Washington DC Critics Go "Zero Dark Thirty"

Founded in 2002, The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) is comprised of professional DC-based film critics with affiliations in television, radio, print and the internet.

THE 2012 WAFCA AWARD WINNERS (and nominees): Voting was conducted from December 7-9, 2012:

Best Film:
Zero Dark Thirty WINNER
Argo
Les Misérables
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook

Best Director:
Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty) WINNER
Ben Affleck (Argo)
Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master)
Tom Hooper (Les Misérables)
Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)

Best Actor:
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) WINNER
John Hawkes (The Sessions)
Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Denzel Washington (Flight)

Best Actress:
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) WINNER
Marion Cotillard (Rust and Bone)
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Helen Mirren (Hitchcock)
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)

Best Supporting Actor:
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master) WINNER
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Javier Bardem (Skyfall)
Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

Best Supporting Actress:
Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) WINNER
Amy Adams (The Master)
Samantha Barks (Les Misérables)
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

Best Acting Ensemble:
Les Misérables WINNER
Argo
Lincoln
Moonrise Kingdom
Zero Dark Thirty

Best Adapted Screenplay:
David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) WINNER
Chris Terrio (Argo)
David Magee (Life of Pi)
Tony Kushner (Lincoln)
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

Best Original Screenplay:
Rian Johnson (Looper) WINNER
Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master)
Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom)
Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty)

Best Animated Feature:
ParaNorman WINNER
Brave
Frankenweenie
Rise of the Guardians
Wreck-It Ralph

Best Documentary:
Bully WINNER
The Imposter
The Invisible War
The Queen of Versailles
Searching for Sugar Man

Best Foreign Language Film:
Amour (from Austria) WINNER
The Intouchables (from France)
I Wish (from Japan)
A Royal Affair (from Denmark)
Rust and Bone (from France/Belgium)

Best Art Direction:
Uli Hanisch, Hugh Bateup - Production Designers; Peter Walpole, Rebecca Alleway - Set Decorators (Cloud Atlas) WINNER

Sarah Greenwood - Production Designer; Katie Spencer - Set Decorator (Anna Karenina)
Eve Stewart - Production Designer; Anna Lynch-Robinson - Set Decorator (Les Misérables)
Rick Carter - Production Designer; Jim Erickson - Set Decorator (Lincoln)
Adam Stockhausen - Production Designer; Kris Moran - Set Decorator (Moonrise Kingdom)

Best Cinematography:
Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi) WINNER
Danny Cohen (Les Misérables)
Mihai Malaimare Jr. (The Master)
Roger Deakins (Skyfall)
Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty)

Best Score:
Jonny Greenwood (The Master) WINNER
Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Howard Shore (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)
John Williams (Lincoln)
Alexandre Desplat (Moonrise Kingdom)

Best Youth Performance:
Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) WINNER
Jared Gilman (Moonrise Kingdom)
Kara Hayward (Moonrise Kingdom)
Tom Holland (The Impossible)
Logan Lerman (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

Review: Samuel L. and Company Make "Snakes on a Plane" Fly High (Happy B'day, Samuel L. Jackson)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 183 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Running time: 105 minutes (1 hour, 45 minutes)
MPAA – R for language, a scene of sexuality and drug use, and intense horror sequences of terror and violence
DIRECTOR: David R. Ellis
WRITERS: John Heffernan and Sebastian Gutierrez; from a story by David Dalessandro and John Heffernan
PRODUCERS: Craig Berenson, Don Granger, and Gary Levinsohn
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Adam Greenberg
EDITOR: Howard E. Smith
COMPOSER: Trevor Rabin

ACTION/HORROR/THRILLER

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Nathan Phillips, Rachel Blanchard, Flex Alexander, Kenan Thompson, Keith “Blackman” Dallas, Lin Shaye, Bruce James, Sunny Mabrey, David Koechner, Bobby Cannavale, Todd Louiso, and Byron Lawson

The subject of this movie review is Snakes on a Plane, a 2006 action thriller and horror film from director, David R. Ellis (the director of two Final Destination movies). The film stars Samuel L. Jackson as an FBI agent battling hundreds of deadly snakes on a passenger plane.

If you expected a campy, cult-classic-to-be, you’re getting a good movie instead (or also):

FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) is escorting Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips), a young man who witnessed a brutal mob murder, from Hawaii to Los Angeles. However, the mobster, Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson), is determined that this never happens, so he has hundreds of poisonous snakes smuggled aboard the commercial aircraft, South Pacific Air Flight 121, in a crate timed to release its deadly cargo when Flight 121 is halfway across the Pacific. After the initial attack leaves half the passengers and the lead pilot dead, Flynn has to band the crew and survivors together in a desperate attempt to survive and land the plane at LAX.

