 4, $22.1 million) connected soundly with two very different demographics. While the Chipmunks got kids and families dancing into theaters, Complicated stars Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin drew adults in the mood for a (tastefully) R-rated romp.

Results were mixed for the two Oscar contenders that expanded into wider release this weekend. Up in the Air (no. 5, $11.8 milion) flew straight to the top five by adding 1,720 new theaters, but the awards-bait musical Nine (no. 8, $5.5 million) only mustered a so-so $3,926 per-site average. Meanwhile, Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus opened well at four sites, earning $130,000.

More box office news:
Box office report: ‘Sherlock Holmes’ sets Christmas Day record with $24.9 million
Box Office Report: ‘Avatar’ takes No. 1 with $73 million
‘Avatar’ lands $27 million at box office on Friday

Dec 26 2009 06:15 PM ET

Box office report: 'Sherlock Holmes' sets Christmas Day record with $24.9 million

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Categories: Box Office, Film, Movie Biz

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes took advantage of Christmas’ falling on a Friday this year to set a single-day record for the holiday with a $24.9 million domestic haul. In second place, Avatar kicked off its sophomore weekend with a lean 12 percent dip from last week, bringing its cume to $160.8 after eight days. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel slid to third place with $14.5 million after briefly grabbing the top spot on Wednesday. At fourth place with $7.1 million, the Meryl Streep-Alec Baldwin comedy It’s Complicated bested the $5.3 million first-day gross of writer-director Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give in 2003. And rounding out the top five, the George Clooney dramedy Up in the Air soared into wide release with $3.6 million at 1,873 sites. Be sure to check back tomorrow for a full weekend recap.

Dec 25 2009 01:48 PM ET

Owen Gleiberman's 10 Best Movies of the Decade

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Categories: Best Movies of the Decade

I confess, looking back, that I have no great generalizations to make about the movies that came along this decade. Except for this: There were more films of extraordinary and inspiring quality than I can count — or include on this list. Without any trouble at all, I could easily have compiled a Top 100 list. Yet there’s something about that magical arbitrary number 10 that focuses you, disciplines you, forces you to ask yourself what matters. Here, in order of preference, are the movies of the last 10 years that thrilled, moved, delighted, fascinated, and meant the most to this critic. They’re the ones I couldn’t let go of because they wouldn’t let go of me. But don’t stop with my list. What are your favorite films of the decade, and why?

1. Far From Heaven (2002) The movies that have always spoken most to me are the ones that cast a spell, and no film I saw in the last 10 years was as meaningfully mesmerizing as Todd Haynes’s delectable and haunting masterpiece. A voluptuous soap opera that’s also a dizzying hall of cinematic mirrors, it’s about the late 1950s, and it’s also about today — which makes it sound a bit like Mad Men ahead of its time, which it sort of is. Except that Haynes, in re-creating the look and mood of a Douglas Sirk melodrama down to the dialogue beats and purplish noir lighting, goes Mad Men one better by refracting the suburban life of 50 years ago through the pop looking glass of Old Hollywood. In Haynes’ film, the ’50s merges with our image of the ’50s, which merges with our own brave new traditional world. Far From Heaven is really the greatest David Lynch film that Lynch never made — a lusciously dark dream of movie-fed desire and romantic dread. Dennis Quaid, as a closeted gay husband stuck, hypnotically, in the wrong movie era, might be enacting a nervous breakdown in slow motion, and the relationship between Julianne Moore, as a proper housewife just waiting to bloom, and Dennis Haysbert, as the gardener who tends to her affections but can’t remove her racial blinders, has a tender heartsick rapture that echoes tellingly across the decades. For even as their “forbidden” love is portrayed as the relic of a bygone era, Far From Heaven forces us to ask: How often, even today, do we get to see a love like this one reflected in our own Hollywood looking glass? READ FULL STORY »

Dec 25 2009 12:01 AM ET

Dear Santa: Get these long shots nominated!

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Categories: Best Actor Oscar, Best Actress Oscar, Best Picture Oscar, Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Best Supporting Actress Oscar

On this Christmas day, my wish list includes Oscar nominations for the following five dark horse contenders. Are you listening, Santa? (Or at least, Academy members?)

Best Picture: Brothers
I’m well aware that Jim Sheridan’s latest drama has as many haters as it does fans. But to me it felt real and true from the first frame. It also contains the strongest performance of Natalie Portman’s career and the best kid acting I’ve ever seen.

Best Actor: Matt Damon, The Informant!
At this point, Damon seems like a good bet for a supporting nod for Invictus. And that’s fine. But his more impressive work was as the world’s worst whistle-blower in Steven Soderbergh’s out-there comedy. Bonus points for Damon’s impeccable voice-over work in the film.

Best Actress: Maya Rudolph, Away We Go
Playing a conflicted mom-to-be, Rudolph was as quiet and introspective as she was riotously funny impersonating Whitney or Oprah on Saturday Night Love.

Best Supporting Actor: Alec Baldwin, It’s Complicated
I’m flabbergasted that Baldwin’s scene-stealing performance opposite Meryl Streep isn’t gaining more traction. He’s witty, sympathetic, and nude: What more should Oscar voters want?

Best Supporting Actress: Mariah Carey, Precious
Okay, let the hateful comments begin, but I insist that Carey is a deserving contender for her brief turn as a dowdy social worker. Carey’s costars Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique are well on their way to scoring nominations. Considering their most memorable moments are with Carey, she should get in there too.

My other holiday wish? That you’ll follow me on Twitter (@davekarger) for Oscar updates throughout the season. What long-shot nominations are you wishing for?

Image credit: Damon: Claudette Barius; Baldwin: Melinda Sue Gordon

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