The first "best picture" winner of the 2012-13 movie award season is Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. The romance film about a preteen couple caught in the intense throes of young love picked up the top prize at last night's ceremony (Monday, November 26, 2012) for the 2012 Gotham Awards.
The Gotham Awards is an annual film awards ceremony that honors independent films. The Gotham Awards are part of The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers. The Gotham Awards also signal the kick-off to the film awards season.
Nominees are selected by groups of distinguished film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. Separate juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors and others directly involved in making films determine the final Gotham Award recipients.
22nd Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Winners:
Best Feature:
Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson, director; Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, Jeremy Dawson, producers (Focus Features)
Best Documentary:
How to Survive a Plague
David France, director; Howard Gertler, David France, producers (Sundance Selects)
Best Ensemble Performance:
Your Sister’s Sister
Emily Blunt, Rosemarie Dewitt, Mark Duplass (IFC Films)
Breakthrough Director:
Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Breakthrough Actor:
Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere (AFFRM and Participant Media)
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You:
An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
Terence Nance, director; Terence Nance, Andrew Corkin, James Bartlett, producers
The Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream’ grant is a $25,000 cash award for an alumna of IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Labs. This grant aims to further the careers of emerging women directors by supporting the completion, distribution and audience engagement strategies of their first feature film.
Stacie Passon, director, Concussion WINNER
The 3rd Annual Gotham Independent Film Audience Award:
Voted on by an independent film community of 230,000 film fans worldwide. To be eligible, a U.S. film must have won an audience award at one of the top 50 U.S. or Canadian film festivals from November 2011 through October 2012. The nominees were announced November 5th, and the winner revealed at the Gotham Awards ceremony.
Winner:
ARTIFACT
Directed by Bartholomew Cubbins
Produced by Jared Leto and Emma Ludbrook
Nominees:
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Producers: Michael Gottwald, Dan Janvey, Josh Penn
BURN: ONE YEAR ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE BATTLE TO SAVE DETROIT
Directors: Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam
Producers: Brenna Sanchez, Tom Putnam
THE INVISIBLE WAR
Director: Kirby Dick
Producers: Amy Ziering, Tanner King Barklow
ONCE IN A LULLABY: THE PS 22 CHORUS STORY
Director: Jonathan Kalafer
Producers: Steve Kalafer, Jonathan Kalafer, Bao Nguyen
The Bingham Ray Award (The recipient of this award was chosen by a close group of Bingham’s friends and colleagues.):
BENH ZEITLIN, director of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Review: "Blue Steel" is Mixes Horror and Crime Genres (Happy B'day, Kathryn Bigelow)
Blue Steel (1990)
Running time: 102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)
MPAA - R
DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow
WRITERS: Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red
PRODUCERS: Edward R. Pressman and Oliver Stone
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Amir Mokri
EDITOR: Lee Percy
COMPOSER: Brad Fiedel
CRIME/THRILLER with elements of horror
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ron Silver, Clancy Brown, Elizabeth Pena, Louise Fletcher, Philip Bosco, Kevin Dunn, Tom Sizemore, Matt Craven, and Richard Jenkins
Blue Steel was director Kathryn Bigelow’s third directorial effort (her second solo feature), and like her earlier mixed genre efforts, the film is a horror flick dressed in the clothes of a cop movie.
When rookie policewoman Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) shoots an armed robber during a holdup, one of the witnesses is Wall Street broker, Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver). A psychotic who hears voices talking to him, Hunt becomes obsessed with Megan. He cunningly removes the robber’s gun, and quietly leaves the store without Megan ever realizing he was there. Hunt carves her name on the bullets and begins a killing spree. Later, Megan meets Eugene, and he woos her into a budding romance, but his extreme mental illness causes him to reveal his crimes to Megan. However, virtually no one believes that he is the killer. As the deadly psychopath draws the young cop into a deadly game of wits, Megan thinks she’s one step ahead of him, but Hunt is much closer than she thinks.
Casting Jamie Lee Curtis as the rookie female policeman was a good move. Having spent much of her early film career playing beautiful young women stalked by mad killers in such films as Halloween (1978), The Fog and Terror Train (both 1980), and Halloween II (1981), Curtis just feels right in Blue Steel as the feisty girl against the seemingly unstoppable mass murderer. She also looks the same in her early 30’s when Blue Steel was filmed as she did when she was just in his 20’s and starring in slasher movies in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The general idea of Blue Steel seems to be that Curtis’s Megan Turner never realizes just how precarious her situation is, whether she is at home (where her father is an abusive husband), in the office (where her colleagues don’t respect her), or on the streets of New York City (where the killer stalks her).