Having sparked Internet interest since last year, Snakes on a Plane has finally arrived and it is the real deal – a B-movie that delivers. Snakes on a Plane doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it is by no means campy. It’s the kind of (relatively) low-budget action/horror/thriller that delivers breathtaking action sequences, goose flesh-raising horror, and heart-stopping thrills. The movie doesn’t have an Academy Award level script, but the concept is good, taking two things that scare many people – flying and snakes – and putting them together in a scary movie scenario. However, the script is pretty straightforward. Sam Jackson’s Neville Flynn has to get a witness to a murder from one place to another, and all he has to do is fight off mobsters and survive a Pacific flight on a wounded airplane full of aroused and aggressive snakes. Whew!

Like any good disaster movie, this script gives the film a large ensemble cast of supporting characters. Some are there to support the hero (Julianna Margulies’ Claire Miller and Kenan Thompson’s Troy). Some are there for comic relief (Thompson’s Troy, Bruce James’ Ken, and Flex Alexander’s Three G’s), and some are there just to be an obstacle to every good idea the hero or his supporters have (Gerald Plunkett’s Paul).

The two big reasons the film works so well as a kind of “popcorn” thriller is, first, director David R. Ellis. Ellis helmed the highly entertaining and grisly Final Destination 2. It was so over-the-top gruesome that it was a chill ride as much as it was a thrill ride. Ellis takes advantage of the claustrophobia of being on a plane and people’s fear of snakes. He has a variety of serpents, real and CGI, using them to kill and menace in many, many imaginative ways.

When all is said and done, reason number two that this film is good is Samuel L. Jackson, who gives this B-movie big time credibility. With his don’t-give-a-shit, don’t-give-me-shit, suffer-no-fools, no nonsense, badasssss screen persona (and apparently his real life persona), Jackson is one of the screen’s best action heroes. Only his “hue” keeps him from getting the kind of parts in mega budget action films that Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise, and Bruce Willis get. Jackson always delivers, even in crappy movies, and this isn’t a crappy movie. Snakes on a Plane might sound like a cheesy concept, but cast and crew worked hard to make a good movie. Simply put, Jackson made sure they delivered.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, August 20, 2006

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New "Pain and Gain" Teaser Movie Poster - December 2012

Poster:

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Walt Disney's "Cinderella" Never Loses its Magic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 100 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux


Cinderella (1950)
Running time: 72 minutes (1 hour, 12 minutes)
DIRECTORS: Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, and Hamilton Luske
WRITERS: William Peed, Ted Sears, Homer Brightman, Kenneth Anderson, Erdman Penner, Winston Hibler, Harry Reeves, and Joe Rinaldi (based upon the story, “Cendrillon” by Charles Perrault)
PRODUCER: Walt Disney
EDITOR: Donald Halliday
COMPOSERS: Paul J. Smith and Oliver Wallace
Academy Award nominee

ANIMATION/FANTASY/COMEDY/FAMILY with elements of romance

Starring: (voices) Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Helene Stanley (live action model), Rhoda Williams, Lucille Bliss, James MacDonald, Luis Van Rooten, June Foray, Clint McCauley, Lucille Williams, Don Barclay, William Phipps, and Betty Lou Gerson (narrator)

The subject of this movie review is Cinderella, a 1950 animated fantasy film from Walt Disney Productions. Based on the fairy tale “Cendrillon” by Charles Perrault, it is the twelfth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

After her father dies, Cinderella (Ilene Woods), a gentle-hearted girl, faces the jealousy and spite of her wicked stepmother, Lady Tremaine (Eleanor Audley), and her two harpy stepsisters, Drizella (Rhoda Williams) and Anastasia (Lucille Bliss). Cinderella’s friends include a half-dozen mice that do constant battle with Lady Tremaine’s malevolent cat, Lucifer (June Foray). Salvation comes when The King (Luis Van Rooten) declares a palace ball to celebrate the homecoming of his son, The Prince (William Phipps), and he decrees that every eligible maid (unmarried young woman) in the kingdom attend. However, Cinderella’s stepmother doesn’t want her to attend, but a small army of friendly mice and birds and Cinderella’s benevolent Fairy Godmother (Verna Felton) makes sure she can. This magical tale includes many tunes to which the viewer can hum along including “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” “So This is Love,” and inimitable “Bibbidy, Bobbidy-Boo.”

Cinderella was Walt Disney Feature Animation’s 12th feature film. It was, at the time, the first full-length animated feature for Disney since 1942’s Bambi, because box office and wartime cutbacks had reduced the studio’s feature film output to package films like Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free, which were made of two or more short films with bridging sequences. Also, according to animator Marc Davis, 90 percent of Cinderella was done in live action before it was animated.

Cinderella comes perhaps at the end of Disney’s “Golden Age” and the beginning of period in which its films received less critical praise. Cinderella retains some of the illustrative and technical aspects that marked Disney’s pre-WWII films (like Bambi and Fantasia) as the pinnacle of hand-drawn animated features. Cinderella’s background paintings, art direction, and sets befit a film with themes of royalty and class distinctions. Most of the animation is geared towards funny animal slapstick comedy. The scenes with the mice, birds, Lucifer the cat, and Bruno (James MacDonald) the dog, etc. reflect the sensibilities of the sketch and gag comedy prevalent in Looney Tunes cartoon shorts featuring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. The scenes with The King and The Grand Duke (Luis Van Rooten) depend of comic timing between this comical duo, and that reflects the influence of Tex Avery’s cartoons.

The story of course is based on the fairy tale, Cinderella, primarily the version of the story told by Charles Perrault, the 17th century French author who laid the foundations for the literary genre that would be known as “fairy tales.” Disney’s version is a funny, warm-hearted romance that appeals across age categories. The voice acting plays as much a part as the animation in making Cinderella such an outstanding film. The actors make this a palatable and convincing drama when the comic half of the cast isn’t in control. The filmmakers simply do a magnificent job in bringing a film that appeals so much to the heart and to the funny bone and that dazzles with its production values.

There are so many memorable sequences. The birds and mice working in unison to make Cinderella’s dress are magical. The transformation of the animals and pumpkin into an enchanted carriage for Cinderella is a sparkling dream, and Cinderella’s dance with The Prince (who is never referred to in the film as “Prince Charming”) is certainly one of the most lyrically romantic moments in cinema history. The beauty of the animation and story combined with stellar Tin Pan Alley songs make Cinderella a true Walt Disney classic and a classic of American filmmaking.

10 of 10

NOTES:
1951 Academy Awards: 3 nominations: “Best Music, Original Song” (“Bibbidy, Bobbidy-Boo” by Mack David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston); “Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture” (Oliver Wallace and Paul J. Smith); and “Best Sound, Recording” (C.O. Slyfield)

Chicago Film Critics Choose "Zero Dark Thirty" as 2012's Best

The Chicago Film Critics Association is a tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization that hands out the Chicago Film Critics Awards, hold critics roundtables, and takes on industry and artists’ rights issues. The parent association was founded in 1990 by film critic Sue Kiner after the successful launch of the Chicago Film Critics Awards in 1989.

2012 Chicago Film Critics Awards winners (in bold) and nominees:

Best Picture
WINNER - Zero Dark Thirty
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Lincoln
The Master

Best Director
WINNER - Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty
Ben Affleck, Argo
Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Actor
WINNER - Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
John Hawkes, The Sessions
Denis Lavant, Holy Motors
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Best Actress
WINNER - Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Best Supporting Actor
WINNER - Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Jason Clarke, Zero Dark Thirty
Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained
Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln

Best Supporting Actress
WINNER - Amy Adams, The Master
Emily Blunt, Looper
Judi Dench, Skyfall
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables

Best Original Screenplay
WINNER - Zero Dark Thirty by Mark Boal
Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino
Looper by Rian Johnson
The Master by Paul Thomas Anderson
Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola

Best Adapted Screenplay
WINNER - Lincoln by Tony Kushner
Argo by Chris Terrio
Beasts of the Southern Wild by Lucy Alibar & Benh Zeitlin
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Silver Linings Playbook by David O. Russell

Best Foreign Language Film
WINNER - Amour (Austria)
Holy Motors (France)
The Intouchables (France)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Turkey)
Rust & Bone (France/Belgium)

Best Documentary
WINNER - The Invisible War
The Central Park Five
The Queen of Versailles
Searching For Sugar Man
West of Memphis

Best Animated Feature
WINNER - ParaNorman
Brave
Frankenweenie
The Secret World of Arrietty
Wreck-It Ralph

Best Cinematography
WINNER - Mihai Malaimare Jr., The Master
Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi
Janusz Kaminski, Lincoln
Roger Deakins, Skyfall
Greig Fraser, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Original Score
WINNER - Jonny Greenwood, The Master
Alexandre Desplat, Argo
Dan Romer & Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Alexandre Desplat, Moonrise Kingdom
Alexandre Desplat, Zero Dark Thirty

Best Art Direction
WINNER - Moonrise Kingdom
Anna Karenina
Les Misérables
Lincoln
The Master

Best Editing
WINNER - William Goldenberg & Dylan Tichenor, Zero Dark Thirty
Willian Goldenberg, Argo
Alexander Berner, Cloud Atlas
Leslie Jones & Peter McNulty, The Master
Stuart Baird, Skyfall

Most Promising Performer
WINNER - Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Samantha Barks, Les Misérables
Kara Hayward, Moonrise Kingdom
Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Tom Holland, The Impossible