The problem is Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Red’s screenplay, which attacks plausibility at every turn. This is a brutal cat and mouse game, and Bigelow presents Blue Steel as an exercise of urban violence and fierce gunplay – the kind that was fashionable in 1980’s action movies such as Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. Much of the violence is a kick in the gut, but this concept plays with the conceit of horror movies (where many things that happen don’t have to make sense) rather than cop movies (where most things should make real world sense). In the Blue Steel, the killer is unstoppable and somewhat supernatural and the girl hero and the police department don’t seem to have much common sense, which they should.
5 of 10
C+
Thursday, May 10, 2007
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Monday, November 26, 2012
Review: Wes Anderson's "MOONRISE KINGDOM" is Simply Fantastic
TRASH IN MY EYE No. 90 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Running time: 94 minutes (1 hour, 34 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sexuality content and smoking
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson
WRITERS: Roman Coppola and Wes Anderson
PRODUCERS: Wes Anderson, Jeremy Dawson, Steven M. Rales and Scott Rudin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert D. Yeoman (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Andrew Weisblum
COMPOSER: Alexandre Desplat
ROMANCE/COMEDY/DRAMA
Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Marianna Bassham, Charlie Kilgore, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, and Bob Balaban
Moonrise Kingdom is a 2011 romance film from director Wes Anderson. Co-written by Anderson and Roman Coppola, the film follows a pair of young lovers on the run from the local search parties out to find them.
Moonrise Kingdom opens in the late summer of 1965 and is set on the idyllic New England locale of New Penzance Island. Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) is a 12-year-old orphan attending a “Khaki Scout” summer camp. Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) is a local girl who lives with her parents, Walt (Bill Murray) and Laura Bishop (Frances McDormand), and her three younger brothers. After meeting during a local church play, Sam and Suzy run away together.
Captain Duffy Sharp (Bruce Willis) of the Island Police and Khaki Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton) launch a search for the missing children. However, adult dysfunction and the approaching Hurricane Mabeline constantly hamper the various search efforts. Meanwhile, young love remains storm-proof.
When I reviewed the Coen Bros. remake of True Grit about two years ago, I said (more or less) that the film, while quite good, seemed like an exercise of the filmmaking brothers’ directorial trademarks and flourishes. I pretty much think the same of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. This movie is the quirky style and visual eccentricities of Anderson distilled into a fragrant essence that will entice his admirers, both old and new, for ages.
It’s all here. The primary colors have never been this primary, and the deliberate, methodical cinematography captures the intensity of those colors with such clarity that it could leave the viewer in a stupor (which it did to me early on in the movie). Anderson gets good performances that take the screenplay’s flat, one-dimensional characters and transforms them into poignant humans – flawed, but graceful.
Regardless of how quirky it all seems, Moonrise Kingdom is a love story like no other. Rarely do films capture stubborn youth in love as well as this film does. Jared Gilman as Sam and Kara Hayward as Suzy give inimitable performances, and without them, this movie would be nothing but an oddity that was shot in vivid color. Instead, Moonrise Kingdom is a rare romance in which the romantic comedy and drama elements cannot hide the fact that this is a pure love story.
8 of 10
A
Monday, November 26, 2012
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Sunday, November 25, 2012
Review: "Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 2" is a Wonderful Finale
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)
Running time: 115 minutes (1 hour, 55 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sensuality and partial nudity
DIRECTOR: Bill Condon
WRITER: Melissa Rosenberg (based upon the novel by Stephenie Meyer)
PRODUCERS: Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt, and Stephenie Meyer
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Guillermo Navarro
EDITOR: Virginia Katz
COMPOSER: Carter Burwell
FANTASY/DRAMA/ROMANCE
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, Mackenzie Foy, Julia Jones, Chaske Spencer, Alex Rice, Cameron Bright, and Maggie Grace, with Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is the fifth film in The Twilight Saga film franchise. Like the previous films: Twilight, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn – Part 1, Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is based upon the wildly popular Twilight book series by author, Stephenie Meyer. Each of the first three films is based upon one of the first three books in the series; however, the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, has been adapted into two movies.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 continues the love story a young human woman, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), and her vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who were married in the previous film. The story begins as Bella opens her eyes to find her senses sharpened. The transformation is complete; she is now a vampire. Still, all is not perfect.