Most Promising Filmmaker
WINNER - Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Drew Goddard, The Cabin in the Woods
Nicholas Jarecki, Arbitrage
Colin Trevorrow, Safety Not Guaranteed

Review: Streep, Jones Give "Hope Springs" Some Bounce

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 99 (of 2012) by Leroy Douresseaux


Hopes Springs (2012)
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for mature thematic content involving sexuality
DIRECTOR: David Frankel
WRITER: Vanessa Taylor
PRODUCERS: Todd Black and Guymon Casady
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Florian Ballhaus
EDITORS: Matt Maddox and Steven Weisberg
COMPOSER: Theodore Shapiro
Golden Globe nominee

COMEDY

Starring: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell, Jean Smart, Ben Rappaport, Marin Ireland, Patch Darragh, Brett Rice, Elisabeth Shue, and Mimi Rogers

Hope Springs is a 2012 romantic comedy-drama from director David Frankel. The film focuses on a married couple in therapy.

Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold Soames (Tommy Lee Jones) have been married for thirty-one years. Kay believes that they are in need of help to put the spark back in their marriage. She enrolls them in an intense, week-long counseling session with Dr. Bernard Feld (Steve Carell). The couple travels to a coastal resort town in Maine where Feld’s Center for Intensive Couples Counseling is located. But Arnold isn’t cooperative, and Kay learns that the couple’s problems aren’t necessarily one-sided.

Hope Springs is interesting simply because it is a romance about old people will to talk about their lusts and sexual fantasies, or at least struggle with the implications of denying them. Heck, any movie in which Tommy Lee Jones plays a character who admits how much he wants oral sex from his wife is worth watching. Seriously, folks: there is some fine acting here. Streep and Jones create a couple in a deep rut so convincingly that I found myself feeling really sorry for them. Without being explicit, both actors construct sex scenes that are as raw and intimate as they are clumsy and forlorn. Yeah, I was invested in the Soames’ working out their marital issues.

Unfortunately, Steve Carell is reduced to being basically a talking head, although I strangely found him believable as a marriage counselor or therapist. His character always felt restrained, as if Carell was fighting to break free of some invisible bonds forced on him by the narrative. For what little he does, any good actor without Carell’s fame could have delivered the same performance Carell does.

Also, this film has a terrible soundtrack; it almost ruins the movie.

Still, I recommend this film to fans of Streep and Jones. Honestly, you won’t find acting this good, in which both characters have this level of depth, in many romance films. Hope springs that there are more movies like Hope Springs... but with a better soundtrack.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2013 Golden Globes, USA: 1 nomination: “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy” (Meryl Streep)

Phoenix Film Critics Say "Argo" is Best Film of 2012

After showering Les Misérables with 12 nominations, the Phoenix Film Critics Society 2012 Annual Awards gives the film one win, Anne Hathaway as best supporting actress.  Argo gets "Best Picture," but "Best Director" goes to Zero Dark Thirty's Kathryn Bigelow.

Phoenix Film Critics Society 2012 Annual Awards winners:

Best Picture: Argo

Top Ten Films
•"Argo"
•"The Avengers"
•"Beasts of the Southern Wild"
•"Les Misérables"
•"Life of Pi"
•"Lincoln"
•"Moonrise Kingdom"
•"Silver Linings Playbook"
•"Skyfall"
•"Zero Dark T`hirty"

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow - "Zero Dark Thirty"

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis - "Lincoln"

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Jessica Chastain - "Zero Dark Thirty"

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Philip Seymour Hoffman - "The Master"

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway - "Les Misérables"

Best Ensemble Acting: "Moonrise Kingdom"

Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen: "Moonrise Kingdom"

Best Screenplay Adapted from Another Medium: "Argo"

Best Live Action Family Film: "Life of Pi"

Overlooked Film of the Year: "Safety Not Guaranteed"

Best Animated Film: "Wreck-It Ralph"

Best Foreign Language Film: "The Intouchables" (France)

Best Documentary: "Searching for Sugar Man"

Best Original Song: "Skyfall" from "Skyfall"

Best Original Score: "Skyfall"

Best Cinematography: "Life of Pi"

Best Film Editing: "Argo"

Best Production Design: "Moonrise Kingdom"

Best Costume Design: "Anna Karenina"

Best Visual Effects: "Life of Pi"

Best Stunts: "Skyfall"

Breakthrough Performance on Camera: Quvenzhané Wallis - "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Breakthrough Performance Behind the Camera: Benh Zeitlin - "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Best Youth Performance in a Lead or Supporting Role – Male: Tom Holland - "The Impossible"

Best Youth Performance in a Lead or Supporting Role – Female: Quvenzhané Wallis - "Beasts of the Southern Wild"