Bella is shocked to learn that her recently born infant daughter has imprinted on her friend and former love interest, Native American werewolf, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Bella must also find a way to explain her new situation to her worried father, Police Chief Charlie Swan (Billy Burke). Meanwhile, Bella and Edward’s daughter does not stay an orphan for long. Renesmee Cullen (Mackenzie Foy) is undergoing a tremendous growth spurt, which leads to a bigger problem. When a false allegation puts their family in front of the Volturi to likely face a death sentence, the Cullens gather other vampire clans and old allies in order to protect Renesmee.
I enjoyed Breaking Dawn – Part 1, but I found the film to be mostly joyless, even dour and morbid. Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is quite the opposite. It is joyful and celebratory. Like Renesmee, Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is fresh and new and curious about the world. It almost seems like a brand new thing, unconnected to the other films, although it is.
I think this is the result of having a director like Bill Condon, who is not just good with character drama. He is also a standout, and he did not get enough credit for what he did with Dreamgirls, getting so much more out of the material than it offered. Here, in his second Twilight movie, he gives all the supernatural characters mortality, not just Edward and Bella (who have seemed forever on the edge of demise in this series). Mortality for the immortals means that not only do their actions have real consequences, but also that those consequences can mean the end of them. When everyone has “skin in the game,” conflict is rich and complicated.
However, the sense of death does not dampen this movie’s themes of hope and happiness. Who knows how many days lie ahead for each character? There may be many days (or not), but they will be happy days, with family and friends. There will also be dark days, as in any human’s life. In fact, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is about loving family, close friends, and new friends and allies made.
For Twilight as a whole, the franchise gets something that escapes even the best franchises, a superior ending. Compared to The Dark Knight Rises, the end of Christopher Nolan’s so-called “The Dark Knight trilogy,” Breaking Dawn – Part 2 is Oscar-worthy.
8 of 10
A
Sunday, November 25, 2012
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Saturday, November 24, 2012
"J.R. Ewing" Larry Hagman Dies at 81
Larry Hagman, best known for his iconic television role as the ruthless oil baron, J.R. Ewing, on the CBS television series, Dallas (1978-1991), died on Friday, November 23, 2012. I first encountered Mr. Hagman when I saw reruns of I Dream of Jeannie (1965-1970). Dallas was recently revived as a drama series for cable network, TNT.
Negromancer sends condolences to Larry Hagman's family. Rest in peace, Mr. Hagman.
Negromancer sends condolences to Larry Hagman's family. Rest in peace, Mr. Hagman.
Bleach: Hell Verse Movie on Neon Alley
Soul Reaper Ichigo Embarks On A Perilous Mission To Hell To Rescue His Younger Sister In New Anime Feature Film Also Launching On DVD And Blu-ray!
VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), the largest publisher, distributor and licensor of manga and anime in North America, delivers the supernatural anime action of the latest Bleach feature film to fans with the premiere of BLEACH THE MOVIE: HELL VERSE on Neon Alley on Sunday, November 25th at 8:00pm EST / 5:00pm PST. The film will repeat 12:00am EST November 26th / 9:00pm PST November 25th, and will air again throughout the week.
Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse will also be released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 4th with both English-subtitled and dubbed dialogue options. The new film carries a DVD MSRP of $19.98 U.S. / $24.98 CAN and a Blu-ray MSRP of $24.98 U.S. / $27.50 CAN. Bonus features include the original Japanese theatrical trailer.
Neon Alley is VIZ Media’s new 24-hour, subscription-based anime channel featuring the world’s best titles (dubbed in English and uncut) and presented in HD (when available) for a low monthly subscription rate of $6.99. Neon Alley is the first platform designed to be studio agnostic, offering with a diverse array of titles from many leading anime producers and distributors. For a limited time only, the game console based-service is offering a one-week free trial, available for fans who sign up at NeonAlley.com.
Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse (rated TV-14) takes audiences on a wild trip to the underworld – a place where beings that have committed mortal sins during their lifetime are sent. It is a realm where even Soul Reapers are forbidden to interfere. When a group of vicious Sinners plots to escape from this eternal prison, they discover that Substitute Soul Reaper Ichigo Kurosaki is the key to their freedom. The Sinners launch an attack and in the process kidnap Ichigo’s younger sister Yuzu and take her to Hell. With the help of a mysterious man named Kokuto, Ichigo and his friends must now travel into the depths of Hell to stop the Sinners and save Yuzu, unaware that their actions could bring Hell to the World of the Living.
“ Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse is the fourth feature film of the popular Bleach movie franchise and based on the smash hit manga series originally created by Tite Kubo,” says Brian Ige, Vice President, Animation. “Ichigo will face his most dangerous adversaries yet as he journeys to the underworld on a perilous mission to save his sister. Don’t miss this special North American movie premiere on our new digital anime platform this coming weekend!”
The Bleach animated films and TV series follow the adventures of Ichigo, a 15-year old student with the ability to see ghosts. When his family is attacked by a Hollow — a malevolent lost soul – Ichigo encounters Rukia, a Soul Reaper, and inadvertently absorbs her powers. Now, he’s dedicating his life to protecting the innocent and helping tortured souls find peace.
Bleach is a tremendously successful multimedia property internationally. The manga has been licensed to more than a dozen countries and has sold over 50 million copies in Japan alone. In North America, the manga has been a sales hit and the popular animated series (both rated 'T' for Teens) is viewed weekly by millions in the United States and Canada. This success has further spawned an array of related video games, apparel, action figures, trading cards and other merchandise.
For more information on Bleach please visit bleach.viz.com.
Subtitled episodes of Bleach also may be streamed on the company’s own free-to-use VIZAnime.com, as well as on Hulu. In addition, Download-To-Own dubbed episodes are available for purchase through iTunes®, PlayStation®Network, Xbox Video, Amazon Instant Video, and the Google Play store.
To read a free chapter 1 preview of the Bleach manga series, please visit VIZManga.com/bleach.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Review: "The Expendables 2" is Darker, But Still Fun
The Expendables 2 (2012)
Running time: 103 minutes (1 hour, 43 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong bloody violence throughout
DIRECTOR: Simon West
WRITERS: Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone; from a story by Ken Kaufman & David Agosto and Richard Wenk (based on characters created by David Callaham)
PRODUCERS: David Lerner, Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton, John Thompson, and Les Weldon
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Shelly Johnson
EDITOR: Todd E. Miller
COMPOSER: Brian Tyler
ACTION
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth, Scott Adkins, Nan Yu, Charisma Carpenter, Chuck Connors, and Terry Crews with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Summer 2010 movie season offered an unexpected treat, The Expendables, an explosive action film co-written, directed, and starring Sylvester Stallone. It was a throwback to the macho, testosterone-fueled, action flicks of the 1980s.
The subject of this movie review is its sequel, The Expendables 2, a 2012 action movie from director Simon West. Like its predecessor, The Expendables 2 is not an homage to or parody of action movie days-gone-by. It is an authentic ass-kicking, ass-stabbing, cap-popped-in-ass action movie, but it is a little darker and more downbeat than the original.
Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) is still the leader of the Expendables, an elite band of mercenaries. Ross and his right-hand man/knife specialist, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham); martial artist Yin Yang (Jet Li); unstable Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren); demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture); weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews); and the new guy, sniper Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), charge into Nepal on a rescue mission. It is a success, of course, but Ross and the Expendables have a debt to pay. So says secretive CIA agent, “Mr. Church” (Bruce Willis).
Soon, the Expendables are escorting one of Church’s operatives, Maggie Chan (Nan Yu), to a crash site in the Gasak Mountains, Albania. The item that the Expendables are trying to retrieve is also the target of Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), the leader of a large mercenary band called the Sangs. After one of the Expendables is brutally murdered, Ross leads his team into hostile territory on a mission of revenge.
Early in The Expendables 2, even with the crazy opening in Nepal, it is obvious that this is a darker movie. This sequel replaces the cartoonish and stylish violence with more grit. It seems that just as many, if not more people are casually shot and also shot to pieces, but there is something meaner here. Perhaps, it is this film’s chilly shooting locations in Bulgaria, or maybe it’s the story.
More than the original film, The Expendables 2 is a Sylvester Stallone movie, and the theme, or at least emphasis, is that his character, Barney Ross, has come to a morbid conclusion about his life. He’s a tired, old soldier, but this dog still has a lot of fight in him. But Ross is simply determined not to drag any new people into the meat grinder that is his place of work and profession. The other Expendables are largely in the background compared to the first movie, which is hugely disappointing to me. Still, wise-ass Jason Statham gets many opportunities to spread his wings of sarcasm, and he has some cool, solo martial arts fight scenes. That’s worth the price of admission.
Stallone and some of his costars are starting to look real hoary because of plastic surgery. In fact, there is enough plastic surgery between some of them that it would not be too snarky to say that they are starting to look like action figure toys. Anyway, if you liked the first movie, you’ll likely like the second. The Expendables 2 is good enough to make me ready to go on a third mission with Ross and company.
6 of 10
B
Friday, November 23, 2012
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